2000/City in a Bottle

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City in a Bottle
Date of Scene: 19 June 2020
Location: Washington DC
Synopsis: Sentinels attack Washington DC, Brainiac shows himself to the world through his drones, and his taking Mutant Town from NYC. Despite the valiant fight from our world's heroes, they had been defeated this time...but there is more to come.
Cast of Characters: Jon Kent, Takako Kyozan, Jean Grey, Skara Spark, Hal Jordan, Shuri, Karen Starr, Jack Nolan, Donna Troy, Sam Wilson, Samuel Morgan, Meggan Puceanu




Jon Kent has posed:
    The warnings rang out through the nation. Orbital satellites caught an incoming vessel from space, and the energy signatures matched that of what was seen in Genosha.

  Fifteen minutes were all that was afforded those in DC to shelter and to move the President to a bunker. Several large sentinels had been twisted and formed an amalgam into taller versions, standing three stories tall. The skull had been adorned on top of their heads was a halo-like apparatus, with three purple lights arranged in a triangle from the forehead and on either side of the head.

  The sentinels had started to attack several monuments, including the Jefferson Memorial, and the Washington Monument. One group of two sentinels were attacking the White House, and one last group of three was sent to Capitol Hill.

  Despite the efforts to clear the city, the sad truth is not everyone could evacuate in time, and there are people running from the chaos, mass hysteria has hit DC in a big way.

Takako Kyozan has posed:
While Takako Kyozan is normally in New York for her duties with the United Nations, there are also times when she needs to visit the Embassy in Washington, DC. This is one of those times.

When the warnings ring out though she springs into action, papers discarded in a flurry as she dashes out of the Embassybefore comandeering one of the motorpool vehicles and heading towards the nearby White House to see how she might help with the unfolding situation.

Jean Grey has posed:
Jean Grey normally works in New York, or further upstate given activity with the Institute. However, given a certain anti-mutant Presidential candidate leaping to prominence, she spent some time bending the ear of various New York Congresspersons. Even without telepathy, she can be very convincing in her arguments, and she did have several decent meetings in that regard.

Of course, contributions to the various war chests also helped.

As she was leaving the Capitol building... well, that's when the Sentinels arrived. Blinking in surprise, she ducked out of sight long enough to telekinetically rearrange her clothing into her uniform. Then, she flew off to run interference, mentally scanning for other superheroic types to try and coordinate a defense.

Skara Spark has posed:
    Study more American history they said. It'll be FUN they said. Skara had insisted, repeatedly, that she had learned enough of the country's history from class, but, well, off to Washington DC she went. It was important to see these places in person rather than see pictures in books.

    Parts of it were actually interesting! Seeing the Constitution, the monuments, and while visiting the Washington monument things suddenly went completely sideways. Alarms? Panic? People running for the hills! "Ahw, you're JOKING, right? No? Gonna just come on out and act like a buncha tools?" Sigh... "Bollocks," she trails off before darting off. She had stashed her Important Thing nearby and kept the Other Things in her bag.. she just needed a few minutes..

Hal Jordan has posed:
In brightest day, in blackest night
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power, Green Lantern's Light!

Green Lantern...really isn't sure why Sentinels are attacking the capitol of all places. His ring tells him there's two centers of attack...the White House for one, and Capitol Hill for the others. While Congressional decisions are things he finds himself disagreeing with most of the time, he also figures the White House is going to get more heroes defending it. So he takes the location likely to be less defended. So it is he found himself engaging Sentinels.

"Don't know who you murderbots are here to kill, but not today!"

Shuri has posed:
The alerts started going off in the embassy in Shuri's lab as things were happening. She stares at them for a second before spinning over on a chair she was sitting in and heading over to a computer screen before her eyes go wide and she rushes away from said chair. She runs right out the lab, right past her assistant to who she says, "GottaGoBeBackLater!" And she's running straight for the lower levels of the building. A moment later, a slit opens up in the back of the embassy wide enough for a jet to shoot out of it, cloaked and rushing skyward before arcing in mid-air and heading straight for Washington DC.

Karen Starr has posed:
    It's a bird!

    It's a plane!

    No, it's.... Some slag.

    Not as famous- and in a lot of cases, in a lot of ways, not as well liked- as her cousin from another universe, the unequivocally Punchiest Kryptonian approaches from an angle unexpected. Instead of swooping in from the direction of Metropolis as is expected from her group, Karen instead seems to come from upwards, blazing a trail through tha atmosphere as if she were not even on the planet at the time that the Sentinels had arrived.

    That would make sense with the timing- but all the same, without a word on any comms, an angry, pink streak is splitting the sky in the direction of the White House, already having chosen her targets- and altogether not interested in banter.

Jack Nolan has posed:
To say alarms were going off at SHIELD HQ was being generous. They were scrambling lots of folks from HQ, and one of them was Jack Nolan, who was riding in the back of one of SHIELD's quinjets, somehow managing to cram himself into the cargo area of the jet. He's got several pieces of equipment with him, modified weapons and his full STRIKE gear set.

"Open the door!" He calls out to the pilot, who sweeps low over the mall, and the large stone dinosaur leaps out, landing with a hefty thud and making a nice crater in the process. The jet flies off to deliver a few other agents to other locations, as Jack takes a quick look around, "I might be a bit outgunned." He muses to himself, before he tilts his head to pop his neck, and then runs towards the closest twisted Sentinel.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Vapor trail criss-cross the sky above the capital, as fighter jets scream over-head looking for targets of opportunity. With the president moved to safety the air force is holding back from anything that will be too damaging to the historic area, not to mention the civilians still being evacuated, so for the moment the pilots look on helplessly. It's a nervy pilot who picks up the signal of an incoming fast-mover, too stealthed for an accurate track.

    <Incoming aircraft, this is restricted airspace and an active combat zone. Identify yourselves or be fired on!>

    <Transponder is on, check your FOF, hotshot. This is the Titans T-Jet. We hear you have robots that need destroying and we're here to help. We're coming in hot!>

    As Jean leaves the Capitol, she sees three of the giant Sentinels stand in the middle of the plaza between the Capitol building and the library of congress, engaging a small army of police and secret service agents. It's not going well for the police, who's small-arms fire isn't doing any noticable damage to the giant robots. The sentinels are blasting their way through parked vehicles with hand-mounted laser cannons.

    There is a sudden roaring of jets above, and the Titan's T-Jet comes into view. It hovers above the line of police vehicles for just long enough for two figures to drop out, then retreats under AI control.

Sam Wilson has posed:
Being instated as a full SHIELD agent is, to an extent, a formality for Sam Wilson. For one thing, he's already been doing consulting work for the intelligence agency. For another, he's been a full-fledged Avenger for some time. But given that a large part of his work for the agency is going to involve the use of highly classified technology developed for the U.S. Air Force, there were bureaucratic i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed, putting him in D.C. for the day... on what turns out to be the last day anyone would actually WANT to be in the nation's capital.

When the alarm was raised, Sam sprinted out to his car instead of toward the various civilian shelters. He might not have some fancy Stark-style dress-up robot in his trunk, but with fifteen minutes of lead time, he doesn't have any trouble getting fully suited up. Normally he doesn't like to send any more bullets flying through the streets of American cities than are already there, but to prevent what happened to Genosha from happening to Washington, he'll make an exception.

Minutes before the machine vanguard arrives, Falcon is jetting in a broad arc past the dome of the Capitol building, advanced imaging goggles scanning the skies for targets. Checking in on a SHIELD frequency just to check for allies, he announces, "This is Falcon, I'm airborne in the strike zone. Hoping somebody suspended the restrictions on D.C. airspace today -- hate to get shot down by the wrong team."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Fifteen minutes. For some that's barely enough time to find out what day it is. For other's, it's a window of opportunity in which not a moment is lost. Luckily, Sam is used to scrambling at a moment's notice, and even moreso now that he's spending a rather inordinate amount of time glued to the Titan's scanners, although ironically the warning caught him at the gym going through a pistol drill.

    It's not his first scramble with the team either. So within three minutes he was ready to rock, fully suited and double timing it towards the hangar. As per the now almost usual, he straps himself into the flight engineer's seat, duly flicking The Three Switches. "Never a dull moment, huh?"

    And it's thus that he finds himself blasting across the sky towards DC, a city he had never thought to visit, and which he was pretty sure wouldn't appreciate his presence in any other circumstances. It's also how a clearly mutant, but currently unknown, mind can be detected approaching by Jean.

    Can be detected as the two figures drop from the jet, the mutant mind encased in a suit of what looks like power armor of an unknown design. Armor clad fist is slammed into armor clad palm as Techno beholds the pandemonium. "Got a score to settle with these things..."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Meggan is in the District, the heart of political power, for dual purposes. Ostensibly the research opportunities for a tricky paper demand investigation and thorough review in someone's private collection of papers, too old and a bit too valuable to be digitised. So there's that. Also, podcasts. Podcasts that absolutely want her voice added to the flurry of conversation about changing climates and political inaction in an election year. Recordings hot for the next week will soon stream over the airwaves and digital landscape.

She's just leaving one of those last visits with her nose in her phone. The best way to snag a coveted table at a delicious Turkish restaurant might be due to giant machines appearing from nowhere. The white dome of the Capitol rises off her shoulder and the phalanx of security vehicles rolling around is nothing new. All of them lighting up and a lot of panicky shouting from tourists gets the blonde's attention though. She halts midway through the zebra stripes and frowns. "Is it robot holiday?" A genuine question asked of a policewoman she flags down. "What's that supposed to be?" She bites her lip and looks worried, getting an answer as the cop shakes free and runs to the building. Being a very useful civilian, that's as good a sign as any to follow and possibly run sooner or later into Jean.

Jon Kent has posed:
     The sentinels were taller, and seemed to lack speech, unlike their smaller brethren. They have not spoken a word.

  Two of them had walked above the barrier surrounding the White House, and have begun to tear at it with their hand beams and hands.

  Meanwhile at the Washington Monument, there were a grouping of two crossing the viewing pool. Their movements shaking the ground after every step. The DC police have had no luck in keeping them at bay, when they can be squashed underfoot with relative ease. The purple and blue robots looked like they had one goal, the various symbols of American Government.

Jean Grey has posed:
Marvel Girl flies through the air, mentally reaching out to Donna and the other Titan, << Hey, you're the Titans, right? Marvel Girl here. Let's coordinate. >> With that, she concentrates, not exactly diving into battle against the Sentinels right away... which, well, considering their tendencies to counter mutant powers, seems like the most prudent option.

As Meggan approaches, Marvel Girl seems to just loop her into the link automatically, without even thinking about it, << Suggestions? And did you happen to bring a lot of people with you, because these seem to be the same types that annihilated Genosha some time ago. >> The redhead flies low over the Capitol area, working her best to coordinate defenses and guide bystanders out of the way with not-so-delicate mental nudges and directions.

Skara Spark has posed:
    "--Blased thrice damned machines, shoulda never been built, honestly, who--" The rantings and ravings of a frustrated Skara Spark continued as she changed into her things, tucked away some civies, ensured her weapon was against her back, and then she raced back for the pool, toward the Sentinels, and toward the officers that were being entirely ineffective.

    "Bloody robots, betcha have the same issues we do," she figures as the shield-weapon against her back is pulled free. A quick click of the button on it's handle gets it to spin once before it settles, bladed edge forward, as the woman surges in. "Gonna call all'ya achilies if this works," she decides before stabbing the weapon forward at one particular sentinel's heel, going as far as to electrify the shield if she can get through the armor. "If nothin' else ya may stop and look at me instead!"

Sam Wilson has posed:
Irritated, Sam bats away the HUD overlays cluttering his goggles as he rounds the dome that was blocking his view of the sentinels. He wouldn't have even /turned on/ broad-spectrum scans if he'd realized the targets were three stories tall and less than a block away. "Who puts a damn ice cream scoop on a building anyway?" he mutters, covering for the sinking feeling that his recon certification should be revoked for missing something that obvious.

As the two Titans drop to the pavement, he dovetails through Marvel Girl's own flyby, yelling two words: "Falcon! Avengers!" and hoping that that and his flashy improvised formation flying will be a decent enough calling card.

Although he goes straight into battle against the machines, the machine pistols he blasts them with aren't any more effective than the small arms the cops are carrying, chipping flecks of armor away but accomplishing little else.

Shuri has posed:
The jet from the Wakandan embassy comes in quietly and hidden before Shuri drops out of it and immeidately wings spread out behind her. She flicks her way through the air to get an idea of what is going on. Her mask over her face starts feeding her information as she scans the area around the white house, eyes going over the various things until she spots the two trying to rip the white house apart. She dives quickly and immediately from her hips shoots out to lines aimed for the shoulder of one of the two powerful sentinels. She is then yanked forward.

As she flies, her wings disappear in a burst of particles from behind her and her body flies toward the back of the sentinel. She whips out a pair of blades from her hips, whipping them out and aiming the vibranium blades right for the back of the thing's next, going for a slash before she releases her lines and flies onward. Before she hits the ground, her wings appear again and she flies back up into the air quickly.

"Who is near the white house? This is Shuri. If you can hear me, I can create a connection between all those with radios."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    The mind Jean touches is cold, calculating, hardly the mind of a person... more like the lethal focus of a weapon being brought to bear. <Techno, Titans> comes back over the mind link /and/ the frequency Falcon is using at the moment. The voice over the comms is distorted, the one in the mind link... no so much. <Get me close and I'll see about disabling these things.>

    Because right now, that's the challenge. Approaching without being melted to slag, getting close enough to get the things within his sphere of influence, and then more likely than not fighting a mental battle with the things to get them shut down. And here he was, unarmed. Always fun.

    Without a moment's further hesitation, he's setting off at a trot, the typical loping gait of power assisted motion, flanking around the nearest Sentinel.

Takako Kyozan has posed:
The black embassy sedan screams towards the Washinton Monument and White House. One of the benefits of diplomatic immunity is that traffic laws are for other people. The vehicle screeches to a halt at the edge of the mall and the door is flung open as Takako emerges and takes off running.

Her black skirt suit outfit would seem to be highly impractical for this encounter but this is quickly solvedas her clothing briefly shimmers and suddenly she is wearing a much more appropriate black jumpsuit.

"Pick on someone your own size!" she shouts at the sentinels approaching the Washington Monument before her form begins to glow briefly with white wispy spiritual energy and she begins increasing in size until she is an equal match for the giant robots!

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Being swept up in that telepathic link trips Meggan as she closes in on the sidewalk, knocked off her feet into the arms of a startled woman hauling a laptop bag. She can't stay there with a stream of congressional aides, interns, and staffers flowing out from the Congress buildings headed straight for her. Alarm washes away when Marvel Girl's voice rolls through. << Just me, luv, sorry about that. Gloriana. I can give you an assist all the same. >> Next moment she rockets straight up, a girl in a Union Jack t-shirt abruptly ten meters in the air, golden hair rippling in an unnaturally long, bright banner behind her. << Definitely not friendly then. Let's try to get some open lanes, that your first call? >>

Some interesting aerobatics by Sam Wilson brings a wide smile to her lips, brief. "That's Fal--" Not the time to be recognizing an Avenger or a Titan. She audibly adds, "Backup firepower if you need it!" How remains a definite question without obvious guns, but she drops and plunges at speed to hurry along some civilians into Jean's escape corridors.

Donna Troy has posed:
<< Marvel Girl, this is Troia and Techno, with the Titans. Techno here is a technopath, I'm an Amazon. Falcon, Gloriana, good to have you on board.>>

    Falcon's aerial assault is doing minimal damage against the armor of the Sentinels, but it's drawing attention. One of the three giant robots stops targeting the police and raises its hands to pepper the air around Falcon with laser bolts, trying to draw a bead on the fast-moving flyer. This seems to be take as a signal by another of the trio, which turns and starts marching towards the great domed building. The third remains where it is, engaging the police.

    <<TECHNO! Get to the feet of the one that's attacking the police, I'll cover you while you get close and see if you can do your thing on it. Falcon, you okay keeping that one distracted? Marvel Girl, Gloriana, anything you can do to slow that one approaching the building down?>>

    Troia launches herself in the air and flies at speed straight towards the robot targeting the police she'd pointed Techno at. She holds her arms out in front of her, and as the Sentinel tracks this new target and starts firing a barrage of bolts at her, she moves her arms in a blur of motion, reflecting the Sentinel's beams back at it and shaving chunks off its armor.

    "Now Techno! Hit it!" she calls out.

Jack Nolan has posed:
"Goddamn machines." Jack is running as fast as he can manage, but he's not exactly a speed demon, especially with all his gear. But once he gets going, well, you know how the saying goes about a rolling stone.

It looks like his intention is to slam his full weight into the back of one of the Sentinel's knees, as he launches himself through the air as he gets near his target, trying to slam into the robot with his shoulder after building up a full head of steam.

Karen Starr has posed:
    The meteor that is a blonde Kryptonian hits the same level as the skyline and hooks sharply- almost impossibly- towards the White House, careening in a suddden ninety-degree angle and speeding towards the Sentinels attacking the nation's head.

    There is a swoop, a twist in the air that alters her trajectory in this most minor way, yet brings her in close proximity to Shuri. She speaks as she does. "Icanhearyou." she responds, before her path takes her around the front of the Sentinel-thing that the Princess of Wakanda had attacked- As if to double down on its injuries, she rises in front of it, and draws back one mighty fist, before sending it forward like a hooking hammer at the jawline of the machine that, in size, dwarfs her but in sheer strength, is at much less of an advantage- if even at one at all.

    She does not linger long, turning the forward momentum into a burst of speed, as she starts to weave towards the other Sentinels- if they're not quick enough to react, she'll hit them right in the jaw the same as the first.

    It's clear what she wants: All eyes on her.

Hal Jordan has posed:
Green Lantern flies down to engage the unengaged Sentinel. And since it's a giant murder robot...Green Lantern creates a green duplicate of the muderbot. With a green robot to fight the incoming bot, hopefully the damage will be reduced. The green copy is fairly huge, after all, and being as it's made of willpower, it won't be easy to push it back.

The Green duplicate bot tries to punch the bad bot...

When he flies down far enough to catch Jean's mindlink. <<J'onn? ...No, someone else...>>

Jon Kent has posed:
Skara's attack to the heel of the Sentinel does indeed make it stop, before it looks down at her, reaching with a hand to grab at her.

  The other at the Washington Monument takes note of the giant woman and backs off the monument, taking a moment to gain speed and run towards her, aiming for a shoulder tackle.

  Shuri's surprise attack on the Sentinel's back has the giant robot emit sparks and electricity arcing off the back before a hand reaches towards the back, futzing at it after Shuri had made her dismount. The torso turns, and looks down at her, holding a massive palm cannon towards her and unleashing an energy beam blast towards the Princess of Wakanda.

  The same Sentinel getting a powerful fist to the jaw, and falls to the ground, the legs turning to get back up.

  The other Sentinel attacking the White House had looked toward Power Girl and it's eyes glowed green. "SPECIES: KRYPTONIAN. ADVISE FUR-" Another punch to this one, and it falters a bit before catching itself, holding up both palms to Power Girl and firing its cannons full bore at her, the spread of which is directed toward the top of the Washington Monument, yellow energy zaps toward the white obelisk, and the stone can be heard cracking and protesting against the force. The eyes of the two sentinels are now flashing between green and yellow.

Takako Kyozan has posed:
Takako or Daidarabotchi as she is sometimes known in her homeland, turns to face her oncoming attacker. This is exactly the sort of thing that she is trained for. Her feet slide shoulder width apart as she assumes a stances reminiscent of judo and jujitsu, eyes locked on the incoming robot.

Even as she does her form begins to glow again with that white wispy chi-like mystic energy and while there is no outward changeinternally her physical structure becomes twice as dense and significantly stronger on top of her already gigantic size.

With a fighter's patience she waits for the sentinel to come and with trained precision attempts to take its legs out from under it and hip throw it to the ground in order to mount it.

Skara Spark has posed:
    "Well, I got'cher attention, didn't I?!" Skara barks as she yanks her weapon free from the sentinel's ankle before giving it a quick rotation. Once the weapon has spun around and locked into place, the blade is stabbed at the ground and the woman fires herself back and away from the machine's grip. Pile-Bunker function, alternate use!

    As she's arcs up and away, Skara takes a long look around. There's a stone.. thing slamming into the machine's knee. There's that HUGE woman over there.. she has allies for once, nice! "AHOY FELLOWS!" She calls out, landing, skidding to a halt, "If'n any of ya have a good idea on how ta take down this brute of a slag pile, share it!" The Zethian is spun about again, locking into having the weapon pointed back at the sentinel, standing fully once again.

Shuri has posed:
An alert goes off as the energy beam powers up and is aimed at her. Shuri whips to the right quickly and spins as she does. The beam clips one of her wings and she ends up going down but she had already put herself into a roll. She rolls across the ground with an oof and luckily, vibranium armor helps with landing that hard. She rolls up to her feet, running along and wincing as the pad at her left shoulder sparks a little.

"At least it's down, time to take care of the others." She then rushes up toward one of the sentinels that is still up. A line hits a wall and yanks her along.

Moments later, she's flying along by her wires before jumping over to another wall. Finally she fires a line right for the Sentinel's arm and goes full bore. The lines drag her at high speed and once more she tries to slice through the monster with one blade but something else is palmed toward the arm as she goes by from her right hand. She unleashes teh lines and again aims for a wall to keep moving. Meanwhile, the thing on the sentinel's arm begins to beep rythmically before finally exploding.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Anyone who has ever fought a Kryptonian knows that full bore is often simply not enough. The sentinel she'd downed is working through his ten-count, and that's more than enough time for her to work on the second- but she doesn't get much time to do so, delivering but one blow before it responds in kind, opening up with a salvo that is as much directed at her as it is at the towering pillar behind her.

    It strikes her suddenly, and she's rocketing backwards with it, as if caught in a riptide and sent out to sea. The beam- and the girl- hit the monument with a thunderous noise, but she doesn't linger long to inspect the damage. Already, Shuri is providing an opening for her, and as the other woman attacks its arm, Power Girl's counter-counter-attack explodes from her eyes, turning the side of the monument a deep, blood red. Two beams, akin to the points of pins to the giant Sentinel, sear the air in the sky and deliver the might of the sun, focused right on the green-yellow flashing eyes of the standing Sentinel that had just attacked her.

    She rakes these beams widely, aiming to carve great lines of sensor-ruining, Sentinel-crippling molten metal in their wake. It nothing else, even with Shuri's attack, she hopes it'll keep its attention on her.

    Pulling forward, Power Girl dislodges herself from the crater she'd left in the Washington Monument, resolving to spackle that over later on, but regarding the Sentinels as a more immediate threat- and yet, at the same time, she cannot help but wonder... Why they're here- who sent them, and above all, why they're so obsessed with acts of terrorism rather than merely exterminating mutants. At the moment- and perhaps its simply her combat-addled mind- some of the numbers just aren't adding up.

Jean Grey has posed:
A thought echoes in Hal's head, << Martian Manhunter? Not quite, Green Lantern, but I'll take that as a compliment. >> Which is when Hal notices the flying redhead in the white and green outfit, the X emblazoned on the belt clearly showing her affiliation as she thinks to Donna, << Marvel Girl here. Telepathy and telekinesis, at your service. Hence the instant communication. >>

Then she opens up the communication to everyone, letting the group at the Capitol instantly communicate with each other. As far as what else Jean's doing, she takes advantage of the Sentinel fighting its Willpower Duplicate courtesy of Hal. Namely by using her telekinesis to slam a bolt directly into the small of its back. While Sentinels can adapt to mutant powers eventually, they need time to do so... and thanks to Green Lantern, this one didn't have it, as it crumples down under the telekinetic burst. <<THAT, is for Genosha, you genocidal bastard.>> Jean sounds pretty grimly satisfied in the link.

Then Marvel Girl ducks nimbly around, not staying in one place and hovering as that seems like a great way to get blasted by a Sentinel as she keeps her attention mostly focused on coordinating efforts for the group. << Gloriana, go left on this one and I'll go right, we can take it then then go out for drinks later... assuming there's a place to get drinks when this is all done. >> Since she now has a pretty good idea of what Gloriana is capable of, and she flashes a smile quickly at the blonde as she flies across the Mall, maneuvering into position.

Hal Jordan has posed:
<<My mistake. Great to have you, Marvel Girl. Remind me to talk to you later once we've saved the day.>>

Green Lantern notices the Sentinels have trouble dealing with his new friend while they're busy trying to take him on. And they can't really adapt to a Green Lantern Ring, as far as he can tell. If they could, they'd have turned themselves yellow by now. But since that doesn't appear to be the case, Green Lantern flies off to the next one, bringing his green willpower duplicate along with him.

"This is as far as you go, murderbot!" And now it has a duplicate to fight while his allies attack the distracted bot. <<Looks like it's easy for you to take them out if they're busy fighting me. We'll keep doing this.>>

Sam Wilson has posed:
"Sure! No problem -- I'll just, uh, distract! The big angry genocide robot," Falcon answers, tone strained but shot through with dry humor. He's a lot less accustomed to this 'mind-link' thing Marvel Girl is providing than just talking over a radio, so for the moment, he's going to keep using his mouth, hope that's being mirrored in his thoughts, and keep his focus on the series of impossible maneuvers that will, with a bit of luck, keep him from getting flash-fried.

As soon as he gets some distance or the machine's attention starts to waver, though, he's going to tap a couple of fingers against his left gauntlet and send the robotic Redwing drone zipping off on an oblique course toward the sentinel he was distracting. Its program? Salvage protocol: it's going to try to laser-cut off the largest solid sheets of metal it can for later recovery. Or, in this case, just to get some of that damned impenetrable armor out of the way.

That done, he's going to fold away his suit-mounted SMGs and switch to rockets, sending a trio scudding toward his target sentinel's left knee -- it looks like a point where the machine's balance is just a bit vulnerable. The projectiles sweep beneath the defensive beams pouring out of it and connect, each after the last. The leg buckles, and with a shudder, the machine slowly topples, like an immense, felled tree. This will get its core systems down to a level where Gloriana can really do some damage.

Jack Nolan has posed:
Jack has decided to go after the remaining Sentinel. Since the others have been getting brought down, this one has been not paying attention to him, so that leaves him with more than enough chance to move in.

He reaches into his gear and pulls out a small black sphere with the SHIELD logo on it, leaping up to climb up the Sentinel's leg with his claws. He digs in to hold himself on, trying to get up to around what would qualify as the Sentinel's hip.

Looking for a joint, he digs in with his claws, tearing away at the metal until he makes a big enough hole. Activating the explosive, he forces it into the hole, and then dives off of the Sentinel, waiting for that bomb to go off inside and hopefully tear up the robot.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    <<On it>> The reply is short and to the point, as Techno re-routes to the target indicated by Donna. To get there he has to use every single trick he's picked up over the past few years, because the street is pure chaos. Dodging civilians and rubble, his armored boots thump on the pavement, rapidly approaching the police cordon that's trying to hold back the menace. Mental note that these things appear to be bullet resistant with an armor rating of at least 3A, given that pistol caliber rounds are not doing it any harm. That gets upgraded to at least level 4 when the heavier rifle rounds ricochet off the thing as well. Hmm. Military grade.

    During this idle speculation while running, Techno keeps an eye out for civilians that are in danger of getting into the crossfire and plots the route of the Sentinel as it walks, making a mental map of their movements in total as well as in singular...

    But then he's getting behind the distracted Sentinel, and for the first time close enough to sense it. The aura is... evil. Two more strides and Techno comes to a halt, staring up at the behemoth, his own eye lenses starting to glow a menacing red. Senses beyond the usual reach out, finding the circuits, finding the pathways, the sub-processors, all the way down to the last solenoid. And then he bellows his technopathic command to the machine, sending a series of shutdown and override commands to overwhelm local subroutines, attacking its limbs, destabilising its gyroscopic balancing system, cutting power to actuators. It all amounts to the same result. The large machine, so imposing and so tall, so implacable, falls flat on its metallic ass.

    "SIT!"

    That, of course, brings its main CPU core all the way into Techno's range. The attack continues, technopath versus machine... there's really only one way this can end. <<Keep... my six... clear...>>

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
<< Troia, Techno, Marvel Girl. Shapeshifter, in my case. >> Notably not blue, either, for all the good that does. << Got it, I'm on the oversized Cyberman going to Washington. Roger! >>

Unlike Troia's direct assault, Gloriana blazes an abbreviated great circle to start her bombing run, racing along the National Mall over the mowed swathes of green grass and a few stately trees tossing their leaves in rampant applause in the flyby. Not out to get attention, the long swoop serves her by tapping into the sun-warmed earth. << Carry on, I will be right there, Marvel Girl. >>

The psychic link will pass on the oddest sensation of calling down to the heart of the nation, all that is America in spiritual microcosm, to bolster an ally come to aid and protect Columbia. Earth under the Capitol stirs in answer, but there really isn't much to see. Meggan increases in size some, streamlined in profile while hurtling through the air, a missile on a golden trail, in an opposite path to capitalise on a sudden opening from Falcon.

Spiralling past Marvel Girl, she bubbles with laughter. << Consider it a promise. Had some practice mixing lately. I'll want more than a Pimms Cup after this! >>

Deft manoeuvring threads that needle withher full speed and weight thrown into the massive Sentinel trying to laser-cut the wings off the Avenger. The neck and head make an ideal target for the British shapeshifter slamming into them at speeds usually attained by aircraft. Aircraft typically without superhuman durability infused from the Supreme Court in pursuit of justice above and beyond the norm.

Donna Troy has posed:
    The Sentinel approaching the Capitol building is about half way there when it suddenly finds itself faced by a green Sentinel that doesn't respond to comms signals, and shouldn't be there. The Sentinel halts, and somehow conspires, despite its rigid metallic face, to look confused.

    "IDENTIF..." it starts to say, before a green fist smashes into its face. The Sentinel staggers back, its head twisted slightly. Gears grind as it tries to turn its head back towards the green construct threat, and electricity sparks across the robot's neck. It's eyes glow, and it answers the attack with a plasma blast - but the blast is badly off-target. Hal's construct seems to have damaged the Sentinel's targeting circuitry, and it takes a chunk out of the dome of the Capitol instead.

    Reeling and uncoordinated from the surprise attack from the green construct bot, Hal's first target is entirely unprepared for the sudden assault by Jean's telekenetic blast from behind. Metal bends and thermoplastics burst; the torso plating of the giant machine cracks lose and a spider-web of electricity dances for a few moments across exposed circuits. The machine shakes uncontrollably, its legs give way, and with a thunderous crash it falls to the ground, inactive.

    Techno's attack on the sentinel engaging the police is spectacularly effective. The robot's attention is thoroughly occupied by Troia's laser-deflecting advance, and he's on the thing and interrupting the circuitry before it even knows there is a threat.

    For anyone who might be able to read the signature of Techno's mutant power, there's something revealing here. These sentinels don't seem to have identified him as a priority mutant threat, and there has been no effort on their part to nullify mutant powers.

    The Sentinel the Titans had targeted is second to go. Limbs jerking like a marionette in an earthquake, Techno's power surges through its circuitry, bypassing motor function, disconnecting control routines and depowering weapon systems. It collapses in a heap, its eyes glaring balefully for a moment at Techno before those too lose power and the CPU shuts down. Troia hurtles back down from the sky, fist slamming into the robot's head and crushing it with a mighty >THUMP< making very sure it will never start up again.

    Hal's GreenBot turns to the third of the Sentinels, it's attention already split between Falcon and the Redwing drones. It swivels to deal with this new threat, and exposes a weak point in its armor at the knee. The air is rent with the triple-boom of Falcon's rockets crushing the joint. It sways sideways, then attempts to take a step forwards and fails. It tumbles to the ground, using one hand to prop itself up, and raising the other towards Falcon. A sphere of brilliant light burst around its hand as it charges its plasma cannon to target the Avenger with its heaviest attack?

    Gloriana, filled with the energy of the Earth, collides with the third Sentinel before its plasma cannon had finished charging. She bursts through the neck of the machine in an assault that deserves at least a /pitcher/ of Pimms, tearing the battered head from the body. For a moment servos whine and struggle to maintain the elevation of the arm, but then it shudders and drops, the plasma energy arcing harmlessly away before it could even be fired at Falcon, as it too dies.

    At the Capitol building, the collective sighs of relief of the police and special forces there are large enough to be heard over the dying sparks and clanks of the three sentinels. All in all, the machines were dealt with remarkably quickly. The mutants present never seemed to have to deal with being directly targeted, and no nullifiers were employed.

    Wasn't this /too/ easy?

Jon Kent has posed:
     The heat beams from Power Girl strike back to the Sentinel that had attacked her. "REQ+@EST....DRO.$&@" It says before having it's central processing unit melted in half by the Kryptonian heat beams.

  Takako's move indeed manages to topple over the Sentinel, but as the robot topples over, the two hands are stretched out, and the palms start to glow an eerie yellow before zapping out towards the giant woman.

  Skara and Jack have attacked the Sentinel with the gash in it's heel, which makes the stepping a little slower. Mixed with the attack on the hip area, the Sentinel is having issues moving. Sparks fly from the wounds on its leg and foot.

  Apart from one Sentinel left, the skirmish seems to be over...

  The police circling the White House seem relieved somewhat, meanwhile bullets fly towards the last remaining one. "BACKUP CONFIRMED. INCOMING DRONES." It announces, eyes flashing green while it continues to attack at Takako.

  The creaking craking sounds of stone from up high still ring out, as the top third of the Washington Monument starts to falter and tumble down, crushing the Sentinel beneath it, and whomever is unfortunate enough to not run away from the falling debris.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Across the National Mall, from the Washington Monument to the Capitol building and beyond, emerald rays of light punch down out of the sky. At first it's small clusters. Two here, three there.

    In each beam, a humanoid figure forms. More robots? These are much smaller than the sentinels, perhaps seven foot tall. Nor are they entirely robotic. Machine blends with tendons and muscle on a substructure of human bone with the flesh torn off, enhanced with polymer psuedo-muscle and metallic exo-frames. The upper part of the skulls are intact but the jaws missing, and those skulls are crowned with a halo-like apparatus, with three purple lights arranged in a triangle from the forehead and on either side of the head.

    The first few emerald beams blink out, and the cybernetic drones move with frightening speed, attacking whoever is nearby, be they armed or not. One grabs a secret service man by the throat, ignoring the point-blank gunshots, and hurls him a dozen yards to the ground, with a sickening crunch of bone.

    More of the emerald beams appear, bringing more drones.

    And more.

    And more.

    And more...

Takako Kyozan has posed:
Takako lets out a grunt as the yellow beams catch her off guard. It hurts, it hurts a lot. She grits her teeth though and summons more of that strange wispy glow as the density of her further increases yet further. She glares at the sentinel.

That is when the audible cracking sound happens and she looks up wide-eyed at the top third of the monument suddenly crashing down towards those gathered below.

"Kuso." she curses under her breath looking between the robot shooting beams at her and the falling debris, but there just isn't time. Focusing as much of her energy as she can muster, the white glow surrounding her far more intensely than before her size begins expanding even further until she is dwarfing the sentinel and nearly half the size of the momument!

As her height rockets skyward she extends her arms upward attempting to not quite catch the largest piece of the monument but guide it's descent straight into the robot that has been shooting beams at her.

Skara Spark has posed:
    It's down, it's injured, but it isn't out! Skara's laughing all the way to the machine's skull before she stabs the staggered sentinel right in the eye. Yup. Right in it's glassy optic, hoping to shatter it to pieces. "Stay down! Ya hear m-- ", crackling? It gets her to slowly look up. "...Oh.." Leave. RUN. Like earlier, the woman uses her weapon to dive away, thrown clear of the monument toppling and the sentinel being crushed.

    "Phew! Glad that's about ta be ov.... er..." Skara stammers. Why is the sky being broken by all this green? Are lanterns here?! "What NOW?!" she yells before being visibly put-off by the ... aberrations that are coming forth from the emerald beams. "Oh... Oh no.." After a moment though? The woman steels herself, rolls her shoulders, gives the Zethian a spin, and then locks it right into position, electricity crackling across its surface. "Ah, if it's a brawl ya came lookin' for, then LETS GET TO IT!"

    Skara isn't someone to back down in the face of such adversity. No, instead she charges forward into the fray, Zethian brought around before swinging the flat of the shield-like weapon into the nearest aberration.

Karen Starr has posed:
    There is a breathing moment as all but one of the giant Sentinels goes down. Karen floats there, and she even readies to intercept the last bigntall before... Well, it's at least something she's familiar with. Brainiac's invasions are... Less sudden, somehow, but all the same, there's only one way to save as many people as possible.

    "Okay. Sure. One of those days."

    The acceleration is instant and noticeable for everyone present. The sheer... Noise of it rattles windows even with the wide open spaces of the nation's heart meaning that windows aren't shattering. Power Girl hits Mach VI in a portion of a second. The tactic is simple: Be the threat. Everyone else can evacuate, but every drone on Karen is a drone that isn't slaughtering civilians, and as such she has to hit them in the biggest, showiest way possible that presents them with only one course of action.

    She hits the army of drones like a 747 impacting a flock of geese. There is a scar in their formation caused by her impact, and at the very heart of their amassing, she rolls out of the hit, spinning several times in midair with what's left of a drone's torso wrapped around her forearm. It isn't graceful- and much like the aforementioned jetliner v. birds, she's feeling it, too.

    In the small clearing made by the apex of her aggression, she stands on legs that wobble, for a spare moment, and takes a breath.

    With a swift movement of both of her arms, she's reloaded.

    "Well? Come on. I don't have all day."

Jack Nolan has posed:
Sheesh. Jack was not prepared for the Washington Monument to crash down on top of him. As he's running to get away, he spots someone who hasn't evacuated yet, they're far too close, possibly in the impact zone. He can't risk that.

The hulking SHIELD agent rushes towards the civilian woman, and puts himself between her and the crashing stone spire.

Thankfully he's tougher than he looks, and he already looks pretty tough. He manages to absorb a lot of the impact, though he does drop to a knee, "Go." He growls at her, "Run and don't look back." He hefts up the debris on top of him, just in time to see all the new figures teleporting in, "Oh for fucks sake what now."

Sam Wilson has posed:
Falcon banks through a high-G turn over the sentinel as Gloriana brings it down, grinning and hollering his approval: "Hell yeah! CUT the check!" He rolls level, banks upward to a steep angle, and pours on thrust, hoping to get altitude to circle and search for these incoming drones.

His mistake, though -- the reinforcements aren't approaching over land, they appear to be projected at near teleportation speeds from some ludicrous, perhaps even orbital altitude, and his attempt to get a good angle has instead put him far out of range to intervene as they begin their slaughter. He tucks his wings back and dives, corkscrewing around a pair of the emerald beams as he attempts to catch up.

But freefall plus all the thrust he had just wasn't fast enough. As he throws his artificial wings wide and levels off, he can see that he's already too late: these two attackers have already killed anyone within reach. Sam's a medic, trained and ingrained, and it kills him not to even try to tend to their wounds, but he can see even from here that there's nothing he could possibly do.

Instead, the other half of his pararescue training comes into play: hold off the enemy and get those he CAN save to safety. He grits his teeth and fires off a cover-fire barrage of rockets at the enemies he had hoped to intercept. Careful not to seriously engage, he rapidly jets away, tapping at his gauntlet.

"Redwing, birds-eye map. Flag civilians as priority, plot routes around hostiles." Thus begins a long, arduous rescue effort, grabbing people in twos and threes and getting them out of range, then turning around to do it again. Leaving some behind when he can't carry any more, knowing that by the time he gets back, they'll probably be beyond his help.

War, in short. Exactly the kind of war he was trying to keep away from American soil when he let Steve talk him into putting the wings back on.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    And down the Sentinel goes. The lenses on Techno's suit don't change color, still illuminating that very angry red. He can feel the power being shut down inside of the thing, and then Donna ends its existence with a single punch. The last of the data stops flowing, and the whole mess turns into just an inert lump of alloys and exotic materials. Excellent.

    "Always satisfying when you can take something like this down without too much... ef...f..."

    All around, emerald beams are appearing. Worse. Several appear not too far from Techno, and he can feel their aura, feel their intent. It's the only thing that makes him turn around in time and send a very desperate shutdown command. Except, of course, the thing isn't entirely robotic, and he ends up having to actually deflect a punch. The armor on his left arm rings like a bell. He could only imagine what that would have felt like had he not ..."

    The civilians around him aren't armored. He can see the creatures start to lay into them, and then, for the first time in a long while, the anger returns. Deep inside, the Monster stirs, and through sheer necessity its cage is unbarred. Techno retaliates, punching his armored fist into the face of the creature that attacked him, and then he's running.

    Surrounding him is a general shutdown command, the bane of all technology, the sphere of electronic entropy that fries whatever it touches. With a roar of anger, Techno launches himself into the crowd of creatures.

Takako Kyozan has posed:
It is all a chaotic mess. Once Takako has guided the falling spire away bystanders and allies and into the sentinel that had been attacking her, she releases her size dwindling back to her more normal 5'6" with large scale threat passed.

The greater robot threat has just begun though. With what remains of her power she pushes herself onward fighting to maintain her enhanced density for as long as she can. She attacks the horrific robot creatures with every ounce of her remaining strength, trying to buy time until the civilians can flee. It seems like a hopeless situation, there's just so many of them. But if she can save just one more life Takako will keep fighting while she still draws breath.

The battle is taking it's toll though and her breathing is getting heavier as exhaustion begins to creep in it is questionable just how much longer she can keep this up.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Meggan clutches hold the head of the decapitated Sentinel, floating in front of the Capitol with her stolen prize. The massive weight and size do not limit her from shifting to get a better look at the wobbling needle overlooking the National Mall. Her smile falters, a witticism dying on her lips when the Washington Monument descends. "No. That's not right, that shouldn't be happening," she whispers. Horror plagues the psychic link Jean set up, worse because anyone else around seeing the disaster feeds hers. Green beams and lights in the sky add to the cacophonous surges of fear amplified like spikes. She can't do a thing for the secret service man plowed into the ground. For people cut down for no sin worse than going to work.

The Sentinel skull might make a fine bowling ball, but she cannot bring herself to hurl it. The tears in her eyes make it hard to see, for all the coordination she needs to use the skull for self-defense to take off after Falcon. Shocks of lasers striking off the thermoformed plates of the Sentinel's head protect Gloriana, even though spare shocks hitting her might be ignored as no more than a flash of heat, a sting. While the salvo rushes away at the nearest of those cybernetic zombie things, she wills the earth to ripple up around it, encasing it in a pillar of soil, rock, and grass, sending a radiating spike of such shockwaves away from her infused with the pain and self-righteous fury of an elemental linked to DC herself.

<< Tell me where to get them, >> she calls out to him, her thoughts a mess. Eventually that Sentinel's head gets flung away onto the battlefield so she can snatch up civilians from the jawless maw of death and hurtle them away at speed. Not anything like the Flash, but those bolts of movement are as recklessly quick as she dares.

He might not be able to save all the victims. Neither can she. But that sort of attitude won't fly. Gloriana works in tandem with Falcon as best she can. Knowing there would be losses didn't hold them back in Normandy, on the beaches of Omaha and Juno and Sword, and it won't hold them back today.

Hal Jordan has posed:
Green Lantern thought things were going fairly well...until the ring started analyzing those incoming drones, particularly with the skull faces on them. --Error: Coluan technology detected. Rogue android suspected of making entire populations disappear. Recommended contact all available support--

Green Lantern looks down at his ring...and first, sends off the emergency beacon that calls in backup from the rest of the Green Lantern Corp. Then, he calls out to the JLA on that channel. <<My ring thinks we're facing the thing that destroyed Genosha. All available League members, we need you to Washington DC immediately! The android using Coluan tech is incredibly strong.>>

Still...those emerald beams may be Coluan in nature, but he's still a goddamn Green Lantern, and androids...well, if any man can out Willpower a machine, it's this man. So as the beams come down...emerald beams now start going back up, opposing the green beams from above directly. How long the Lantern can keep this up, who knows, but he hopes to slow this attack down...

Donna Troy has posed:
    As Takako makes sure of the final sentinel, using that fragment of the monument to crush the last trace of functioning from it, the Brainiac drones are appearing everywhere, and the assault is brutal. Whether police, civilian, the growing ranks of national guard joining the fight or superhero, nobody is spared an assault.

    Skara charges bravely into the fray, bringing the ancient and mysterious Zethian to the attack. The flat of the shield crashes into a Brainiac drone...

    To frighteningly little effect. The drone staggers back half a step, then the cruel eyes turn to Skara, glowing bright. It raises an arm to sweep her away disdainfully - but here Zethian proves more capable, the dragon-scale shield providing surprisingly resilient against the powerful blow. Skara is staggered back, but she can /feel/ that somehow the shield seems to have absorbed and redirected a blow that would have been powerful enough to crush her otherwise.

    Power Girl's assault is sudden and dramatic. She plows into the densest group of the drones, crushing several and sending a dozen more flying. Scores of pinpoint glowing eyes zero on this obvious threat, and advance cautiously towards her.

    There are hundreds more though, all around. They cut through the police lines, crushing bones and smashing vehicles as they pass. A small National Guard detachment approaches down the National Mall, an Abrams tank leveling its cannon. The thunderous sound of the 120mm canon echoes above the noise of battle, and a depleted uranium round blasts a drone into the ground. The smoke clears, and the drone stands, damaged but not destroyed. It advances, and a handful of its companions swarm forwards with it, tearing the tank apart with their bare hands.

    Techno's first target is surprisingly easy. Once his powers shut down power to the cybernetics, the pseudo-muscles contract and render the drone virtually immobile. It struggles feebly before his servo-enhanced punch crushes the skull and destroys circuitry beneath. As he advances on a crowd of them, his luck starts to turn. This technology is advanced beyond anything he is used to. Learning systems track the invasive assault of his mutant power and start to adapt. The nearest shudders to a halt, but before he can engage it, another approaches. It's slowed, but not halted. His attention is split as a third comes close and he can no longer keep up with the flood of ever-changing data his senses present him with.

    Falcon's Redwings struggle to map the chaos, but there are obvious places for him and Gloriana to go, and they start rescuing civilians as fast as they can. The drones don't seem to want to co-operate though. Processors working at lightning-speeds follow the movement of the Redwing drones, and start to predict their guidance patterns. Before long, wherever Falcon or Gloriana heads to rescue more civilians, there's a drone waiting for them, blocking off his approach.

    Just when Sam looks like he's about to be overwhelmed, Troia crashes to the earth beside him, sword and shield raised. Themysciran steel pierces slashes through the neck of one drone, decapitating it, and the shield buffets another to the ground, and the follow-up punch shakes the ground. The stress on his powers is lessened, and he has a bit more time to work. The two Titans stand back to back, fighting a growing crowd.

    Drones converge on Falcon and Gloriana, predicting their positions. Just when it looks like they are about to be swarmed, Jean's power lashes out, forming defensive channels for them to herd civilians through. Drones beat their fists against the barriers, but in vain.

Donna Troy has posed:
    The Green Lantern bends his will to countering the beams delivering more and more of the androids, but there are so many. For a while the invasion slows, the damage being done by the heroes just slightly exceeding the rate at which they are being replaced by new arrivals, but even Hal's will has limits, and the power left in his ring is starting to get low, and the arrivals keep coming.

    In the middle of the densest swarm, even Power Girl is beginning to struggle against the sheer numbers. Crumpled forms of Brainiac drones surround her, but more and more keep coming.

    The two Titans are a deadly combination. Techno's power weakens the drones as they approach, and Troia uses her speed and strength with fearsome focus and Amazonian skill - but the drones have marked them as a threat, and the numbers around them continue to swell.

    More emerald beams dart out of the sky. Too many. Hal just cannot keep up. Jean's force-wall starts to buckle. Skara and Takato find bands of drones advancing on them. Troia switches to the defensive, a blur of shieldwork keeping drones from her team-mate, but she's starting to slow. Even Power Girl feels her muscles drag as drones hurl themselves at her. Falcon and Gloriana find the last of their avenues cut off, and civilians are being hunted down and killed before they can reach them. Jack has put himself between danger and civilians, and saved a few lives, but as three drones advance on him, it looks like it will be at the cost of his own

Jon Kent has posed:
     The drones start teleporting back to where they came from. Starting with a few, and gaining in number until after ten seconds, the DC area has been abandoned by the drone troopers. The Washington Monument has been mostly destroyed, the White House has sustained damage to the top floor, and all in all, the Capitol dome has only sustained minor damage. There are fires being taken care of by the DCFD, and first responders have started to assess the damage to the city.

  Meanwhile, in New York City, a newscast had been reporting a vessel in the sky in a skull-like shape. As the drones had arrived in DC, metal tentacles slithered out fo the skull ship and started to aim at a particular borough of NYC. Bushwick, AKA: Mutant Town. Within a matter of two minutes, a forcefield had been erected around the borough, and cameras have caught a green beam aiming at the bubbled city. The structures and even the people inside pixelate and are transported inside the beam. The cubes of building, humans, mutants, and other matter are picked up everywhere inside the enormous sphere. Until the entire borough had been absorbed and transported what could only be inside the massive skull-ship.

  The feeds from all TV stations are then cut off, revealing a darkened figure, three pinkish-purple dots on the crown on his head can be seen. "I am Brainiac, you cannot regain control. Over the past three days, I have absorbed your satellite systems into my neural net. You have harnessed advanced technologies. I have absorbed these, into my own. Your planet harbors beings of immense power, through genetics, your people have genetically gifted powers. These 'Mutants' will add their X-genes to my drones, giving them power beyond their current limitations. The country formerly known as: Genosha, was my first acquisition, and with this new addition, your world will be rendered inert in less than five hundred and four hours." The man rises, his body armored in chrome-like metal, and his green skin and black eyes, so lifeless as they look at the camera. "Your kind has stripped this world of its resources, and now it is time to make your peace before your destruction."

  The feed comes back to the skull-ship, as it leaves the atmosphere at what seems like an impossible speed. At that moment, the drones had completed their teleportation, back to Brainiac's ship.