5106/Traffic

Traffic
Date of Scene:	09 February 2021
Location:	Hell's Kitchen, New York City, New York
Synopsis:	Tracking down the party of the century and a drug called Opal lead two groups to a location that is not what it seems. Cloak and Dagger are scary. Scott and Hank are threatening. Emma tries new drugs, and a new friend is found.
Cast of Characters:	Kassandra Pagonis, Tandy Bowen, Scott Summers, Tyrone Johnson, Emma Frost, Henry McCoy, Talia Wagner

---

Kassandra Pagonis has posed:
     Rumors of the arrival of 'the greatest show in the tri-state area' has started to spread by word of mouth in the higher-income areas of New York. If what the rumors say are true, showing up at a particular address with a few hundred in cash will give guests an opportunity to experience something that hasn't been experienced in a long, long time. Yes, rumors of 'the greatest party ever' have returned! Of course, that might just be a fallacy or advertising hype because there have been some really, really awesome parties in New York over the years and this is one that's supposed to happen today. On Sunday. In February. After dark. With the temperatures hovering a few degrees above freezing. In one of the less savory parts of town to boot. There must be something to it, though, because there are people entering, although it's completely silent outside, with none of the hallmarks of a warehouse party aside from two quite jacked looking bouncers and a simple velvet rope leading through a painted green door. This has all the hallmarks of being a bad time for the people visiting.

     In other, poorer parts of town, a different kind of party has started to become known. A new street drug, Opal, has started appearing among the more downtrodden and vulnerable, with usage skyrocketing and, because of that, the necessity of tracking down some kind of income to chase that next fix started to outweigh the needs of things like food, shelter, and even warmth in one tragic case. The tendrils of a drug operation are starting to stretch through the poorer areas of the city...but what could that have to do with the Greatest Party Ever?

Tandy Bowen has posed:
A new drug has hit the streets and it has caught the attention of Cloak and Dagger. While they have been laser focused on their current mission of human trafficking and chasing down those who steal young tourists from the streets to boat them across International waters, they have taken a night of detour to chase down a new lead.

Drugs. It's what makes this city scream in pain. It's what burns like cancer in the city's veins. It steals dreams, destroys lives and ruins all that is good in this world. Having been spending the night 'interrogating' a contact, the pair find their way into the warehouse district, where businesses have long ceased to exist after one depression to the next. The bricks are worn and chipped away, and the homeless are aplenty as they roam the sidewalks like zombies, mumbling and searching for need.

A swirl of shadow locates itself upon one of the rooftops, followed by the flutter of black and blue fabric as Cloak and Dagger rips through the dark dimension and into the 'now'. Tandy, dressed in her one piece leotard with a sword cut through the fabric and a worn denim jacket steps out of the shadows, her left hand shimmering in light to cast a glow for them to see. There is an edge built into her icy blue eyes. A serious stare. She can feel the rage rumble in her heart.

"This is it, Ty. All the leads we've chased down has brought us to here. Opal. Tonight, we end it."

There is conviction in her voice as she forms a blade across her palm, glancing over her shoulder towards the monster of dark behind her.

Scott Summers has posed:
The team has been assembled for this investigative mission and Scott has designated that it's plain clothes. His brown hair hangs in a loose bob around the gunmetal gray frame of his ruby quartz glasses and clean shaven face. He's wearing a body suit beneath a wool sweater, high necked kevlar blend, a brown bomber jacket, and a pair of dark blue-jeans with comfortable sneakers.

With rumors of this new drug coinsiding with the return of the greatest party, Scott has a suspicion that the two are interconnected. A sentiment that is likely shared by most with claims of seeing something you've never seen before it doesn't take a rocket scientist. <<"We've got multiple points of investigation on this mission so I'm splitting us into two teams. Talia and Hank, I want you two to ask around about Opal, Hank if you can get a sample to analyze back at the lab. Emma and I are going to snoop around the party.">> Glancing to the woman with him, his impressively stoic features fixed upon her from behind the dark lenses of his glasses.

"You still have some pull in the party scene. The closer to the action you can get us, the better."

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
There may have been a day the idea of a clandestine party may have been appealing. Now? Well, it's still appealing. There's drugs, and while Cloak may have had his fill of taking drugs, it didn't mean he wasn't interesting in them. Only now, the goals are to take them - and those who peddle them - off the streets. While many can't argue with his goals, his rumored methods have set off more than a few radars. Word has it that when he shows up, people disappear, and the few who come back seem to be in a worse spot than if they'd have just stayed missing. While they may show back up, their sanity largely doesn't outside of foaming babbling about cold, their own sins, and monsters in the dark.

"We end this one." Cloak says as he leers over the edge of the rooftops, the light from his partner casting his own shadows into stark contrast that seem all the darker and more solid despite the brightness. "There will be another to take its place, and we'll be there for that too. Let's make this quick. We hit the dealers, destroy the stock, and get out. Keep behind me, let me take out the weapons."

Emma Frost has posed:
    Emma lifts the white fur lined hood over her carefully groomed hair, a glance from her icy blue eyes towards Scott as she lowers her gloved hands from her hood. "Tell me something I /don't/ know." She says before rolling her eyes and getting to work. The x-men persona shifts to something a bit more, natural for the woman in the ivory colored coat and fur lined hems, making her look like an Audrey Hepburn figure, primed for winter. All that's missing is the yard long cigarette stick.

    Emma steps up to the bouncers, her boots tall heel clicking confidently against the sidewalk as she strides up and puts her hands on her hips, but slides them into the pockets of her coat. Mmmm, pockets. "Hello boys." Emma says with a adjustment of her red painted lips up to the bouncers, and waits for them to realize who she is and to let them in, even if she needs to nudge mentally a touch. It happens from time to time.

Henry McCoy has posed:
Party. Drugs. Danger. It all added up to something they needed to investigate - especially the danger and drugs part. Dressed in his civillian clothes - a button down shirt, jeans, and wide shoes - Henry was all set to go 'undercover'. It was nigh impossible for him to blend in - so he simply went with the flow. Inwardly, he hoped there wouldn't be any backlash from his presence that might cause trouble for the X-Men plan.

The Beast walked along with Scott, Emma and Talia - hoping Emma would work her magic to make them seem a bit more normal. If not, there would be a need for quick thinking and quicker action. "We might run into others here, if there is a new drug on the scene." Yellow eyes shift about, looking over the scene. "I'll do what I can to get a sample, here's to hoping we can remove all this from circulation."

Talia Wagner has posed:
It's a little something called image inducers.

Talia isn't about to show up at some rich person party even in a bad part of town looking like a five eight fuzzy blue elf daemon with or without her tail showing. That is recipe for what people generally call, causing a scene, and that seems counter to an intel gathering operation.

So she is wearing her usual go to, cute twenty something girl next door. Which in this case means blonde, blue eyed, and dressed pretty nicely. In season burgandy puffer faux leather coat, some dark black slim boot cut jeans, and a pair of very cute burgandy winter boots. Under the coat is a very chic top, but right now she is all bundled up.

She leans in towards Hank. "You will need to take a look at this thing later Hank... still surprised. I mean Stark is the one who came up with it but you stole it pretty quick and made it work elsewhere."

She figures Emma will work some magic to cover for McCoy really. Lets hope.

"I'll snoop, can probably get into any places they don't really want us to snoop."

Kassandra Pagonis has posed:
     The bouncers are low-rent thugs, but even they can recognize the regal bearing held by the woman in white. The larger one elbows the even larger one in the side who after rubbing his ribs from the impact, unfastens the velvet rope and swings the green door open to allow the lady and her gentleman entry into a surprisingly bustling club. Sound and light wash over them both as they enter through the front door, with a strange tactile sensation prickling the skin as they pass across the threshold. Before anyone else in the line can peek into the inky blackness without paying their entry fee (of course Emma got in without it - Scott and Henry still had to pay if nothing was said, Talia was a girl, so she got in for free) the door is closed behind, the bouncers re-taking their spots on either side of the door.

     On the rooftop where Cloak and Dagger sit, they have a perfect view of the warehouse that people are trickling in and out of, with several broken windows that should allow them to peer in on what's going on below. The thing is....what they see is strange. There's no party in the warehouse below. No music. No lights except for a few standalone halogen lights set up in a circle shining inwards. There is a bar - a makeshift one made of oil barrels with a plank stretched across it. There is a bartender, too, sanding just on the outside of that circle, passing drinks to the few people that wander over, the bills they pay stuffed into an overflowing jar that's out of the way. And in the center of the circle of lights? A shipping crate. How odd. Perhaps this is the wrong skylight they're looking through?

Tandy Bowen has posed:
Narrowing her eyes, Tandy gives a sharp nod of her head. As she presses her lips thinly together, she starts running for the rooftop with long strides of her legs. As she plants one foot against the edge, she leaps forward, gliding across the dark like a glowing angel, one that is soon snuffed out of the air as Cloak comes down upon her, wrapping his folds of fabric around her and the two disappear in mid-air in a swirl of shadow. It's an incredible sight for those who may have caught it, even though it happens in just a blink.

They reappear upon the catwalk near the ceiling as the once ballerina balances easily, then starts to move across it slowly, keeping her light down to a dull, knowing that Cloak is going to bleed some of it off. The blade in her hand is squeezed around her fingers tightly as she starts to search the main floor below, seeking out details, placement of any type of security, and possibly traffic that may lead to backrooms or below.

They have learned over the years that situations like this is not what it seems. There is always a basement, always a hidden door, some type of illusion in case the police break through the front door. A way out.

But tonight? There won't be a way out. Not for those who seek to bring misery upon the innocent. Those who feast on greed and power. Not tonight.

Emma Frost has posed:
    Emma steps into the club with her eyes aimed upwards in a circling motion from one side of the room, up and over the crowd to the other, then she begins to scan the crowd itself. "um... huh." The woman notes to herself with a frown before looking to Talia and Hank. "Good luck." And then she turns to Scott. "Buy me a drink." She requests as she moves over towards the bar and smirks as they move through the crowd, she brings her hands up to pull her hood down, starting to scan for the VIP area. There always is one in the clubs she goes to. That's her home, her safe space. That's how she lives.

Scott Summers has posed:
"Interesting decoration choices." Scott points out, nudging Hank with a nod towards the bar, <<"See if you can't find one of the dealers. Emma, socialize and see if you can't get an audience with the owner.">>

Speaking quietly into his subvocal mic fixed beneath the kevlar high neck beneath his wool sweater. The party raging around him makes him ill at easy for some reason... that many people, all of them packed together in a single tight area? This is not exactly Scott Summers idea of fun.

So he finds somewhere out of the way to observe. Hard lines of his face shadowed by the curls of his hair and the thick metal visor worn over the top portion of his face. Turning sharply to look at Emma, forehead pulling tight enough to create a line down the center of her brow. "A drink." His solid red gaze fixes on the bartender, "Whatever she wants." Holding up a hundred, then handing it out to him. "Keep the change."

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
"Hm. Not much of a party." Cloak muses as he looks down through the skylights. "They may have a basement." He says by way of possible suggestion. People did walk in. Though, he knows a thing about people stepping in somewhere and disappearing, and there remains a pulled and sour look on his face like a cat entering a room of rocking chairs.

"Still. No music. This doesn't seem right, Tan."

He'll follow after Tandy anyway, as loyal and close as her shadow, as they move to make their entrance inside the building to check things out. He remains ready, prepared to sweep up his partner into the cloak and out of this place. The fabric seems to reflect his agitated mood, the ends curling and rustling with restlessness.

Henry McCoy has posed:
The Beast's eyes narrow at the bright lights - his senses so sensitive nowadays. The thumping music doesn't help, either! Still, he offers a barely perceptable nod to Scott before making his way to the bar. He does move in time with the music, seemingly enjoying the party as he moves. Act casual, right? Sharp eyes scan for anyone who might fit the bill of a supplier, or a user. Need to follow the trail to find Opal, is his idea.

Once at the bar, he rests his back against it, trying his best to blend in while surveilling and trying to make out where the deals are happening.

Talia Wagner has posed:
Talia has breezes in one the fact she is at least somewhat with Emma and also a girl. Not the time to examine why clubs let women in for free and charge men, nor what it sets up as a dynamic.

She looks around the club. "Not really what I expected" she squints a bit at the 70s themed area of the dance club where people are actually doing throw back bell bottoms and disco over on that dance floor. Still there seem to be other themed areas.

Thing about Talia is that she has near perfect vision even in dim or badly lit dance clubs, so there really aren't dark corners for the young woman. "Oh. Really now..?" she murmurs to herself there. She wanders off to snoop as she put it earlier one can assume heading off towards one of the many parts of the club where there is dancing to be had, stepping off onto the dance floor, not the 70s themed area.

She stands off yonder watching a lot of people enjoying Grunge music all around her. Finally she reaches out and touches the arm of a cute boy to get his attention and leans in to whisper something to him once she has his attention.

Kassandra Pagonis has posed:
     In the club downstairs...the party is starting to really kick up a notch. Any sort of music one may want is on tap there, from EDM to country, and the sound system must be top notch, because as one moves from genre to genre, the music fades without any kind of cross-noise. They must have some technological wizard on staff to make that work! And with the hundreds of people in here, the A/C and Heat must be cranked to the perfect level. It's not too hot, not too cold. Just right and comfortable for everyone. Emma makes her way to the VIP area which is bustling with people. Bottle service is on point, with some fairly nice vintages available, and a local small-time rapper holding court with bottles of Cristal in his booth that is more for him and his posse to be seen than to be kept private. The bartender makes his way to Scott and gives him a smile. "Of course, sir." the tall black woman says, her hair impeccably styled. "Whatever the lady requests. One moment." She walks to a window, says something to the man behind, and a glass is slid forth after a moment, the exact drink requested, served perfectly in the correct glass and everything.

     Talia's attempt to touch someone goes rather poorly, her hand moving right through his arm as he lounges against the wall in flannel and denim, the perfect picture of a 90's slacker.

     From the catwalk above....The club has, maybe, forty people tops, each in their own little area, moving to some kind of unheard of music. A woman in white is heading towards an area blocked off with boxes where two other people sit on folding chairs, one local famous person drinking bottles of beer and acting like it's the finest champagne. A man with goggles orders a drink at the bar. Judging from the plastic bottle, this is super cheap booze in a red solo cup that's slid across the bar, the $100 taken and stuffed into the pickle jar and the scruffy-looking man behind the bar flipping Scott off. Each person that's not dressed for club wear seems to be wearing some kind of choker or headband and, as they move through the crowd, it might be noticed that occasionally little sprinkles of something are put into drinks, on cigarette filters, and the like.

Tandy Bowen has posed:
Squinting her eyes, Tandy glances over to Tyrone. "This makes no sense. What are they doing down there?" She continues along the catwalk slowly, balancing herself on nimble feet as her eyes dart about each individual. "You see what they're doing? They're dusting the cups .. it's like they're drugging everyone .. maybe those things they're wearing is preventing them from being affected? I don't get it.. does no one realize .. they're ... not at a party?"

The light dagger surges in her palm and she steadies herself. "Take the bartender out, I'm going for the dusters." She gives a jerk of her hand as a trio of blades form between the knuckles. As the light sears hot between her fingers, she lets them rip through the air, seeking out three of those who wear the headbands and chokers.

The blades move at the speed of light, directed mentally by Tandy. Her eyes narrow tightly as she focuses, grasping the catwalk beneath her with her free hand to keep her steady.

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
"Hmf." The noise Cloak makes is one of supreme disgust, enough that his nose and lips scrunch up to bare his teeth like he'd smelled something foul. "More tricks and lies. Which means this is going to be more than just drugs, I'm sure. Let's move quick."

As Tandy launches her attack, Cloak shifts to move into position above the bar. Like many dark men wearing capes, he aims to just drop right down on the bartender from above like a swooping gargoyle. The edges of the cloak are outspread, ready to enshroud the bartender an--

What the heck?

Partway down through the air, he no longer sees a derelict and almost empty warehouse. It's a full club. Noise. Lights. Witnesses. He's probably falling too fast to teleport back, but there's clear shock on his face as the scenery abruptly changes.

Er, incoming?

Talia Wagner has posed:
Talia pauses when her hand moves right through the guys arm. She slowly looks around the grunge area then steps closer to another person, singling them out carefully and leaning in to ask that person the same question. Distracting them from their 90s alternative rock dancing.

She listens to whatever they say then pivots around and starts towards the edge of the dance floor.

She uses the comms equipment Scott made sure they all have. <'Team, like nine out of ten of the people in here are mental projections, fakes. Someone is seriously fucking with us and everyone who comes in here. I don't even think the music is real. Can you shield us Emma?'>

She is looking towards the VIP area where Emma and is but is trying to keep an eye on the people around her.

Honestly her first instinct that they were shunted into some sort of ultimate party time trap where said ultimate party green door just appeared throughout the timeline was wrong. That is cool. This is much worse.

She also has no idea that Cloak and Dagger are in motion to seriously mess up the perpetrators either.

Scott Summers has posed:
Good central heating in New York?

Up to that point, they had him fooled.

Scott aint no dummy...

There's no such thing as good central heating and air in New York. Silly drug lords.

His hand closes around the red solo cup with a curt nod and a glance at Emma over at the VIP rope, furrowing his brow behind the gunmetal visor he's wearing. A tickling sensation on the back of his neck that something about all of this is very very wrong... only he can't figure out what.

Years of training with Professor Xavier and Jean Grey. Scott Summers has one of the strongest will powers' anyone without telepathy has any business having. But besides that, he's got intuition and a keen situational awareness. His eyes look up at the lights fixed around the club, watching how that light spills down across the dance floor too perfectly. The perfect drink he's holding in the perfect glass..

The way the bouncers were so cautious about letting them see what was happening inside until they were actually INSIDE..

"No." The word is spoken quietly, to himself, but with the strength of determination. "... No ..." His visor fixes back on the bartender.

And Talia confirms it.

His hand snaps out quickly, absurdly quickly, and grabs for the bartenders collar. Attempting to yank him over, if not through, the makeshift bar, possibly right away from Cloak (sorry bro). The ruby quartz already starting to glow a dangerous amber red in the most menacing display of ready to light this place up like a Christmas tree Fashion. "Emma! Get a shield up /now/!"

Emma Frost has posed:
    Emma, spreads her arms wide as she enters the VIP area and is home, wishing only for Janet to be at her side, but the reminder from Scott, doesn't go amiss and she remembers she's here for a job. "I don't tell you how to play your strategy games or scenarios, let me do my part of the job."

    Emma saunters past the rapper, not even bothering to give the wannabe, and clingers the time of day, no, she's got bigger fish to fry. "Get me some C, and I'm dying to try some O." The woman says to the bartender as she passes, with a hand starting to move to brush against the Bartender's shoulder, but she lowers her hand instead back into the coat pocket as she seeks out the owner. Easy. They're usually looking away from the VIP and out to the masses, like a king observing their land.

    "I know. Play alon- F**k." Emma says before sighing and taking a deep breath and pushing her mind out to link with those present, and quickly submergining them within the icy cold depths of her mental safety. Like a plung through an ice fishing hole, Emma provides a refreshing feeling to those around with little more than a thought from her, all this from Scott acting up and pushing the subject before she has a chance to find the 'owner'.

Henry McCoy has posed:
The Beast is working overtime, trying to scent the drugs - and he's nearly overwhelmed with the results. <<Drugs are /all/ over.>> He growls into the comms. Then there's intel from Talia. Mental projections? That has Henry even more on edge, focusing his very will on the shields from telepathy that he'd built up during his torture from Essex. The growl isn't that subtle at all, anymore. The Beast is roaring within - trying to break free and wreck havoc on the enemy.

As Scott moves into action - snatching the bartender forward, Henry catches a glance up. Cloak. This seems like their sort of fight. <<Allies on scene. Cloak and Dagger.>> He growls into the communicator now. He turns to the crowd - making sure to cover Scott's back. Razor sharp claws extend - it would seem the jig is up!

Kassandra Pagonis has posed:
     The realization that Cloak and Dagger get is that yes, the people without the chokers down there do not realize that they're at a party. Her light knives zip through the air and neatly impact three of the choker/headband wearing folks - the bartender and two 'wanderers.' They drop like someone smacked them with a bible the size of the statue of liberty, stunned, collapsing to the ground, immobile, the plastic cups clattering as they scatter on the ground behind the bar. Cloak suddenly appears, too, dropping from about twelve feet above, through a ceiling that most defintely wasn't there, landing amongst revelers who keep dancing, even though there's a giant anthromorphic cloak standing there!

     On the floor, the woman reaches into the window for a drink and comes back with something that's passed to the next customer, and the next. Like a robot that's going through the motions, even though the stuff given out isn't coming anymore. Scott's grab for the bartender doesn't exactly miss but, thanks to Dagger's dagger, he's not really vertical at that point, the light knives taking care of that issue so his hand swipes /through/ the image of the female bartender, who goes to get another beer for another customer like nothing untoward was happening.

     As Emma's mental abilities start to take hold on the group, the party starts to stutter. To fracture in places, some areas moving faster, some slower, some vanishing all together, revealing the grime of a mostly abandoned warehouse behind before the party flashes back, whoever or whatever's projecting it apparently trying to re-establish the image they were being used to portray. There are about ten people here with headbands inside the image that seem to be playing a role and people without - the partygoers that paid quite a nice chunk of change to go to the party of the year.

     "What's going on?" someone yells from outside the bubble. "What's that black thing in the middle? What happened to Carl?" Carl's the bartender. "Dammit, shut up, Carl! He's babbling something about Jesus?" Another voice. "Someone get in there and give her another shot. Get this going again. We've got most of them already and need to finish out the night to keep the illusion."

Tandy Bowen has posed:
"The drinks are spiked! Everything is drugged! Don't touch or drink anything!" That's Tandy screaming from above from the catwalk as she continues to track the rest of the staff members through the sparse crowd. Another two blades is formed and they are thrown as well, threading the needle so to speak. "It's not real! It's an illusion!"

As she nimbly runs along the catwalk, she leaps from one beam to the other with grace, landing on tip toes and continuing to move. "Cloak! We need that guy! Don't let him get away!"

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
His quick jerk carried Cloak off-target, and instead of landing above the bar he hits the floor instead. There's the unnerving realization that there's no sound when he hits ground. There should be the sounds of impact, but outside of the slap of fabric there's nothing. Even with the lights, there's no impression of a man under all of that fabric outside of the shrouded face with the rictus snarl of unease and agitation as the world starts to break down around him.

He hisses something scathingly rude under his breath as he rises up to height and starts stalking towards the bar. Scott reaching for the downed 'tender brings a low, growling claim of, "That one is mine." Henry may have called them allies, but that doesn't mean Cloak has to be nice about it.

Scott Summers has posed:
This is very odd, but it is as Scott thought: All very wrong.

His hands pass right through the bartender while the other drops to the floor beside the projection. Brow furrowed, eyes cutting around at the far less populated crowd to what he'd seen only a second prior. The ghostly vistages of the illusions still flicker around them like shattered realities only makes the absurity of the whole thing stand out in greater relief.

"Emma, find what's causing this." YES he'd heard the woman throwing light from the rafters say it was the drinks, but he's wearing gloves, and hadn't drank anything... And there's the matter of Hank to contend with, who is looking particularly displeased. Which could become a volcanic situation if tempers don't cool.

"Hank, take a breath. I need you thinkin-..." Did that pile of rugs just growl at him? Scott glances over his shoulder with a raised brow, "Okay." With a shrug, and a look back to Hank. "I need you thinking... Talia." Where was she even, looking around, Scott's tapping small buttons on the side of his visor, just in case, readying it for a fight. "Go with Emma."

Emma Frost has posed:
    Emma takes a deep breath, knowing it's in the air around them, that this whole thing is a search for that buzz, that high. She's so close she should taste it, and then, the waters of her mind are covered with a new sheet of snow. This will not do. Not at all.

    Emma groans inwardly and then the mental connection to and from her and to everything within the room ceases. She's removed from the mental scape, leaving those she's with and trying to protect vulnerable, but not for long, as the empty space of Emma moves through the warehouse.

    The diamond statue looks up into the rafters, "Two people in the box!" She says, spying the light show above as she moves from the 'VIP Lounge' no longer of this mortal realm, the diamond hands of Frost reach out to pick up the box itself and hold it above her head.

Henry McCoy has posed:
The see-saw of mental tampering has the Beast roaring in anger. His slitted eyes snap to Scott, breathing quickened. "I am thinking I am tired of these tricks." He's still there, but needs to act, needs to do. There is no more patience for the moment. It's time to move! A fist slams down on the bar, perhaps with too much force.

Bounding away from the bar, he heads towards where the shipping container is. People are bowled through, real or not, in his haste. Once there, muscles flex and claws dig into the shipping unit - trying to tear something open.

Talia Wagner has posed:
Talia actually relaxes a little as Emma's shielding reinforces her own, which are not nonexistant but are nothing like the psychic powers Emma can provide. "Woof. Good." she mutters to herself as she looks around now.

It is interesting watching the collapse of the mental projections and the fighting going on to reassert them now. Also the odd dark cloak falling into the room. She isn't sure where they are coming from, the projections that is, but she is sure Scott has the right idea that Emma will be able to sort that out.

Over the comms <Got it, moving to back up Emma'>

Which she starts to do moving towards Emma... right in time for the whole shielding to snap back off. She makes a frustrated noise and leans into her not so good shielding now as she squints through the room trying to be useful.

With Emma's cue though it sort of works and she can kind of see it. She shifts and calculates a move then dashes along into motion towards the shipping container. She can kind of make it out now with her own shielding. It is like someone stepping in front of an overhead projector with image overlays going on in her vision.

Kassandra Pagonis has posed:
     If you imagine the concentration a mental projection might take, the space that the projector is sitting in getting shaken and ripped open doesn't do much for the quality or stability of it. Add in Beast ripping at the sides, claws shredding through the corrugated steel exterior, and you get a fairly fast collapse of the image. The scene stops and, almost like melting snow, the images fade away. The bright lights vanish, the warm environment immediately chills to just a little above freezing except for a spot or two near fuel-oil powered heaters, and the vast majority of the people vanish, as if they were never there because, in fact, they weren't. The headband-clad people bolt, their trays of glassine packages scattering as they run for the exits, or for guns, or for anything else, the ones that Dagger spiked writhing on the floor in religious ecstacy, the rest of the people milling around in some kind of stupor. Probably from the drugs they've been dosed with.

     The door of the shipping container is kicked open from the inside and a man dressed in a doctor's coat hustles out, various cables and a VR headset still strapped to his head, running for a van that's got the back doors open and running. He has no weapons that can be seen and, whatever was inside the container that was projecting is still there just....dormant for the moment.

Tandy Bowen has posed:
With the illusion down, Dagger watches the men start to run. "No. There is no escape for you. You will see the light!"

There is a quick one-two whipping motion of her hands as she sends out a cascade of light blades afterwards to give chase. "And you will face it's judgement." There is ice in her voice as she narrows her eyes before leaping down from the catwalk, landing on a three point stance before rising upwards slowly. "The bodyguards at the door need to be taken care of as well. I will work on purifying the sick."

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
"I knew this was all shit." Cloak proclaims with sour, sullen victory as he looks briefly away from his target towards the crystalline Statue of Taking Liberties with her box held aloft as a blue gorilla shreds it to pieces. He turns his unimpressed eyes across the warehouse as fantasy returns to lackluster reality and then towards Scott before looking back towards the bartender. "I'll be back for him."

And then Cloak is gone in a puff of evaporating shadow and an icy rush of air. He heard Tandy, even if he didn't say anything. It's probably safe to assume he's off to 'take care' of the bouncers, and he made no mention of needing them for any interrogating purposes. Besides, action always works up an appetite.

Scott Summers has posed:
Scott watches the steel container rock under Emma's just picking that bitch up and the doors being torn open by Beast's rending claws. His arms sit across his chest, feet apart, and visor watching as the interior is revealed with the doctor making a run for it towards van with the open back door.

His head turns just so, his right hand unfolds from over his chest to press two fingers against the controls on the side of his visor. The dial turns with an inaudible click, thinning the ruby quartz shielding the world from the concussive force of his Opic blast.

The darkness of the warhouse is light up in a violent, almost furious red. So bright that it drowns even the white glow of Dagger's daggers as it cuts across the warehouse to the van towards which the VR Doctor is attempting to retreat.

Rather than hitting the man himself, Scott smashes the side of that van in and pushes it sideways with a squeel of twisting metal and rubber tires squeaking across concrete.

There's only so many places the doctor can run... but to that van isn't one of them anymore. The dial is turned backwards to thicken the quartz and his hand drops to the collar of his coat to jerk it forward as he starts walking... purposefully... towards the doctor.

Impassively serious expression on the exposed portion of his face. "What are we going to find in that container?" His head cranes from side to side until his neck pops in either direction. A menacing air around him as he stalks the man like a predator who doesn't even bother trying to hide in the tall grass.

Talia Wagner has posed:
"Welp. Subtle is not the name of this operation anymore..." Talia muses to herself.

That may or may not have gone out over the comms honestly.

She looks around thoughtfully and then gestures idly at one of the fleeing men, a purple blast of energy materializes around the blond girl's outstretched hand and rips through the grungy warehouse to likely flatten the poor bad guy.

She pivots slowly looking for other targets to down so they can put an end to the bad guy's operation. Ready for more hex blasting.



Over the comms <So the light and dark dou are friendlies Hank?'>

Emma Frost has posed:
    Emma takes a deep breath as she keeps both hands on the underside of the shipping container and she lowers one hand to pat at her open mouth as she yawns, "Hank, are you done in there yet?" The white queen asks, looking up from behind a few crystal strands of hair that have falled before her face, which she carefully fixes with her free hand before putting it back on the bottom of the container.

    Then as if she was doing something mundane like the dishes, "Oh no, that guy, he's getting away. Hurry." She sounds like a robot without emotion as she looks towards a feeling man get blasted by a hex, then another has a van blow sky high, and the White Queen is reduced to a doorstop for a shipping container. "This sucks." She groans to herself.

Henry McCoy has posed:
Hank smash! The container is torn open, the Beast peering inside at the projecting item... or person. <<Yes. They go after drug dealers. Likely why we ran into them here. Cloak and Dagger.>> His response is growled out, the man still trying to focus that animalistic rage elsewhere. Poor shipping container. Another growl at Emma's laissez-fair attitude.

<<If I go after them... they aren't going to be breathing.>> He growls out. The urge to sink his claws into the bad guys and give into the feral side is just so hard to resist. <<Set us down, Emma.>> For now, he's staying in the container, trying to make heads or tails of the situation.

Kassandra Pagonis has posed:
     Scott's blast slams into the side of the van, the rear wheels squealing as the driver hits the gas and is pivoted ineffectualy towards the rear wall of the warehouse, the front fenders crumpling as he slams into the wall, newton's law ensuring the driver slams into the steering column and the windshield, the glass starring from his head impacting, coconut-like, on the glass. Seatbelts, boys and girls. The doctor, pursued by a surprisingly cool stalker, yanks the VR helmet from his head and sprints as fast as his fat, stubby legs can carry him towards the back door of the warehouse, fleeing blindly away from the stylish and handsome man with the popped collar.

     Cloak, when he vanishes, finds and devours the two large men at the front door, taking them in a swirl of inky darkness and scaring the everloving crap out of everyone else waiting in line that, by this point, has dwindled.

     Talia's blast takes out a man that was struggling to level an AR-15 at the awesome man pursuing the doctor, his shot going wide, ricocheting off the beams at the ceiling and shattering a window.

     Emma is the most beautiful door stop every concieved, her diamond body glittering as she poses, elegantly, with the shipping container.

     Beast, entering the container, sees a self-contained room with a plastic-covered area in the back and a bank of computer monitors and controls shattered, tipped over like a child's block set when the container was moved. A shape behind the plastic is immobile, the beeping of an EKG the only sound that can be heard over the cacophony from outside.

     Dagger's daggers take out two more....the bad guys are fleeting, but they're starting to get to defensible positions. Or positons they think are defensible.

Tandy Bowen has posed:
"Oh, wow .. it's the X-Men!" Dagger calls out as she moves swiftly through the warehouse in pursuit of the others on soft feet. With the way she moves, leaping around debris, she has a clear background in athletics and acrobatics. Her light knives continue to zip through the air, cutting through the shadows of the warehouse and looking to impale themselves in multiple targets.

When she spies Cloak reappearing, she calls out to him, "Cloak, some are trying to escape! We can't let a single one slip through our fingers! Do whatever it takes!"

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
"Party's over. Drug bust. Better run." Cloak says to the waiting rabble with a slow and frigid smile as the shroud around him settles back in place as if two whole men didn't just vanish into nothingness within where there really should be a physical body but there isn't. Then there's a sound of a gun which probably just cements what he just said. Or him vanishing again in front of the would-be partiers might encourage them to hustle it. Whichever.

Unfortunately for the bad guy, is any position defensible when there's a teleporter? He appears next to Dagger and lingers only long enough to make sure she's okay, hear her words, and hone in on one of those taking up positions. "Always."

And he's gone again in a rush of shadow and a quiet clap of displaced, frigid air to reappear behind one of the men. He doesn't say a word and doesn't give any warning other than the cold, oppressive sense of his presence before he strikes with a sweep of striped fabric and that horrifying, yawning emptiness underneath. A megalodon's jaws rising up out of the abyssal deep might be a more welcoming and sane sight.

Scott Summers has posed:
Scott doesn't rush, even though he absolutely could out run the fat doctor trying to make an exit through the backdoor. He walks. A deliberate stalking gait, just like an 80s monster who isn't afraid to let his victim think he could possibly get away. Because just a half second before doctor VR hits the door, a brilliantly red blast of optic energy slams into the wall with a hissing sound of energy ricochets off the concrete floor, bounds up against the wall and slices cleanly through a rafter beam. The exact angle of Cyclops spartial awareness severes the supports on one side and leaves the heavy metal load baring beam swinging down infront of the door.

A orange hot section of metal digs into the concrete right infront of the door, preventing escape.

With Scott closing the distance on patient, dangerously deliberate, steps. A silent, malevelant spirit of vengence for what he'd spied inside that container. That woman, hooked up to an IV pole, to a VR machine, straped into a dentists chair.

It has the X-Men field leaders mind thrown back to Essex pits. The horrible experiments... things he'd seen done to friends and innocents... If there was one way to incite in Scott a deep seated desire to terrify this man beyond the capacity for rational thought.

It's rare... almost to the point of never having been seen.. that Scott is anything other than surgical.

And despite his features?

His actions speak to exactly how furious he is.

"Keep running." It's a command. An /order/. "I'm not done with you by damn sight... I'm going to get medieval on you."

Emma Frost has posed:
    Emma grumbles her response to Hank, mimicing his verbal complains with just her mouth flapping, but no words escaping her diamond maw. She rolls those eyes and sets the container down with ease but letting that last inch drop with some force, reminding those around that yes, she isn't just for show. On her way past, Emma snaps out a finger to run through a bit of the opal near by, and with a winning smile, she runs the stuff across her upper gums with a smirk and another breath.

    Stepping around towards the wrenched and bent metal, Emma's pale complexion returns as she looks over to Beast, "They're drug dealers using another person for their schemes. ... Go have your fun." She says in secrecy, with her hand falling upon his shoulder as she enters the container, "I'll take care of this one." She says, stepping up towards the bed.

    Emma's gloved hand reaches up to her temple and then her other hand out towards the other's head to try and feel around inside, a simple probe, nothing deep or invasive, just, making sure what she sees via the body is what is within. Then, a pause, and she looks back over her shoulder through the container walls and frowns.

    "Hank... It's Scott."

Talia Wagner has posed:
Talia seems to be turning slowly taking it all in as she watches the scene and action unfold.

She doesn't seem very worried right now about the people fleeing. Cloak seems to have that well in hand. Also Dagger is flinging light daggers really well over there.

One of the guys jockeying behind cover, well that is not really good. She shifts her stance and brings both of her hands together and then unleashes a hex blast. That little softball one handed hexblast she rocked earlier was obviously on a low setting. This thing is liable to blast aware the defensive position and flatten the guy with the gun behind it.

Scott isn't forgotten though, she turns her head to watch his progress as he gets so angry at the doctor and stalks him like a b-movie monster. The young woman frowns, eyes a bit troubled, this is a bit like a Scott she knows a lot better from her home timeline. Worrying.

Henry McCoy has posed:
A snarl to Emma's suggestion that he go after the drug dealers. Killing is bad, Emma! <<Woman here. Hooked up to EKG.>> He pauses for just a moment, peering up at Emma. "Keep her safe. She's part of the situation." Obvious Hank is obvious! Then he's bounding towards where he saw Scott heading.

The solid mass of Beast leaps towards Scott and the demolished van. A frown at the sight before him, Scott stalking the prey. "Scott. I need you to think." He reminds, even though it would be so easy to let him pulp the scientist...

Kassandra Pagonis has posed:
     The people outside, when Cloak appears and says something witty, then disappears as fast as they came, do just that, running for cars, taxis, and waiting Ubers to get away. The surge hits 3.6x for those trying to get away, and at that point of the evening, they think it's definitely worth it!

     Inside, Dagger's Daggers cleave down two more, seeking any of the hiding people like smart missiles, knocking them out from behind their cover. A few do manage to get a few shots off in the general direction of the heroes, but the ones that do are quickly devoured by Cloak, a clatter of gunfire fading into oblivion as the shooters vanish into nothingness.

     Dr. Gordon 'Gordo' Bleeker almost makes it to the door by the time Scott's beam slices through the beam, the glowing metal collapsing in front of him, forcing him to raise his arms to shield himself from the falling shrapnel, nearly getting knocked off his feet from a brick falling juuuust a bit too close. Scott's threatening demeanor and words promise no quarter. "Look, I just...I was just doing my job! I was keeping her alive." The doctor splutters, turning to look for any other source of escape. "they were going to drain her of everything. I convinced them to keep her going so she wouldn't get hurt. Please...you've got to understand I was just trying to help!" He pleads but the threat to keep running sends him skittering like a roach when the lights turn on. "I don't want to die!"

     Inside the container, behind the plastic, isn't really a bed. More like a dentist's chair, bolted to the floor of the container, at a slight angle now that the entire room's been put down. On it is a woman with a VR helmet strapped to her head, her arms, legs, and waist restrained to the chair itself so she can't wiggle free. An IV was apparently inserted in her left arm to keep her sedated, the pole hanging across her, and the only sound that can be heard inside is muffled breathing and the rhythmic beeping of an EKG of someone that's very much out cold. Both hands have different odd items taped to the palms. A bit of flannel, a length of bead from a rave, some polyester from a dress, and the like. The simple probe Emma gives reveals someone that's a pawn in this...someone with substantial psychic power for images, but untrained and very, very scared, even unconcious as she is.

     Talia's blast flattens one of the few that Cloak hasn't gotten to yet, slamming through his cover and punching him /through/ the brick wall at the back. He's going to need a hospital....

Tandy Bowen has posed:
As gunshots rattle across the warehouse, Dagger leaps and spins along the floor to dodge the ricohets that break through the concrete and splinter into the bricks. Sliding along her knees at one point, she gives one final whip of her hand, driving another dagger into the back of a man that gets knocked into Cloak's hungry folds, vanquishing him to the dark.

When she spies Beast leaping out of the container and off after Scott, her eyes widen. "Henry!" She calls out, surprised to see him. She knew he was an Avenger, but an X-Man? She should have known. As her eyes track towards the container he just came out of, she can almost feel the rage rippling off of him.

Rising up to her feet, she makes her way towards it, giving a glance towards Talia and Emma before she looks inside. At the sight of the woman, she finds her breath catching in her throat, surprise replaced by rage. "What are they doing to her? They have her hooked up like .. like some type of ..." Light bleeds from between her knuckles before she looks back towards Emma. "I can help, purify her of whatever they put into her veins. My light not only stuns, but it can heal. What do we have to do?" The gunman at her feet, quivering from her blast?

"And you." A new dagger forms across her palm, her eyes widening. "You are scum. You have let your greed go too far. I'll take from you which you do not deserve." With that, she slams the blade into the back of his head, light exploding out from his eyes as the man gives a loud scream. "Your hopes. Your dreams. Your light. /Mine/." She growls out between her teeth.

Though she burns bright, she is all ice.

Scott Summers has posed:
Scott has his hands on the doctor when he tries to rush past towards another exit.

Swatting at feeble attempts to try and keep him from grabbing hold of the mans neck just above his left shoulder to keep him firmly in place, "Stop." Too calm, that one word. Sickeningly calm as he slaps away a hand grabbing at his wrist and pushes the doctor down with surprisingly strong arms and kneels down over top him.

His hand slides over from the mans neck to cover his throat, the other working through the flail of fists slapping harmlessly against Cyclops shoulders. The thick bomberjacket and kevlar mission armor worn beneath the wool sweater. It works down and closes around the mans throat, squeezing in two powerful fists. "Keep her alive." So quiet. So much unspoken malice.

One leg extends out to get better leverage, the other leg bent resting a knee against the concrete. "You should have freed her. You didn't help. You're not part of the solution..." Thick shoulders roll forward, more force down upon his arms until the choking sound of Gordo's air being cut off leaves just enough oxygen to gurgle and hack for air. "And I'm not moved by your pleas and promises that you were doing your job.."

Hank arrives just in time. I need you to think.

Scott's head turns just so, looking over his shoulder. A small wisp of hair hanging across the left side of the ruby quartz, but his eyes are on the Beast. And his grip is loosening from around the doctors throat. He blinks through anger, through FURY, and looks down at the doctor. Releasing his hands with a jerk backwards, allowing the man to suck in hard gasps of air.

Scott's weight shifts, heel rolling on his extended leg to lever himself up onto his feet with one on either side of Gordon staring down at him. Bangs dangling and fists balled at his side. "She better be alive." Two fingers extend out from his fist, pointing at the doctor grabbing at his own throat still trying to catch his breath,

"Or I swear to god you wont be."

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Rage. Cloak gets it. He looks towards Scott and knows that feeling right to the core where bones used to be. It's one of the few emotions he may even still be able to feel over the hunger. For a split second, the leering visage of Cloak may remind one of the Emperor gloating at Skywalker striking in anger. Only instead of yellow eyes, those of Cloak are a glassy, alien black.

As he hears Tandy, the cloaked man squares his shoulders and bristles with power. He appears in a split second next to the luminous young woman, and as he appears he seems to drag whatever is Between through with him. The air around Cloak darkens like a congealing oil pulled between the oxygen molecules. Around him is cold, so cold; it's the kind of temperatures that leech through clothes and skin, through muscle and bone and right down to the soul. Lethargy and fear ooze in his wake and that dark cold, sucking the very sense of light and life out of his surroundings. It's the sense of someone walking on your grave while simultaneously waking up in the grips of sleep paralysis all while going through clinical depression and revisiting every horrible moment of your life. It's violating. It's unnatural.

Cloak turns to look towards the Doctor who's trying to flee - unsuccessfully - from Scott. When the dark man snarls, it is feral and shakes with a strange reverb. It's like something else was growling through him, and it sounds /starved/. "*Him.*" The leader of the X-Men may now be standing in a bad spot.

Emma Frost has posed:
    Emma looks over her shoulder as Tandy lands behind her with a guard in hand, and a knife into the back of his head. "Um... Not if you're going to be doing that to her." Emma says with a frown before looking back to the woman on the chair and frowns. "I ... she's stable currently, but I fear if we wake her now, she'll be in the worst kind of mood." Emma warns, looking back to Tandy.

    "What can you do to help her?" Emma asks, blinking rapidly a few times as her vision starts to get a bit blury. "And I think it's time we make a decision fast." Emma says, moving backwards to rest her back against the inside of the container as her sense of balance takes a soft hit from the effects.

Talia Wagner has posed:
Talia squints at the flashes of light in the container. walking over to lean to look inside after the light flash is gone. "Everything okay in there?" still squinty.

Pause.

"Do we have any idea what they were doing with this girl?" peering past at the unconcious girl. "Maybe she is the source of the mental projections?"

TJ glances towards Scott with concern though, he seems to not be snapping necks or blasting the Doctor. So that is good right. Of course then the Cloak... growls like some hungry animal and well that is disturbing. "Uh. You okay?" she asks helpfully.

Henry McCoy has posed:
It is how they look out for one another - the X-Men. There's always going to be a need for guidance, from leader to novice, friend to friend. Henry pats Scott on the shoulder. "He's not going anywhere, Scott." Henry offers over, taking in deep breaths to steady himself. "Check in with Emma, she can fill you in on the girl. EKG indicates brain activity." Even through his anger, he's still a brilliant scientist.

Yellow eyes turn to the downed doctor.

"No more running. You'll explain everything, now." The big man reaches down, grabbihg the man and all but scruffing him to carry him back indoors. His eyes go to Cloak, nodding. "Let him talk first, please?" He says, regaining a bit more of the semblance of his polite self.

Kassandra Pagonis has posed:
     Dr. Gordon 'Gordo' Bleeker really has nowhere else to run. Fists battering against Scott were basically ineffective at doing anything other than annoying him, and as he was choked within an inch of his life, he felt his eyes starting to bulge, his tongue swelling, and all sorts of other very unpleasant things. He gasps, whimpering, blubbering like a baby when Scott lets go, taking in deep lungfulls of the freezing air. "I'll talk, I'll talk." He looks at the gathered people around him, pushing his glasses up a little as he sits up hesitantly, rubbing at his throat. "I work in hell's kitchen. These guys...they came to me and said they had a problem. They had this girl and they were going to...I don't know...do something to calm her down if I didn't calm her down first. So I weighed her and dosed her to knock her out. Just enough for her to use her ability and not freak everyone out. They were going to shoot her in the head if I didn't, man." he pleads. "They were going to lobotomize her so they could keep using her for their drug until she wore out. At least...at least with me she was getting fed and hydrated." He doesn't sound remorseful about it. Just keeping someone alive in a drug-induced coma. Run of the mill stuff. "They didn't even have a buyer lined up so they were just going to trash her."

Tandy Bowen has posed:
"I can save her life." Tandy says to Emma as she rises upwards, staring down at the body at her feet that continues to twitch. By now, she is burning bright like a star as the shadows melt around her feet. "My living light heals as much as it delivers pain. I can take the pain from her, restore her light and give her life once more."

When Scott and Hank drag the Doctor back into the room, she looks over towards them and the way Cloak reactions. "Him. It's /him/." There is recognition in her voice, filled with pain and anger. "Gordo. The fat doctor. He has been supplying the Blood Trinity the Opal drugs. They have been delivering it to children! TO CHILDREN!" Her voice screams out through the warehouse as her light blazes outwards, brighter now. "He is the reason why this city screams! He makes this city sick! He kills children by getting them hooked on his poison! I'll choke the last breath from your throat! But not until Cloak feeds on your light!"

Within her hands, a sword begins to form. "You will die screaming much like how your victims have!" Her throat rasps out, tears breaking the corners of her eyes as she trembles in place. "You are no victim Gordon Bleeker! You are the cancer! You are the sickness! I AM THE CURE!"

Scott Summers has posed:
Just hearing Gordon was getting under Scott's skin again.

His visor is up, pointed eyes staring at Cloak making bold claims on what is, by every right of the jungle, Scott's prey. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because Gordo is singing like a canary. It just isn't the song Scott wants to hear. And it's overshadowed by the very real threat now represented by Cloack and Dagger.

Because despite his earlier inclinations to choke the life out of Gordon, he cannot, and will not, let that happen. He doesn't have to let Gordon know that though. A sneaker comes up, pushing Gordon back to the ground with weight leaning in against his sternum, kneeling over him with a bending knee, and just enough pressure to make breathing uncomfortable (but still possible.) His arms rest on his knees, his hands dangle between them, and while he's speaking to Gordon, he's watching the firey duo ready to slaughter him.

"I've known men like you most of my life, Doctor... stop it." Slapping a hand away with a flick of his wrist, another feeble attempt to remove Scott. ".. Men who would use others for dark and sinister gains... and I've suffered those people to live because I believe in something better. Something..." His right hand turns upwards, fingers flicking thoughtfully, "Good..."

There's a clicking sound, air sucked between his tongue pressed against his back teeth, "but here you are, another blight, and another man using a mutant like a battery to fuel your greed." One hand comes up, draws across his lips with his thumb brushing just beneath his chin.

Scott stands, grabs hold of the doctors swinging wrist, and jerks him with strength that probably isn't as surprising anymore. Sliding the doctor across the floor towards Cloak and Dagger. "I don't think I can suffer /one/ /more/." He blows out a breath through curled lips. A relieving sigh that actually relaxes tensed muscles. "Reap what you sow, doctor."

Scott turns, hand on Hank's shoulder, then he's headed towards the container to check on Emma and the girl inside.

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Is he okay, asks Talia? Given the reactions of Cloak and Dagger, neither are in a state that normal people would probably consider 'okay'. No, they ain't good, bro.

Even as Dagger burns brighter, the light doesn't repel the darkness emanating from Cloak. It seems to fuel it, leaving the warehouse in an increasingly growing dichotomy of dark and light.

"No, he wouln't die." Hisses Cloak. "Not for a long, long time. After he's relived what he did to every person over and over and over again in his own personal Hell. He's a victim, but only of his own greed and fear."

He walks past Dagger and past the container, the girl within forgotten as he advances on the prone doctor and the X-Men questioning him. The darkness follows in his wake, growing ever thicker until it seems to crawl and pool with a physical weight. "We've been hunting you, *Doctor*. Up the chain, one by one. So we're going to learn where the next rung is, and the next, and when we have what we need from you we'll be sure that you know what every addict feels. What *we* felt. The pain. The fear. The helplessness. You'll only wish that you were dead."

And then Scott picks up the man and slides him across the floor like a fat, greasy chunk of meat thrown into the den of starving lions.

Cloak just smiles.

Talia Wagner has posed:
Well Talia has her answer.

Pretty much only Emma, Hank, and her are what one would describe as, Okay.

Or well maybe in Talia's case, and probably Emma's, jaded and cynical a bit.

I mean once you've seen dozens of doomsday and apocalypse scenarios and had to do questionably good things to save whole timelines ... one does tend to get a bit less reactive to these situations.

Honetly TJ probably needs some serious Trauma Therapy that she just isn't going to be getting.

"Oof." she notes though despite everything as Dagger and then Cloak move to deal with the Doctor.

"So... maybe it is just me but shouldn't we be healing the girl and maybe let Cloak handle that... since you know.. she is the victim and needs the help you can give her?" yeah that was said pointedly to Dagger.

Kassandra Pagonis has posed:
     *beep beep beep* Still unconcious, the girl is. Still strapped down.

Henry McCoy has posed:
Some fights are not theirs to fight. Some battles have greater stakes. Henry has an inkling of what it is to be experimented upon, tortured. To be changed against one's will. There's look of disgust at the man, the scientist, who was 'just following orders'. "You cannot divorce science from morality, Doctor. It makes you into a monster." It's all he can say, nodding to Scott. The two have been at the not-so-tender mercies of Mr. Sinister.

Henry's eyes go to Dagger's, watching her and noting the pain there. Then onto Cloak, nodding to the other man. "Take care to not become the monsters, both of you. Keep a hold of your humanity." That said, he does move away as well - leaving Gordon to his fate.

He moves over to the strapped down girl, peering at Emma at her less than stable standing posture. "Emma, are you all right?" He asks, snapping through the restraints as he checks over the patient.

Emma Frost has posed:
    The girl is saved, the doctor, the cause of all this will suffer a thousand sorrows, and the X-men are breaking at the seams. Scott is transported to some anger realm, and Beast is fighting to stay with him, Talia is from some random future, and Emma Frost is bracing herself against the interior of the shipping container. "Hey, um, someone help her?" She says before she sits down on the cold fake wooden floor and frowns as she takes a deep breath. "I'm... whoa." She whispers with a hand up to her head, and she looks up towards Beast to answer his question, "Yeah, just... ... yeah."

Kassandra Pagonis has posed:
     The girl is stable, and Dagger's light burns the heroin and ketamine they were using to keep her docile out of her system, not that she was awake enough to really understand anything that was going on. Even her waking up over the next day could be considered a difficult proposition due to how exhausted she looks. Her heart rate is steady and strong, though, so that's something.

     The poor doctor is flung towards Cloak, leaving a furrow in the dirt of the floor of the warehouse as he bounces across the floor to rest just in front of the darkness of Cloak and the light of Dagger. "No, please. I just...no....!" And he's left to Cloak and Dagger's tender mercies.

Tandy Bowen has posed:
Step by step, Cloak and Dagger move in unison, as if each movement was bound between one heartbeat. With Scott's offering of the lamb to slaughter, the angel of light looks all the eager to strike him down, to punish him, to deliver him to the dark. But first, she will strip away his hopes, his dreams and leave him a shell. They've done this before. To the worst of the worst.

But this one? He reminds them of 'him'. The one that held them down on the island, back when they were just scared kids on the street. The one who injected them with the synthetic heroin and turned them into these .. things. These monsters. The one who turned Tandy and Tyrone into Cloak and Dagger. Gordon Bleeker reminds them of everything, /everything/ that was taken away from them.

As the hot tears sting her cheeks once they leak down the corners of her eyes, she can hear Henry's voice somewhere in the dark, tugging at her soul. The same words that Spider-Man gave her. The same words that Ghost Spider has gave her. "T.. Tyrone.." She trembles out, reaching out to grab him by the hand to feed him her light. She lets out a loud sob as she pulls him into her, trying to yank the monster out of him for the moment.

As her light flashes brighter, she fills the container with her powers, purifying the girl strapped to the chair, looking to purge her of the drugs, the chemicals, and the sick. She'll fill what was taken from her. Life. Light. As her knees wobble, she rasps out. "I just want to go home."

Scott Summers has posed:
Scott looks calm.

He never LOOKED angry.

Only his actions ever suggested anything, but his usual stoic surgical nature for which he's known... but the fact that he's calm now? That's probably unsettling. More so than seeing him offer someone up for the slaughter. More than monsterously stalking his prey through the warehouse.

There's a fine line. A thin one... a line in the sand drawn ages ago when he was straped to a table and experimented on by the sadistic intentions of a man who earned every letter of his name: Sinsiter.

Some of his humanity is a mask.

Some of his calm is a weapon.

Looking to Talia, to Emma, and finally to the girl coming out of her drug induced coma after whatever Dagger had done to burn the sedatives from her body. "We have to get her to medical." Not exactly forthcoming as to where medical is, the x-men know well enough without full explanation.

Kneeling down to scoop her up, an arm beneath her knees and one around her shoulders, "It's okay." He says in a surprisingly soothing voice. "You're okay." He promises her. "They wont hurt you anymore..." Thinking to those two embodiments of vengence stalking towards the Doctor, he recants his statement. "He /cant/ hurt you anymore."

Tyrone Johnson has posed:
Of the two of them, Tandy is the lucky one. Even as cold and furious as Life can be when it needs, she still remains herself. The jury is still out on how much of Tyrone ever came back. Not unlike those he takes, in a way, expect in his place there is the sense of something Else. Something that stares back at the pleading Tandy with a predator's single-minded madness until her light briefly blinds it all out in the white of a star.

In the sear of the afterburn, there's a moment or maybe less where Cloak is just... a man. Barely over a teenager, street-worn and scared and exhausted to the depths of his soul, huddled under a tattered scrap of fabric like the only bit of warmth outside of the young woman he stares at.

Then it's gone. He's Cloak. Shadow resumes as light fades, but the alien stare of him is reverted back to a bitter but more human facade. He doesn't answer immediately, and then slowly rasps out, "Fine. ...but we still have a job." His heart doesn't seem in it, though, even as he steps over to grab the doctor by the front of his shirt and hauls him to his feet with a hand made of shadow. His other reaches out for Tandy.

"And you." He calls out while he looks over his shoulder towards the X-Men. "...thank you."

Talia Wagner has posed:
Talia looks back at Scott, and gives a bit of a shrug at this look, before he is looking on to Emma and the girl She watches him go into X-man hero mode though scooping her up to take her to medical.

She does glance over at Tandy though when she says she just wants to go home. "That is such a deep mood." which for the first time really tonight Talia sounds sad and emphathetic.

"Honestly we should all head out before the cops show up... and we should get that girl medical care."

She will step over and reach down to help Emma up, even if she mostly has to support or carry her out of here.

Henry McCoy has posed:
Looking over his shoulder at Cloak and Dagger, Henry nods. "Keep her safe, stay warm." He calls out to the duo. "We'll make sure she's taken care of, I promise." The Beast motions to Kassandra, now in Scott's arms. Another glance to Emma, a slight frown of concern. Of course with Dagger's light of purification... she's likely fine. Not that he knows for certain!

"Let's go - let the authorities know about this place and let's go." He moves to help Talia with Emma. It was time to disappear, leave the cops to do the clean up and sort out the crime.