7372/The Raptor's Claws

The Raptor's Claws
Date of Scene:	14 August 2021
Location:	Upstate New York
Synopsis:	Dying on the field after helping rout Shi'ar forces from the Grey family home, Michael Erickson/Cal'hatar finds a fallen Raptor which he brought low still has power...and the machine gets a new host to save both their lives.
Cast of Characters:	Michael Erickson, Jessica Drew

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Michael Erickson has posed:
    The Phoenix has risen.

    It is only a moment when the great bird of white light shines over the embattled Grey household in the little town of Annandale-on-Hudson; moments ago, a whole Shi'ar combat unit appeared to try and slay the young host of the ancient cosmic being and, failing that, her entire genetic lineage. Well they failed to kill her in Westchester; here, they tried to kill her family. They failed there, too. But though the Shi'ar have withdrawn, that doesn't mean they'd gotten away without laying any wounds.

    On the scorched grass of the Grey front lawn, Cal'hatar is dying.

    Amongst the giants of the battlefield today, he is practically a civilian - even with his incredible alien stamina and his ability to lift a ton, the forces at play here today were easily that which could dwarf his wherewithal. His armor was all but destroyed when he threw off the blast from the lance of the Black Cloak in the underlevels of the Xavier mansion; detonating the heavy bulk of his electron rifle in order to throw off the killing blows of three fearsome Raptor androids, he suffered further concussive buffeting, caught lightning pulses throughout his body. Now, his heart is failing, his nerves misfiring. He is going to die. This he knows.

    But he manages to lift himself up on one arm. Lying in the grass, flat on his back, he starts to pull himself onto his stomach, bleeding from the slash of Raptor claws through the thin metallic skin of his ruined armor; nearby, the blasted form of one of the three Raptors lies smoking on the ground, having been felled by the electron blast when it took the brunt. Its fellows departed, feeling something having happened. Something that they did not plan for. But Michael feels the same possibility - and, with nothing else ahead of him but death, he makes toward the impossible.

Jessica Drew has posed:
At first Jessica thought the white light enveloping the grounds was another step toward dying. Instead of the blind blackness, she would walk into a blindness of light. She is already deaf from the explosion that cracked nearly directly overhead. As sensation creeps back along with faint shadows in the light, the agent turns her head and wishes that she hadn't tried. Someone croaks and she realizes it is her voice, "Michael. Cal'hatar?"

The piece of wreckage some yards away resolves into something resembling armor. Armor. Cal'hatar. He must be dead. It is only a miracle that she isn't.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    But he isn't.

    "I'm here," he calls, his voice tight with pain; he has dragged himself to the armor, pushing it over onto its side with a grunt - his strength, or at least some ghost of it, yet remains. "Agent, I'm...going to do something stupid, but it's either this or the afterlife and...I'm not ready for that yet. So..."

    There it is. Lying in the blasted-out remnants of the machine's chest, a diamond-shaped stone the size of a hand that pulses brilliant red-purple. Like a heart. Feebly. In a moment of shock, he realizes that its feeble pulse matches his own.

    He lifts his head, then the rest of himself follows, and with a groan he kneels over the machine. "If I vanish," he says, "I won't...I'll come back. The machine won't be a threat. Do you...understand?"

    Of course it must all sound like nonsense. But he has to try. His will is hat's keeping him conscious, and even it has limits.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Synaesthesia. Jessica had felt the light wrap her in love for a moment. She still doubts what she is hearing. He actually answered and lived through the thunderclap that had picked them up and dropped them broken back on the ground.

Stupidly, "Wha...what?" It has taken all her strength to sit up in time to witness him reach for something that makes her spider senses shrill. "No. No." Too late and too little to stop him from whatever pulses in the twist of alien materials.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "It'll be fine." He lies. "I know what I'm...doing." More lies. But there's no alternative. Armored fingers wrap around the stone, which begins to glow like a torch in what's left of its mountings. His muscles flood with pain as he feels its heat begin to build within him, cosmic power, transfiguring light, a flash of raw, unadulterated /hatred/ from somewhere in the universe, and then...

    He's gone. The light eats him, leaving the armor in its place, empty and with its fingers still wrapped about that terrible stone. But of Michael there is no sign. Until. It speaks.

    << Astra'ka. >> Michaels' voice, funneled through a thousand synthesizers. << Noth me thidnar. >> And then, somewhat more clear: << What an unusual...sensation. Jessica? >> The Raptor's helmet blazes with light, its angled V of a visor glowing the same color as the stone that is its heart. << Jessica, are you there? >> The machine starts to get up on one arm, something of a struggle thanks to the ruined micromotors throughout the limb.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Carnivorous light, loving light, a spike of hatred without a point of origin. It's all a continuation for her out of kilter senses since that day in the subway and the gas snaking its way toward her.

So, when Michael/Cal'hatar disappears and then speaks to her from one of the enemy that had flown at them with nothing more than their destruction in their hearts, it makes strange sense. Weird science is at work.

She might as well answer, "Here I am. Where? Are you?" Staring hard at the helmet, she makes it to one knee.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    << I don't...know. Precisely. >> The machine has begun to eat Cal'hatar's armor as his voice emits, tendrils of black metal creeping out like angry mold, merging with the scorched stuff of his former accountrement. << But I'm all right, I know that. I...hmm. How to explain. I'm in a...a different place, but I know that it's okay. I'm already feeling better, feeling stronger. I'm being healed, wherever this place is. And I'm in command of the unit. The armor, it's -- >>

    He's about to speak further when the wonder of the moment fades. Just a bit. << Is everyone all right? Are you? >> The long, angled 'eye' of the machine turns to look at her, his voice etched with concern. Odd, how in the past he was so deflective. In this moment his heart is with her safety, not the act.

Jessica Drew has posed:
The mutant abilities gifted to Jessica by her deranged parents do their work. The small bones of her inner ear knit, blood pooling under the surface of her skin in a rash of bruises is being absorbed back into her blood stream. It hurts. It itches. But, she knows that she'll live. As for the others, turning her head is like moving a wheel rusted into place.

"Gone. I think." She returns her gaze back to the talking head in time to see the eye track in her direction. "I'm. I'll live. Yes." Each successive word stronger than the last. "Do you know what's going on?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    << It depends on what you mean. >> The Raptor looks to the ruins of the house, now not much more than a pile of matchsticks. << I think that the girl, Jean, manifested the Phal'kon. >> There's a moment's pause. << That should have killed us all; the Phal'kon - the Phoenix - has always been a destructive force. And that...was not. >>

    Back to Jessica, then. << As for this... >> The undamaged arm gestures to itself as the tendrils connected to his old armor continue to consume it, stripping away inches with a ravenous hunger. Inches that are, apparently, beginning to be transferred to its own ruined form. << ...this is called a Raptor suit. And it is a long story, one I'll have to tell you in the car. Can you please get all the weapons the dead brought? Place them in a pile here, please. The suit will need to consume the technology to repair itself. >>

Jessica Drew has posed:
Jessica has no hierarchy of answers she needs right now. It's all she can do to get up from her kneeling position and sway in place. The Phoenix is a hazy concept. It might as well be an atomic bomb for how she can relate to it or the power she felt flash over and through her. "Didn't kill us, did it? Well, that's good news."

Her eyebrows furrow at what she sees taking place. Mycelium is the word that floats to the surface as she witnesses the threads engulf Michael's old armor. Still dulled by the healing process, "You want me to what? Gather the weapons and feed that thing?" Eyes squeezed shut, she asks herself how much stranger do things need to become before this day ends.

Uncomprehending, she staggers a step and scans the circle of destruction around them for weapons. Right at her feet is the gun she had used. She picks it up and lays it on the black threads like feeding a fire. "Like this?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    << Yeah, >> he replies, odding. Mycelium is in fact the best way to describe it; more strands lash out and pierce the metal of the Shi'ar rifles, slowly erasing their material structure to feed its own. << Thank you. I...the Raptors are an old order, sort of like the monastic martial arts schools of ancient China. >> How odd, the clarity where moments ago he was fated to die. << Imagine if the Shaolin used powered armor. I don't know all the....details, but the Raptor Fraternity use the armor to be mighty in battle. It's sort of like piloting a machine, but the machine is part of me. >> The armor is being unraveled like a sweater now, and the Raptor's ruined chest is fleshing out nicely. << I'm somewhere else, but I'm also here. Controlling it with my mind. If that makes sense. >> No, Michael, that doesn't make sense. Don't be dumb.

Jessica Drew has posed:
And yet, the day gets stranger by the minute. Later, when Jessica has recovered, she will ask herself why she walked around the grounds, ignoring everyone, the gutted ruins of a building still smoking in the background, picking up pieces to put Humpty Dumpty back together again - certainly, in no way imagined by the rhyme. The strangest part was the suspension of her deep suspicion of the man at the center of all that frenetic mycelium action. Piece by piece she picks up the remnants of the battle and deposits it at the site. Offerings to a strange future in the making.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    And like a properly hungry god, the armor consumes those offerings in record time - as she drops the last of the alien equipment on the field, the man-guided machine has consumed the last of Michael's previous suit, and the weapons are almost entirely erased, denied alas to SHIELD's scientists. Ultimately, however, the machines are a memory, and the gleaming death-machine stands intact. And in a moment, the black and silver of its figure shudders, transfiguring to a deep scarlet.

    << Right, then, >> he says, spreading his arms; blades extend from the back of their arms, scything out to form gleaming, foil-like wings tipped with razor-sharp blades. Like some maddening Egyptian idol, Horus on the wing. But these retract away in moments, and the barbed metal of its trappings fold back to take on a more civilized, less cutting way. << I think...that will do it. We need to get back to your people. >>

Jessica Drew has posed:
Jessica steps back from the thing she helped create. The memory of pain slashing across her back and the form's alien shape overwhelming in the moment. A piece of the upper floor falls in a creaking mass of black ash behind him. A perfect backdrop to the killing blades that edge its wings.

"Wait. Cal'hatar. Michael. Are you alright?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    And that...is a good question. << I'll tell you when I know for sure, >> he tells her, the walking mail forbidding yet speaking with his voice, silvered with humor. << I'm not going to die, at least. Wherever I am, my body's knitting very quickly -- as soon as I am I'll return and send the armor back until it's needed again. There's...a lot that needs to be determined. I need to think. And you... >> There's that humor again. He'd smile if he could. "Need a new jacket."

Jessica Drew has posed:
"Hell." Jessica seldom curses, reserving it for special occasions. This one fits. Frowning, she looks down at the strips of tactical armor keeping her decent. Super senses bring her the perfume of dried blood and burned exotic plastics.

"I need a new car. Collecting insurance for this is going to be interesting. Hear the sirens? I think the locals have finally picked up on things. We need to get out of here."

Michael Erickson has posed:
    << Well. >> The wings unfurl once more, gleaming and red. << Get on my shoulders. I'll take us both back, express. >>