|
|
Post by Pyro on Jul 31, 2006 17:23:45 GMT -5
8.55am
John ran easily through the tunnel, totally unimpeded, totally hyped up on adrenalin, a flame burning steadily in his right hand. The sudden spontaneous decision to come and ransack the warehouse would no doubt have repercussions, but he was still impetuous enough not to worry about that for now.
The tunnel smelled faintly of damp, and the through-flow of air was appalling, meaning that in order to keep his flame burning, John had to expend extra mental energies to it. The lack of oxygen was causing it to gutter as he ran.
Eventually the tunnel emerged into what had once been the hospital's mortuary and John burst forth from it at full pelt.
A dozen medical staff had volunteered to stay and distribute the cure should things proceed smoothly. They had been paid well; men and women without families, without ties. Men and women who believed in what they were doing. Those with loved ones at home had not the heart to stay. They knew there would be trouble.
Small comfort was offered in the form of six special forces commandos who stood guard at the buildings two entrances. Two for each door and two patrolling.
"Bravo three this is Bravo six checking in. Any sign of abnormal activity?" The patrol guard asked as he had done every half hour since they had arrived.
"Bravo six, this is Bravo three, we have ... " He halted suddenly and listened.
Somebody was running down the access corridor.
"Bravo three to team, we have contact at corridor entry point."
He and his companion checked their weapons and took up flanking positions on either side of the doors. No sooner had they done so when the young man trailing a fireball burst in.
"GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR NOW!" The soldier yelled. "GET DOWN OR YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON!"
John grinned broadly. Talk about your deja vu. First that night at the Institute when Stryker's men had attacked and then on the porch of Bobby Drake's house in Boston.
"Make me," was all he said and with a vicious thrust of his hand, he loosed a fireball large enough to obscure the view of the attacking soldiers and veered slightly to the right. His heart was pounding in his chest, almost painfully. Six! He hadn't anticipated six. This could be a lot harder than he'd thought.
But he was damned if he was going to back out now.
He thought through his options swiftly. Probably intensity was the way forward here: make the flames as hot as he could; melt the guns if they were plastic, fuse the cartridges if they were metal. He'd theorised, but never dared try, that if he concentrated on the intensity of heat, he could probably melt a bullet before it hit him.
Bravo four fell to the ground slapping at himself as his clothing burned. Bravo three staggered back momentarily blinded by the burst of flames, and now the target ducked out of site.
He dived, rolled and came up on his knees behind a table which he promptly overturned to create a makeshift barrier. "Bravo three to team, we have a hostile, Bravo four is down, converge on my position and be aware of fire."
Five and six stalked the edges of the huge room while one and two advanced down the centre. It was time to pin this kid down.
The medics, now aware that something was amiss retreated into the maze of temporary booths that had been constructed for use by incoming patients. They were not going to get in the way of those protecting them.
A shot rang out followed by the metalic chime of a ricochet.
"Hostile sited," Bravo five reported, "moving to intercept."
Time to deal with your line of communication, thought John, homing in on the person now speaking. The thinnest line of flame imaginable stealthed its way from the inferno in the centre of the warehouse to the man's radio, swiftly fusing the controls and heating it to a point where he had to rip it off and toss it to the ground, where it lay, destroyed by Pyro's fire.
"There's plenty more where that came from," he called out.
He caught the movement of the medics in his peripheral vision and turned slightly. The fact they were civilians put a severe dent in his plan. What the hell was this? This was supposed to be a storage area, not a field hospital.
The young mutant felt the rising bile of fury.
Someone, somewhere, had given them mis-information.
"Where are the stocks of Cure?" he demanded, his voice oddly calm. "Tell me, or I swear to God, I'll burn the lot of you alive. And don't think I won't, because I will."
Bravo five snapped off a shot before retreating into cover. Six moved to intercept from the opposite direction. One and two continued to close in. In a few more seconds thee would have the mutant completely boxed in.
The medics stared uneasily at each other, none willing to yield up an answer to a direct threat.
"If you want a shot of the cure," one man finally answered, "I'll give it to you, there's no need for threats, we understand your pain."
"Don't fucking patronise me, pops. Get your ass out of this building.
Now. My argument isn't with you."
When they stood still like the stupid idiots they clearly were, John simply loosed a plume of flame over in their direction to emphasise his point. "Get out," he repeated.
He was completely aware that he was in danger of being boxed in and quietly cursed himself for running in here by himself. He flicked his fuel glove again and let a wall of flame erupt in an almost perfect circle around him, like a fiery shield.
He'd never tried this before.
He took a tentative step forward, concentrating on bringing his shield with him.
And it came.
The medics fled without a second thought, all of a sudden realising their mistake that this was not a lone, crazed mutant, desperate for the cure, but quite the opposite. They had been paid well for the risk of the job, they had not been paid to commit suicide, and even those most stoic in their beliefs that mutants must be cured of their disease had no desire to die.
Bravo team closed their noose .
Six leaned around a partition and fired, a small, hollow point needle flying true to its target. Only its flight was interrupted by a wall of flames. The projectile vanished with a hiss.
"Bravo Six to team, pacifiers ineffective against target, suggest resort to lethal force."
"Received Bravo Six," One replied, "authorising use of lethal force, incapacitating shots only."
"Jesus, what is it with you people?" said John, from behind his wall of flame. "For God's sake, you're like a few feet away from each other!"
It was easy to send out four more tendrils to destroy the remaining radios.
"Try TALKING to each other. Communication, guys. Now why don't you also get the hell out of here before I do actually burn this place to the ground?"
The only things speaking after that were guns.
Shots rained into the wall of flame from four directions and where each struck there was an acrid wisp of smoke and a quiet hiss. It was obvious the bullets were having no real effect.
"CEASE FIRE!" One yelled and suddenly the only sound was the jingle of spent casings.
He pulled a small canister from his belt, yanked the pin out and lobbed it in a neat arc over the wall.
John’s fire shield wasn’t prepared for that, and the canister landed on the ground several inches from his feet. He stared down at it in a momentary confusion before its contents began wisping out.
Tear gas.
He stumbled backwards, trying to turn his head away from the fumes, but it was too late. Already tears were streaming down his face, although the heat and proximity of his own flames quickly evaporated them. His eyes were stinging: he couldn’t see. They were going to get him. And they’d used the phrase ‘lethal force’…
And then, to totally top everything, his earpiece fired into life again and through the chaos he made out three words.
“I’m sorry John.”
There was the kind of pause that lasted a lifetime and then he heard the sound of gunfire and Mystique’s agonized scream.
Bravo squad were about to suffer the consequences of what happened when a mutant with psionic control over flames panicked and lost momentary control of his powers.
They found out at the receiving end of the most almighty fireburst that rushed outwards from the fire shield. Vast, intense and incinerating every single thing in its radial path.
Fire boiled out in a wave of uncontained fury, flash burning the flimsy temporary booths, blistering paint from walls and scorching everything in the warehouse. Bravo one, two, five and six were transformed into running, screaming, humanoid torches, all thoughts of mutant apprehension gone.
Three was lucky. Three was knelt behind a table.
The fire washed over his make-shift barracade, setting his jacket alight and melting his goggles. He dropped his gun and ripped them off before they burned him and struggled out of his jacket, leaving it a charred, smouldering wreck.
The warehouse was full of smoke, embers and gas. It reeked of burnt metal, scorched plastic and roasting meat. Somewhere, somebody was screaming.
It looked like hell.
|
|
|
|
Post by Pyro on Aug 1, 2006 4:37:08 GMT -5
09:05
The warehouse looked like hell.
But John couldn’t see that. All he knew was that if hell had a distinctive sound, he was hearing it now. After the fireburst that had claimed the lives of most of Bravo Squad, and several of the dozen medics, the young mutant had collapsed to the floor, his hands over his stinging eyes, vomiting up the contents of his stomach as the tear gas took hold of his system and began screwing it up completely.
Even when he’d been shot in the shoulder he hadn’t felt this bad.
Bravo Three and four medics were the only ones who remained totally unscathed from John’s unprecedented display of phenomenal power. All the windows of the warehouse had been blown out and the flimsy wooden divides were history.
I want to take it back!
In the far corner of the warehouse were two crates, both marked with the Worthington brand logo and those crates contained all the cure that there had ever been in Baltimore.
Enough for maybe two hundred people.
All this destruction, all this death – for that.
Fortunately, perhaps, John was in no fit state to be aware of the two chests, still intact – for now.
He heard agonised screaming and after a few seconds realised that it wasn’t just the victims of his fire who were screaming – so was he. A deep-rooted anguish at what he had done combined with the agony of how he was feeling – physically and mentally. He hadn’t intended for this to happen. The twin moments of being hit by tear gas and hearing what he assumed was Mystique’s death scream in his ear had made the power balance swap with disastrous results. Pyro had no longer commanded the flame.
The flame had commanded him.
He reached out a hand, trying to take it back, but his mind was presently unable to focus long enough to control the burning fires that were everywhere. He himself was scorched on the arms and the face – he was not immune to fire when he had no control over it – but the pain of that was as nothing compared to the absolute agony of his eyes and his gut.
I WANT TO TAKE IT BACK!
Always sensitive to chemical imbalances in his body, the tear gas was tearing John apart from the inside out.
He couldn’t take it back.
For John Allerdyce, the line had finally been crossed. Any hope he’d ever had of redemption was burned to a crisp along with Bravo squad.
He curled up in the corner and hugged himself tightly, whilst around him, his fires raged out of control.
|
|
|
|
Post by Iceman on Aug 1, 2006 8:24:31 GMT -5
As Bobby neared the warehouse, the fire roared louder, and just how damaged the building was became clearer and clearer. As he raced for the nearest door, it slammed open, and two women ran from the doorway. Bobby didn’t stop, only passed them and raced through the open door.
The sight he was met with inside the warehouse was even more chaotic than the scene outside. It seemed like there was fire all around, roaring as it ate away at the things it engulfed. Men and women were running every which way, racing for the doors, yelling at each other or at no one at all, it seemed. Bobby shook himself from his shock and immediately set about putting out the flames that all but blocked him from going farther into the building. He sent frost from his palms to the nearest line of fire, covering it and quenching it.
As those flames died down, he could see even more damage done behind them, further into the warehouse. As he moved forward, his eyes darted around, searching for movement. His eyes lingered on each running figure they saw, quickly eliminating them by their appearance. He knew whose fire this was, and he knew that there was something much more dangerous than the flames in the warehouse with him.
As he moved forward, bent low and creeping cautiously, one arm reached out to the next engulfed object. The other hand reached for his neck, and he pressed the communication device there and spoke into it lowly. [glow=red,2,300]"Any available X-Men to the warehouse! All civilians need to be taken out now--"[/glow] A crashing sound behind Bobby made him stop and wheel around. Crates stacked along a wall had caught fire and had just caved in on each other. But the flames had reached high enough to lick at a wooden doorframe at the top of stairs--something onto the roof, maybe a fire escape, ironically enough.
Bobby fumbled for the comm as he backed away and turned from the sight of the fire licking at the wall. [glow=red,2,300]"The building is on fire! Repeat: All civilians need to be taken out, now!"[/glow]
He dropped his arm from the comm button and started to deal with another crate that had been set ablaze by the face Bobby was expecting to see pop up at any moment. Suddenly, someone was running at him, between himself and the flames he was trying to put out.
Bobby stepped in front of the woman and caught her arm. Here eyes were wide with fear, and tears stained her face. "How many people are in here?" He yelled over the roar of the fire all around them.
The woman stuttered to answer. "Tw-twelve medics and...Six--guards," she answered. Bobby then let go of her and pointed to the door he'd just come through. "Get out of here, and tell anyone you see to get out too!" She ran for the exit, and Bobby turned again. His stomach was tight, and his heart felt like it was beating against his Adam's apple. He was frustrated that he couldn't tell how many were still inside because of all of the things blocking his view, and the smoke that was quickly thickening the air. He caught sight of people running a few separate times and wished desperately that he could get some aerial vantage of the situation.
He tensed every muscle and conjured the strongest and largest stream of frost he could to shoot towards something so enveloped in flames that what it was underneath was impossible to tell. He didn't remember planning to yell as he put out the flames, but he did. He yelled with as much force as he could, needing to be heard over the flames.
"JOHN!"
His voice resounded once in the cavernous warehouse as his eyes looked over the dying flames before him for any sign of movement.
|
|
|
|
Post by Iceman on Aug 1, 2006 14:31:02 GMT -5
9:07[/u]
Bobby had overlooked John at first in the chaos, but he was there,
still in the corner that Bravo squad had backed him into. He raised
his head ever so slightly at the sound of his name being called.
Bobby Drake.
The fact that his one time friend and roommate was in here with him
nearly drew a sob from John's throat: a sob of half anger half relief.
But his instinct for survival kept him quiet. He shifted his position
slightly. Maybe Bobby would just pass him over. He wasn't going
anywhere in a hurry, he was mostly blind and knew that if he stood,
chances were he'd fall straight down again. He knew that the effects
of the tear gas would pass - but that for now at least, they had
totally incapacitated him.
Bobby began to search the warehouse for remaining people. As he went, he put out the most threatening of the fires.
As he crouched a few feet behind some equipment that had remained untouched, he saw a long line of fire stretching across the warehouse. It seemed to start at the floor, and upon closer inspection, Bobby saw a long cloth, or cloths, like curtains had fallen to the ground. He held out his hand and slowly moved it across the row of fire, his anger growing with each passing second and each new object ablaze that he saw. John was endangering innocent people there, without a thought for what he was doing. Bobby couldn't believe his once-friend had turned so evil.
After this, he focused on a smaller group of flames licking at a pile of something on the ground. As the flames were put out, Bobby saw with sickening realisation that it was no pile, but a body. A charred body. Shocked, Bobby stumbled back from the body, turning and grabbing a railing to steady him as he retched onto the floor.
Bobby continued to put out fires for a few short minutes. He saw a few more people searching for a way out, and he directed them. One medic was so disoriented that Bobby had to grab him by the arm and lead him to the exit, which brought him closer to where John was than he had been before.
No sound emanated from John's corner, but he could feel control slowly
returning to him. Extending a hand - he didn't need to actually do
that, but it helped the visualisation technique, he began to bring the
flames around the warehouse slowly down and with the exit of the
survivors, things began to quieten.
Quiet, that was, apart from an decidedly ominous sound of approaching
mechanical servos, each whirr accompanied by a THWUMP sound as of
something very large and very heavy hitting the ground.
John, mostly blinded by the tear gas raised his head and squinted
through the tears streaming down his face.
Then he spoke one word that cut through everything. It was hoarse and
its three syllables were filled with the kind of anxious fear Bobby had
never expected to hear from the streetwise John Allerdyce.
“Sentinel.”
Bobby heard John's voice above the flames, and his head whipped from it's wary watch on the direction of the sounds to search for John. He was much closer than Bobby had thought, and Bobby immediately back away. His anger and fear rose like a cresting wave at the same time that it registered what John had said--What Bobby was hoping to God was not the source of the mechanical whirring and pounding.
A million thoughts ran through his mind, each sharp and clear thanks to the adrenaline controlling his brain by that point. He was terrified, and above angry, and worried, and the sound of machines heightened these things.
Bobby looked from John to the direction of the ever-approaching sounds, back and forth as all of the things he wanted to say fought to find their way out. Finally, he spoke, and his voice was laced with so many fierce emotions of all kinds that it was impossible to pick out any single one. "Get up," he said, watching John as he was huddled on the ground. He'd seen when John had moved his head that John looked terrible. Ten times worse than Bobby had ever seen him.
It must have seemed as though Bobby was challenging him to a fight, despite the oncoming danger of the sentinel. But as Bobby stood, his eyes moving back and forth between threats, his hands out and ready if John tried anything, he spoke again. "Get out."
"I'm going nowhere."
John's tone was stubbornness laced with despondency. "I can hardly
see, let alone stand. It's pointless, Bobby. Get out of here
yourself. Go save the world somewhere else. I'll handle this."
There was that defiant streak he remembered so well.
They didn't get a chance to discuss it for long however.
When the thing finally entered the warehouse, Pyro saw little more than
a very large blur. Bobby, however, saw a lot more.
The Sentinel was well over eight feet in height, and at least five feet
broad in the shoulders. It was armour plated: black and grey mostly,
but right now, Bobby didn’t pick out small detail. What he did pick
out was the rotating, tri-barrelled weapon in the thing’s right hand.
The THWUMP continued until it stopped and spoke, the voice obviously
human, but tinny and robotic sounding as its pilot’s voice was
amplified in the exterior.
“You are ordered to surrender, mutants. If you do not comply
immediately, full force will be used. This is your first and final
warning.”
Bobby stared at the sentinel for a full five seconds. The hologram of it back in the War Room at Xavier's had done nothing to prepare him for it's sheer size and threatening weapons. But there was only one thing to do--Fight the beast. It was suicide, surely, but Bobby was almost positive it wouldn't listen to his reasoning. It could see clear as anything that he was an X-Man, if the man inside knew anything of the X-Men at all, and he obviously didn't care one bit.
John didn’t even lift his head again to look at it. Bobby could sense
that he was giving up. Down and out. Beaten. He should really just
leave him to it.
The Sentinel pilot turned the thing so that its weapon was pointing
directly at John who remained where he was on the floor, shaking from
the effects of the gas as they worked through his system and no small
amount of abject terror.
“Repeat. Surrender.”
THEN John's head come up and he stared at the thing through
reddened, tearstreaked eyes.
“Go to hell.”
The Sentinel pilot did not speak again, and Bobby could just picture his hand
moving toward some button to trigger the gun. Bobby reacted, and at the same
moment that the gun went off, Bobs lunged in front of John and created a
shield of ice in front of them that spanned his whole body length.
John had clearly lost his will to live, and it was the last thing that Bobby
had expected to find in John when they would meet in Baltimore, if they met.
He had expected cruelty, recklessness, and an insatiable hunger for power. But
the sick-looking, empty young man behind Bobby reminded Bobby more of the
times when John had awoken in the middle of the night after some hideous nightmare.
"Get up! Get behind something!" Bobby yelled over his shoulder as he heard
the THWUMPing and whirring sounds that could only mean that the Sentinel was
moving closer. He let the ice shield form to the floor, a small wall that would
protect them against a few shots before it blew apart.
“Damn you, Bobby Drake.”
John got shakily to his feet and almost immediately collapsed
again. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? This isn’t your
fight. Go back to playing hopscotch with the good guys – while you
still can.” He wavered unsteadily and looked like he was going to fall
over again. Bobby was aware of something he’d said once about his
physiology reacting badly to many things, sometimes even something as
simple as an aspirin. God only knew what tear gas had done to him.
Bobby turned on John, anger appearing on his face again. "This is my fight.
Because people are in danger. You know there were three dozen people in this
warehouse when you set it on fire?"
The Sentinel pilot fired at the ice wall, causing chunks of it to fall away.
It would crumble with another shot or two. Bobby's instinct was to shove John
behind something, but he knew that any move he made toward Pyro would probably
be seen as an attack. He had been set on fire once in his life, and once was
enough.
"You can't even fight!" Bobby exclaimed to John, gesturing to his awful
appearance. "At least get out of here."
The Sentinel fired again, and the top half of the wall fell backwards. Bobby
lunged away from the huge chunk of ice as it fell where he'd been. He collided
with John as he dodged out of the ice's path, and used the opportunity to
guide them behind a large, once-organized pile of boxes. Bobby finally decided to
leave John to do whatever it is he would do--run, fight, or give himself up
to be killed. Bobby needed to do the same (one of the first two, anyway--he was
not about to give up), and he couldn't worry about John's safety any longer.
As he stood, behind a barricade of sorts, leaning against it as John stood by
his side, Bobby found himself catapulted back to their first Danger Room
session together. Where they had just stood, there had been a foxhole. Bobby
looked to his right, and tried to tell himself that this was just like the Danger
Room. Only now, instead of a horde of ninjas, he only had one enemy. And while
he couldn't downsize the importance of the Sentinel--or the danger of it--He
found himself clinging to the thought that this was like the Danger Room.
Because the Danger Room was familiar, and it had a sense of security, knowing you
could not be killed.
Just as he had so long ago in the Danger Room session, Bobby set out running
for another barricade. He ducked behind it and moved to the other side,
preparing to lunge out and take a shot at the Sentinel.
Don’t attack him, Bobby.” John’s voice carried across the
warehouse. “They’re programmed to respond to any attack at all. Don’t
attack it.” He was stumbling uncertainly in the same direction that
Bobby had gone, rubbing at his streaming eyes. “If we’re gonna do it,
let’s do it at the same time. That should be enough to throw its
automated systems into confusion.”
He slid down next to Bobby, that strange, unnatural heat radiating from
him that Bobby remembered so well.
"There were eighteen people in here," he said. "Eighteen. I counted.
And I would have kept everything under control if they hadn't thrown my
concentration."
Why did he feel the need to justify himself? God, it was just like
outside earlier with Angie. "Let's take it out together if we're going
to do anything at all, otherwise get out of here."
“Deal,” said John, grimly, then a grin flashed over his tear-streaked
face and he rubbed at his eyes again. “Don’t start thinking this means
I like you or anything though, Drake, I’m gonna have you at some
point, that’s a promise. But don't flatter yourself that it's gonna be
today."
John's words helped Bobby to be rid of some of the pained feelings he had felt creeping up on him at the prospect of working on the same side as John. There was the arrogance and cruelty he'd expected from him. Bobby didn't take the bait; he didn't retort with a reverse challenge.
He just looked at John with a look of utter disgust, and even hollow sadness. "You're sick," he stated with a slight shake of his head. And though he meant it as an insult, in that moment, he realized the truth of it. John was emotionally sick. Anyone who wanted to kill was sick.
Bobby leaned his head back against what they were hiding behind. He took a few deep breaths. "Go!" he said suddenly, spinning out from behind the barricade to face the Sentinel, and hoping to God that John would do the same.
It was almost as though the two had never spent any time apart. When Bobby shouted the command 'go', John spun as fast as his current sense of disorientation would allow him, unconsciously echoing Bobby's stance - the way they'd been taught. "Unleash hell?" he asked, almost casually.
John's words fell bittersweet on Bobby's ears, and he glanced across at him before looking back to the Sentinel with a brisk nod. "Fire--" It was then as though he shoved any thoughts of his past away as he finished the saying that neither had spoken in so long. "--And ice!" It was almost as if, with those words, Bobby called on the ice to his hands. He sent a quick succession of small ice chunks like sharp bullets straight at the Sentinel's metal chest, firing like a machine gun from his palm.
Simultaneous, and with supreme effort, John flicked his hand down and brought a new source of fire to his hands, firing at the Sentinel exactly the same way that Bobby was doing. His aim wasn't so good, blinded as he currently was, but the idea was there. "Pincer movement," he said, softly, but loud enough for Bobby to hear. "Either side. Screw its peripheral vision up."
When Bobby had fired at the Sentinel, it had turned on him. When John had joined the fray, it was as if the pilot inside battled over which to deal with. Bobby knew that it was only a short matter of time before he would decide, and would have all of the information needed to battle one or both of them. He moved farther from the barricade they stood on either side of, to get more to the Sentinel's side, sending a fury of hail at the Sentinel which struck him in what would have been his stomach if he had been a human being, and stuck there, protruding from the metal. It barely seemed to phase the thing.
Exerting all his mental effort, John increased the intensity of his flames and was rewarded with the unmistakable sound of pinking metal as it superheated and began to melt. In his weakened state, however, he couldn't maintain it for long and sank to his knees briefly, throwing up again. "Any bright ideas, Popsicle?"
As John sank to his knees, the Sentinel pilot chose which target he would focus on first. Bobby didn't realize it in time to make a wall--He tackled John, and at some point in mid-air, even as the Sentinel pilot fired, Bobby turned into solid ice. Which made him much heavier when he landed on John, but also saved both his and John's lives. The darts hit Bobby in the back, ripping holes in his leather uniform, which ripped even more as chunks of ice from Bobby's back flew every which-way from the impact of the darts, which fell to the ground with the chunks of ice.
As soon as the darts stopped flying, the THWUMPing and whirring sound of the Sentinel's movement could be heard moving even closer to them. Bobby shoved John in the direction of the barricade, not bothering to focus on drawing moisture to fill the cracks in his back until they were safely out of range.
John, who was now winded on top of all his other woes, scrambled to his feet and whipped round with surprising celerity, letting rip with a long tendril of fire that, Bobby saw, was solid enough to wrap itself around the arm of the Sentinel. With a casual flick of his hand, John caused the binding to pull upwards, causing the thing's aim to go wildly off course. Seemed that someone else had developed their powers, too.
As Emma stood on the other side of the building next to NovaTex, far out of immediate harm, she surveyed the battle in the warehouse through the minds of John Allerdyce and Bobby Drake. She finally decided that it was time that she become more involved. Mystique was terribly injured; it would mean the end of The Brotherhood to lose Pyro as well.
She did some far-reaching mind searching to find the security code to let herself into the building beside NovaTex, and laid herself comfortably on a couch in the business’ lobby. The moment her head fell against the arm of the couch, she sent her consciousness into the body of Bobby Drake.
She suddenly saw the situation through true eyes rather than thoughts. As she focused on the Sentinel before her, she smoothly made John aware of the fact that Emma Frost was possessing Bobby’s body, and that he couldn’t attack Bobby.
Once inside Bobby’s mind, Emma was shocked. She rarely found herself surprised—She almost always anticipated things correctly before she found them out for a fact. But she never would have been able to begin to guess at the incredible power that Iceman was capable of. She found in his ability powers he never would have dreamed of, that no one in the world save possibly Charles Xavier had ever thought possible.
At that moment, Emma Frost became angry with Bobby Drake. His lack of self-esteem, his utter disbelief in his own ability, was holding him back to a fraction of his potential. Emma detested a lack of self-confidence in others. It was time that Iceman realize what he could do.
She told Bobby to run at the Sentinel. Straight at it. As he started to run, Bobby felt a flash of fear, which Emma quickly erased. She pushed his mind into a corner of his brain, where he would stay, oblivious to her control and his own natural emotions until allowed otherwise.
The Sentinel turned on Bobby, and just as it fired shots at him, Emma put Iceman’s powers to the test. With Emma in control, Bobby jumped forward, directing his arms low in front of him, palms to the floor. The ice formed, as it did with any wall he’d made before. Only this ice formed in mid-air, unattached to anything on the ground. It was smooth on the top, and relatively flat. It was wide enough across that he could stand on it comfortably. The underside of it was jagged ice, icicles hanging down many inches. It defied all Homo Sapien science, but it formed.
Emma handled the ice pathway with practiced ease, as though she’d been doing it all of her life. Under her care, Bobby’s feet landed on the ice and he began to slide along it, balancing carefully as though surfing, almost. As he moved, he formed more ice in front of him, always creating a path wherever he wanted to go, changing directions on the turn of a dime. As the Sentinel’s darts hit the ground where he’d stood, Bobby followed his ice slide up, rising to the Sentinel’s shoulder and swooping around it. Emma directed him to travel behind the Sentinel for a short distance before she did a 180-degree turn and stopped to face the thing’s back.
It was a shame John couldn't see straight.
He was obviously aware of the suddenness of movement and that disoriented him more. He took several steps backward, and more fire burned from his hands directed straight at the encroaching Sentinel. "Bobby, what the HELL...?"
Emma saw that John's mind was so disoriented that he hadn't fully computed the thoughts that she had placed into his mind. She knew that another part of the problem was that he didn't understand that Emma could use powers that those she possessed didn't consciously realize. That much he didn't need to know at the moment, but he did need to understand that she was in Bobby's body. If John decided to take a cheap shot at Bobby as soon as the Sentinel was defeated and their deal was through, Emma's mind would be affected very unpleasantly. So she made the knowledge more strong in John's mind, that Emma was fighting as Iceman, and that John couldn't attack Bobby, even when the Sentinel was down. Emma didn't know if she would need to linger afterwards.
The Sentinel pilot steered the thing around to follow Emma's movements, but by that time she had moved back toward the Sentinel. Iceman's slide came dangerously close to it, and only then did she veer sharply down. While one hand supplied the ice to form the slide in front of Bobby's feet, Emma caused the other to lift and send a current of cold at the Sentinel's metal body, which spread across much of it's surface.
"Break it!" Bobby's voice rang out with the words that Emma supplied him. She could have conveyed the message to John mentally, but she wanted to effect his mind as little as possible, knowing full well that it was a tormented ticking time bomb. The first thing she would need to do if they both made it through this battle was to convince him to agree to let her help him stabilize his mind. Before he lost any more of his sanity.
John was confused, but nodded, letting a blast of fire out of his hands and at the Sentinel. The casing split and cracked under the sudden temperature change.
The natural reaction happened just as Emma had hoped--The thick metal of the Sentinel began to crack. But Emma wasn't done testing Iceman's powers, though she had pushed him far enough already that his body and mind would be very worn when she left him in his own control again. Seeing that the Sentinel could not move it's limbs very well any longer, Emma guided Bobby on the ice slide to position himself directly in the Sentinel's firing range, a mere five feet from the thing’s gigantic gun.
She entered the mind of the Sentinel pilot, and confirmed from his thoughts that he planned to make his final shot. She shoved aside all indication that he was a real person, named Greg Moramos, whose wife of three years had just had a baby a few months ago. She ignored all of that, and used her knowledge of his actions to time her final attack perfectly. As he fired the Sentinel's gun, Bobby's voice yelled, "HIT HIM AGAIN!" with a sense of utter panic that Emma allowed to show through from Bobby's own mind as he glimpsed the situation he was in.
At the same moment that the gun fired, Iceman seemed to disappear. But upon closer inspection, though John's eyes were in no such condition to do so, he was still there. It was as if he were formed of a very faint smoke. It was water vapor, something that Bobby had never imagined he would have control over.
The darts shot through the chest of Iceman's uniform, tearing holes through the front and the back. Emma let Bobby fall from the ice slide, and he hit the ground four feet below with an impact that caused him no harm.
Stirred on by Bobby's panic, John's fireburst was more controlled this time, and he turned the intensity up. His vision was still messed up and his head was pounding, but he turned everything he had on the Sentinel.
As John unleashed his strongest attack on the Sentinel, Emma felt a surge of...Not pride, nor respect...But the sense that John was capable of controlling such intense power, contrary to what he had shown before, in blowing up the warehouse. It was a relief, first and foremost.
Emma forced Bobby to rolled onto his knees, and as he did, his body formed again out of the sentient vapor. He lifted both arms at the Sentinel towering over him as John's flames attacked it, and sent a thundering hailstorm, the size and intensity of which he had never come close to achieving before, at the Sentinel's other side.
The combatting temperatures on the Sentinel's thick metal exterior caused it to shatter, and Emma caused Iceman's body to turn to ice for protection as thick, heavy sheets of metal fell down all around. Everything inside the Sentinel had broken apart as well, including the pilot's body. Frozen and charred, it fell in numerous broken pieces on the concrete floor of the warehouse with the Sentinel's parts.
John had got up and fallen to his knees again, coughing and gasping for breath still, the impact of yet another death slapping him around the face with all the force of a tornado. He felt chilled to the marrow, disgusted at the ease with which, yet again, he had simply eliminated someone in his way. "Is that it?" he said. "Is it over?"
Bobby made no sound. He made no movement. Emma had left him back into his own control, and he had immediately blacked out. It was his body's way of preparing to recuperate from the extensive physical and mental strain put on him by Emma's demanding use of his powers.
Emma had left Bobby's mind quickly, not even lingering to read his thoughts. She would watch the scene through John's mind; she was curious to see what John would do. Because one of the obvious choices was to kill his friend-turned-rival, and Emma did not want to be in Bobby Drake's mind at the moment of his death.
"Bobby?"
Then more quietly. "Emma?"
Then eventually, John crawled across the bits of fallen Sentinel to the prone body of Bobby Drake. "Bobby?" he asked again and reached down to feel for a pulse. It was there. Weak, but steady. He closed his eyes in relief. "You stupid fucking bastard," he said, softly. "You had to go and be the fucking HERO, didn't you? Ah, Bobs...what you do to me."
John pulled his knees into his chest for a few minutes, getting his composure back, getting his composure back - and struggling with what to do next. Bobby wouldn't be following him, that's for sure. He COULD just kill the annoying wombat, but that didn't seem to be fair. After a few minutes deliberation, John got to his feet and staggering semi-blindly, headed out of the warehouse, leaving Bobby where he was. Maybe the X-Men would find him. Maybe they wouldn't. It wasn't his problem right now.
|
|
|
|
Post by Iceman on Aug 1, 2006 16:25:48 GMT -5
After John had left, Emma slipped back into Iceman’s mind, taking control once again. She roused him from his unconscious state, filling him with her own strength and energy, which would only last as long as she possessed him.
Under Emma’s unforgiving control for the second time in minutes, Bobby stood and made his way to the exit. Emma knew that he would spend the next few days unconscious, and she wanted to make the extent of his powers clear to all of his fellow X-Men, so that before he even awoke, they would have formed their own opinions and thoughts about it. They would marvel at the unforeseen skill, which would increase Iceman’s frustration when he could not achieve it on his own. Emma wanted all of the X-Men to see Bobby’s power, for reasons deeper than this as well, and ran along with her personal agenda in some way.
(Bobby continued in ‘Baltimore: street’)
|
|
|
|
Post by emmafrost on Aug 2, 2006 9:33:11 GMT -5
9:11[/u]
Once safely in the back of the truck, Emma began to search out the minds of the members of The Brotherhood, pinpointing them so she could direct Aurora to them. First she focused on John--When she had last seen him, he had been very much alive, though in much pain from the tear gas as well as the emotional strain put on him by the entire situation.
Mystique, she would not try to read. If Mystique were to die while Emma was in her mind, it would tear Emma's mind to pieces. If there was no sign of Mystique when everyone else was collected, then she would try to find her.
John, she saw, had not gotten far from the warehouse. And he would be going no farther until Emma did something about him. She had to tread carefully--his mind was like a battle-worn field, full of landmines and barbed wire in the form of painful memories. She first eased the pain in his mind, simply by making him not focus on it for the time-being. She had him divert his focus off of anything that had happened before that day, as well as hearing Mystique's scream of anguish in his earpiece earlier.
She then did much as she had with Bobby, and supplied John with physical strength that he did not have. It wouldn't give him strength to fight, but it was enough to cause his eyes to stop watering enough that he could see, and give him the fortitude to stand. She caused the age-old medicine of adrenaline to course through him, to lessen the burning in his eyes.
'John,' she said gently into his mind, eliminating any surprise or fear he may normally have had at hearing her voice inside his head (a sudden reaction like that could worsen his problems). 'I'm going to send Aurora to take you to the truck. Stay where you are, but stand up if you can, please?'
It was a tone that Emma hadn't used with him before. It was a humble, hopeful tone. She knew he could stand, she had given him the strength to; but let him think it was done of his own accord.
|
|
|
|
Post by Pyro on Aug 2, 2006 9:40:37 GMT -5
'I'm going to send Aurora to take you to the truck. Stay where you are, but stand up if you can, please?'
The young pyromaniac, who was presently feeling the strain of what had happened didn't even question the fact that there was a female voice in his mind. It took his synapses several seconds to fire enough to realise it was Emma.
Stand up.
He could do that.
He unfolded from the curled, foetal position he had found himself in after collapsing outside the warehouse and gingerly stood up. The change in position sent fresh waves of bile racing through his body and he swallowed madly trying to keep it down. He needed water, needed to wash away the taste of the gas, the taste of his own vomit. He'd long since stopped being physically sick and now his throat hurt every time he retched.
I'm standing, he thought. And indeed he was, although he had to lean against the wall of the closest building to stay that way. I'm up. I'm ready.
Yes, a mine field of unexploded bombs and mines just waiting to fire. And like a mine field, there was every chance that once one of them went, it would set off a chain reaction that would inevitable result in the destruction of the boy's mind completely.
It was not the sort of mind that young man who was barely more than a teenager should possess. He was a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode.
|
|
