Baltimore: Deployment

[Iceman]

(Thus ends Iceman's involvement in the Baltimore battle. I love you guys, you rock)

[logan]

Logan blinked away smoke, and tried to stop smelling the stink of charred flesh and burnt oxygen. He lifted Rayen up by the arm, helping her steady on her feet. Then he looked back over his shoulder, just in time to prove what he’d seen out of the corner of his eyes.

“Shit.” He said simply, ever the antithetical poet.

Then he ran across the street, hopping bodies and pulling a dazed Conduit behind him. His eyes did not deceive him. Forge had had his leg torn off… and he was dying.

(pre-planned moment, no one interfere)

[preacher]

Even from where he was standing, Adam could see that the man who was standing on the dumpster was given a devastating blow of pure electricity. No one could have survived that! The priest in him overrode his senses of caution and he began running toward the man. It was when he was in the thick of the battle grounds, that it hit him. There had been zombies walking about. Things brought back from the dead.

Adam did a drunken 360 turn, surveying the entire area around him. Dead bodies lay strewn everywhere, many were mangled beyond recognition. How did he not register this in the beginning? But he couldn't stop, he still had duties to attend to. He'd come back for these poor souls afterwards.

Jogging the rest of the way over to the man, Adam was given a closer look at what he was. A mutant, no mistaking that, but he looked like he'd been dead for weeks. Without being told, he instinctively knew that this man was responsible for the abominations that had just walked the earth. He felt sick to his stomach. It was too late to save this man anyways, so Adam said a prayer and turned back.

Some mutants were still up and active in the aftermath. Looked like the X-men, now that he focused on the X markings on their suits. It seemed that one of their own was down. Adam thought better of approaching them at that moment and hung back.

[angel]

Leaving Bobby with the other X-Men, Warren took back to the sky. The place was a mess - NovaTex was damaged, a warehouse out the back destroyed, the street in front had deep cracks and holes, there were the remains of giant man eating plants and the reanimated dead everywhere, and the choas extended into the buildings all around. He could hear sirens approaching, ambulances that had no chance of getting in to actually help anyone, and his decision was made. They'd been told to stop fighting, but he wasn't fighting, and these people needed help. Landing down near the alley where, it seemed, he'd correctly spotted the source of most of the trouble, Angel started leaning down and taking pulses. Most of the people around him were bodies - many of them dead for the second time - but every now and again he found a survivor, and he flew those who he thought it safe to move down the street to where a group of people were gathering.

"I want you to do as much as you can until the ambulances arrive." They nodded, and he saw that they were already looking after several people who were injured, some with gunshot wounds, others who had been hurt by the giant plants, others who seemed to have been trampled in the panic caused by the Brotherhood. Shaking his head, Warren wondered how the Brotherhood could justify this kind of destruction when innocent people were in the line of fire. It was horrific.

Flapping his wings and returning to the worst spot, where bodies were easier to spot then the street, Angel spotted a man walking throughout them, saying a prayer here and there. He was obviously a priest, dressed in full robes and a collar and everything, and the mutant couldn't help but think of the obviously religious member of the Brotherhood who had dropped some of these people to their deaths.

"Can't help these ones anymore, preacher man." He knelt to look for a pulse in a little girl, keeping his face blank as he didn't find one. How could they...? He wanted to rage and to cry and to break down at everything that had happened, everyone who had been lost needlessly, but he couldn't. There was work to do, and he needed to help the living before he could mourn for the dead.

[preacher]

Adam watched in silent awe as the mutant known as Angel flew down to where he was standing. He had seen pictures of this man, but never thought he'd ever see him in real life. What he looked like had reinforced Adam's belief in God's divinity in mutants everywhere. But he had to remind himself, this was not a real angel, just a man shaped like one. A member of the X-men, too, if he remembered correctly. Living in South America had put a damper on hearing about North American goings on.

"Their bodies may be beyond help, but it might not be too late for their immortal souls. I can't just ignore what's happened here." Adam crossed himself as he took a closer look at an old woman's body, nearly decapitated except for a few strands of tissue. If the Brotherhood was responsible for this, he was glad he never made contact with them.

[angel]

Nodding silently, Warren continued to search for survivors. He picked up a moaning police officer, who seemed to have been quite thoroughly chewed on before the plant next to him was killed, and flew him back out to the people who had become makeshift medics until the real ones could get through. While Warren could have easily taken everyone to the hospital, there were a few reasons that he wasn't going to take them that far. The amount of time it would take him to get each and every one there could mean more people would die without being found, and there was every chance that the city was going to be reasonably mutant-unfriendly after the Brotherhood's handiwork became publicly known. He'd seen the news cameras, knew that it was likely they were broadcasting live, and he wondered how it was that the media always arrived before the people who could help.

Returning to the preacher, Angel spoke again. "You do what you can for their immortal souls, but if you spot anyone who needs help in the body department, give me a yell." He bent down again to check more bodies - and they were all that. So much death. "And be careful." Though the zombies had all dropped when Conduit had blasted the creepy guy on the dumpster, Warren had seen far too many of the dead get up and attack already. He didn't want to take any chances. And the Sentinels were still there - if it looked like they were fighting, they'd be taken down. He hoped that the Sentinels had no problem with him looking for survivors.

[preacher]

So that's what he was still doing here. Flying people to safety and help. Adam was growing respect for this man, and it took all his willpower not to put him up on a pedastal. It was hard to be a man of the cloth and not see the man before him as a messenger of God. Adam shook his head to clear his thoughts. If there were still survivors around, he was going to help them.

As Adam began sifting through the wreckage, he called over his shoulder, "You know, I came here expecting a peaceful protest of the cure, not a war. My name is Adam by the way." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. He turned his head and saw a police woman, bloodied and dazed but alive. Adam pulled her out from under a stray body part and called out to Angel.

"I found someone."

[angel]

"Warren." Introducing himself as 'Angel' to a man of the cloth seemed horribly pretentious. Shaking Adam's hand quickly, Warren bent down and picked up the bloody policewoman.

"It's going to be alright, Ma'am." Flapping his wings gently and supporting her as best as he could, the young man dropped her off with the growing group, glad to see that an ambulance had finally made its way through to them, and they were treating some of the more seriously wounded.

"I'm sorry that I can't do any more to help, but there are a couple of us searching for survivors. A few of you should be able to make your way through, but be careful. It still isn't completely safe in there." Without waiting for a reply, Warren headed back toward the preacher and the piles of bodies. The city was going to have to work hard to clear the streets, and quickly - bodies and sewerage and debris were all over the place, and people lived and worked in this part of town. He shook his head and sighed as he surveyed the damage.

"So what exactly is a priest doing at a protest against the mutant cure, peaceful or not?"

[preacher]

"Well, I'm very interested in the mutant cause, being one myself. When I was invited to come up here, I didn't think twice about it. If I had known what was going to happen, I probably wouldn't have come at all." Adam wasn't sure if he wanted to tell anyone exactly how he became a mutant. Not that he was ashamed of it or anything, but some mutants might look down on him or even shun him because of it. He'd wait until he confided in someone.

"To be honest, I was supposed to meet up with the Brotherhood, but in the confusion, I guess they forgot about me. Instead, I've run into an X-man. Maybe it's for the best." Adam turned to look at Warren, curious to see how he reacted. Would he want more information? Would he judge him because of the people he almost associated himself with?

[angel]

"The Brotherhood already has their religious contingent. She was dropping people from the sky." He didn't mean to sound bitter, but what the woman had done - after having the gall to speak to him about God and forgiveness - had shaken Warren's faith in humanity. In mutant-kind. The fact that this priest was one of them was a revelation, although Warren didn't make any remark on that front.

"So you were invited up to Baltimore to protest peacefully... by the Brotherhood?" He actually started to wonder if Adam had been living in an isolated abbey for the last year, that he hadn't expected it to turn out as it had. And what reason the Brotherhood would have to lure a priest up here.

[preacher]

"The Brotherhood already has their religious contingent. She was dropping people from the sky."

Now he was definitely glad he hadn't met up with the Brotherhood. If that's how they did business, then they weren't the group for him.

"I don't pretend to understand what happened there. My guess is that I simply misunderstood the intentions of the Brotherhood and heard what I wanted to hear. They never actually said anything about protest, just a time and place." He had things to discuss with Erik once he got back in touch with the man. That wouldn't be for a while though, from the looks of things. Adam had heard that the X-men were friendly to all well-meaning mutants. He was curious to learn first-hand about the group.

[angel]

The winged mutant nodded as the Priest spoke, bending down to check another person for a pulse. Nothing.

"From what I'm told, it can be very easy to take what you want to hear from the Brotherhood's words. I wonder how many of those fighting today are simply misguided young mutants led into thinking that they were doing the right thing." Like the green woman, or the young girl that he'd seen Bobby dragging around. Or Emma Frost, who Bobby had claimed was possessing him - Warren knew of her from his father's business contacts, but he'd never known she was a mutant.

Hearing a moan, and seeing a man who had lost an arm to one of the giant plants, Angel reached for a jacket from one of the corpses. He felt bad, but it wasn't like that man was going to need it anymore, and his guy needed something to stem the bloodflow while he took him to the ambulances. Wadding it up and pressing it against the wound, he took off as quickly as he could. By the time he reached the ambulances, his leather suit was slippery with blood all down one side.

"Quickly, over here!" He waited for them to bring a stretcher before putting the man down, thinking that too many moves wouldn't do him much good, and waited a few moments to see that they were doing something before returning back to the piles of bodies. Rubbing his temples as he hovered a few feet above the ground, Warren wondered how many more they would find. Every minute made their chances slimmer, and he could feel a headache forming as he landed and spoke again to the preacher, droplets of blood running down the outside of his suit and pooling at his feet.

"So what did the Brotherhood want with you? You don't seem like their... general membership."

[logan]

Logan was working as quickly as possible, using his belt to try and stop the free flow of blood that seemed to paint the surroundings a deep red. Forge had gone from a perfect shade of bronze to an almost paper white, and honestly, the Wolverine had already assumed he wasn't going to pull through.

There was so much blood...

Rayen had fallen to her knees, unable to speak with the intensity of the moment. Whatever combination of emotions held her heart, it was visible only as a complete look of shell-shock. She put her head on her brothers chest, not in mourning already, but in basic first aid.... no heartbeat. He was dead.

Yet no wail escaped her lips, instead she looked around – felt around- for any current she could control... a lamppost, another sentinel – anything.

What she could find lay within the man himself. He'd mentioned that a portion of his mutant abilities had been electrical in nature, even that he could generate electricity, albeit slowly. He was a walking battery of sorts. Now she found this to be true... deep with in his brain, in the central portion, near the base of the nervous system, she could feel a small electrical current. Much more powerful than the standard electricity a person has in their body – yet not so powerful as to be dangerous by itself... but she could feel it's ability to grow.

She drew from it, a desperate measure for desperate time, hoping it wouldn't damage him... and she found that it seemed to not run out, but instead slowly increase. It continued to accelerate in it's power until she had what she needed.

Rayen said nothing, only used her hands as electric paddles, shocking Forge in the chest. Nothing. Again she did it, and his body jumped. Nothing...

As Logan finished securing the bloody stump, it seemed like she'd been shocking him forever. He was about to tell her to just let it go, that he was gone, when Forge suddenly took in a shocked breath of life.

Rayen continued to pull in from what seemed a vast well of strength, and did her best to see to any other injuries. Logan knew she had some first aid experience, but doubted she could do much better here... they needed to get to a hospital.

Standing, he scooped Forge into his arms, and looked around. He heard Sirens from the East, so that is where he had to go... they would not be returning to the school – not yet.

He tapped his communicator with his chin, saying 'X-Men'

[glow=red,2,300]“Forge is hurt bad. Conduit and I are taking him towards the ambulances – he needs to go to a hospital now! Make sure Bobby and Colossus are okay, we'll not be coming back to the school just yet, keep me informed as to what's going on.” [/glow]

Then he and Rayen were running down the street, simply past the Sentinels and over the bodies...

[preacher]

Adam's eyes flickerd from the man's face to the carnage surrounding them. It was obvious Warren was pushing himself hard to rescue these people, but he wasn't looking too good himself. Still, Adam understood the drive to help others often encouraged selflessness as well. He himself was toiling hard among the corpses, trying to find another survivor. Saving victims was something that deserved hard effort. Subconsciously, Adam began projecting a feeling of enthusiasm to Warren, perhaps renewing his vigor.

"I have no idea why the Brotherhood would want me. I didn't realize anyone knew I existed. My friend arranged this meeting, mostly. He even provided me transportation up. I only knew who I was supposed to meet and what day. I wasn't given a reason why, so I made one up for myself."

[Admin]

(Breaking my own rules here, because CK said I should and I know Ro will stamp my bio cause she LUUUUUURVES me *grin*)

The Reavers had shown up to the protest late, being college boys and prone to staying up late drinking. By the time they got to downtown Baltimore they could hear the sirens and see the smoke, by the time they got to NovaTeX it had been blocked off by police who were now long gone. The battle was slowing down, essentially over, as they crossed the barriers by sheer force of peer pressure, none of them wanting to appear a coward before the others in the group.

Aside from hundreds of dead bodies, the place was strewn with giant plants, dead tigers, and alot of fighting mutants. As the group of young men stood off to the side, watching in horrible fascination, one of the dead policemen turned around and aimed right into their midst, letting off a spray of bullets that most of them were able to avoid by crashing to the ground unceremoniously. The undead policeman was quickly taken care of by a man with really sharp claws.

"Jesus Christ," one of them said, "is everyone ok?" A round of "yeah"s came from most of them, but one of the guys was still laying on the ground, gasping for breath and holding a red hand over a spot on his chest, from which a trickle of blood flowed slowly down between his fingers.

"Oh shit," Joshua Foley said and knelt back down next to him. "Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit." He grabbed the guy's hand and lifted it, pressing his own down on the bullet-wound to try to staunch the flow of blood. He felt tingly, almost light-headed all of a sudden, but wrote it off as adrenaline until the strangest feeling came over him. It was like he could *see* into the wound. He was looking through his hand, as small as a maggot, crawling around inside the wound, crawling through the punctured lung, crawling out the back to the sidewalk that was puddled with blood and flesh. And then he became the wound, and began to tie himself back together. A tendon here, bone there, flesh over top. Bind up the lung, tie off the capilaries, re-absorb the blood that was seeping quickly into the core of the body. He barely noticed coming back into his own body until he pulled his hand away to expressions of shock - there was no wound.

Josh scrambled back on his hands and feet, starring wide-eyed at the guy before him, who was mirroring his expression. "What the hell just happened?" he said at the same time the other asked, "What did you just do to me?"

"I didn't do anything!" Josh protested to looks of disbelief.

"He didn't heal himself, golden boy," Don said with a snicker and nod to Josh's own skin. They'd always called him Golden Boy, a joke that they knew he hated, but Josh was actually gold now, and faintly glowing with a shimmery haze.

He held a hand up before his face, taking in the glow of it, the tanned bronze skin that was darker and lighter at the same time. He gulped as he put it back down to his side. "I... I couldn't have."

"Mutie fuck," Don's smile left his face and he threw a kick at Josh. It connected to his side, and Josh doubled over as the glow renewed itself brighter around him.

"I'm not!" Josh gasped through the kick, the pain leaving him nearly as quickly as it came. Don's famous switchblade came out, and Josh, fearing what they would do to him, scrambled up and ran for the other side of the melee - past the mutants who were currently fighting and into a dark building on the other side. The Reavers didn't follow, scared of the mutants doing battle between them, and after a few screams of "fucking mutie!" and other such nonsense, eventually left the scene.

Josh Foley stood in the doorway of the building, hands on his knees and breathing hard, the glow subsiding around him as he calmed and watched the drama coming to a close before him. A giant man swung another around by the leg, tearing it off and leaving him to bleed before collapsing himself. Another man was carrying a young girl away from an alley, where he had just watched lightning come from her fingertips and explode into a guy on top of a dumpster. Jesus, he couldn't be a mutant like them!

[Juggers]

Ever so slowly, consciousness seeped back into the Juggernauts skull. Things started to swim back into focus, like looking through a kaleidoscope that was finally achieving clarity. Mostly, consciousness smelled bad. It was also very dark.

Just for a moment he was sure he felt a small hand pressing against his back, and then it was gone. For some reason it was very dark. Cain mentally rewound and tried to recall exactly what had happened in the recent past.

He'd had a fight with Colossus.

Then the guy with the gun had shot him in the face with some sort of flaming blob. It had really hurt.

Then things got sort of fuzzy.

And now he was in a dark, smelly place.

There also seemed to be a great deal of concrete on top of him.

The Juggernaut shifted and braced his arms beneath him before heaving upward with a mighty shove. Broken chunks of the street cascaded about and splashed into the sewer water with an unpleasant slapping sound.

That explained the smell.

The rain was still pouring down, but the cloud had finally thinned from black to grey and would pretty soon begin to break up. As it was, Cain was happy to let the deluge wash away the reeking sewage and caked blood that he seemed to have acquired from somewhere.

The fighting seemed to be dying off with the storm and the street above was ominously quiet. The Juggernaut clambered out of his hole and surveyed the scene.

The scene was mostly devastated. Mangled cars, street lamps, people and plants littered the road to NovaTeX like a scene from Mad Max. All of the dead seemed to be staying dead and the last of the monster plants was being methodically hacked apart by a Sentinel.

Off to one side Cain spied his helmet and retrieved it. It had filled with rainwater in his absence and he threw the lot over his face to further ease away the grogginess.

Where the hell had everybody gone?

[Aurora]

Suddenly, Aurora seemed to appear just a few feet in front of Cain, holding her arms out a bit as she came to a sudden stop. She looked exhausted, and was shivering from the rain and the cold wind that blew over the rooftops. Blood was splattered on the front of her shawl, which was soaked through along with the rest of her clothes, and ugly bruising took the form of fingers on her neck, which helped to explain why she spoke in such a weak voice.\

"Cain! We have to go," she said, fiercely hiding a wince that happened from the effort of speaking. She drew a rattling breath. "But, I don't think I can lift you..."

[Juggers]

The Juggernaut stared at the apparition that had materialised in front of him, finally recognising the woman, Aurora, they had met up with earlier. She looked like shit. But then covered in sewage, napalm and blood Cain supposed he probably looked like shit too.

He felt great though.

It had been ages since they'd had a proper scrap and the Juggernaut was eager for more.

Pyro had had a plan though.

The cure was destroyed. At least he hoped it was. If it wasn't, Cain would be mighty curious to know what the hell the kid had been up to while they were all out fighting. Not that it mattered really.

It was an excuse for a fight.

If Pyro was calling it a day, he guessed it really was time to call it a day. He looked with some regret at the Sentinel stomping around the corner and then shrugged.

There was always tomorrow.

"Er ... yeah, I don't reckon you could lift me," the girl didn't look capable of lifting anyone, truth be told.

"I 'spose you could always give us a push, get us there a bit quicker," he grinned, "ya wouldn't 'ave to worry about stuff gettin' in the way, ain't nothin' can stop the Juggernaut!"

[Aurora]

Aurora followed the Juggernaut's gaze to the Sentinel that seemed to be retreating. As Cain made his suggestion, Aurora managed a wickedly amused smile. "Let's knock that Sentinel off it's feet while we're at it," she said slyly, turning her eyes on Cain.

She moved swiftly around him, in a blur but without disappearing completely--startling the Juggernaut was likely to be one's last deed. Her feet no longer touching the ground, she placed her hands about the middle of Cain's broad back.

"I guess...Just keep your head down?" she said, unsure. He couldn't really close his eyes; she assumed that he needed to see where they were going, to know when to ready to break through a wall. But they'd be reaching obstacles at breakneck speed, so it was a good thing he could just bulldoze through everything.

She used all of her force to start moving forward, and at the same moment, she said, "To your left!" She then craned her neck to see over his shoulder as they started to move with incredible speed.

They barrelled through town, mostly sticking to the roads but not bothering to cry over spilt milk if a wall or a tree came up unexpectedly. They barrelled over many people on their way to the truck, and Aurora did not envy those who found themselves under the Juggernaut's pounding boots.

Within two minutes, they reached the truck, and Aurora stopped pushing Cain and steadied herself against the back of the truck. Her heart was pounding, and her muscles screaming, from the effort of pushing the six-hundred pound man through town

[angel]

The feeling of despondency that had been growing as he gazed around at so much destruction was overtaken with enthusiasm, and Warren didn't question it. He was still discouraged, his faith in mutant-kind shaken irreparably by the woman who had such a beautiful gift and yet used it for horrific ends. The whole day had ended up a disaster, in his eyes, and he wondered if there had been some way to change things that they hadn't thought of, some way of making things work out peachy instead of ending up the way it had.

He was reminded of so many old horror flicks, the type that were laughable in comparison the newer ones, the ones that had giant blobs absorbing people, or zombies, or plants eating everyone and big giant monsters destroying cities. The special effects weren't so good, and everyone seemed to laugh at the scenarios, since they seemed so unrealistic. And yet... There they were, in Baltimore, with the remains of a walking corpse army and a group of carnivorous plants littered below their feet. It was enough to make him want to hover above the ground rather than pick his way through it all, but even with his renewed enthusiasm for helping everyone out, Warren knew that it was too energy intensive after the day he'd had.

"So you've missed your meeting. Is this... friend... going to welcome you back with open arms after that?" He wondered who the friend was, but didn't ask. Any friend who would direct a priest - who obviously held no love for the kind of work the Brotherhood did - to join with the group responsible for this mess was probably no friend indeed.