|
![]() ![]() |
The War Room.
The sky above is a blood red tinged with a deep burning orange, the ground underfoot soaked with rain and blood enough to turn it into a slippery slop that clutches at shoes and feet, making movement hard. Empty husks of buildings torn by war stand as silent witness to the horrors of oppression and violence. The sound of gunfire rings through the air from several blocks to the right, and Colossus runs at full tilt along a small alley. His breathing is loud in his ears, each foot pounding in the mud and sending a splash of slop to the left and right. Reaching the mouth of the alley, Colossus hurls himself, diving behind the cover given by a parked and burned out automobile, his metal shoulder colliding with the door hard enough to cave it in.
War, what is it good for?
Poetry and novels, primarily, things of the New York Times bestseller list rather than actual reality. It helps not to know all this is an illusion conjured by a telepathy gifted creativity and somewhat alien technology, maintained within the shell of a building Scarlett knows better than most. Some part of her mind revolts at the notion of blood, silenced by the rest of her being. Gloves and a long coat give a modicum of protection to her while she walks through the squelching muck, more for the safety of everyone else rather than herself. She's one of the rare few who might wear a chainmail bikini with impunity. Right now, she's crouched behind a shattered wall, the crooked doorway pock marked by bullet holes. Explosive cracks of gunfire don't equalise and the deafening retort in some ways aches. But she can see perfectly fine, and a very large Soviet rushing down an alley is enough to convince her to move. It's something of an unfair act on her part, sliding along the crumbling backbone. Then she needs only to turn where a demolished pile of rubble blocks a sight line to the general source of mayhem and gunfire. She's not the sort of girl to exactly shy from trouble. Being damn hard to hit means being bait. Gesturing with two fingers to Colossus, her gaze travels down the hazy wreckage of the street. Sniper in the empty window, or possibly some evil birdman flapping around. One never knows, in here.
Is it the nature of of the danger room that makes the lone child's terrified wails heard even over the rapid gunfire? Or perhaps it is just a deeper signature of human/mutant-kind to hone in on the distress in the child's voice. It is coming from a hollowed out and burned husk of what remains of a multi-level apartment down the street a short ways and two floors up, the wailing child visible through the shattered window where she looks out on the street below.
Colossus follows Rogue's gesture, eyeing down the alley and seeing nothing, but the rumbling in the ground is enough to fortell of the approaching danger. Moments later, a large tank rolls on seemingly angry tracks into view at the end of the alley, a spotter seated atop the metal weapon of destruction.
The bird has been hiding.
Somewhere out there, there was a woman who was skipping along through the destruction. Somewhere out there, the red-headed vixen reveled in the amount of the destruction, her eyes red.. fire burning where the green used to be and the smoke that touches the corner of her eyes as if they were created wing-tips through cosmetics.
The gunfire touches her in a sense that it bounces off her shield, even with a little 'lalalala' twirl with arms outstretched given. A car, lifted with that same gesture into the air to reveal the assailants allows for a scream from them, and with a show of a fall of her hands as if she were a ballerina created a ribbon of surrounding the metal box, which crashed down upon the offenders with a pittance of ground.
They're not real! Jean can kill with abandon!
Sort of.
'Part of this bothers me, Lady.' Jean-self speaks.
'But this is fun, thank you for letting me out!'
'Kids in candy stores?'
'And all the chocolate she can eat.' The bird intones.
"Rome. We should have created a battledome.. this is getting tough.."
One who prefers a route of nonviolence has much to answer for in here. It's scarce a secret Scarlett loathes to strike another, much less inflict fatal damage. The worse for everyone if she ever thought to walk the path of the reaper, laughter on her lips and fraught joy in her plasmic green eyes. Rather, she takes a breath whilst the sobbing hues paint terror on the horrific atmosphere. "Just had to deliver that extra touch, didn't you?" To whom she speaks is irrelevant; the programmer knows what they're about in making the scenario. She takes two steps out into the street while Colossus dives out into the alley. Vibrations humming on the ground give her reason to abandon the Earth altogether. Her fair shadow paints a line over the man's broad shoulders when she goes airborne, darting to a broken bit of rebar, landing light as a feather. One swift turn corrects her position, and the girl waves brightly at the spotter on the tank. He wants to have something to look at, she'll give him something to look at. Bait to draw that gun away from the child, away from the Soviet wrecking ball, and away from the firebird. Have to make it /somewhat/ believable though, somewhat fun.
Hide behind the wall, shy away, wait for the spotter to relay the information. Then, dive or crawl or fling herself aside before the shell comes rocketing in and explodes. As it goes, she has an excellent record of calculating impacts and being just out of reach.
Colossus does not stay crouched behind the cover of the hollowed out car for long. As Rogue lifts into the air over him, Colossus vaults the hood of the car and charges straight for the tank. The Spotter slides back through the hatch as Rogue sends him that wave, no doubt barking orders to the controlman inside. Colossus' mad charge similarly does not go unnoticed and as the Russian runs toward the tank, the machine gun housed in the forefront opens fire. The rapid fire shots are loud, the explosion of each shell lighting the front of the tank even as the big weapon begins to swivel to track Rogue. Bullets strike Colossus and bounce away, ricocheting off of his metal body, tearing holes in his uniform. He makes the tank with a growl, leaping atop machine of war with a loud clang and crawling for the turret that rocks backward with the force of the large diameter shell shot toward Rogue's hiding spot. And all the while the child still screams in fear. Jean is within sight of the field of destruction, around fifty yards away.
The sounds were created loud enough to provide enough realism to the situation. Within her bubble, it was filtered out, dulled. Her mind pulled into, her ears manipulated down to the very fiber due to the Phoenix's temporary inhabitant. Even if it was just for play, she wanted to show how deliberate and delicate her power could be.
Yet, the scream of the child was the only filter around the blasts, her eyes slowly lifting to the makeshift sky, her arms stretching out as she soon smacks her hands together to pull apart with a webbing of fire that dashes from her fingertips. The blast itself soars, heading directly for the child..
..forming and curling into a set of wings..
..enlarging an expanding to flit it's wingspan around the girl to wrap her up in a hot embrace. One that doesn't burn.. only to soothe..
'That's done.' The bird says.
'People aren't -obstacles-..'
'But this isn't real.'
'So what do you propose we do? Burn the whole thing down?' Jean asks.
'I thought you'd never ask..'
"Marco!" sings the redhead as she strikes off the wall opposite and several yards back from where the child might be. The streak of dun and sylvan green stitches a zigzagging leap respecting all levels of three dimensionality, leaping up to a windowed handhold then across for another caved in wall. Going back and forth gets her to the tank. The mobility exists to confuse the tank's targeting processes and whatever primitive systems within calculating her trajectories. Simply put, predicting what she'll do depends on far more than measuring ahead or behind. Especially with a savage Russian farmer taking out his punishment on the metal, she simply proves a hell of a hard target to match.
Catching sight of fire in the mayhem of motion helps satisfy curiosity and redirect purpose. "It's all right, darling, stay down and cover your head! She's got you!"
Scarlett's call to the child follows her ducking away from shrapnel of concrete and plaster raining down. With Colossus in place, she goes diving for the side of the tank with intention to disable the functionality of turning from the side. Hello, punching the big gun and turret. Whee!
It takes Colossus all of a second to spring back to his feet atop the tank, grabbing onto the spinning turret long enough to grab the hatch set in the top and set his feet. Metal fingers pry under the lip of the hatch and his teeth grit with determination as he heaves and rips the hatch away, exposing the hole that leads down inside the massive weapon. It is a tight squeeze for the Russian, but down he goes head first and soon enough the scream and yells can be heard accompanied by loud clangs as Colossus turns into a veritable tasmanian devil inside, simply extending long arms in powerful punches, legs snapping out in kicks powerful enough to cause dents to appear bulging the steel outward. Rogue's attack finds it's target and she will have little difficulty ripping into the side of the tank and disabling the machine, the pair soon enough having the weapon completely disabled.
The sounds of war still rattle off in the distance, but with the girl rescued and the tank out of comission, a simple, "Simulation Complete," echoes around before the simulation fades, leaving Colossus laying on his back on the floor, kicking left and right in the empty air.
'What do you -mean- burn it to the ground?' Jean says.
'Destroy everything? Fire and li-..'
'No. No. No. We agreed, we agreed that I let you out, and you blow off your steam, and you get back in the box!'
'What box?'
'You know, the internal box that.. you know!'
Jean takes a step forward, and as she does the remnants of debris begin to crawl behind her. Preparing to destroy the entire simulation and everyone in it.
'Scarlett and Piotr are here. They're -real- people.'
'I know.' The bird says.
'Then you can't burn everything to the ground!'
'I wasn't going to burn -THEM-'..
'Then wha..'
The simulation ends, and a loud 'Aww' is heard, one eye slowly dawning with it's normal green hue, the other remaining a ring of fire like Sauron who looks at the two with a slight hint of disappointment.
"We were just saving the girl? That's it?"
One eye screws up and looks at the other, which causes her to look cross. "Nevermind. It was a good fight!"
Witnessing metal cave under her fist causes Scarlett no great thrill. She strikes with her open palm next, a flurry of controlled, focused blows rather than applying herself like a storm of fists. Let Colossus do that. A tumbling flurry of activity forces metal to groan and then vanish from sight, dropping her off the supportive treads her knee rested against.
Advantages of flight: many. She catches herself before sprawling onto her stomach, hitched back and standing up, smoothly brushing her coat off. Nothing to see here. With a smile carving a sunny curve suspended on her pale, radiant expression, she extends her hand to Piotr. "Let me help you up. Well done for a direct attack."
Her green gaze seeks the familiar member of Team Redhead, for whom the magnitude jumps several levels. "You did very well isolating her, protectively, too. That turned out rather well. Now the building will surely fall on us while the clouds outside rain cupcakes."
Piotr takes that hand up, his hand seeming to dwarf Rogue's, but up he comes. His body quickly reverts back to its flesh covered form and he dips his head in acceptance of Rogue's compliment. His eyes then pan to Jean and he offers a smile as he says, "Yes, you are doing very well in your protection abilities. I am impressed."
Jean draws her hand up to cover her eye, her fingers pressed in to shake away the fire that remained. As she watches the two, there was a slight grin upon her features, her hands soon joining at her back as she walks.. much in the way that her older brother would. "That'll be my day. Unable to play in the cupcake rain while I'm smushed.. not by arms that love me, but by a wall that fell on me." The irony.
Though now, she was hankering for something sweet, and with those few steps closer, she dipped her head in thanks. "I try. I'm all bubbles and pushes. It was my first time using fire. Our first time. Which ever."
She tilts her head towards the exit, then attempts to move towards it. "Lunch? Scarlett would be grateful for a sandwich after her rest."