SINISTER FINALE

[astonishing_xmods]

WHO: Those who signed up for the punching dinosaurs Savage Lands mission
WHAT: Time to get a cure
WHERE: Savage Land Nature Preserve
WHEN: October 10th
WARNING(S): Violence, language, etc

The Blackbird was getting quite a bit of use, lately. It left the Institute early, before the sun was properly up—from there, it was a straight line from New York to Antarctica, with no stops between. The paperwork had been cleared, official permission granted for the team to enter an international wildlife reserve. There would be no scandalous headlines of border-crossing house parties this time, thank you very much.

The glasslike surface of the Antarctic Ocean stretched away endlessly beneath the plane, disappearing into a fog-clouded horizon.

They weren’t there quite yet.

But they would be soon.

Comments

FINAL STRETCH

[astonishing_xmods]

[After fighting through the mostly annoying and sometimes dangerous guard dogs, they came to the lab itself.

It was relatively nondescript; a single-story building tucked into the forest, worn by weather and vines—difficult to see from the air. But that wasn’t all there was to see here.

And they weren’t alone.]

[bethemonster]

[Sinister himself was the most noticeable player on the stage, dressed in the finest Edwardian-Victorian formals, black silks and velvets, and looked very much the picture of a scientific madman of his time, his inhuman eyes narrowed in a severe scowl.

Behind him was Claudine Renko, the red diamond on her forehead now fully visible, given all of her hair had been pulled back to make room for the modules on her temple. In fact most of her had been made naked, all so she could be affixed to whatever machine she was attached to. She seemed very nearly dead, no life to be found in her features. Contrary to popular belief, she did not seem like a welcome guest in the House of Sinister, but instead very much a tool to be used, just like everyone the man had surrounded himself with.]

You X-Men are frustratingly tenacious, I'll give you that much. For every thing that's been thrown at you that other sane persons would have taken as clear deterrents, you find yourselves here, battered and bruised, before me.

And yet you still think you have a chance at coming out on top. It's deluded and pathetic.

[anythingspossible]

Joss gasped, when she saw Renko. She didn't know much about the head of the M.L.F, only that Sinister had done something horrible to a person and he should pay! Joss tightened the grip of her lasso weapon till it almost hurt. She was afraid of big spiders, but she wasn't afraid of Sinister.

"Ya can talk big all ya want, Sinister, but you ain't gettin away with this. Ever!"

Joss aimed her Lasso directly at Sinister and fired.

[friendofdorothy]

[Liir stopped, rigid. The very integrity of his idol's body had been violated. In that context, her near nudity seemed almost an afterthought.]

...Ren...ko!

[He tried to shout but it came out choked and not as loud as he'd have liked.]

[long_live_the_queen]

Liir! Move!

[Kaede hadn't known what to expect, beyond that there so many damn dinosaurs and other snappy things it might as well have been a movie set. Certainly not anything normal. This wasn't what she expected either.

But she did know that the place they were standing was going to get very--oh my god what was Joss doing.

She grabbed at the back of Liir's shirt with a vector, leaping two meters to the left.]

[bethemonster]

[Joss's initiative was appreciated to some pervese degree, in the way Sinister smirked, but it would certainly be for naught. The madman lifted his hand, and with a simple gesture, a blast of psychic energy taking form and shredding the weapon to pieces.]

I do hope you've brought more than children and their toys to challenge me.

[droppedbucket]

[At some point the constant growl had stopped- if only because it hurt her throat after a while But that sound came back, the little feral hunched up and prepared to spring if needed.

She goes glance about, trying to take cues from the rest of the group instead of charging in and getting into trouble. For once.]

[anythingspossible]

(ooc note: Relevant music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBKsQpQw6Fg)

When Joss' most useful weapon was torn to shreds, Joss gasped and brought her hand over her mouth, but the gesture was not just a reflex, it was a pretext...

A pretext that prevented Sinister from seeing her mouth move.

"Liir..."

Earlier Joss had given Liir one of her communicators. What Joss had neglected to tell Liir was that her communicator didn't work according to sound. It worked by monitoring facial muscles, (ooc note: it's written in Joss profile), which meant she could talk to Liir without uttering a sound. She just had to lip sync.

"...Liir I'm gonna distract Sinister best I can. Please save the woman he kidnapped, use the communicator to see what he did to her."

Joss lowered her hand in her pocket to touch her phone, moved her fingers to secretly activate Tornado, and dug up the gumption to charge Sinister, even though she knew it was absolutely crazy.

"Rrrrrrraa!"

Now I know how brave ya are, Ron. She thought. Now I know how frightin the distraction role really is. .

[long_live_the_queen]

[Kaede let go of Liir now; she would need her power elsewhere.

Her vectors grabbed at a tree within her strike zone, pulling it up and tearing it out of the ground by its roots with a spray of earth. The horned mutant only paused long enough to yank the strangling vines from the tree's stunted crown before throwing the entire thing at Sinister.

With what that man had just done, she doubted it would hit him. But with Joss serving as a distraction, it might at least help.

And besides. He was in the way.]

[friendofdorothy]

[Liir's way ahead of you on that, Joss. That is, when he's done being plucked out of the way of death like a kitten about to wander into traffic. He wasn't about to be all that useful fighting Sinister, not in a head on fight anyway. Instead he used the cover of the tree to move around Sinister. Hopefully she wouldn't kill him. He tried to silence the communicator but wasn't sure if he'd gotten it right.]

Renko, it's me, Liir Thropp.

[He was being quiet to not draw Sinister's attention this time, not because he was shocked.]

[bethemonster]

[Sinister looked almost bored as he used his own psychokinetic force to stop the tree, far more practiced in using it for just such this purpose than Kaede was. And as for Joss, well... Just let the kid run into him. It wasn't unlike charging headfirst into a steel wall.]

[openedthedoor]

[No response came from Renko, only the barest of twitches. There was no telling how long she'd been hooked up to Sinister's machines, or which of them was keeping her alive. Just removing her by force would no doubt kill her from the shock, weak as she was...]

[anythingspossible]

Joss had a plan to use Sinister's own psychokinetic ability against him the moment he used it to try to stop her.

But that didn't happen. Instead Joss, ran up to Sinister, jumped into the air and did a round house kick, which she once saw in a Kung-fu movie, right into Sinister's gut.

Big mistake.

"Oooowww!" Joss fell back on to the floor with a smack, gritting her teeth in pain, and curling around her injured leg. She seemed defeated, but with subtle movements of her fingers she commanded her pet robot, Tornado, to levitate out of the shadows and quietly attempt to rummage through Sinister's lab equipment for dangerous chemicals.

Joss grew up in a lab. She knew that labs tended to be virtual armories for corrosive, and otherwise toxic industrial chemicals, particularly solvents. She hoped she could use the chemicals against Sinister, but all this depended on Sinister not noticing Tornado, and on Joss surviving.

She had her hand close to her pocket, as part of plan C.

[long_live_the_queen]

[That went...about as well as she imagined. Namely, not particularly.

But no one was dead yet or had any newly broken bones, Joss was...squawking again but also didn't seem to be dead, dying, or with anything broken. She still seemed capable of doing things, so Kaede left her alone.

Liir was up to something, and she needed to keep Sinister's attention away from him.

He'd stopped her attack, but hadn't thrown the tree back at her face. Kaede took the opportunity to close the distance, to get Sinister within her strike zone, and lash her vectors out at his arms and shoulders.

She supposed she shouldn't kill him. But he didn't need the nerves in his arms for anything right this moment. They'd grow back!

...later.]

[psykick]

[While Joss and Kaede take the frontal approach, Rinka takes the rear. Or more specifically, the subterranean approach. After ducking out of sight behind a tree, she phases herself straight into the ground. While she can't see what's going on above her, she had calculated the distance to Sinister, and provided he doesn't move, she's fairly confident she can come up right behind him.

What then, she's not entirely sure. She could try to phase him into the ground, though she's never then left someone there. She's not sure what exactly would happen, but she's pretty certain it wouldn't be healthy.]

[friendofdorothy]

[Liir had no way of knowing what to unplug from Renko to get her out of there and the only person nearby who might was...distracted. The only other thing he might be able do was to try to glean some useful information with his other power.

He removed his glove and put his hand on her shoulder, hoping that he could glean something useful from her memories, maybe a way to get her out or a weakness of Sinister's.]

[droppedbucket]

[Just seeing everyone getting bounced back gave a moment for Kisume to think things through. Full outright attacking wasn't doing much but it might buy enough time to figure things out. With that in mind, Kisume headed in quickly and reached out, trying to gather up enough water in the area to throw at Sinister. She could be a distraction too!]

[bethemonster]

[Unfortunately for the Children of the Atom, their inexperience in comparison to Sinister was definitely their downfall. In spite of the nobility of their distractions, they were all painfully transparent.

First, Joss's machine, swiped up by a wave of psychokinetic energy, thrust into the path of Kaede's vectors. Then a simple sidestep to send Kisume's water bullets hurtling towards Rinka behind him.]

Inferior. Weak. Even among the genetic superiority of mutant kind there are elements which need to be culled. That was my Legacy. That was my purpose as His Pestilence... It is a shame that my own progeny could not see eye to eye with me, isn't it?

[openedthedoor]

[Which meant Sinister also knew what Liir was doing. The psychic backlash, a trap planted by Sinister, was enough to fry the strongest of telepaths. No doubt Liir would find it a bit troublesome, himself.]

[friendofdorothy]

[Liir reeled back, grabbing at anything nearby for support. He experienced the backlash as a blast of white noise, a firecracker stuffed with the sound of a television with its volume turned off going off behind his eyelids. Thought returned quickly though: "He knows what we're going to do." He whispered into Joss's communicator.]

He's predicting us!

[psykick]

[Naturally, the water passes straight through Rinka. As she finishes phasing out of the ground to 'stand' on the same level as everyone else, she hears what Liir says. If Sinister is predicting them, then he must have some sort of precog ability. That, she knows how to handle thanks to Ayumu. Selectively unphasing her batons, she empties her mind of all thoughts and leaps at Sinister to deliver a series of blows. Rather than planning her attack, she operates on reflex and the principle of countering. If someone attacks you, attack back. Counter and re-counter in an endless chain, not wasting a second on thoughts that will just slow you down.

Provided she can even land a touch.]

[long_live_the_queen]

[First things first--don't die. That was important when there was a robot flying at your head at subsonic speeds.

Kaede's vectors curled back on themselves, trying to deflect the thing away from her while jumping to the opposite side. It had too much mass and was going too fast to just stop dead.

She turned, still in range, and her vectors grasped after the edge of the psychokinetic wave that threw the robot at her and that stopped the tree. It didn't look like her vectors; it barely rippled in Kaede's vision, like a heat shimmer. But it still looked like something her vectors could touch, interact with, grab. If she could do that, she could push backwards, maybe even keep Sinister in place so Rinka or Kisume or anyone else could hit him.

Or she could just get thrown back on her ass. But that wouldn't stop her from getting up again. Kaede was nothing if not stubborn.]

[anythingspossible]

Joss shot up off the floor gripping her smart phone, struggling to get Tornado to not knock Kaede over. She used it's arm to shift its direction so it's ion exhaust would not blast into Kaede's face.

Her robot didn't have the thrusting power to resist the psychokinetic wave, but at least maybe Kaede could stop it, before it knocked her down.

[bethemonster]

[Kids indeed. Sinister had almost been waiting for them to give up and call in Wolverine or Storm to deal with him, and yet they weren't discouraged even still by all of their setbacks. He'd be impressed, if he didn't hold their lives in such contempt... Though he had to admit, that girl, with her psychic vectors, very much piqued his interests...

Enough to distract. Enough for Rinka to land a clear blow, staggering the man in black.]

You will... regret that...

[anythingspossible]

Joss thought a secret "yes" when her robot manged to wiggle free of the grip of the two telekinetic warriors. Her eyes darted from Kaede to Rinka. They seemed to have the fight covered better than she did.

She limped quietly, and quickly around the battle, to the place where she hoped she could make a difference.

She approached Renko. She took a quick glance to Liir "Don't worry none. Were gonna help your friend somehow."

She kneeled beside Renko. Tornado took its place by her side automatically, Joss then attempted to place one of her communicators in Renko's ear. If successful she was sure it would tell her what was wrong with Renko, and maybe which tubes were keeping her alive.