The Ashes of the Phoenix [OPEN]

[thethirdspecies]

WHO: John Sublime, "No Girl", the U-Men, and their unfortunate target... The Insitute
WHAT: Sublime's U-Men attack the school. They're aiming for the sublevels. Stop them at all costs!
WHERE: Throughout campus
WHEN: Past midnight, Wednesday-Thursday
WARNING(S): Gonna get violent.


The time was now. The media attention over his followers actions was too much. And after all, Xavier's little henchmen in London had figured it out. He was sure of it. There was no more time to bide. No more room for hesitation. It was act now, or the revolution would end in a prison cell, festering away in the disgusting care of this unclean world. Sublime couldn't stomach it. Couldn't fathom it. And whatever god help those who stood in the way of him and his dream of Homo Perfectus.

"All units are in place," Sublime whispered, peering out over the immaculate green, covered in moonlight, staring a drilling, piercing hole into the mansion. "Martha... it's your turn now," another whisper, as the floating apparatus before him, holding a strange glowing orb, began to shine even more brightly.

Just like that, the security systems failed. And just like that, Charles Xavier gasped and sent out a short, psychic burst to all X-Men, perhaps to everyone in the school, before he was overwhelmed and silenced, collapsing from his bed to the floor, stunned into sleep by a psychic force even he was not prepared for.

"This is it, Martha... our dream... U-Men! Bring me the Ashes of the Phoenix!" And like that, dozens of the men from the blurred video that Glamour and Spy had managed to obtain swarmed the ground, organic and mechanical, using a plethora of stolen mutant powers, attacked.


[[ This is it! Our first major action post, and in X-Men tradition, it's a direct attack on campus. Feel free to start your own threads. The U-Men will be NPC'd by the mods. Their ultimate goal is the filed away genetic samples of Jean Grey in the sublevels. They must be stopped, before someone uses them to integrate Jean's powers into a U-Man. ]]

Comments

[kamiizumi]

"What's she look like?" For all that Leo recognizes plenty of people when he sees them, keeping track of who knows who and who more than knows who is still something he's working on, and especially in low light, the finer details are easy to lose.

[jolie_aile]

"She has bat wings, and the same eyes as I do. But she's shorter than me." Not that it was necessarily easy to tell how tall Flandre was, latched onto the side of the wall as she was.

"I think Remi's still awake; she might be on the faculty floor still."

[kamiizumi]

"Didn't see anyone with bat wings, but as chaotic as it is right now....that probably doesn't mean much. I went straight out the window, haven't scouted out where everyone is inside yet."

He glanced down, across the grounds. "There's a lot of them out here."

[jolie_aile]

Flandre's shoulders twitched, as if fidgeting wings that weren't there. She did shift her grip on the wall, though, followed Leo's gaze across the yard.

"Any idea who they are?" she said, voice a bit lower than it had been. Was her sister okay? If they hurt Remilia--

Her claws crunched further into the mortar, part in worry and mostly in anger. Flandre had to fight not to growl.

"I don't think they've seen us yet."

If she went back inside now, she might miss the chance.

[kamiizumi]

"Not that I have anything to back up." There's likely to be evidence enough to figure it out after the fact, but after the fact is a moment that they don't have to spare yet.

"Don't move just yet." With darkness on their side, an absence of motion means they're not likely to be noticed...unless one of the group has a power that'll zero right in on them, anyway, but the chances are good if none have already gone after them, maybe the pet psychics in this group are all tied up elsewhere. "If we get a good opening..."

If they get a good opening, they can clean house, but if they don't have the element of surprise, the fight's going to be a lot tougher.

[jolie_aile]

"Fine," Flandre hissed back--and promptly started itching and aching to move the moment she knew not to. Mostly in her knuckles and fingers and toes. She let herself shift her grip on the brick wall, at least, though it'd still be pocked with clawmarks in the morning.

Keeping her eyes mostly closed to keep them from reflecting any errant lights, she glanced down at the ground again with equal slowness, gauging a better height to jump down at. She might easily turn an ankle from here, to say the least--and she'd need to move more or less immediately once she landed.

Unless there was someone the mutant could land on instead. That would work too. Maybe a coin would pop out of their head.

[kamiizumi]

"Once they pass, if they're not looking."

From above and behind, they've got the maximum advantage, and with that, they should be able to knock at least a couple of them out before they ever see it coming.

Even as patient as Leo is, though, he can't help but want to just get down and into things, himself. Every moment passing means a moment that who knows what is happening somewhere else, even if the group right in front of them isn't hurting anyone just yet. Every moment passing means someone else might be in trouble -

They've passed. They're not looking.

He leaps from the windowsill, down to a tree branch and then down again from there, twisting around in midair to aim a hard kick into the closest U-Man's back.

[jolie_aile]

Flandre's approach was altogether less graceful, at least at the end. She did take her time climbing further down the wall when Leo jumped away, until she was finally at a height she could safely (and quietly) jump from. Her ankles still rattled, but held, and Flandre kept her profile low and hunched over to keep her shoulders from cutting a distinctive shape in the dark.

But she moved regardless, first merely quickly and then almost sprinting until she crashed shoulder first into the back of the formation like a wrecking ball scattering ninepins.

One at least Flandre was certain about; she kept going once she had one up against her shoulder, crashing into the next in the opposite direction Leo came at them from.

[kamiizumi]

The first U-Man crumpled under Leo's weight, and Leo stayed put long enough only to slam an elbow strike into the back of the man's head before jumping up and into a strike against the next one. They were going to have to move fast, he was sure; take as many as they could out of the fight before it really started, otherwise they were going to have their hands full.

Fast, for Leo, had never equated to sloppy, thankfully, and his aim was true. His foot hit squarely in the next U-Man's side, putting him on the defensive long enough for Leo to aim for the head again.

[jolie_aile]

There were six shapes in all, that Flandre could immediately identify; red beams from night-vision preserving flashlights flashed every which way now that they were alerted to an attacking presence. But from where, precisely?

Flandre served as a decent enough distraction, smashing one U-Man caught on her shoulder into the next in line--then discarding them both to slide stunned into the dirt.

But the U-men had also started to respond in earnest; one responded with lightning, another with some kind of beanbag rounds. Both hit Flandre; the former grazing her, the latter infuriating her; the electricity scorched her nerves and skin, inflaming both with pain. The taller mutant snarled, horribly and almost roaring--then seized one of the assailants she had knocked down by the ankle, swinging the body with contemptuous ease towards whoever was the source of that damned lightning.

Her sister might be a target. That scoured her mind of many other things.

[kamiizumi]

The second one Leo hit, but not hard enough to take him out right away, and when he moved to hit back, there was a white glow around the fist he was pulling back for a punch.

There were plenty of things that could mean, but Leo wasn't particularly eager to find out which it was.

He leaned to the side, dropping to catch his weight on one hand and avoid the punch - or at least, that was his plan, but untrained though Leo's power was, instinct still tended to kick it off when he wasn't confident enough in his control to try to use it on purpose. He flickered and vanished as the U-Man's punch was thrown -

- reappearing directly behind the man.

It was a surprise for Leo as much as anyone, but he gamely went with it, turning that dodge into a sweep and knocking his opponent's leg out from under him.