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

[koukai_kirai]

The second U-man Chris shoots stays down, but the first one melts briefly into a puddle of water and stands up again, none the worse for wear. The others struggle to their feet quickly, while the one with the super-speed nearly collides with Saitou, then tries to slip behind him, throwing a flurry of blows at him with what looks to be a large, fixed-blade knife.

Hijikata, keeping the winds high to reduce the ease of aiming ranged weapons, goes to Saitou's side and takes a swing at the U-man with his sword. He manages to dodge, but turns to engage Hijikata, giving Saitou a moment of opportunity.

[seduceme]

"Putain de merde," comes the venomous hiss as the one U-man turns to water, Chris returning to view as as she flicks out her butterfly knife. She clearly won't be able to take him down with her gun and her two partners at the moment are otherwise engaged with the other enemy, so she does her best to distract and hopefully disable him.

She flickers in and out of view, ducking and weaving and perhaps accidentally flashing him until she's whirled around behind the U-man, aiming to shoot at the U-man's suit and hopefully bury her knife into his back.

[iaijutsu]

Saitou's able to dodge the speedster's assault, for the most part - and when his own speed isn't quite enough to keep him from getting grazed on the arm, he hardly notices; the cut is already mending itself, and even if it's been years since he trained under Shego, the lessons she taught him are never going away.

And first among those was pain tolerance.

As soon as the U-Man turns to engage Hijikata, Saitou seizes on the opening, lunging forward to take a deep slash at his back and get him out of the fight in one stroke, if he can.

[koukai_kirai]

The water-shifting U-man, perhaps because he only has Chris to focus on for the moment, keeps good track of her movements; when she goes in for the knife attack, he's a puddle on the ground, reforming behind her and trying to grab her gun arm.

Meanwhile, the one with the super-speed has little time to react to Saitou's attack, but unfortunately for the group, he's good at making use of that little time. He moves towards Hijikata to avoid the worst of the blow, twists, parries, and manages to avoid being hit. With both of the men on him, he backs up to let himself see both of their attacks coming -- if he can just give the others a second longer to recover...

[seduceme]

Not stopping, as soon as the U-man dissolves into water again Chris is turning on her heel, aiming the pistol up at his head as he reaches for that hand, As her finger pulls the trigger, her other hand shooting forward to drive the knife into his gut.

[iaijutsu]

Saitou presses forward as the man backs up, intent on keeping the pressure up, his blade moving forward again - not quite as fast as the man can dodge, but hopefully at least enough to keep him occupied, and let Hijikata worry about whoever's behind them.

[koukai_kirai]

She shoots a little too soon -- the bullet passes through the water, the U-man's head reforming just a second too late for the shot to matter. The knife, on the other hand, hits its mark -- a little off center, but enough to make that U-man's day a lot worse in a hurry. He brings up his own gun, trying to get the barrel pointed directly at her.

The man up against Saitou backs up again, but, perhaps not as used to the space around him as the three teachers are, bumps up against the wall. He hisses out a curse, dodging Saitou's blows, but finding himself somewhat preoccupied with trying to find a way out of this.

Hijikata turns around, back to back with Saitou, trusting him to deal with it. Not a moment too soon, either, as two of the ones who didn't get kneecapped has made his way down the hall towards the two of them. He slashes one downwards across the shoulder hard enough to break the collarbone and send them crashing to the ground, grasping at the wound, then turns his sword towards the other in warning.

"Turn around now, and you'll be able to walk away."

The U-man scoffs, and activates a walkie-talkie. "We need backup in the West--!"

Hijikata did warn him. The air tube on his fancy, high-tech suit fills with all the air in the rest of the suit, pressurizing to its limit before it ruptures with a hiss. The U-man finds himself unable to speak, as a side result of suddenly not having enough air to breathe. He drops his weapons, grasping at his throat.

[seduceme]

Chris smirks with sadistic glee as the knife sinks into flesh, smacking the U-man's gun away to pistol-whip him with her own. "That is not a toy," she purrs, twisting the blade still buried in him.

She distantly hears the one enemy trapped against the wall and the choking of the one caught in Hijikata's vacuum, quietly pleased with the havoc the two others are wreaking on their wouldbe infiltrators.

[iaijutsu]

It's almost in perfect timing - one, Chris's knife in the first, two, the choking sound from the one fighting Hijikata -

- three, Saitou's blade finally whipping itself across his opponent's gut in a flash.

He doesn't feel terribly good about disemboweling a man, when they're supposed to be in pursuit of peace here, even knowing that the man's actions all but invited it.

Right now, though, he doesn't really have time to allow himself the luxury of feeling anything.

[koukai_kirai]

The scent of blood is thick and horrible; Hijikata hardly notices it in the moment. He lets the airflow return when the U-man loses consciousness -- hopefully he'll wake up again, but there's no real guarantee of it.

They have healers here, anyway. If they cling to life long enough for this to be dealt with, perhaps they'll live to regret it, but there's nothing to be gained by worrying about it now. The absence of Xavier's voice is still a worrisome hollow in his mind.

"Keep moving," he says, voice sharp and cold as steel, though he doubts they really need the order. They need to keep their focus, need to get to the source of this...

[seduceme]

Chris pushes the U-man off her knife with an annoyed huff, noting the faint spots of blood on her gown and wiping off the red smeared over the blade itself on the fallen enemy's clothing. It's with a mix of irritation at the blood on her clothing (she likes this gown!) and with cold logic that she calmly moves amongst the fallen men to shoot them all in the knees to make sure they wouldn't be fleeing or mobilising after them, unlikely as either scenario seemed, especially from the gutted man.

Still, it's satisfying.

Disarming and tossing the stolen gun aside, Chris follows Hijikata's order and turns to resume their course.

[iaijutsu]

Hijikata's order all but confirms what Saitou was already thinking, and he pushes the thought of what they're leaving behind him out of his mind, turning to follow.

It'll keep for later.

[koukai_kirai]

Without waiting any longer for confirmation -- he doesn't really need it from these two, he's learned -- he sweeps off down the hall, not more than a glance spared to the downed U-men.

As they made their way onwards, the sounds of fighting raged from seemingly every direction. It wasn't long before the heavy tromp of boots started approaching their position again...