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

[yu_mad]

"You're the one who started talking to me," Yu observed. "If you didn't want to have a conversation, you didn't have to mess with my door."

Yu was pretty sure this was how "provoking the enemy into making a mistake" worked.

[endurancepoint]

Alex didn't like that the U-man had a gun, especially in a dorm full of students. Disarming this guy was a priority. Counting on Yu to keep the guy's attention focused on him, Alex closed the distance, intended to deliver a hard strike to the back of the guy's helmet. If he could disorient the U-man, maybe he'd be able to get the weapon away from the intruder without the U-man using his telekinesis.

[thethirdspecies]

"Are you goddamn kidding me? You--guh..."

The helmet prevented him from taking much physical damage from the strike, but it still came as a shock, and still rattled him up substantially. As hoped, he dropped the gun -- but he turned around to face Alex, pushing him backwards with a heavy wave of force.

[yu_mad]

Yu waited for a second, but figured once he heard continued fighting from the U-Man that Alex would need help. Hoping the enemy was distracted (and not sitting on the furniture or something), Yu shoulder-heaved the door to try and get out into the hallway.

[endurancepoint]

Dropped gun, good. Telekinetic wave, not so good. As always, once he started working the probabilities, the various end results of an encounter started narrowing down. He still had no idea where this one would ultimately end up, but Alex was starting to suspect with a little infirmary time for him. He'd been far too close to avoid the telekinetic push, so all he could do was curl up a little to make the impact against the wall behind him hurt a little less and try to protect his head.

"You push like a girl," Alex quipped as he sagged against the wall, trying to keep the U-Man's attention on him.

[thethirdspecies]

The U-man turned away from the door completely, his focus on Yu dropping. The couch was still heavy and in the way, but no one was pushing on it now.

On the other hand, the telekinetic force was shaping itself into walls now, pressing downwards and inwards towards Alex. "You just keep your damn mouth shut! We're not here for you asshole kids, anyway!"

[yu_mad]

Yu pushed the door open and the couch out of the way as quietly as possible - which was probably not very quiet, but the U-Man sounded like he was too mad to be paying much attention.

He figured he probably couldn't really injure the intruder through that outfit, so Yu focused on distraction and misdirection again. Namely, he lunged forward and tried to get his hands under the back of the U-Man's helmet and either shove it forward or twist it around so that he couldn't see out of it.

[endurancepoint]

"Scarier guys than you have tried to shut me up," Alex ground out, his legs shaking. "And they're all dead."

Alex had been trapped in small spaces before, but he's always been able to see the walls, even when it was dark. So it was a little unsettling to feel something wall-like pressing him down, but not seeing anything at all. He pushed back as much as he could, but he didn't have sufficient strength. Bit by bit, he was forced down.

It didn't help that his attention was very divided now. The moment he saw the couch start to budge, Alex pulled on the necessary probabilities in an attempt to muffle the noise of the couch moving and to muffle Yu's steps as he ran forward. As Alex's knees hit the ground, he threw every shred of focus he could spare on his roommate's attempt to dislodge the U-men's helmet.

[thethirdspecies]

"You think you're tough, you little bastard? I'm shaking. Just shut--shit!"

Caught completely unaware by Yu, he didn't have time to stop him from twisting the helmet around. In a panic, he dropped his weapon, losing his focus on Alex and flailing at his mask.

[yu_mad]

Yu's first instinct was to keep attacking, but the goal here wasn't to hurt this guy - and a good thing too, since he was still in some kind of armor. Instead, he went for the U-Man's dropped gun, scooping it up and attempting to fumble his way into a threatening stance while the intruder was blinded.

[endurancepoint]

The moment the force pressing in on him stopped, Alex straighten up and surged forward, ignoring the soreness and aches in his limbs. While Yu grabbed the gun, Alex tried to knock the U-Man's legs out from under him.

[thethirdspecies]

The U-man went down, still hissing and swearing, trying in vain to remove the mask. It was caught on the suit, damn it!

[yu_mad]

Yu looked wide-eyed at Alex while cradling the gun rather gingerly. His body language was mostly saying "I have no idea how to use this thing and don't want to learn", but he was also attempting to ask if they should run without cluing the U-Man in.

[endurancepoint]

Alex reached down and gave the U-men's helmet another punch, just to keep him disoriented. It was tempting to simply run off, but Alex didn't feel comfortable leaving this goon in the dorms. Better to knock him unconscious and then find a way to restrain him properly.

"Give me that," he said flatly, keeping his voice quiet as he motioned for the gun. As long as it wasn't anything too specialised, Alex was fairly confident he could strip it. "Then try to get his helmet off."

[thethirdspecies]

The U-man groaned when Alex punched him, still trying in vain to stand up. It was looking like more and more of a struggle.

[yu_mad]

Yu gladly handed the gun over, then moved to the U-Man. He made an effort to put his weight on the guy, and searched for whatever his helmet was caught on, attempting to unhook it and pull it off.

[endurancepoint]

While Yu handled the U-Man's helmet, Alex worked on unloading the gun. With quick efficiency, he removed all the bullets and started breaking the gun down to its individual components.

[thethirdspecies]

Desperate, the U-man tried to drive an elbow back at Yu, putting the other hand atop his helmet to try and keep it on.

"Get off of me!"

Sorry for the delay

[yu_mad]

"Calm down!" Yu tries to assert, holding off the man's elbow with both hands. "We're not gonna hurt you unless you hit us with your brain again."

[endurancepoint]

"Actually, we're just going to make sure you're unconscious," Alex said, shoving the pieces of the gun in his back pockets so he could give Yu a hand. "And that might hurt a little, depending on how much trouble you give us."

Figuring the helmet probably needed to be turned the right-way around before it could be removed properly, Alex tried to help shift it in the right direction, pushing the U-man's hand away.