2013-01-01 Lady Deathstrike Strikes

It was late in the day when it happened. So late in the day that it could almost be called early evening in the sleepy little town. It was the kind of town not much ever happened in aside from the occasional fist fight in the parking lot after a high school football game. Her in the peaceful little suburb of the city, inner-city problems didn't really happen. At least, not until three black SUVs came speeding down the road.

They screech to a half outside of a small clinic. The clinic was a three-story, nondescript building, almost a full hospital, but couldn't quite get the licensing as more than a 'hospice'. What was special about this place was that it was known as 'Mutie General', typically taking in the poor and downtrodden mutants who didn't have a cent to their name and patching up their hurts from their underground mutant fight clubs or whatever it was out-of-luck, unemployed x-gene carriers got up to when they got hurt. Even a few members of its staff were metahuman.

The women at the front desk looked up with not much more than mild alarm as the black-suited people stalked quickly and business-like from their vehicles parked, still-running, outside, and filed into the lobby. Government types had come in here before, usually to cause a ruckus and demand something-or-other with a warrant and then leave. But that mild alarm changed rapidly into major alarm when their weapons were noticed.

"Excuse me, but you can't-" Whatever the middle-aged, overweight nurse had been about to say is cut off by the peel of energy-weapon fire as what was once her chest vaporizes. The young asian woman merely walks on, towards the doors marked 'employees only' with a pair of the cyborg mercenaries, Reavers, flanking her, while the rest begin polishing off the hapless civilians in the lobby.

An alarm sounds as employees push panic buttons and dial 9-1-1. Within minutes the entire building is in an uproar and people from neighboring buildings are coming outside to see what the commotion is. Darkly-colored helicoptors roar overhead, dropping ropes and men onto the roof. Inside, cyborg troopers begin to haul patients out of beds at gunpoint and forcing them towards the roof. Those that resist are beaten or shot.

Now if only there were some sort of underground mutant hero team that monitors other safe havens for mutants and can come to the rescue! Otherwise this is going to become a Very Bad Day. Well, worse than it already was.

Within moments the X-men are airborne in the Blackbird, making the short trip in merely seconds. "Iceman, it looks like our scanners are picking up people on the roof of the building." Cyclops grimaces; there's something about an attack at a hospital that makes him even more upset than he'd normally be under the circumstances.

Flicking a few buttons on the dash, the Blackbird activates a stealth feature, masking it from the other helicopters in the sky. He flows low and slow above the rooftops of the small town and presses a button to open the hatch. "You ready?" he calls to one of his old friends.

The attack on the hospital has Iceman pretty upset too. So much so that he isn't cracking jokes on the plane ride over like he usually would be. He frowns at the news, glancing at the scanners himself. "Then we knock 'em off," he says simply. As the hatch is opened, Bobby moves into position and armors up in ice. "Good to go, Cyke!" he calls. And once he gets the signal, Iceman jumps out and forms himself an ice slide.

The people being forced out onto the roof are all wearing hospital gowns. The men doing the forcing are decked out like some kind of rogue special forces outfit, masked, helmets, guns, grenades, knives, the works. They're lining the restrained (via zipties) people up and strapping them into harnesses to be hauled upwards towards the waiting aircraft, kicking and screaming and pleading and sobbing in most cases. Men, women, children, doesn't matter. Some of them are obvious mutants, with strange or fantastic features. All of them actually ARE mutants, but only some are noticeable at a glance. One man who attempts to fight his way loose is summarily shot in the head as a warning to the others and tossed aside.

The minute anyone appears and begins sliding, skydiving, or simply leaping towards them, the soldiers drop their cargo of squirming, hog-tied captives and open fire with the calm, trained precision of veteran soldiers who were also part-robot. Thankfully, at least at first, it's the from-the-hip Stormtrooper, saturate-the-area-rather-than-aim style of fighting, but all seem to be using some sort of energy weapon judging by the orange-red beams coming right at Iceman!

Immediately below on the second of the three floors, Lady Deathstrike seats herself in a chair that used to belong to the man who no longer had a head and was the owner-operator of this establishment. Her slim fingers fly across the keyboard, then she glances at a few lines on the monitor. Her mind interfaces with the unprotected machine with contemptible ease and words 'DOWNLOAD STARTED' appear on the screen along with a rapidly-moving progress bar as the entire patient roster, past and present, along with adresses and next of kin, begins to flash across the screen.

Out on the streets, the few that have managed to elude capture or massacre are running screaming into the street, causing a general panic and stampede away from the source of the chaos.

Shortly after Bobby creates the Ice slide, Cyclops leaps out of the Blackbird and onto the slide, heading downwards straight for the rooftop. When the shooting breaks out, he calmly opens reaches up to his visor, opening up the capacity. He tries to keep his head low, looking for a shot at the plane's engines, intent on damaging them and preventing lift off. "Shots fired, Iceman. Watch out for them trying to turn these prisoners into hostages and shield. Also. Keep your head down."

As the shots start coming in, Bobby smirks and charges up. Shards of razard sharp ice as sent flying to sever lines trying to haul up patients and icy beams of energy fly aiming to freeze weapons solid to render them unusable. "Got it, Cyclops," he calls back, staying low on the slide as he moves them in closer to the rooftop so Cyclops can get off and onto more stable footing.

The rotary-bladed craft is struck by the optic blast, causing damage-report wails and red alarm flashes to light up in the cockpit as the machine dutifully reports its lack of ability to maintain flight and lift capabilities to its pilot. The the two men in the cockpit look at one another, and then turn to signal the crew, who immediately begin to bail out, their booted feet slapping onto the concrete. The would-be kidnap victims are simply left tethered to the aerial vehicle as the pilots bail out without even bothering to shut the machine down safely! After all, that took precious seconds they could spend getting away from the damaged craft, and what did they care for collateral damage?

With the engine damaged, the top rotor lists and begins to tear off, yet still spinning wildly, out of control. The blades hit the concrete roof and shear off, becoming dangerous shrapnel that, thankfully causes no fatalaties. Yet the spinning blades are coming dangerously close to pair of teenaged female captives who are tied-up helpless like rodeo steers on the roof less than a foot from the spinning blades!

As the lines tethering the people to the tilting, doomed craft are severed, they do their best to wiggle away bound as they are. Several expletives are uttered as weapons turn to useless blocks of ice that refuse to fire in the hands of the cybernetic mercenaries. One of them actually backfires, exploding and taking a man's hands with it as he drops to his knees with an anguished cry. The rest simply begin to back up, taking better aim while their comrads go to their backup weapons, semiautomatic pistols firing standard ballistic rounds.

"Lady Deathstrike!" The named woman looks up from the monitor as the download bar closes in on completing its trip across the scream. "The team on the roof is encountering some sort of armed response. They're falling back inside and the other chopper is on its way."

"Acknowledged."

Meanwhile, within the third floor of the building, those inside and those retreating inside begin overturning desks and hospital beds as makeshift barriers in preparation for an impromptu siege, while others, still dragging struggling hostages, begin to corral them into the center of the room.

Unfortunately, Cyclop's warning comes true as one of the men on the roof begins to use the boy he was carrying as a human shield, one arm wrapped around his neck, the other firing his energy weapon at the optically-powered X-Man.

"Bobby," Cyclops says calmly as he breaks into a sprint. "I need cover to get to that plane and get the hostages off. Give me an ice wall."

Cyclops stops for a moment and takes a shot at the spinning blades before readjusting his output "carburetor." He takes aim, this time, at the tethers of the two teenage girls, sending out two short optic blasts, aimed at their bonds.

It's almost too late by the time he realizes he's being shot at. Cyclops dives neatly out of the way and does his best to get back to his feet. Unable to get a shot, he yells his warning to Bobby, "Iceman!!!"

"One ice wall coming up!" Bobby calls out, a quick frigid beam raising a wall of solid ice for Cyclops to use as cover. He even left little openings in it for quick optic blasts if Cyke needs them, having gotten used to working with his friend after all those years of training with him. Other, smaller ice shields are being raised to shield captives from shrapnel and cyber-thug alike. The helicopter blades catch his attention and Bobby targets them with another icy blast, hoping to freeze them in place before they can do much more damage. He's about to crack a joke when Scott gets his attention and he sees what the problem is. Scowling, Iceman forms up a snowball and wings it at the Cyborg's face in hopes that the slush mess will make him lose his grip on the kid.

The blades snap off down to a much more harmless length as the optic blast easily punches through their metal and sends them flying over the edge of the building, in addition to what's left of them being frozen in place. As soon as the heated energy scours the bonds from the teen's wrists, they waste precious little time in wiggling out of their restraints. One of the girls, the little redhead, dives behind a vent shaft and proceeds to curl herself into the smallest ball she can be while crying for her parents and that she 'wanted to go home'.

The silver-haired teen simply stands up, sprouts a pair of long, membranous batwings and lifts herself off of the roof and is last seen gliding rapidly away from the scene of the carnage. The majority of the hostages on the roof are abandoned by the mercenaries as they make their fighting retreat.

"Augh, what the fuck!?" The Reaver does indeed drop the kid and begin wiping at his mask's goggles in an effort to clear the ice from them, who lands with a pained WHUMPH at the mercenary's feet. But the man responds by turning his weapon to full-auto and sending a repeated stream of energy in Iceman's direction!

Lady Deathstrike stands as the 'DOWNLOAD FINISHED' begins to flash across the computer screen, followed quickly by 'DELETING' as it begins to dump and erase its databanks. The asian woman stands and walks quickly out of the small office, brushing past a couple of armed men, and makes her way up the stairs to the third floor.

"Get the cargo down into the trucks. The rest of us will escape by air after dealing with the menace." The men snap to obey the petite woman's orders, grabbing the dozen or so remaining mutant hostages and slinging them over their shoulders even as Yuriko turns, scowling, on her heel to head for the stairs.

Back on the roof, the Reavers have been backed up to the entry door, taking shots over the air conditioners and vents with their energy weapons (or ballistics in a few cases). Repeatedly they attack the wall covering Cyclops in an attempt to breach or burn through the ice and get at the man sheltered by it. Recently-freed civilians do their best to scream for help and hide and generall not get shot as men shout commands to 'shoot those fuckers' and 'flank them'.

Off in the distance, a second helicopter can be heard before its seen, roaring over buildings over the town

Cyclops is struck with a choice. Attack the lone gunman shooting at Bobby, or go big. He fidgets slightly with his visor, creating the widest breadth optic beam capacity he can and takes a deep breath. Bobby can take care of himself, and Scott knows it. Those hostages do not have the same sort of training as his X-man friend. Cyclops stands up from behind a wall of ice and emits a wide, sweeping optic blast turning his neck left and right to try and get them, get them all (or all that he can), and push them from the building.

Iceman can indeed take care of himself. Even when an energy blast melts through his armor and leaves him with a burnt arm he'll need to get checked out later, he just ices it back over and fights back. "Christmas is over but say hi to Frosty for me!" he taunts, forming a rather...oversized snowman in the air above the merc shooting at him and letting it drop on top of the man. He then turns attention to shielding hostages. "Hey! Over this way, kids. Name's Iceman and I'll keep ya safe. In the igloo!" he calls out as he creates a nice, protective ice dome with a door for civillians to enter. There's an 'emergency exit' too...a slide leading down into the nearby alley where they can hopefully hide out or escape.

Concrete shatters and metal rooftop machines and vents rupture as Cyclops unleashes his massive blast. Men go flying as the power of the blast strikes them and sends more than a few tumbling off the back of the three-story building. Whether that would kill them or not only time would tell. Some manage to more or less avoid it by kissing concrete and keeping their heads very, very low, but they're not exactly quick to pop back up and expose themselves. Screaming male voices are heard as the extensive sweep of the mutant's eyes takes its toll.

Whoever coined the phrase that looks could kill had clearly met Scott Summers before.

In response to the fight-or-flight instincts the rooftop battle was currently causing, a young boy's, not more than thirteen, x-gene activates, prompting his hands and feet to grow lizard-like suction cups on his extremeties, which he promptly uses to scale his way off the roof and away from all of the exploding and insanity even as a small part of the roof begins to collapse inwards where the majority of Cyclops' firepower had been located.

Kids, elderly, men, women, all the remaining ten or so civilians accept Iceman's offer of refuge and escape readily. After all, despite the crazy costumes, THESE people weren't shooting them in the head and/or trying to force them onto helicopters. Even as the gunman is taken down by the snowman-a-lanche, people begin sliding down the ice slide with little to no concern for proper slide safety techniques.

With the dust kicked up by the recently-collapsed hole in the roof, it can be difficult to see what's happening within. Thankfully, the civilians on the third floor had already been removed to the second, and were on their way to the first. Part of the fallen concrete forms a ramp from the third floor below, and up it clambors a nimble figure dressed in black and a few more of those armed cyborg-men.

Yuriko Oyama leads the charge on the roof, even as her men open fire and attempt to pull their wounded comrades to safety. Torn metal or shorn concrete, even intact air conditioners do nothing to slow down Lady Deathstrike's advance as she races with inhuman speed and agility for the man clad in ice, sliding in low at the last second to strike at his knee with her foot to try and take him down, following up with a palm-strike of brutal force to his chest as she regains her footing with ridiculous alacrity.

But the arrival of some foreign ninja chick isn't the only troubles they have, nor are the fresh mercs opening covering fire. The helicopter has arrived and, unlike the last one, this one seems to be an attack chopper. A gatling gun mounted under and to the left of its nose opens fire, chewing up concrete with a torrent of devastating energy aimed in a line that sweeps it around Iceman (and thus avoiding Lady Deathstrike as well, since the pilot had no particular deathwish) and headed right for Cyclops!

Cyclops sees that Iceman has been engaged and not by the run of the mill soldier either. Just as he's about to take a flanked shot, he spies the helicopter on its way. As the energy begins to erupt all around him, Cyclops dives and rolls behind some of the wreckage he created earlier. He takes a spy over at Iceman to see how he's doing, and then turns his attention to the Chopper, trying to take some shots at it if there's a chance.

Thankfully this slide's got rails and a nice fluffy snowback at the base to catch people. There's even a little Iceman statue with a 'thank you for using the Iceman Escape Slide (tm), please get to safety' sign down there. What? He's got a sense of humor.

It doesn't help him much up on the rooftop. He's surprised by Lady Deathstrike, the strike to the knee knocking him down right into the palm strike that sends him tumbling back. Ice armor cracked, he slowly pushes back to his feet. "Whoa. If ya wanna dance, babe, how about we start a little slower?" he jokes, wincing in pain before sending a slushy torrent at the woman.

The X-Man manages to score a glancing hit off of the bow of the helicopter, shearing off a few layers of metallic alloy with his blast. But this pilot seems to be a veteran of combat operations and wings his vehicle out of the way, overflying their position on the roof to escape the blast. But it takes only a few seconds for the chopper to pull up, swing around in place, and lock on: this time with missiles.

The pair of rockets spew forth from under the payload-bearing, stunted wings of the helicopter, twisting across each other's paths before streaking right for Cyclop's position, followed by another pair, and then ANOTHER. Six missiles in all, ripping into and devastating Scott's entire side of the roof in a display of overkill. Then again, considering how many mercs he's already taken out, perhaps its not.

The slew of mushy snow manages to repel Lady Deathstrike, at least a bit, causing her to stumble backwards with a small grunt of surprise. It soon buries her beneath it, and perhaps that's all she wrote! That is until, having launched enough missiles to take out an army at Cyclops, the hovering helicopter's energy gun is turned on the ice-spewing mutant now that Yuriko is clear of the immediate field of fire. Energy blasts tear up the area around Bobby Drake with the intent on skewering him with lasers before the artificial snow drift burying the CEO of Oyama Heavy Industries is, literally, shredded and exploded out of.

The black-outfit-wearing woman launches herself at Bobby like a human torpedo, her body becoming a mutant-seeking missile as she attempts to jab her hands right into Iceman's torso with what looks like a wicked poke. Because this time the ends of her fingers are each tipped in twelve-inch, razor-edged adamantium claws seeking to penetrate right through that cold armor and sink into the flesh beneath.

Out on the street, the mercenaries make their way through the front door, some carrying hostages to the waiting SUVs, others getting into a shootout with the first Sheriff's deputy to arrive on the scene, the unlucky man and his partner throwing their car into rapid reverse and backing at high speeds down the street while returning fire as energy bolts begin to riddle their patrol car.

Cyclops stares down the helicopter as the missiles ignite from their places of holding. As all six tear through the sky loudly towards him, Cyclops fires a line of cable off to the far side of the building and leaps off the edge, the line tethered to his stomach. The line catches at first, but as the building all around him explodes, he drops another half story. His body slams against the side of the wall with a force that would he would normally be able to deal with, but the force comes along his left side where, only two days ago, he suffered a broken rib in his most recent mission. He cries out in pain and hangs there for a moment before being able to gather his wits.

"Ha, chill out!" Iceman taunts, hoping that nice fluffy snow serves as a pleasant enough prison. Of course a little voice in the back of his mind is thinking it'd be better if Lady D wasn't wearing black but he doesn't voice those thoughts. He's not sixteen anymore after all. He'll save those jokes for later when he's sharing a drink or a pizza with the others. Before he can joke again, there's that helicopter. Bobby curses and starts making himself a shield.

He barely gets it up in time to keep himself from being instantly vaporized but it's not saving him completely. Blasts punch through the weaker parts of his shield and some even his armor. Gritting his teeth, he pushes himself harder. Got to make the ice thicker, denser, more durable. He doesn't notice a change in his icy armor though. And any chance of noticing it stops when there's a clawed missile of death shooting towards him. Between surprise and being preoccupied with a helicopter, Iceman doesn't have a chance to defend. He lets out a cry of surprise and pain as the claw pierce him. There's blood coming from the claw wounds but not nearly as much as there should be for someone that just got stabbed in the chest multiple times. Iceman isn't moving though, just standing there shocked and skewered.

Poor Scott Summers, guy just can't catch a break. His cry of pain, and the exposions and raining of dust that used to be chunks of concrete as the missiles strike the roof, causes several of the Reavers to look. Naturally, this makes them decide that a possibly-injured mutant hanging from a cable on the side of the building was a good thing to shoot at. Three of the men cease shooting at the pair of retreating cops to raise their rifles and begin peppering blasts of super-heated plasma in Cyclop's direction, making it an almost literal case of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Without being able to fire at Iceman without risking shooting at Yuriko, the pilot circles around the building, then begins to lower towards the rooftop. The remaining Reavers up there begin to hook themselves onto the underside of the chopper (as there was no room INSIDE an attack helicopter to fit them all) with d-rings and sturdy climbing ropes.

There's a satisfied look in Lady Deathstrike's silver eyes, an almost-but-not-quite smile as her claws find purchase and sink home. Clearly the promise of a kill was giving her extreme satisfaction. Her taloned fingers retreat from their purchase as she spins low and to the Bobby's right, jabbing her claws for him again with her left hand, this time aiming up and under his ribs. She casually slings a leg high and over, seeking to get behind the man armored by ice without even moving her adamantium blades from her left hand in a feat of remarkable flexibility. Her other hand comes slinking across with feline sureness, stabbing for the ribs just to the side of his spine, trying to get her thin blades in between the bones.

"You should not have come here today, gaijin dog." She whispers.

If her claws found purchase, and even if they had not, the black-clad terrorist begins to try and shred Bobby into pieces, beginning with removing as many of his icy bones as possible, but she isn't picky. She'll cut up whatever she can reach easily and quickly.

On the ground, sirens are heard, SWAT vans come skidding around the corner, the police response is severely increasing, and those mercs on the ground begin to pile into the SUVs en masse with their hostages to make their escape while those on the helicopter begin calling for Yuriko.

"Lady Deathstrike, we need to be leaving NOW!"

"Oh come on," Cyclops mutters as the villains start taking pot shots at him. He leans back against the cable and puts his feet along the side of the wall. He "runs" along the side of the wall, and eventually makes his way in a circular and upwardly fashion around the fulcrum. Reaching about as high as he can go. He grabs a ledge and tries to scale the rest of the facade of the wall. Quite simply, he must get back to help Bobby.

Slowgoing, Cyclops needs something quicker. He mutters commands into his wrist and the Blackbird's afterburners light up, tearing back towards the building from its idling.

The claws find their target again, a sick crunching sound as ice is pierced. He doesn't move even as he's clawed and flexed around. There's no reply from Bobby which would probably be another sign of something being wrong to anyone that knows the Iceman. Another sign something is wrong? There's not really any bones in there at all. Just solid ice that's getting cut. Eventually the force of the attacks sets the icy mutant wobbling...and then toppling right off the side of the wrecked rooftop. And unless someone stops him, that icy body shatters into little slightly bloody pieces when it hits pavement.

Tires screech as the sports utility vehicles tear out of the immediate vicinity mere moments ahead of the SWAT vans and police cars sent here to stop and apprehend them with their hostages. They form a rough line on down the street, speeding away at unsafe velocities before they can be boxed in. Would they get away with their illicit human cargo? Only time and a police car chase would tell. But given their superior weapons, training, and capabilities, it was unlikely unassisted local police would be enough to stop them. At least without heavy casualties.

Meanwhile, above...

As she manages to tear unhealthy chunks out of a body that was suddenly solid ice and not flesh and blood, Yuriko Oyama ceases her attack with a raised eyebrow. She turns dispassionately away when the body goes tumbling over the side of the building, her fit legs pumping rhythmicly as she dashes for the helicopter, which was on the verge of taking off without her. With a strong leap, adamantium claws retract, and Yuriko bodily climbs up one of the men hanging on and up to the side of the chopper as it lifts up and begins to peel off, away from the wrecked and smoking ruin of what was once a very nice, very clean hospice.

The attackers were retreating, and though they had captives and had killed almost ten people, and wounded a dozen others, they'd have had three times that number of hostages for whatever reason they had taken them in the first place if not for the intervention. Yuriko scowls down at the carnage below as the aircraft begins to pull away, hair flying in the stiff headwind. She'd find out who these American miscreants were and make them pay!

On the second floor, on the hacked computer's monitor, 'DELETION 80%' was flashing on the screen. A clue may be found there much later, but for now, Scott Summers likely had much more pressing matters on his mind.

When Bobby spills over the edge, Scott helplessly reaches over to try and grasp his icy friend, but he just cannot quite come close enough to grasp him. As the young man, one of the first people he met after coming to Xavier's, drops by him, Scott lets out a guttural scream as he hangs impotently on the side of the wall. "Bobby! NOOOOOOO!"

There's no reply from the Iceman, his frigid form crahing against the street and shattering. No quips, no jokes, no laughter. There's just a pile of shattered ice bits, some falling into the storm drain as the rest sits there unmoving.