2014.01.19 - New Horizons Part 2

X-Men: Dawn of a New Horizon

Part 2 - "The Breaking"

Stanberg Residence

Las Vegas, Nevada

January 24th, 2014

It's a rerun. David Letterman, approximately three years and a few months ago, airing now in the wee hours of the morning. Lisa Stanberg, wife to a United States Congressman, fell asleep with the television on some time ago, a half-empty glass of red wine sitting on the expensive coffee table next to the expensive couch upon which she's stretched out in a far more expensive nightgown. She hasn't slept in the same bed as her husband since the rerun originally aired, but she may never appreciate the irony.

Nor would she appreciate the irony in the musical act's lyrics, for she has no idea what her husband is involved with.

Ronald Stanberg isn't sleeping. The noise of the television was usual. It meant his wife was at home, asleep, and not bothering him. A welcomed whitenoise to his usual insomnia. Next to his government-issued laptop is a glass of whiskey, neat, and a pair of cellular phones. One Blackberry, one StarkPhone. The StarkPhone was for, well, his usual business affairs with the U.S. House of Representatives and the various committees upon which he served. The Blackberry, however. It was late model, heavily encrypted, and served one important purpose.

The Blackberry's screen came alive with a single text message.

[3:27 am -- Got confirmation from NBPS. Plan is a go.]

Ronald Stanberg, U.S. Congressman, snatched up the whiskey and downed it in one gulp. Then, he smirked mercilessly, and reached for that Blackberry.

[Do it.]

Somewhere in the Nevada Wilderness

Earlier that day

Two government SUV's pulled up to a place in the middle of the Nevada Wilderness, where the Blackbird had set down after a flight back to the east coast. Reinforcements were inside, Shift having called in a number of helping hands. They were going to need everyone they could to pull it off.

While most of the X-Men and their allies were readying themselves for an overnight prison break, a much smaller team had other affairs to conduct. There was a government conspiracy to expose, and after multiple eyes and brains dissected the information taken from the New Horizons Clinic earlier that day, a number of high influence targets had been acquired.

"Mistah Krinn." Kwabena walked up to his new acquaintance, looking upon the alien with a speculative look. "I hope you enjoyed de lift. You're with us." He turned around without further instructions, walking toward the SUV that he was driving. There's a redhead in the passenger's seat.

Look's like Krinn's not riding shotgun.

Big Kahuna Burger, Parking Lot

Las Vegas, Nevada

The clock on the dashboard reads 2:35 am, and the radio is quietly pumping out the smooth sounds of 80's pop ballads. An honest to goodness map is stretched out between Shift, who sits in the driver's seat, and Rachel Summers, who is riding shotgun. Four locations have been circled in red magic marker: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Houston.

"I've got people watching Philly and Houston," explains the African. "But I'm most interested in Vegas and LA." He taps the LA location with his hand. "Colonel Mark Albright." Then, he taps Las Vegas. "Ronald Stanberg, Congressman. Dis is where de money's coming from. Colonel Albright is de one behind de security. All of dat tech and de armed guards we saw at New Horizons." He considers something for a moment, before glancing over his shoulder at Rokk.

"I don't suppose you can fly?"

"I did," says the man leaning over from the back seat, looking over the map, "mention transportation. Do you want me to fly the SUV?"

Blue eyes flicker up from the lesson in twenty-first century cartography to fix on Shift, and it's only just possible to tell-- there's crinkling at the corners of his eyes-- that he's teasing. "Yeah, I can fly. And I can bring you with if you can't."

He's been genial or sleeping the entire way, occupying the entire back seat as his personal domain, and otherwise as unutterably polite as only a Space Canadian can be; he came dressed in dark, nondescript civilian clothes with his uniform underneath. He also doesn't generate a lot of telepathic or empathic background noise, indicating he's got experience being unobtrusive in that direction.

Thank god that nowhere along the way did he suggest playing I Spy or anything. He looks like the kind of guy who would.

"What, by the way," he asks, "are we aiming to get our hands on, exactly? Unless you have a specific plan, having an explicit material goal would be extremely helpful."

Rachel's turned sideways in her seat, leaning up against the window to give more room for the map - and for Rokk to get a look at it that's not impeded by the back of her head. She's dressed casually, and as usual the Hound marks on her face are masked by a telepathic illusion. She's curious about the man Kwabena's brought in for this part of the plan, but so far she's been keeping her telepathy to herself. She smirks up at him when he makes his suggestion. "I could make everyone look the other way?" She suggests, dropping her gaze to Kwabena and raising a questioning eyebrow half-seriously. "What do you think?"

Working on the assumption that Kwabena's plan doesn't involve aerial assault by SUV, Rachel drops her own teasing and shifts a bit in her seat, tucking one leg under her in an effort to get more comfortable. She nods in agreement with Rokk's question, then adds one of her own. "Both at once or one at a time?"

Flying the SUV? Kwabena glances back at the dashboard, then back toward Rokk with a half-cocked eyebrow. "You're serious?" he asks.

Not exactly dismissing it, he begins folding up the map. They don't need it at this point, for everyone can remember where those four cities are. "Dere is a material goal. It's not as much about getting our hands on something, as it is getting someone to do something." He tucks the map away and reaches for a bag of goodies from Big Kahuna Burger that were sitting underneath. Mostly it's fries, some soda, and water. All of the stuff that can give one a burst of energy and carbs, if needed, and at least for Kwabena, it's helpful with using his mutations.

"Stanberg's de money man. He's been funneling Federal and State funds into dis little operation at New Horizons. Extremely clever book cooking, I'll tell you dat. Took three of Jamie's dupes to piece it all togedah in such short time, but. It was our first real piece of hard evidence."

Slurrrp. Down goes the soda.

"Albright, howevah. His face has popped up on de security recordings more dan a few times, and some of Stanberg's money flow has gone through him. Marine Corps, Special Forces, got a Ph.D in Bioelectrical Engineering and Genetic Studies." He pauses, considering. "Sounds like... Doctah Freakazoid meets Captain Boyscout. Anyway. Nobody wants to leave dose prisoners locked up any longer, but a prison break's one thing. We don't put an end to dis for real, it'll be... anodah clinic, somewhere else, doing de same damn thing. in a year or so, maybe less. We need dese guys to blow it open themselves. Come clean, confess. And it has to happen tonight. We need to get dem to eidah talk and confess, or..." He doesn't quite finish that sentence, for he's not sure exactly what the next move would have to be.

Rachel, however, poses the question nobody really wants to be asked, but has to face nevertheless.Kwabena looks between the redhead and the alien, considering things for a moment. "If dey are as well connected as de money trail suggests... we'll have to do dem both at once."

Which means splitting up the group.

A glance at Rachel, eyebrows up, and Rokk grins suddenly. "We could. If all else failed. It would be ridiculous, but not remotely undoable. But, you know, unsubtle. Even with everyone looking the other way."

Then he sits up a little, crossing his arms over the back of the front seat and listening, totally serious again. The last thing, though, Rachel's question? And Odame's answer? The Braalian seems to gloss over it, not looking at all concerned. "It only makes sense. Any multilocational organization you're trying to take down, you need to set the pieces up so there's no time for them to react, no warning. I'm sure we can handle one of the places."

Moving back from the seat, the Legionnaire slides over to put his hand on the door handle. "If we can't get them to own up to it, we're going to have to take the long road and infiltrate, set up a sting. Only problem is, it's much harder to do that after a failed coup-- they'd be watching for it. So let's make sure we get them to confess! Where're we hitting?"

"Subtlety's overrated." Rachel remarks casually, warming to the idea despite its impracticality. Or maybe she's just continuing the joke because Kwabena asked Rokk if he was serious, rather than her.

As Kwabena roots around in his bag of supplies, a water bottle surreptitiously rises from the bag and levitates its way to Rachel's waiting hand. Twisting off the top, she takes a sip while listening to Kwabena lay out the situation. Her expression closes a bit as the other X-Man references the delayed prison break. She was in favour of taking action as soon as they had confirmation of what had been happening. And between her and Nate, she still thinks they could have pulled it off. Cooler heads prevailed on that occasion, but Rachel might not hold back next time. She almost interrupts, remembered anger stirring within her, wanting to say something unhelpful like 'then we'll stop them again', but she keeps her mouth shut until her temper subsides again.

"Trust me." Rachel says, on the heels of Rokk's words but with her eyes on Kwabena, "I can make them confess." She's pretty certain she can handle the 'or else' part of that, too.

Kwabena watches Rachel with a rueful expression. Normally, manipulating another person's thoughts and actions against their will falls into the category of 'not moral'. However, in this circumstance, Kwabena has no problem at all with the idea. Especially considering all they've gathered. "Stanberg's the central point in all dis," Kwabena explains. "If he blows de whistle, it'll all unwind on its own."

Turning toward Rokk, Kwabena nods his head. "Far as I can tell, Houston's not involved in dis as directly. As for Philly, I've got assets keeping dem quiet until morning." He tilts his head toward the man. "How quickly can you fly to LA?" A tentative glance is given to Rachel as he speaks, curious what she thinks of the developing plan. "You and I infiltrate Stanberg's residence while Rokk confronts de Colonel, keeps his hands off any big red buttons until Stanberg's gone public?"

He looks back toward Rokk Krinn, wondering if he approves of the idea. "And we stay in constant communication with each oddah. In case de shit hits de fan."

"I'm not saying wait on getting them out," Krinn tells Rachel, an echo of the depth of feeling behind his words managing to float up through his mental radio silence. Carefully controlled flare of wrath fuelled by injustice. "In fact, I'm probably only stating the obvious. Just-- whatever it is you do to make them confess, make sure it's admissable in court."

Then the space alien from the far future, for godsake, gets out of the back seat. "Little less than twenty minutes. Maybe under ten if I'm really pushing it." His hand's still on the open door; he's managed to force himself back to genial. "Good plan. And oh, right! Comms." Fishing inside his jacket pocket, Rokk comes up with three tiny plastic bags containing little white earplugs, one per. He offers them in an open hand. "Telepathic earplugs, as promised. They send and receive only what you project."

Rachel doesn't look the slightest bit guilty under Kwabena's scrutiny. The standards of telepathy ethics being taught at Xavier's must have slipped a bit. Of course, by the time her full powers came in, the Institute was little more than a smoking hole in the ground... Rachel gives a quick nod to show that she understands Kwabena's priorities, beginning to get a little restless, wanting to take some positive action to shut these people down.

The flare of emotion that she feels from Rokk settles her down a bit, lets her know that she's not the only one present who /needs/ to do something about all this. "I'll see what I can do." She tells him with a slight, but still evil, smile. Circumstances will dictate what she can do, but she has ideas. Becoming aware of Kwabena's eyes on her again, Rachel frowns slightly. Even if Rokk's that fast, it's still too far to provide mutual support, and he doesn't have a telepath with him to back him up. Rachel doesn't get the chance to say any of this before the plan's declared a good one, though, and she gives a wry shake of her head.

Taking the offered telepathic earplugs, Rachel looks at them a bit dubiously before shrugging. If she tried to handle communications with an unfamiliar mind over the distances they're talking about she might not be much good for anything else, so she'll give them a try. "OK." She says with a nod. "Good luck."

After providing Rokk Krinn with an address to the Colonel's private residence near Newport Beach, Kwabena accepts the earplug with a curious look, before casting a meaningful expression Rachel's way. |"Looks like you're off the hook on the long distance calls."| He looks back toward Rokk, tipping his head. "Good luck."

The SUV's wheels peel out against the asphalt while a space alien jets into the sky, leaving behind a very confused and overweight 19 year old kid staring out from the drive-thru of Big Kahuna Burger.

New Horizons Mental Health Clinic

Las Vegas, Nevada

January 24th, 2014

"I think it's time we made this happen, sir. The subjects are all asleep, but now that the board inspection is out of the way, I believe we can move on to phase two. -- Very well. Armed guard? -- And the Colonel can provide reinforcement? -- Air? -- Ground then. I can have them ready in fifteen min-- Very well then. See you in the morning."

Doctor Mark Amel has had a long night. The final stretch of the first phase is in motion, and now that he has confirmation from Congressman Stanberg, he knows there won't be time for sleep. He reaches over to mute the music playing from his computer, and punches the intercom. "Officer Binton." He glances at his watch. 3:30 am sharp, Pacific Time. "We have three hours. Let's get this patients ready to roll."

Shift, Rachel Summers, and Rokk Krinn from the Legion of Super-Heroes have already departed on their operation. They're headed into Las Vegas and Los Angeles respectively, in order to try and coerce confessions from two influential men attached to the government side of the conspiracy. The rest of the team, under the direction of Psylocke, are tasked with infiltrating the facility in the middle of the night. Their goal: rescue the 57 mutants and metahuman 'patients' under heavy guard in the high security wing, deep inside the large building. During their investigation earlier in the day, Nate Grey had discovered that there were only 28 guards, armed with assault rifles, TAZERs, and high-powered tranquilizer rifles. Wouldn't be much work for the X-Men, right?

However, the secondary target is an unknown. A room deep within the high security wing, under light guard, with no security cameras inside and some sort of strange telepathic void, preventing even the most powerful of telepaths from peeking inside. Getting the patients out is a priority... finding out what's happening in there, however? Equally important.

Little do the X-Men know that another mysterious figure has been watching this place. Having been clued into the situation by his partners in the Fam back home, Batman himself has been monitoring the facility, having captured detailed satellite and aerial images of the facility and its grounds while monitoring its comings and goings for a time. The only strange activity he'd have noticed was the team of X-Men who went in earlier this day, disguised very well as members of the Nevada State Board of Public Safety. His attempts to otherwise mark and track the staff and doctors who come and go would have shed light on a complex conspiracy, one the X-Men and their partners at X-Factor have dug up as well. Whatever is happening inside of this place, it's under extremely tight confines, and the money trail seems to be coming from various sources within the Federal Government itself.

Nate has behaving like a caged tiger since the group left the clinic. 28 human guards. What is the point of waiting but for Shift's love of overly complex plans? And Rachel left him with two women he barely knows. It is maybe a good thing Shift is not here, because otherwise Nate would have been arguing with him all the time. Instead he has been sulking, drinking coffee and semi-projecting dark, angry thoughts. Not the best company.

That changed when Jamie, Monet and Theresa arrived. Actually, Nate went pale when he saw Theresa, and his anger seems to have been replaced with a mixture of confusion and sadness. Not necessarily a bad thing. He will be more willing to follow Psylocke's instructions instead of, y'know, just blowing up the clinic and all the staff to next week.

"Scion: the link is your responsibility, just like last time," Psylocke whispers. So far, she has successfully led her team from the hotel that the state of Nevada so graciously provided for them to the perimeter of the clinic; the next leg of the mission is sure to be substantially more risky, though. Between today and tonight, she traded her sensible business suit for a moderately less sensible black, unstable molecule catsuit with a bold white 'X' over the chest and a pair of smaller, circled ones drawn over either leg; the ends of a purple sash hang over her right hip, while the hilt of a katana juts from her left.

"M and Dazzler, Siryn and I should be able to manage reconnaisance and interference as needed; Scion, you can go with whichever group you like, but your main focus should be on helping Multiple Man locate prisoners for extraction." Psylocke's attention turns intently to Scion when she gives the dimensional expat his full set of responsibilities; given his mood earlier today, she's watching for - and steeling herself against - signs of discontent. She didn't actually get to spend much time in the room, thanks to the anger permeating it, so most of her downtime was spent in the desert, meditating upon the horrors she'd witnessed second-hand and sharpening her blades.

"They'll be coming in from above us," she adds, tipping her head upwards. "Once we've all convened, we can go over any lingering concerns, and then commence; the prisoners are our first priority, but once their safety is guaranteed, the blank room is second; any questions?" She doesn't wait for them to come, if indeed there are any; instead, purple flares at her temples, and she gives a final order:


 * "If there are, feel free to think them; non-verbal communication only, going forward. Clear?"|


 * "Check, boss."| Dazzler pulls her silver boots on, checks the straps on the holsters at her hips, and triple-checks her mask. As one of the only, if not THE only X-Man with a public ID, one wrong security-cam shot of her and the secret nature of the team is basically blown out of the water. |"They'll never hear us coming!"| After all, she'll need all the sound she can get her greedy cells on to deal with whatever comes at them anyway!

"Don't be provincial. I've piloted since age twelve."

M was not lying when she spoke hours ago. The flight has been pleasant. The supporting evidence she offers for her sudden skill is 'I read the manual last night.' The Blackbird, cloaked and silent, hovers above the target facility. As a symbol of impending wrath, it is wanting. As a transport, it has been acceptable.

The Monegasque mutant seems content to leave it hovering. She is already standing at the door, dressed in a black and white uniform sans X markings. After all, she is not on the team. "We'll descend from here. Mr. Madrox, you will need to be carried. You," she gestures at Theresa. "I've scanned your file. Can you fly without being... obvious?"

One way or another, M is soon gliding down to the rendezvous site, possible carrying one or two passengers. Preferably the answer is zero. Carrying people is distasteful.


 * "We are approaching. The Blackbird will automatically land at the agreed-upon coordinates in two minutes."|

Terry is, of course, recognizable, but she has little other than a brief encouraging smile for Nate. Having zipped up into her X-suit, slightly rumpled in the patagia department, she is businesslike and poised.

She gives the psychic impulse from Psylocke a mental 'aye', rising upwards then to move towards the hatch. She pauses at it when M speaks to her.

She raises her gaze to meet M's. "Yes, I can fly without waking up the neighborhood, yes," she answers, with a certain sort of flat sweetness.

SOON:

Descending, on an infra-sound column which is, in fact, a bit modulated to avoid producing easily audible noise, Theresa thinks to herself: 'Scanned my file, makes it sound like she's read the back of my bloody toy package, honestly.' She steers towards Psylocke's position.

"I could have flown though." Jamie says to the lady, hey he is a trained pilot. Of course when dealing with Jamie the question really gets to be what isn't he trained in these days. He stands up after that though, "Yes I will need to be carried, don't have the ability to fly." Sorry being a one man army has always been enough for the guy, though maybe Gar can get him a jetpack, jetpack would be cool.

As he is carried Jamie can't help but comment to M, "You know carrying a person by their armpits isn't the most comfortable thing in the world. You really need to work on that." Hey Ms. Perfect should totally know how to carry a person!

Colonel Mark Albright's Residence

Newport Beach, California

January 24th, 2014

03:30 hours

Colonel Albright likes to be up early, especially when dealing with Washington. It's 6:30 am in D.C., and there are a number of people who will be expecting him on a conference call at 7:00. As such, the man is in his private gym, not more than three minutes after receiving a text response from Congressman Stanberg.

Turns out he likes to listen to horrible 90's one-hit-wonder pop songs while working the treadmill.

Albright's an older man, close to fifty, but he's still as fit as he was in his twenties, aside from the occasional joint pain. His wife is on a business trip in Japan, his youngest daughter away attending university at Yale. It's just him, his sweatpants and Nike shirt, and Chumbawamba blasting in an oversized house overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Looks like Colonel Albright has done well for himself.

Stanberg Residence

Las Vegas, Nevada

"Yes, that will be fine, Doctor Amel. If you can have them ready for transport by the morning. -- Yes, absolutely. -- I believe so." Congressman Stanberg paces around his private den, the Blackberry held against his ear. "No. -- No, there's no reason to move tonight. Let the poor fucks sleep." He laughs. "It'll be the last night of decent sleep they'll have in a long, long time."

Outside, Kwabena and Rachel are seated in their 'acquired' government SUV. The African has already ditched his clothes in favor of his non-descript X-Men uniform, this one almost black as night and lacking any of the X-Men insignia. "Soon as I'm in, I'll cut de security lines and let you in. Can you get a bead on who all is in dere?" Even as he speaks, he's reaching to pull the mask over his head, which will fully conceal his identity, leaving only his chin and mouth exposed.

A simple, telepathic scan would reveal only the Congressman in his den, and his wife asleep on a couch in one of the sizable mansion's living rooms. If they have kids... they're not home.


 * "Found him,"| comes Rokk's mental 'voice' over the link, unaccented and precise, something like twenty minutes later. He did push it, but then he had to find the address-- at least it didn't take him long. |"He's alone in his house."|

After a second, the Braalian's got hold of the electromagnetic fields around the house and charged them just enough to interfere with wireless; he comes in, politely enough, through the front door, and makes directly for the private gym. Navigation in a stranger's house isn't impossible if you can see the framework and the studs and the fields given off by the wires and devices, and by the Colonel.

Unceremoniously, Rokk Krinn steps through the door of the gym, walks over to the stereo, and turns it off. "We need to talk, sir," he says calmly, turning around.

From the perspective of the Colonel, there's a faint fuzzy nervous-system feeling, and then a power outage. EMP, localized to the house. Suddenly, all the surveillance, the hum of machinery and electricity, is silenced and blinded. The man looking at him, Rokk Krinn, is in his mid-thirties, responsible-looking, serious, unremarkably dressed but with a military bearing. He thumbs the side of his Legion ring, setting the comm to send a recording to LSH HQ. "I apologise for the intrusion, but it's a matter of some urgency. Your life may be in danger."

Rachel's dubious expression hasn't entirely left her face as she looks back at Kwabena, the earplugs not yet in place. |Assuming the tech holds up.| She sends privately to him. |If if doesn't I'm going to have a hell of a job locking on to him from here.| Giving the earplugs a last look, she pushes them into place and settles herself back into her seat as Kwabena gets the SUV moving.

Rachel's not sitting so comfortably a little later, when the SUV arrives outside their target's residence. As she leans forward to rest her arms on the dashboard to get a better look, her outfit shifts around her, the casual clothes giving way to a black and grey take on her usual X-Men uniform. A little while ago that would have taken concentration and effort, now she barely thinks about it. Her eyes unfocus as she looks toward the mansion, looking with her mind rather than her eyes. She doesn't look around when Kwabena speaks. "I can do better than that." She tells him, a bit distantly, and then she's in his mind. The Congressman's mind shows up as a bright point of light in its approximate position in the mansion, his wife's sleeping psyche a more diffuse glow.

Rachel frowns, surprised at finding only the two presences, and exerts her telepathy a little more, but finds nothing else. "You're sure you don't want me to do this from out here?" She asks, finally turning her head to face Kwabena, her eyes blank and white-hot.

Rokk's message interrupts, and she blinks, her eyes becoming human again. |We're in position. Only the Congressman and his wife here. Seems... easy.| From her mental tone, it's clear Rachel doesn't trust easy.

Colonel Albright is clearly taken by surprise. He quickly punches the stop button on his treadmill, and has hopped off the device before there's a funny feeling in his limbs and head, something he didn't expect. It brings him pause, long enough that he's unable to send out any kind of alert before the EMP shuts everything down, leaving them in relative darkness for a moment before the emergency lights come up, casting the room in harsh contrast between shadow and light. Angrily, the Colonel takes a step toward Rokk Krinn, before stopping. His sidearm is too far away. He wouldn't be able to get it in time. "Just who the hell are you?"

Kwabena watches with partial curiosity as Rachel changes her outfit. It draws a small grin to one edge of his lips, but he says nothing of it. Soon enough, she's literally showing him where they are. "Maybe," he says, considering the options. "But if I can get him to spill, without any telepathic interference, it'll hold up a lot bettah in court." He's got a decision to make, and he couldn't agree more with Rachel's assessment. It does seem too easy.

Reaching up, Kwabena removes the telepathic earpiece, handing it to Rachel. There's no way it will fit through the cracks he can fit through. "Let me take a first look," he suggests. "Hold on to dis for me?"

A few moments later, wisps of black smoke are seeping through those tiny, tiny spaces between the front door and the Stanberg Residence. The smoke creeps along the floor until it has reached the living room, where it slowly and quietly rises and collects together into the flesh-form of Shift. He finds himself standing just behind the television, watching as the Congressman's wife sleeps. She's got no idea that they have an infiltrator.

Shift crosses the room and quietly retrieves a bobby pin from the table next to the woman's glass of wine. He then crosses the room, finds the alarm system, and gently removes its outer casing, revealing the inner workings. His fingers trace along a couple of the wires, before stopping at a certain contact point. The bobby pin is pressed against the small piece of metal, then he rips one of the wires free and attaches it to another contact point, wrapping the threads around its tiny screw before releasing the bobby pin.


 * "Security's disabled,"| comes his telepathic message for Rachel's mind only.

Meanwhile, the Congressman has come back to his desk. Another glass of whiskey is poured before he opens his desk drawer and retrieves a finely wrapped cuban cigar.

Even if it were in his hand, Albright wouldn't be able to get to it in time-- but naturally, he has no way of knowing that. "You're not," Krinn says apologetically, "cleared for that information, sir. Unfortunately, you're going to have to trust me despite that. Three minutes ago, Dr. Amel was taken into custody by a special interest group within the United Nations. One minute ago, I received confirmation that he's already named you and Congressman Stanberg, and agreed to testify in return for a reduced sentence and protective relocation."

The man-- amicable but quite serious, has clasped his hands behind his back. His posture's relaxed, his tone matter-of-fact and informative. "The problem is that the special interest group was compromised going in, and a hit's been put out on you. Metahuman assassin." Still talking as he takes out a mini-tablet from inside his jacket, the Braalian activates the screen and holds it out to the Colonel, taking a half step closer.

"The only way you're going to get past the next twenty minutes alive is if I protect you. The only way you're going to come out of this entire debacle with anything resembling your reputation intact is if you blow the whistle more thoroughly, and more quickly, than your associates. I can protect you, and I can make sure that your statement goes where it needs to go, as quickly as it needs to go."

He's a very helpful man.

Rachel frowns. "Unless the court has their own telepath, they'll never find out." She argues, but doesn't push the point when Shift makes the final decision. "Don't get caught." She tells him as he hands her the earpiece, and watches him with her eyes until he disperses into his smoke form, and then with her mind, feeling a bit of disquiet over Shift's chosen course. Either the man doesn't realise that she could make the Congressman condemn himself out of his own mouth by simply leaning on the appropriate bits of his brain... or he doesn't /want/ to acknowledge that she's capable of it. Either way, the risk profile of the mission just increased.

On the sidelines for now, Rachel monitors Shift's progress, watching the other two minds for any sign of wakefulness in one, or alarm in the other. Even though she knows exactly what Shift's up to, the waiting is still irritating. |On my way in.| Rachel jumps on Kwabena's thoughts as soon as she receives them, slipping out of the SUV and swiftly scanning for any other interested minds in the area.

Despite her impatience, she doesn't take too many chances. Lifting herself a few inches off the ground, she floats over to the door and unlocks it with her mind, then ventures inside. |Here.| She passes him back his earpiece, before ghosting over to where the woman sleeps. A little mental exertion, and the woman's sleep deepens. A little more, and Rachel sets an internal wake up call for a few hours from now. |You don't need to worry about her interrupting us.| Rachel sends with brisk confidence, before turning her head to apparently look /through/ a wall. |The target hasn't left the room.| There's something a little not-Rachel about how she refers to him as 'the target'.

As Krinn lays out the particulars of a well-spun lie, Colonel Albright seems to be buying every moment of it. "That dirty, son of a bitch," he mutters in reference to Amel, before going silent again as Krinn continues. The moment a metahuman assassin is mentioned, his eyes narrow, and he seethes. Quietly.

Reaching out, the Colonel accepts the tablet, looking it over. His eyes peer back up at Rokk Krinn, narrowing again. "And if I don't cooperate -- if I don't 'blow the whistle' -- you let this, this metahuman assasin have his way with me, is that it?" He stretches out the tablet, offering it back to Krinn with a sour smirk. "Is that how this goes? Hmm?"

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, Shift watches as Rachel enters. He reaches to accept the device, offering, |Thanks.| for her before slipping the device back into his ear.


 * "Krinn, what's your status?"| His thoughts go out, unskilled but merely hoping that the alien technology latches on and does what it needs to do, before he looks back toward Rachel. |Alright. Let's play this your way, Rach. Make him pop the can. Soon as he's done, we go in there and get him ready for the police.|

From the Braalian, clipped, |"Proceeding apace."|

"No, sir. The organization has a vested interest in your survival. I'll protect you through the next twenty minutes, regardless of how you decide you're going to handle your life afterwards," Krinn says dismissively, taking the tablet back and tucking it inside his jacket again. "We're going to have to leave, sir. You may wish to bring your sidearm and a change of clothes." He turns a brief, critical look toward the sweats and t-shirt, then moves on. "There's a safehouse in Sacramento I can take you to, but I suspect taking you directly to DC may be the wiser course. If you decide to testify, you'll be able to make it look like you'd been planning on it, and can do so, live at the press conference that's been scheduled for an hour after the conference call you were due to make this morning. If you don't, Amel's pre-recorded testimony will be aired. Your life, I can save. Your reputation-- that's all you."

There's nothing rushed or tense about the stranger's manner; he's clearly personally unconcerned, but doing his duty. He gestures toward the door. "We're down to seventeen minutes, sir."

Rachel looks around sharply as Kwabena's voice arrives in her mind, tense and alert - and then shivers a little, and seems herself once more. Old reflexes are hard to ignore, but she grins - albeit a bit nastily - as Shift gives her the nod. |I thought you'd never ask.| She says, almost gleeful, and goes back to looking right through that wall. The green of her eyes is obliterated by blank, white-hot fire, and there's the faintest suggestion of a heat haze around her body as she strikes out with her mind.

In the den, Congressman Stanberg stiffens in his chair, then begins moving swiftly and with purpose. The barely-tasted cigar is stubbed out in an ashtray without even looking at it, even as his free hand is reaching out for his cellphone. With a deft touch that doesn't seem quite the man's own, the phone is set to record video and then held up to frame his face perfectly. "My name is Congressman Ronald Stanberg, and I am making this statement truthfully and without duress..."

"... over the past four years, I have been part of a very complicated plan to establish a 'cure' for the mutant and metahuman condition," continues Congressman Stanberg. "In this confession, I plan to..." And then, without warning, he stops.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Colonel Albright draws in a deep breath and nods his head. He turns to cross the room, opening a cabinet and withdrawing his sidearm and a satchel that holds all of the trimmings to his standard dress uniform. "D.C, it is."

However, when he turns back around to face Krinn, a smirk has formed on his face. "By the way... you didn't send mutants to Stanberg's house, did you? If so, they're in for quite a surprise."

Back in Las Vegas, Rachel will be the first to notice it. Every single ability affixed to her X-Gene is suddenly shut off. You see, the moment Shift entered the Stanberg residence, he triggered the Congressman's X-Gene detection grid. All of those long hours Dr. Amel has spent with his studies have paid off, and now, a time-delayed X-Gene inhibition pulse wave has erupted, rendering Rachel and Kwabena's mutant powers void.

Congressman Stanberg looks up from his recording and smirks wryly at the door. "Knock, knock."

His hand comes down to depress a button beneath his desk, and within the blink of an eye, the living room is flooded with poisoned darts that carry an extremely potent sleeper agent. Shift's got just enough time to spit out a curse, but when he finds that his body is not changing into its gaseous state? A look of utter shock fills his eyes. They turn down to look at the darts that are sticking out from all over his body, then turns to look at Rachel before his body crumples to the ground.

Without her telepathic powers, there's nowhere for Rachel Summers to run, either.

Polite confusion on Rokk's face, as the Colonel smirks at him. He moves to hold the door open for the smug old fuck, then go with him through the house and out. "The organization may have sent operatives to the Congressman's house, but that's only a logical conclusion: I have no way of knowing whether they did, or if anyone they might have sent were mutants." Still completely calm and composed: there's really been nothing that's seemed anything other than legit in anything he's said, and his corrections have been polite but firm.

Krinn's demeanor, his methods, don't change at all. In his head, though-- |"Guys, the Colonel's just said something about a nasty surprise for mutants in Stanberg's house, pull back unless you've planned for it!"| Day late, buck short. |"I'm taking him to DC to give a live confession. ...Guys?"| No panic. No panicking on his face. The two of them lift off the ground, weightless, and Rokk reaches over to put a small grey control on the back of the Colonel's hand. "This is a temporary forcefield. You can turn it off on your own, but I'd suggest against it until we get there. Transonic windburn is worse than skiing without a mask."


 * "You went in, didn't you. Tell me who to call!"|

One moment, Rachel has complete control of the Congressman, and the next - he's gone. Vanished. |I've lost him!| She calls telepathically to Shift - or tries to, because she's suddenly aware that she's trapped inside her own head. She twists around, eyes tracking toward Shift, mouth opening to call a warning...

...and then she hears Shift curse, and the first dart hits her. Instinctively, she tries to raise a telekinetic shield, but it's as useless as her telepathy was. In the second she wasted, she's hit again and again. A second after that and the chemicals flooding her bloodstream reach her brain, slamming her down into darkness.

There's no-one left to hear Rokk's call...

New Horizons Mental Health Clinic

Las Vegas, Nevada

Officer Binton meets Doctor Amel not long after that call. Deep within the high security wing, they remain blissfully unaware of those who are converging from above and below. "I've already called first shift in early, Doctor," Binton says as they walk along the corridors. "They'll be trickling in as we go, and I understand that Doctors Gupta and Allen are on their way."

"Very good," answers Doctor Amel. "Nurse Wyland and I will be..." He pauses, considering the Chief of Security with a speculative eye. "What is it?"

"I don't know," answers Binton. "Something about that... inspection. Kwarteng and Schulman. They took an awful long time getting their things together."

Amel frowns. He glances to and fro, checking to make sure the two security guards who stand nearby are the only ones there. "I told you. The inspection was rigged. Now settle down and get to work."

Meanwhile, above the high security wing on the building's top floor...

The shift change came hours ago, and the graveyard stretch creeps on, relatively quietly-- most of the important people have come and gone, after all. Inside one of the security monitoring stations, a uniformed man with a badge that reads 'Goren' yawns and leans back in his chair a moment to stretch, before returning his attention to the screens before him, one display scanning through the facility's own cameras, while the other appears to be filled with status reports and a progress bar. A coded dongle is inserted into the workstation, and the dark-haired man turns to his partner at the opposite station, "But have you ever, you know, been down there?" Goren asks in a hushed voice, glancing around a moment before he appends, "I bet it's like, Super-Gitmo, man. This one ultrasecure vault, and no one can know who's in it."

Nate shifted his business outfit to its more normal form, changing usual dark blue for all black. Night operation and... well, it fits his mood better. Mind-link gets established with minimal grumbling, and then Jamie gets a 'telepathic map' with the positions of the prisoners' cells and the mysterious "telepathic hole" place. Anyone else who wants it gets the map too. |"Some of the guards moved around. Doesn't matter. Chances are they will come to us when we start making noise. Or if they are smart they will run away."| He hopes they try to fight.


 * "Noise ought to be at least partially mitigated,"| Psylocke notes with a sidelong glance and humorless half-smile thrown in Dazzler's direction. |"But yes: our window to operate without interference will likely be modest all the same."| With that, she begins strolling towards the facility, reaching back to rest her fingertips gently against the hilt of the katana sticking out past her right shoulder at an angle. She accepts the map readily, and even contributes to it: bright red dots begin popping up around it to mark the locations of guards. Those near the group pop first; others will eventually appear, given a little bit of time.


 * "Multiple Man: this is your show, now; we're going to buy you all the time you can. If you must engage the enemy, do so quietly; drag them out of sight when you're done, if you can. Everyone else: do try to show a little restraint; remember the symbol on your--"|

She pauses to cast a glance back at her team.


 * "--on my uniform."|


 * "Oh, it's the 'X-Men Don't Kill' lecture!"| Dazzler's mental voice is laden with cheer, nostalgia, and only the barest hint of sarcasm. |"It's just like Old Times!"| She too accepts the map, but mostly she just rubs her hands together and waits for Psylocke's signal. |"Showtime on your word, boss."|


 * "I am minimizing contact with you,"| M replies. She sets Madrox down and floats a few paces away before landing herself. |"And, Mr. Madrox, try to think instead of speak. It's for security."|

M keeps pace with Psylocke, her footsteps preternaturally quiet. It's good breeding rather than ninja technique. |"We should be considerate of the mind-blanked room. It is not necessarily more prisoners. In a worst-case scenario, whatever is inside it will be dangerous to our party."|

When Psylocke glances backward, M's face is neutral. Neutral for her is a model's scowl. |"Purely nonlethal,"| she agrees, |"if the choice remains ours."|


 * "Understood,"| Terry answers Psylocke as she lands and moves forwards, taking a moment to adjust to having the mental map transmitted into her awareness - it does take a second or two to figure out just what it does, but anyone who flies rapidly learns what a map looks like from above. Or the terrain. They're basically the same thing, right? Right.


 * "It could just be the big boss's office,"| she replies to M's suggestion. |"But that's the same in the end, isn't it."|

Once the man is set down Jamie just starts heading into the building. Phase 1, get inside. Phase 2, make dupes. Phase 3, Profit! Or something like that of course. But well one person sneaking in the building is a lot easier than duping first, then sneaking in. So the Multiple Man does get in and starts making the dupes. As he does that though he does have to ask a simple question, |"<If I think though, will my hive mind start to cause confusion or feedback by doing this? But got it, non lethal. I can do that, took several classes in various non lethal fighting tactics."|

"Once," answers the other guard, one of those former enlisted Marine types who got a dishonorable discharge and still wears the buzzcut. "Binton was so short staffed he pulled one from our team down there. Claimed the only reason he did it was cause I got military experience or somethin'." He just gives Goren a look. A very long look. "Sorry man. I need this job. Girlfriend'll crush 'em into oblivion if I get fired again."

Goren lets out a breath of laughter, stifled as quickly as it rises, leading into a hoarse whisper, "/Shit/, man, they took you down there? That's..." another nervous glance around, and the dark-haired guard appends, even more quietly, ".. that's freaking crazy. I bet there's like, a 128-digit code to get in, or some shit."

The one thing that the X-Men's surveillance didn't account for, earlier in the day? Small, spherical drones on nearly silent propellers scanning the facility from on high, all but invisible amidst the clouds, and stealthed against excessive emissions or radar, to boot.

... Of course, if they were there to raise the alarm about impending attack, they're doing an utterly terrible job of it. Several cameras fizzle conveniently offline as the infiltrators approach them, leaving the secondary team all the more.. well, secondary, compared to the assault squad of mutants.

Doctor Amel and Nurse Wyland convene within the high security wing, even while Officer Binton begins moving about, rustling the troops. Those third shift soldiers? Wide awake, of course, but a handful of them have been involved with the horrors that have gone on in this place, including the beatings. One of those guards is one that Psylocke will certainly remember, quite well, during her telepathic scans earlier that day. Amel and Wyland start going room by room, checking the sleeping patients. One by one, they begin entering the rooms, armed with those high-tech injectors, and begin injecting medicine into the patients that will wake them from sleep, but keep them very drowsy. Most likely, when the time comes, the patients will need to be carried unless otherwise roused.

"Jesus... Christ, Goren!" The guard leans over and shushes his counterpart. "Keep it down, you're gonna get me in a lot of trouble!" He hesitates, before eyeing Goren doubtfully. "Man... you don't even know though. You know those... those keycard ID's they carry around? That... and thumbprints. That's all I know, bro, but I'm tellin' you, it's next level shit down there! I felt like a dog on a goddamn leash."

As the X-Men first enter the building, they are greeted with the front door security. Three guards. "Visiting hours are from 9 to..." The guard speaking looks up, blinks his eyes, and reaches for his pistol. "What the hell!?"

Nate scowls at the non-lethal. Usually he would agree, but this time... guess maiming will have to do it. Serious maiming and maybe lobotomies. Oops, did some ideas leak into the mind-link? He is not usually this bloody minded, honestly, but New Horizon is pushing all his buttons.

Jamie turning into a small army is also straining his mind-link. Likely some duplicates are slipping though his telepathic fingers right now. They all feel the same. But the Jamies should be fine as long as the guards are focused in the others. |"Going straight to the mystery room? Or do we go hunting for mad doctors?"| Asks Nate while casually ripping the garage door of the clinic delivery entrance with telekinesis, then he crumples it into a ball as if it was made of paper. He steps inside the building, his left eye pulsing with light. Some kind of hell, possibly.


 * "Showtime; guards first."|

Which is probably why Psylocke went for the front door; that cluster of red made for an enticing starting point. To further illustrate her point, she jabs stiff, straight fingers sharply into the throat of the guard with the pistol; he should be fine, given some time in the hospital. There's a reasonable chance he'll sound like a robot for the rest of his life, but he'll be fine. Whether or not M is still with her, violet wings will flare like psychic fire to frame her face as she gives the next guard to go for a gun a taste of the first one's pain; if M is there, though, she'll keep moving once that's done, rather than worry about the third. She's heading straight for the high security wing, since she had plenty of time to case it the last time she was here.

If not, well--there's plenty of pain to go around.


 * "Doctors second; if anyone is likely to know what's in the blank room, it's them. I would prefer to wait until the prisoners are safe and we're all together again to try opening that door, for all of our sakes. Off to the high security wing; if you find your ways there, mind the assault weapons."|

As soon as Psylocke lights into the guards, Dazzler runs around a corner past her and flies feet-first into the chest of the nearest one. The hallway around her blooms with blinding strobes while she blasts anyone that comes near her in a threatening way on her route through the melee. Focusing on Siryn, Daz calls out mentally, |"SING, my Angel of Music!"|

M is behind Psylocke. She is kind enough to allow the team leader to set the tone. By the time the first two guards are dealt with, the third has leveled his gun. Psylocke is already clear--

--and the bullets are bouncing off M's chest. She clucks her tongue and disappears.

When she rejoins reality, the third guard is safely in a coma-state for the next twenty four hours. He never had the chance to see her fly to him and enter his mind through a fingertip on his forehead. Just as well.


 * "I would prefer to visit the mind-blank room with you first. I will be your best chance at breaching the security. The sooner I have a chance to gauge the defenses, the more smoothly this will go."|

Theresa quirks her way towards a guard, following after Dazzler.

She is momentarily distracted at that name. But only momentarily! She takes a deep breath and exhales, the phase of her breath raising upwards like a bass the size of a small automobile. The rumbling phases further upwards into the proper sonic range that wobbles faintly, smashing some dust from the wall, before Terry gets her footing again.


 * "Bit out of practice, my fault,"| she thinks aloud even as she steers the lance of her voice upwards, holding herself at a peculiarly contorted angle. Why? She's kneeling next to a guard to retrieve his piece, of course, which goes into the waistband of her outfit a moment later.

Her sonic waves hit a concrete corner and bounce down a hallway, apparently to no effect, until there are strangled screams and one fellow screaming, "MY GALLBLADDER! IT'S BACK! IT FEELS LIKE IT GREW BACK!! OH MY GOD IT'S LIKE I'M GIVING BIIIIIIIRTH!!" The sound of his dropped gun rattles, as well as an accidental discharge, which ricochets up and smashes a light fixture.

Terry clears her throat with an ambient bass 'thump' before telling Alison, "Lead on then," in a rather mild voice.

Well the dupes and Jamie prime start making their way through the facility. Of course they have all split up by now, hey it's the best way to get out all of the captured people, within a reasonable amount of time of course. Prime and few of the dupes stumble across some of the guards as well, and hey thanks to various training are able to take care of them! See the course on the submission hold stuff paid off, the various choke holds are just awesome for stuff like this. But they manage to start getting to their destinations.

As the shit hits the proverbial fan at the front entrance, the clean-cut Marine takes to his feet, "Jesus, Goren. Sound an alert, main entrance.." It's the obvious problem, the one the X-Men's hidden ally directed all the building's resources to track. Now, the alarm goes up.. but it's all wrong. System failure and infiltration are noted all but literally everywhere. The entire database of crisis codes is tapped and reported, in quick succession. Every hazard klaxon and malfunction alert hooked up to the security grid goes red, one after another after another.. then several more. It's all but impossible to discern where the trouble actually lies without eyes on it directly.

Arming himself with an assault rifle, the dark-haired guard's partner jostles Goren's shoulder where the latter man sits working feverishly at his station, "Come on man, what the f..." it's as far as he gets, before his trigger arm breaks at the elbow, the honed Marine overtaken in a moment, and three sharp motions. The arm is broken, Goren rises from his seat and twists, silencing a scream with the palm of his hand, and sweeping the soldier to the floor with a profound *THUD*.

Calmly, Goren stands and palms and pockets the flash unit hooked up to his security station. |Unknown assets in play.| He reports, softly, and in a very different voice than before as he speaks through a hidden communicator. |Timetable's changed. We're in motion now.| The 'guard' disarms, dismantling his pistol and other equipment mounted on his belt to reveal a veritable treasure trove of miniaturized equipment: several bombs, a palmtop computer, a grappling line, and a microtorch, among other incidentals. Like a distinctive shuriken or two.

The first thing 'Goren' does is tap a code into that palmtop, which transmits a signal, narrow-beam, to the handset confiscated from him back at the entrance checkpoint to this rather high-security facility. It powers on, whines loud, and then -explodes- in a burst of explosive static and EMP-- almost like it was designed to facilitate an infiltration in force, in the first place.

The infiltrator's first target? The servers that house the data these scientists have been collecting. He cuts there through the corridors swiftly, like... well, like he looked up where he was going, and disabled the proper cameras between the security station and the server room. The first guard he meets tries to recruit him once more, and ends up much like the first; sprawled, choked unconscious, with a broken hand and a busted rifle beside him. Unloaded.

Nate gains access to the delivery entrance, which is bound to provide a damned good exit point for Multiple Man's evacuation efforts. He's met by a pair of guards, not the heavily armed types like the team is going to find in the high security wing, armed only with pistols. Which come free and take aim. Poor saps.

Psylocke and M make quick work of the guards at the entrance, while Dazzler takes to the side and offers cover in the form of brilliant, blinding lights, bright enough to completely debilitate the guards around that corner. This is the easy work, of course, but it's paving the way for the X-Men to breach the high security wing in no time.

The building itself isn't difficult to navigate. Three floors total, the first and third being laid out in a very sensible fashion. The second floor, however, the one which holds the high security wing... it's entered by two choke points, and is a veritable labyrinth inside. Fortunately, the X-Men have the advantage that is telepathic maps, drawn by Scion and illuminated by Psylocke. Plus, there aren't an unreasonable amount of guards on the first and third floor... the bulk of them are understandably gathered in the high security wing.

They all make it to that part of the building with relative ease.

By the time the X-Men have reached the high security entrance chokepoints, however, they're in for a surprise. Someone else is operating inside, and it's not one of them. The explosive discharge of static EMP at the main entrance ought to be enough to tell them that, if not for the variety of alarms and error messages that are flashing all about. The guards are in disarray, to be sure, but these are not your typical rent-a-cop mooks. They're well trained, experienced military veterans, hired by Colonel Albright himself.

Regardless, some of them react through the confusion, unloading their automatic weapons in a manner that is at first haphazard, but very quickly becoming more organized. How long that lasts though? When faced against a team of X-Men who are out for justice?

Well.

One critical factor that is going to play in the favor of those would-be rescuers? The security locks... all shorted out by that EMP blast. Seems Multiple Man's going to have no trouble boosting those 'patients' from their rooms, now.

So Nate gets shot, but the bullets do very little. He breaks the jaw of one of the guards with a fist, then smashes the other against the wall with telekinesis. And so a coupe more dupes escape the mind-link. Now he has to pause to readjust.

He checks the map. Good, quick route out from the security wing. Both guards are going to sleep a few hours. The young man hurries inside, scanning ahead. < Lots of confusion here. Too much. Either they are incompetent or something else is going on.> A doctor! He pauses to rip his minds to shreds. Maybe he will recover, but only after several months in coma. He peers to see if the man knows about the mystery room, but a guard arrives and distracts him with his assault rifle and some bullets. Nate replies throwing him through the nearest window. So if he dies, it was gravity, not him.

Forward, to the security wing.


 * "Much obliged,"| Psylocke thinks when the guard's bullets are harmlessly stopped. |"The one is inside of the other, but testing its defenses blindly would be--risky,"| she continues, working her way to the stairs--and then up them; no sense in getting acquainted with the elevator's camera. |"We can make a stop, though, I suppose; the guards can be sorted along the way."|

By the time she makes it up there, both swords are in hand and held out to her sides; the unexpected EMPsplosion puts a brief stop to her steady advance, though, and her eyes quickly and futilely scan about for some sign of its owner. |"I--I don't think we're alone with these monsters,"| she thinks, anxiety slipping into the link. |"Unless they're simply too stupid to live; there was an explosion in the secure wing!"| She takes a few steps forward, squinting at the flashing alarms and errors--and then her eyes snap to the red dots--the people--coming to secure the checkpoint.


 * "Hostiles approaching,"| she adds; no traces of anxiety there. No confusion, or fear, either, although there is a little bit of concern; it just isn't focused on herself, or even on her team.

No, it's for the men whose gunfire is clashing with a purple telekinetic shield a few inches in front of her--the ones she's dashing into with hard eyes and flashing steel. The guards' positions fade, and even flicker out intermittently thanks to her telekinetic antics, and while she makes a note to get through the soldiers as quickly as she can to correct that problem, for the next few seconds, most of the red she sees over the next few seconds is streaming from missing digits and hobbled limbs.


 * "I heart you so much,"| Dazzler 'tells' Siryn, happily drinking in excess soundwaves from around the edges of the Irishwoman's attacks. Because suddenly they're being shot at, and the guys are better aim than Stormtroopers! A shimmering shield of light forms in a disc around Dazzler's forearm, bullets not so much ricocheting as disappearing into little puffs of molten nothing; alternately blinding and blasting guards, Dazzler works her way alongside the others - no room for mistakes, and only as much mercy as is necessary.

For a lot of well-trained men, tonight is a horror movie. M doesn't go down when you shoot her. She keeps walking forward, tearing doors off hinges and felling hardened soldiers with a touch. Her features are especially sharp when lit by gunfire. It's very dramatic.


 * "Those were precise charges,"| she comments, pausing. |"They don't make sense for a defensive move, not for removing evidence."| The Monegasque woman tilts her head. |"And that would be a plane outside. Very quiet. That other noise, then, would be--surveillance drones?"|

M disappears again, flickering back into the world of mundane speed with a snap of displaced air once she has caught up with Psylocke. |"Look for the one that doesn't belong."|

Theresa pauses when they have to push open a door to take the guns from security men. She is able to pop out the clips pretty readily, but other than momentarily offering one to Dazzler - then thinking better of it - she largely pitches them aside.

Rounding a corner, the enemy - security guards - are more prevalent. They are ultimately shift workers, and as such not worthy of the ULTIMATE SANCTION, but Terry has little warm feelings for these people. She produces several short barks of sound, sending men flying and leaving a rich echo-filled environment for Alison to absorb. When an actual gun is fired towards her, it paffs off a few strands of strawberry red hair before she dives for the ground, taking momentary shelter behind a stunned guard.

Then Dazzler

1. Attracts and destroys the lethal bullet's

2. Tells her she is 'hearted'

And so it is that Terry gives her a sideways, baffled glance with no attached words. Straightening upwards, she belts out a door-busting note while collecting another, somewhat more impressive rifle which she largely holds artfully after making sure the safety's flicked on.

The dupes have managed to gather all of the people that they were sent to gather. Hey you know it's a good thing that something like kidnapped mutants will keep Jamie focused. Cause well the last thing they need is for one of Jamie's dupes to go rogue and do something like pull a fire alarm or something like that. Or just tell all the guards who is with him and how to handle them of course. But see kidnapped people totally make the dupes focus so they don't have to worry about that. |"<Uhm I got everyone, but well what the heck do you want me to do with them?"|

Down one last hall and to the right, the guard-who-is-not-a-guard disables his more legitimate counterpart and quickly uses that rather impressive miniature torch to melt away the casing around the electronic lock on the server room. From there it's a relatively quick splice of wires and the door flashes green; one more alert in the ocean of them pouring into the building's other security stations.

The nearest port is soon occupied by another flash module, scripts written just for this exact job working to overwhelm and extract, dumping entire systems worth of information to memory as attack routines occupy and slow the military countermeasures.

As the data copies, a second code is punched into that armored tablet, and then the X-Men's mysterious friend needs not wait long. There's a distant whine of a jetcraft overhead, louder than when Monet first heard it, there and then gone again to most anyone else. In its wake, an armored pod drops nearly silently, freefalling like an anvil into (and through) the facility's roof.

The dark gunmetal pod deposited thusly stops in a lingering shower of dust and debris across the room from its summoner, who approaches and opens it with a palmprint, retinal scan, and (extensive) memorized alphanumeric code. Seamless doors open with a hydraulic whoosh to reveal a sleek, armored batsuit; and all the utility belt trimmings.

It is, essentially, the X-Women who make up the forward momentum into the security wing, and most of the guards are responding to their immediate threat as they organize. Given Psylocke's swordplay, M's brutalization of the doors, Dazzler's blinding and blasting lightplay, and Siryn's soundplay... well. It leaves Multiple Man plenty of time to get those prisoners out, and he does it. With speed and efficiency.

Those who aren't taking on the X-Women (and being quickly dispatched) are directing their attacks at Scion, whose brute power easily makes short work of them in spite of what damage he may be taking. And yet still, there are others, would-be stragglers who are picked off by the X-Men Team's mysterious ally.

It's not long after Batman has suited up that Doctor Amel, Nurse Wyland, and Officer Binter all come scooting around a corner, before summarily screeching to a halt. Even this far from Gotham, it's impossible not to recognize the imposing figure. All three jaws drop, and while Amel and Wyland begin to back away, it's Binter who reaches for his sidearm and begins firing.

Meanwhile...

The X-Men soon find their way to the dark room. They'd located it before, thanks to Dazzler's earlier observation of the security grid, not to mention the big empty sphere within the telepathic plane. The door has a sophisticated locking mechanism, but it's not too much different from the other doorways that have been made quick work of by the likes of... well... everyone.

What's likely a mystery is the fact that this door is... not... guarded.

At all.

And there's a blinking light on the security panel that is green, not red.

Nate is not taking much damage tonight, he can make himself bullet-proof, after all. But he is not causing as much damage as he could some other days, without a mind-link to worry. < Come this way, Maddox, path is clear. With less chances of missing guards sneaking on them > he projects to the Jamies. He moves in the opposite direction the dupes and their charges, though, and arrives to the mysterious door at the same time as the women.

No guards, open door. "Guess it is not a prisoner, after all," he mutters. "Whatever," he grabs the door and pulls.


 * "Take them to the rendezvous point, and stay with them; I don't want to leave them undefended with this extra element in play!"| Psylocke snaps off while slipping past a guard; a second later, when she's straightening up to continue her advance on the blank room, he begins to look down at the dark stain spreading down his side before wavering on his feet and finally collapsing.

That one is probably going to need medical attention sooner rather than later.

After a sharp wristflick to clear some of the blood of it, she sheathes one of her swords then presses her left hand from her temple and just about shuts her eyes to better focus on casting her perceptions outwards. Her body is proceeding dutifully - almost mechanically, for the moment - towards the target, but her mind is elsewhere--and once unfamiliar presence is (barely) felt, it's busy. No new markers appear on the mental map because trying to get a grasp on where, precisely, the stranger is is like squeezing soap through her fist; it's all that she can do to continue confirming his presence in the facility, and the effort gives her a headache after a while.


 * "I have them,"| she thinks, knuckling the side of her skull, |"but I can't--who could possibly--"|

Before she can finish her thought, she reopens her eyes, and the door to the mystery room stares back at her.


 * "At the door; once we're together, I'm ready to open it."|

As Dazzler runs up the hall to catch up with Psylocke, brimming with stored sound - she notes the fallen stabbed guy. |"Got it,"| - not that she's a healer or a medical expert or anything, but a quick flash cauterization of a bleeding wound will keep him from bleeding *out.* It'll HURT, but he should live. A flash of light, the scent of burning flesh, a scream that is barely heard before it too is swallowed up by Dazzler's absorption power.

M does not require aid from the psychic map. Their fellow intruder is being decent enough to distinguish himself with loud, unique noises. Still, there is nothing to be done but note the occurrence:


 * "Server room. The plane dropped something. A suit, I am supposing."|

Monet is familiar with what a dressing room sounds like.

She stops with the rest of the team, crossing her arms and leaning her weight on one foot. |"They have either deliberately underspent on the rest of this architecturally-forsaken facility to purchase a particularly soundproof door, or there is something unusual at play here. I hear nothing."|

M declines volunteering to stand in front, though she would be the best choice. It's best not to give people a reason to think of her as merely a brick.

"I... There isn't..."

Terry looks at the doorway, seeming baffled. She clicks her tongue, which is a rather peculiar thing to do, but afterwards, she repeats, "There isn't..."

She glares at Monet. She then confirms, "It seems dead. Just... Well I certainly can't tell, maybe it's where they're waterboarding people."

She does not seem about to stop Nate from opening the door, though she does shift the gun to cover him.

"We've got to take care of the dat..." it cuts off as the trio enter the room, as the last piece of the batsuit snaps into place with the locking of one form-fitted, armored gauntlet. The gun clears its holster as the Dark Knight twists on one booted foot; it's brought up in the instant he charges. The first round would dull his hearing, if not for the suppressors built into Batman's cowl. The second clips off one shoulder, but it's because he ducks inside the commander's firing range, hammering a blow home to the older man's ribs twice over before he manages to fall back into a guard posture, the pistol clamoring to the floor.

The Dark Knight's pursuit is relentless, abusing weight and reach in the enclosed space to all but hammer Binter off two of the walls as the ex-Seal grapples furtively but futilely, but the outcome was never really in doubt. The officer falls to the floor after moments that seem like hours to the combatants themselves, as Binter clutches his throat from a strike he didn't even see coming.

Two reinforced black zipties are dropped on the floor between Batman and the other two, a third uncinched and prepped for Binter as the Bat stares nails at Dr. Amel through narrowed, featureless eyeslits.

There was one particular victim that Shift had notified everyone about. A young mutant named Angel McGuire, from Gotham City, 17 years old. He'd disappeared under similar circumstances to the others, only this time, there were no court documents, no cases, no police arrests. He simply... had... disappeared.

Angel McGuire is the reason Rokk Krinn came. It very well may be the link that brought Batman to Las Vegas. And for whatever telepathic scans or observations the rescuing dupes may have done, Angel McGuire is not here. Shift was wrong in that assessment it would seem.

That is until the door to that ominous room is yanked open by Nate.

The moment the door is opened, something odd happens. Time itself slows down for the X-Men gathered there, cycling down to a small fraction of its normal speed. Every motion made seems to come with an agonizingly slow pace, and thoughts process through human and mutant brain alike in much the same fashion. It's almost a torture of its own, the sudden and abrupt shift of pace from the rapid speed of combat.

The effect spreads out into the facility itself, bubbling beyond and capturing Batman, Doctor Amel, Nurse Wyland and Officer Binter in its clutches, only cutting short of capturing Jamie and his rescuing duplicates as they barely skim past the perimeter of its effect.

Worse, however, for the mutants... the bubble quite literally shuts down the effects of their X-Genes, like turning off a light switch. Telepathy, light and sound control, every single enhancement it offers to them... gone.

The room itself seems to bend outward, capturing the X-Men and pulling them in. It's a rectangular shape like every other room in this cursed facility, but with the way time and perception have slowed, one's eyes might almost be tricked to believe it to be as round as the bubble that it once contained.

Perpendicular to the door sit two people, on opposite ends of the room. One is a young man, half Hispanic, matching the description of Angel McGuire. There is nothing in place of his eyes, as if looking into them was like looking into nothingness itself. As he stands up to face them, he movements seem to creep along just faster than theirs, as if he existed somewhere outside this bubble of fractioned time and space.

On the other side of the room is a man, dark skinned, naked, seated in a chair with no shortage of cables and tubes running into his body. His head is bald, and his eyes, tormented as they appear, are one brown, the other... silver.

He looks just like Kwabena Odame. Which would technically be impossible. And without their telepathic powers, one might be led to believe that it is him.

Doctor Amel looks up at Batman after time slows down for them, his words coming with a painfully slow drawl. "Whhaaat.. haaave... yyooouuu... dooonne??"


 * "Cos to strike team,"| comes over the X-Men comms. It's not telepathic, it's a male voice with a sort of Canadian accent, and it's clipped and businesslike, and there's dead silence in the background. |"Shift and Marvel Girl presumed down. Their last location was at the address following. Take precautions against whatever might constitute a nasty surprise for X-Gene carriers; I'll be there in roughly the time it should take you to get there."| Coordinates are fed into the link, because that's how space Canadians from the future roll.


 * "I'm dropping the Colonel off in Washington DC, he's preparing a statement to the press on the crimes against the victims, and he'll be implicating his associates. The Congressman is still unaccounted for, as Shift and Marvel Girl were going to deal with him; they've been incommunicado for about three minutes."| Someone is flying a lot faster than sound.


 * "I really hope you guys are done in there."|

It's a feeling she's experienced only a handful of times - the sudden draining of powers; the loss of the dance of energy in her cells, the sheer euphoric tingle of drinking in sound and transforming it into light... it's a loss that equates to a dull ache, and combined with a sudden decompression of time and space, it's an agony. No reaction is quick enough, no attempt to throw herself out of the way is fast enough - and there Dazzler is, seemingly frozen in an attempt to either leap or cartwheel gymnastically out of the way, being otherwise depowered and upset.

This is not the first time that Monet has felt someone take things away from her. It is still unpleasant. However, that is all it is: unpleasant. Not terrifying. Not confidence-shattering. A sick feeling in her stomach, not a panic in her head.

She slowed more than most. She has so much more to lose. The world is practically frozen to her, and duller still. It is like being shut out of a room and only having a keyhole left.

It gives her time in her mind. That is something she can be truly proud of. No matter how much someone can accuse her of cheating, of being lucky, they cannot deny that Monet is intelligent. That's all her.

Angel McGuire. Clearly interacting with the space-time manipulation, very likely the source of it. Kwabena Odame. He shouldn't be here. With the information gathered on the experiments here, and the peculiarities of Odame's mutation, it is feasible that the apparatus attached to him are the inhibiting agent.

Her eyes finish moving to Psylocke. What will the real, insignia-stamped X-Man do?

In rather slower than anticipated motion, the signal is transmitted to the batwing to come back around and drop a line for pickup. Stuck in rather limited timeflow or no, the Dark Knight takes steps towards due diligence: Amel is forcibly restrained, since he neglected to tie himself, and shoved over to topple (gradually) atop Binter. "Got... overzealous." he states the obvious in exaggerated, stretched out tones, attaching a beacon to a grapple charge and firing it back out the hole created in the roof.

For a moment as he accelerates over the bubble's threshhold, the Dark Knight almost loses his grip; it's that disorienting. Luckily, he trusts the jetcraft overhead to provide him a solid anchor, airborne or no. He ascends swiftly indeed to the cockpit of that advanced jet, bringing systems online swifltly and scanning the scene below.

The Bat may not have broken the encryption on those fabulous X-Comms yet, but those little drones squawked on the team's approach about the presence of the transmitter. Broadcasting on a frequency they'll receive? Child's play. |"Your other team just walked into a trap."| Batman bites back the 'too'. |"I can help. But you need to seal off that field, /now/... before things get stranger."| Now, the Dark Knight just needs a plan to keep that one promise... even while wary of a much larger quagmire.

The world around the X-people slows, nearly to a stop--and for Psylocke, it just about vanishes too. The mental map, along with her psychic sense of her fellow mutants are just gone, leaving her with silence. Her eyes crawl from Monet, to Nate, to Siryn, Alison--and then to Kwabena?

Even if Angel weren't with them, seeing him here in the abyss, tethered to diabolical machinery is a moment that would undoubtedly stretch into eternity; gradually, her eyes widen in disbelief.

Luckily, Cos - and moreover, Batman - are here(if only notionally) to break her from her reverie; Cos' report contorts her face in slowly creeping confusion, but Batman's demand snaps her back to reality. Silent, slow-moving reality. Her eyes move one more time to the stranger in their midst, who she studies for all of a stretched out second before shutting out the fear, the disbelief, the confusion, and focusing on the one thing she does still have: her instincts.

Her index, and then middle fingers uncurl, straighten, and then glide through the molasses that the world has been dipped in to find just the right pressure point to drop the eyeless boy where he stands--or so she hopes, anyway. It's a decidedly nonlethal blow; not even an inconvenient hostage deserves to die.

Time is a funny thing, especially when it's so severely manipulated. The moment Batman pops free of the time bubble, he's essentially moving much faster than the X-Men trapped inside. However, they'll catch up. Time displacement always catches up with itself, even if its effects can be horribly disorienting.

Normally, a seventeen year old kid like Angel McGuire would be an easy target for Psylocke, even without access to her psionic powers. However, in this scenario, time is quite literally on Angel's side. With a blank expression on his face, he runs across the room, the motion of his legs looking rather like great, inhuman leaps that skim just faster than Psylocke can physically move, perhaps annoyingly such. Her fingers skim so close to striking their target, but it's just... not there when it should be.

Angel reaches the facsimile of Kwabena long before anyone else can, pulls free a vial of blood and a vial of dark blue liquid from somewhere within the mechanism trapping the African, and then?

He blinks out of existence.

The time bubble immediately disperses, thrusting the X-Men back into the natural flow of things in an almost violent way. The African's eyes flutter and he falls forward, ripping the cords and cables free from his naked flesh as he goes down. The moment he strikes the floor and loses consciousness fully, the inhibiting effect disappears. To some, the return of their powers may be instantaneous. To others, there may be a delay. But before long, Batman's message comes through the comm systems, riding on the coattails of Rokk's warning.

Angel McGuire appears in a dark street. As he walks, he tucks the vials close to his person, the blackness in his eyes now gone. Like a caged animal he darts from alley to alley, until he stumbles upon a newspaper, dirty and soiled upon the pavement.

The Chicago Tribune. Dated June 6th, 1944.

Upon its headline: INVASION! ALLIES POURING INTO NORTHERN FRANCE!

X-Men: Dawn of a New Horizon

To be concluded...