2012-10-27 Doom and Gloom pt. 1

It's always the silent alarm. Criminals just never learn, it seems. This time was no different. The new weaponry gifted to the thieves by their benefactor was made for intimidation and destruction, not easy concealment, and as soon as they walked through that door, a teller hit the little button under their desk. Now, only a handful of minutes after the heist began, cops line the outside of the building, poised to prevent escapes, and hopefully, casualties.

It only took fourteen seconds and a decimated cop car for them to realize they were hopelessly out-gunned.

That's when they turned to the reporters in hopes that one of the superpowered heroes would hear what was going on and rush in to help. The location? First National Bank in lower Manhattan. The situation? Seven masked assailants attempting to rob the bank armed with incredible technology, the exact limits of which are still unknown. What they do know, is that they all have similar rifles that seem to spit crackling plasma that was capable of hurling a several ton cruiser through the opposite wall. Hostages? Seventeen. It looks like this is a job for...

A mercenary..? Not usually, no. It sucks and all, but Domino's got bigger problems to worry about without taking on the problems of the rest of the world. Until one critical detail makes itself known, that is. The news broadcast shows those weapons of theirs, plasma-based. If it hadn't been for a close encounter with one such type of weapon only a few days ago, she would have let this one slide right on past her radar. That these idiots are all packing energy rifles, -now- it has her attention.

It doesn't take long to drive to the bank in question (she was nearby, how terribly convenient.) It doesn't take long to park somewhere and pull an automatic rifle out of the trunk. It -will- be a little more difficult sneaking it past the cops and all, but that's what a collapsible stock and long coat are good for. The only question on her mind is, should she play sniper support or go straight into the fray..? Answers are harder to get when popping heads from a distance, but these boys may be connected to a group which sorely wants her caught as of a couple of days ago.

Perhaps a bigger question is, can Dom get in past the cops? She's no hero. No mask, no costume. Just a lightly armored albino with a spot on her face and a hell of a lot of weapons under her coat.

To the X-Woman known as Psylocke, Manhattan's streets have never felt so cold as they do today. Keen to avoid city life as much as she is able - a side effect of her telepathic gifts - her purpose here has been purely 'business' from the beginning. A dark and chilling business it has been, the pace of her progress along dank wintry paving slabs slowed to a dead man's crawl as she considers the import of the actions she has taken this day. Her heart is heavy, violet eyes stricken with a distant pain she attempts to suppress that she might move on. All she can do is assure herself... this was right. This was for the best. The greater good.

But this is another story, for another time. Garbed in the costume of a 'hero' beneath a stylish beige duster, Psylocke remains on call for the tale that's due to unfold instead. Her own alarm is not silent-- not to her, but it resonates not in the outside world. A call from Cerebro, words delivered hasty but with a clarion note that delivers every syllable just-so. It jars the telepath from her darker lingerings, and with the muted rattle of the blade concealed along her back, she draws herself upright. Responding to the call that might redeem her.

It takes a good few minutes for the X-Men's representative to reach the scene of the unfolding crime, her breaths coming fast but steady as she flattens her body against the wall of the neighbouring building. She can see some of the action nearby, the smouldering wreckage of that targeted vehicle spreading heat along her right flank. With the duster abandoned in an alleyway, she feels it plainly, as plainly as the resonance of alarm from those seventeen hostages.

Like Domino, the Violet Butterfly makes no announcement to the authorities. Would they even want a mutant's help? In this climate, she severely doubts it. No, she has to assume she's approaching this as alone as each of those scared hostages.

Tightening her grip upon the hilt protruding over her left shoulder, Betsy begins to slide forth her mundane katana - reaching out simultaneously with her psionic senses to scout the interior of the stricken bank. Getting a read on emotions, and most importantly attempting to detect the nature of the seven dangerous, desperate men making this assault. Violet eyes take in the exterior, slipping up the side of the building to mark the best point of entry.

EARLIER

"I'd like to open an account," Xavin coolly informs the teller when he finally makes it to the front of the line. He slides a form to her.

"Alr--" The teller cuts herself off with a furrowed brow when a cursory examination of the form reveals that it's empty. And also a loan application.

The other customers were sliding stuff to the tellers; he figured it was customary.

"... sir," she murmurs, nudging the paper back to him, "I, uh, don't know how to tell you this, but--"

Just then, seven men armed with diabolical science burst into the bank; the two immediately forget their abortive transaction in favor of putting their hands up. She trembles, watching the thieves with their crackling guns fearfully; he, on the other hand, merely watches them.

NOW

"Perhaps I shouldn't have left Metropolis," Xavin thoughtfully murmurs to the bleach-blonde surfer laying facedown beside him. There isn't a trace of fear in the young man's voice, despite the predicament he and his fellow bankgoers find themselves in. "'It's a big city', I told myself. 'There are so many things, and /people/ to see." He makes a face to punctuate his sardonic words, even if it's only for his own benefit.

"Oh, God..." the surfer mumbles, as he has since the robbers first pushed him to the ground, "... oh my God, oh my God..."

"Thugs," Xavin mutters distastefully. After a beat, he quietly adds, "Coward," with more pity than malice for his addled companion.

Well, they had given him forty eight hours, but Kwabena Odame had managed to bleed some more out of them. A small part of it was that he'd managed to turn around the five grams of heroin Slee had given him into four times the profit that the drug trafficker was usually able to pull down. While Kwabena didn't particularly enjoy falling into the role of 'drug dealer' or 'pusher', sometimes, the ends justified the means.

Plus, it got the dope out of his possession, no longer tempting him to relapse.

However, the /real/ reason for Kwabena's, shall we say, 'extension' on the time given to apprehend Domino, was how he'd roughed up a few of Slee's closest. It hadn't been pretty. He'd come at them with nothing more than a cro-bar, and they'd come at him with pistols and AK-47's. In the end, Kwabena had left Slee's men nearly dead in one of their dope houses, but as for Kwabena, he'd been left with nothing more than a few bruises and clothes full of bullet holes.

Slee hadn't been too happy, of course, but it along with some cleverly placed lies bought Kwabena some time, and some information. Without anything truly concrete to go on, he'd discovered that someone Slee was connected with was going to throw a big heist, somewhere in lower manhattan. As it was, Kwabena took the cash he'd made from pushing heroin in Grenwich Village, and had bought himself a nice motorcycle.

Then, the tweets started to come in...

@MattSlimNYC: Something going down at First National. Lots of police sirens.

@Scarlipop77: Watching a #robbery at @FirstNationalNYC. Safely next door. Burning vehicle, cops on the scene. News says hostages.

...and so forth. Quickly checking his maps app, Kwabena realizes that he's only four blocks away. Sparing no hesitation, he kicks the bike into gear and goes tearing through the alleyways, his new leather trench blowing behind him as he makes his way closer, avoiding the main roads where possible.

The hostages, plus one hidden-in-plain-sight Xavin, are kept firmly in control with much rifle waving and shouting. The criminals themselves all carry a plasma rifle, while each one seems to have one other piece of tech particular to them. So far only three have shown off their devices: A militant looking woman alerted the crew to the coming of the cops by way of a neat little black visor over her eyes, "Boss, we got pigs inbound. Heat sigs suggest five cruisers and a SWAT van." Another wiry looking man, twitchy kind of fellow looks up from where he's slowly cutting through the extra-thick vault with a steady stream of plasma, "I need more time, half an hour, minimum." The boss in question, a large, burly fellow grunts in reply, "Alright then, Snipes, go pay a visit to the newcomers. I wanna' smell bacon before you come back in here." The man addressed simply nodded and poked his head out the door. Just enough time to fire off a bolt from his rifle, causing the targeted cruiser to hurtle through the brick wall on the other side of the street.

Now they continue their job, keeping eyes on the hostages, threading their way through the facedown captives, completely unaware of the incoming heroes. On the outside, Domino makes it nearly to her destination, when one of the patrol officers notice her and start to approach, calling out, "Ma'am," from several feet away. Psylocke might notice a slim window, high up, but not quite high enough to be a second floor opening on the side of the building, down the alleyway that one Kwabena just so happens to be traveling. It appears to be one that you might find in a bathroom, and luckily, it seems to be cracked open.

"Of course," Domino mutters as she's approached by an officer. Just one. No easy way through, no large mob to back away from and find another way through. Just one guy. If he thinks that he alone is going to be enough to stop her from her goals then he's in for a big surprise. Sometimes you have to be a bad guy in order to be a good guy. "Look, kiddo. Clearly this situation is vastly outside of your pay grade," she points out with a motion toward the newest car to get blasted into slag. "If you boys want some help with this then you'll get out of my way and let me go to work." She won't explain the alternative, frankly she's still debating if it's worth knocking an officer unconscious by dropping his head onto her knee. People need saving and she needs some answers.

She's also -way- better armed than his entire department is. This line of work does have its share of perks!

It's all that Betsy Braddock can do not to curse aloud when her roving mind finds one entirely alien mixed in among the distinctly fearful, unmistakable and instantly understandable minds of the victims. It might surprise many to learn that there's nothing fantastically complex about a scared person; fear is a haunting but very straightforward emotion. Primal. Animal. If a frightened man reads as a simple jagged line, that of Xavin reads as a thickly coiled morass of wiry needles. She can sense neither beginning nor end. From her attempts at understanding alien brains previously, she doesn't /believe/ this one to be hostile... but she can't be sure.

This makes an approachable situation into something very sensitive.

Pulling free the hundred-fold steel of her weapon of choice, Psylocke makes a quick decision to interpose herself among the hostages. Whatever that alien presence is, she's certain she has more chance against it than any of the sixteen men and women lying facedown upon the floor of the bank. Withdrawing her consciousness from inside, she focuses fully upon the view without.

Marking a lamp post opposite the bank, she moves with stealth and alacrity, disengaging from the wall to spring vertically upward, plant a powerfully-muscled leg against the brick, and use a burst of telekinetically-enhanced speed - with a tiny levitation-like boost - to turn herself into some kind of mutant ninja pinball. Exerting fine control as she makes the second leap, boots creaking off painted metal, she approaches her point of entry - that high, narrow window below the second floor - by tucking into an acrobatic ball...

And makes no more than a dull crunch as she lands within, the impact of her heels as catlike as she can make them at such velocity. Would that she had the pinpoint telekinetic accuracy of Ms. Grey; but her agility SHOULD be enough. Releasing a held breath, heart racing, Psylocke rises with her katana in a double-handed grip at her left hip, and heads toward the nearby door in quick half-steps, praying as she does that nobody /else/ does anything stupid. Stupider.

Closer she inches, and closer...

Then reaches out with her telepathy to a furtive consciousness upon the portal's other side. A sharp extension from her mind's eye lashes out with a burst of mental static, the telepathic equivalent of a sonic scream to disorient her prey for just a second. She uses that single second to flip the door open with her foot, step out with all the grace of a dancer, and unleash the hilt of her blade in a brutal rising strike to the temple.

By the time he's reached the alleyway next to the bank, Kwabena has slowed his motorcycle to a crawl. He leaves it closer to the street, after walking it back behind a dumpster to keep it relatively well hidden. His footsteps echo quietly as he makes to intentionally avoid stepping in any left over puddles from a recent rainfall as he jogs down the narrow way, looking for anything noteworthy.

What he finds is more than noteworthy. In the darkness ahead, he sees a figure launching herself from wall to wall, then straight through a small window just beneath the second floor. He gasps quietly, and for a moment, is utterly taken aback by what he saw. Such shock and awe is short lived, for he's been changing... for better or worse, changing. Determined now, he bursts into a full run, and leaps upon a dumpster not far from the very same window through which Psylocke entered the building. To be quite frank, the distance from the top of said dumpster to the lower lip of the window is a bit far, even for a tough fellow like Kwabena, but he's determined not to fail. And so, he winds back and leaps through the air.

When he falls short, his fingers instinctively grasp hold of the lower end of the window, and his body falls into the wall with a painful crack. He groans in pain, then pries his head upward and begins pulling, with all of his might, in an attempt to haul his body up and closer to the window. Regardless, for all of his strength, his fingers begin to tremble and he feels himself slipping. His mind is flooded with anger, and he snarls in cold protest. Then, as his blood pumps adrenaline through his body, his untrained mutation does something that it has /never/ done before.

The lower half of his body turns into black smoke, causing his shoes and socks to fall to the ground. With half of his weight essentially gone, Kwabena suddenly pulls his upper body up and through the window, wide-eyed the entire time. Once through, he lands on his butt, and his legs reform before his eyes. Fortunately, luck would have it that his pants managed to stay on, though as he stands up barefoot, they need a bit of adjusting.

"I've /really/ got to do something about that," he mutters, before making his way through the bathroom and quietly out into the hallway behind. As he goes, he reaches behind his back for the very same cro-bar he'd used on Slee's thugs, fingers tightening around it as he prepares for the worst.

After the hundredth or so desperate prayer, Xavin heaves a weary sigh, shifts his red-flecked gaze towards the surfer. "You're going to leave here alive, fellow human," he dares to whisper when the sound of patrolling robbers is at its softest. "I promise."

How, exactly, he'll /keep/ that promise, even he doesn't know--but he /does/ intend to keep it; even as he ponders the grim possibilities should he try to overthrow the thieves and fail, he's less fearful than he is eager. This is - or rather, will be, should be - a thrilling and ultimately honorable engagement. His mind may be an alien tangle of names, voices, and faces mingling with a (brief) lifetime of military teachings, but his cautious joy for the mutiny he's planning stands out strongly enough.

"And I don't think I'm the only one," he softly notes a couple seconds later, when he's recovered from the vaguely familiar and wholly disconcerting sensation of foreign fingers raking across his thoughts.

"I don't wanna diiiiiiiiiie...." the surfer blubbers in reply.

The police officer stops in his tracks. Of all the things he was expecting, it wasn't that response. "Uh..." He blinks, then seems to remember what his captain said, turning to look over his shoulder a moment, before he says in a lowered tone, "Fine. Go quickly." He promptly hurries off, wanting to distance himself from any possible repercussions of what he just allowed and hoping he made the right choice. After all, she had that cool face paint stuff on, right? Probably a hero... Hopefully a hero...

Psylocke's grace and agility pays off, her landing, while not totally silent, at least muffled enough to go mostly unnoticed by the man sneaking a smoke outside the bathroom door. The poor man's thoughts went something like this: "Finally some damn peace and quiet. Haven't had a smoke in at lea- What was that? ... Probably the Boss hittin' someone again. Least it's not me... It will be if I don't get back soon thou- Ow! Wha- OW!" Right before he blacked out. Psy now finds herself in an abandoned hallway. muffled voices can be heard several feet away, to the right, as well as the occasional shadow. It seems there's not much distance left to cover before she reaches the lobby.

That's of course, when someone not quite as stealthy as the mutant ninja makes his appearance. With a space of about twenty seconds after temple-striking the crook, out stalks Kwabena from the same bathroom that Psylocke made her entrance. At the same time, a homeless man comes across some new shoes and socks and walks away happy ini the alleyway, briefly stopping to consider the bike before he shrugs and continues on his way. Best not to get /too/ greedy.

Back in the lobby proper, one of the crooks hears the blubbering and starts to approach the surfer, cackling cruelly as the butt of his rifle is brought down sharply on the back of the man's head, "Shut up." He glances to Xavin and offers him a toothy grin as well, "You too, or you'll get the same. Keep your eyes down!" Boss glances to the heister and frowns, calling out, "What's goin' on over there?" The criminal glances back and shakes his head, "Nothin', just some blubberin' idiot."

Domino flashes the guard a broad, toothy smile. "Good choice." Just like that she's inside of the perimeter, making a line for the bank. So far so good, these kids inside must think they're on top of the world. Fancy hardware, cops not making a move, they've got the situation completely within their hands, don't they? Where others went high, the mercenary femme stays low. Ground level, in fact. All she needs to do is find a good vantage point and go from there.

Getting her first real bit of intel is priceless. These guys don't seem particularly coordinated. Rookies with big toys. Surprising they even found the triggers on those things. The group may not be connected to the one she's been pining for, but the weaponry is close enough. Shame she didn't get a proper view of the design the first time she got shot at by one of them...

Surprise them first, cut down some of their numbers and bring the confusion. If Dom can kill what little coordination they have then this fight will be over before it begins. A bulky suppressor gets pulled from her combat webbing, quickly getting locked onto the muzzle end of her significantly shortened battle rifle. These rounds will go through glass like nothing, all she has to do is pick her first shot and go for it. Snipe, hide, relocate, repeat. Let's make these guys paranoid.

Some guy's going after a floored hostage--no, the angle's wrong, too risky. Domino pans across the room from behind the window, spotting one guy that's standing further away from the crowd. The suppressor gets pressed to the glass as she builds pressure to the trigger, the HK 51 kicking once within her hands as the round neatly punches through the glass, sailing across the lobby right for the guy's head.

Then, she's gone.

Powerful she might be, but Psylocke is still something of a neophyte when it comes to controlling said power. Any attempt at multitasking reduces her to the level of a relative amateur, forcing her to choose between telepathic and telekinetic action-- keeping only a vague, suggestive map of nearby neural pathways when mixing the two. Like a sozzled wageslave on his way home on the subway, she can see the lines but has to squint to bring them into focus.

Fortunately, hitting people really hard in the face doesn't damage her concentration overly; and she senses the approach of a new presence inside the building, around the crook of the corridor. Mouth a grim line, she sweeps her weapon smoothly away from its strike, shifting to a single-handed grip as she bends down to quickly inspect the body, keeping enough attention behind--

That she's ready to raise her katana-bearing arm, the gleaming curve of its tip greeting Kwabena at throat height - along with a cool, measuring stare - as he makes his own entrance. It's a risk; she doesn't want him to cry out, but experience has long dictated men tend to be quieter when they're in danger of losing their life, or their masculinity, to Japanese steel.

Provided he doesn't immediately attempt to do something utterly inane, he'll find her voice gently penetrating his cortex at the moment their eyes make contact. 

The cool, clipped British tone of her voice suddenly cuts out, the Violet Butterfly distracted by the muffled report of gunfire. Muffled but LOUD. Suddenly Kwabena is no longer the subject of her aggression, the blade spinning away as her arm turns outward and sweeps before her. Her free hand snatches a palm-sized device from the unconscious crook's belt in the same, seamless motion with which she starts off down the corridor. Abandoning her telekinetic abilities, she turns her telepathy up to 11, laying out a detailed 'mind map' of the floor.

Then, like Domino, she's gone into the nearest shadow she can find, stalking the next outlier.



Being barefoot does have it's advantages. For one thing, Kwabena is remarkably used to being barefoot; much of his youth spent in the Ghanaian village was spent being barefoot on much rougher terrain than the sleek marble and linoleum floors. Plus, it makes him extremely silent.

The zonked out man gets nothing more than an oddly cocked look from Kwabena. Blaming it on the figure who preceded him, he shrugs out of his trench coat and leaves it lying in the hallway, giving him better freedom of movement (not to mention less clothing to risk being lost or destroyed should his mutation take him by surprise).

When he comes around the corner and finds himself face to face with Psylocke's katana, he comes to a dead halt and, as she predicted, doesn't say a word. His eyes glare at her in a mixture of complaint and anger, and though he knows full well that the blade would do no damage to him, he stays his hand long enough to register her voice in his mind.

His eyes blink rapidly when it happens, and the anger in them fades in favor of confusion. Short lived confusion.

When she spins away, Kwabena twirls the cro-bar under his arm and stuffs it down the back of his pants, before grabbing the knocked-out crook's weapon. He tracks Psylocke as she goes down the hallway, and as soon as she disappears into shadow, he does the same by backing into a recessed doorway. He very quickly checks out the weapon in his hand, which was unlike anything he'd ever seen. He guesses, however, that it's armed, considering the five LED lights upon the barrel that are all lit a bright green. Satisfied, he leans his face just past the depression in the hallway, keeping one eye on the shadows where Psylocke disappeared while aiming the weapon further down the hallway, ready to fire at any shady looking figure who might show their face.

Xavin winces when his fellow hostage is silenced, even makes sure to look away while the crook is there; as soon as he's gone, the Skrull's eyes shift right back to the now unconscious surfer. He doesn't try to rouse him - from the sound of the blow and what little he can see of the man, there wouldn't be much point. No tears are shed for the unfortunate man's plight, either; why cry when one can have vengeance, instead? He just stares.

And waits. He isn't alone; he felt it. Whether the mind that touched his was benevolent or otherwise remains to be seen, of course, but friend or foe, there's little sense in acting before the pieces have fallen into place--so he just waits.

And waits.

And waits--until a heavy thud across the lobby breaks his vigil. The hostages are all on the ground; the thugs were walking around. Which means...

"You," he calls after retaking his feet so that he can stride towards the the butt-stroking brute. As he raises his right hand, his brown skin crackles, smokes, then bursts into a roaring fire consuming that whole arm.

"Who, exactly, do you think you /are/?"

Rather than let the criminal answer, he extends his hand and sends a stream of fire leaping over the prostrate hostages to surround the thug. Hot enough to leave nasty burns - or so he hopes, given their high tech resources - but not to kill.

Make that /sixteen/ hostages.

Directly after the trigger is pulled, shattering glass directs all eyes to the window, not one seeing the man in the back crumple to the floor. The Boss flashes a twisted grin as he hits a few buttons on a device on his wrist, shouting as he moves over to the man cutting a hole through the vault door, "Here we go! Specs, get eyes on the shooter. Guns up and hot, be prepared for the worst." The militant woman with the visor nods, flicking a switch on those goggles of her's as she looks towards the shattered glass, then sweeps her gaze back and forth, until she raises her gun at a seemingly innocuous bit of brick wall, opening fire. It just so happens that Domino is moving through the space on the other side of the wall when the plasma hits, and misses by inches as the wall directly behind the femme fatale explodes into dust and debris. "Just one outside."

Psylocke's mental map turns out to be pretty helpful for someone who can't see the lobby directly. Five thieves with obviously hostile intentions, spread out in a semi-circle with the apex deeper into the building, rather then closer to the lobby. At the apex, two men are located, one turned away from the fight that's breaking out, the other putting himself between the scuffle and the crouched man. Her shadowy stalking pays off, putting her out just on the other side of the half circle to the back of the left most man, the one previously called Snipes. "Snipes! Behind you!" That, however, would be the one called Specs. Snipes turns, just in time to block any attack that may be coming his way with none-other then a glowing green sword. A sword that cuts through most conventional metals. Seems this is the man's extra device. "Leave 'er ta' me." And then he brings his fist through in a quick strike aimed for Psy's nose. A well-trained strike.

Meanwhile, by virtue of hanging back a bit, no one seems to notice the newly, plasma-armed Kwabena in the shadows, shadows that are briefly illuminate by a literal fire arm, but still, he goes unnoticed for now. Plenty of targets. Or rather, two. The one known as Specs who is continuing to lay down plasma fire towards an apparently empty wall, or The Boss, who watches it all like a general in the back, keeping the vault cutter behind him. Snipes is too close to Psylocke for a clean shot, but that doesn't mean he can't try for it, and the other guy... Well, he's covered in flames at the moment.

The man turned just in time to get a fist full of fire, crying out in pain for a brief moment before he hit the floor... And exploded into four more copies of himself. He -- They -- grin, standing and patting out their collective smoldering uniforms, all moving exactly in tandem. When he speaks, he sounds like a chorus of identical voices, "Now you pissed me off." As one, they dash forward, all seeking to land a blow on the Super Skrull in training.

-Yikes!- Okay, so Domino miiight have underestimated these guys, at least where their fancy hardware is concerned! All she can do is dive forward and roll across the slightly less than sanitary ground as the wall beside her gets a nice new doorway punched through it. She jumps back to her feet, continues to run, and gets to endure the whole scenario a second time. And -again.- Somehow, -someone- is able to see her through that wall. There's only one piece of tech that she's aware of which can provide that sort of advantage. Thermal imaging.

She can't count on overloading the imagers, thermite's out. There seems to be others fighting on the inside, the option she has left to work with won't make her friends anytime soon, buuut... It's either a flashbang, or hoping to get really damned lucky.

The next opening to get blasted through the wall beside her becomes an entry point for one of those grenades, flung into the room beyond as close to Specs as she can get based solely upon the angle of the incoming plasma bolts. The toss is followed with a sudden reversing of her direction, dropping low and spinning around to try and time another shot or four at Spec's direction through a previous hole through the wall which she helped to provide.

All she has to do is be faster than the plasma and slower than the fuse on her grenade. Simple, right? Just give her one good shot, that's all she needs...

Even if she weren't a telepath, Psylocke's senses would be going insane right now. Between gunfire, literal fire and the sharply resonant backlash of a (relatively) innocent and frightened man losing consciousness rather brutally, her passage into and through the shadows takes a fair degree of willpower to keep as swift and stealthy as intended. Controlling her breathing, subconsciously going through a series of mental routines that ensure her success - for the moment - Betsy keeps moving and keeps on mapping.

Until she finds her opportunity to strike.

Silent and deadly, she fires off a background burst of telekinetic speed, sending a distinctive warble of interference through her mental map as she frantically attempts to beat the warning already hot on the lips of the wary Specs. These men aren't fools, she realizes, even before the intercession of a searing length of some unknown material meets the forthright killing thrust of her Japanese blade. Fast as she is, and cunning, she loses the draw.

Snipes' block meets a point four inches from the tip of Psylocke's katana, the hammer-on of her right palm - an effect intended to push the weapon through armour and sinew - conspiring to undo the kunoichi's efforts as the keen steel sings a protest and snaps, clean.

"Hah!" Biting off a frustrated syllable, she's at least got the sheer presence of mind to evade the follow-up strike, reigning in astonishment and instead throwing her face aside. His palm brushes at a sweep of sleek purple hair, faintly bruising her cheek as it passes by. "/Sod it/," hisses the British ninja, turning further into her evasion to execute a fluid spinning backstep. Her broken blade still in hand, she lashes it through the motion and then opens her left hand, allowing the near-useless weapon to fly out toward her opponent. Likely no more than a distraction-- but enough, she hopes, to buy her the safety of a moment's reprieve.

A suden bolt of plasma buys her certainty, scattering across the floor between the two men who've drawn a bead upon her. With no time to offer thanks to Kwabena, Betsy settles for action, abruptly dialling down her telepathic senses to instead focus on the summoning of a telekinetic blade. There's a spitting, electric hum as it forms in her aloft right hand, a virulent streak of violet fire emerging through the air, tip riding above her extended left.

The plan's gone awry, but she's no longer alone and no longer unarmed.

"Let's dance," she invites, cold steel in her voice to replace that she has lost.

The moment Psylocke begins to move, Kwabena darts out from his hiding place. Though he keeps his back against the wall, he takes a quick moment to scope out what he can see of the semi-circle. He aims the weapon at a space somewhere between Psylocke and the others, pulling the trigger twice in an effort to cause nothing more than a bit of confusion; cover fire, as it were, aimed safely away from anyone and at the floor.

He's briefly taken aback by the power that is discharged by his stolen plasma gun, and spits out a curse in his native tongue. Fortunately for him, his adrenaline is surging, and the shock is short lived. He spins the weapon upon the one called Specs, who is firing at the wall, and aims for the woman's midsection in an effort to break their defenses. Keeping his back against the wall as he steps side to side against it, he fires at her twice, hoping that he'll catch her by surprise and take her out with a lucky shot.

The jerk's on fire! He's screaming in pain! He's going down! He's... falling apart?

Awkward. Maybe Xavin was a little angrier than he thought. He'll have to be a little more careful next ti--

No, wait. Now there are /four/ of the guy. Even /more/ awkward.

"Yes, well," the alien lowly replies as the flames wreathing his arm recede. "Perhaps if you'd been a little more respectful." A precision shot is one thing; throwing fire everywhere while trying to fend off four men is quite something else, with so many potential casualties around. He takes a small step back, but before he can consider how best to proceed, the thugs rush in, limbs coming from every angle to batter him. One's fist lands solidly in his gut; another kicks the alien right across the chin while he's doubled over, bringing him to his knees. A third viciously drives an elbow into his back, hoping to force him all the way back down to the ground.

He howls in pain when lightly armoured bone meets stone bulging beneath the alien's Metropolis Meteors shirt. /That/ certainly wasn't there before. Neither were the scale-like orange stones creeping across his skin from beneath his sleeve, until his arm is a bulky, earthen caricature of a human limb. The change gives him enough of a breather to stumble back up to his feet, where he quickly swipes a trickle of blood away from his mouth.

"This whole ill-conceived caper is going to come down around your ears," he quietly informs the bank robber as his eyes shift around to try and keep track of all four of him. He raises his now oversized right hand and curls it into a stony fist for emphasis. And also to try and dissuade them from immediately dogpiling him again; he can only take /so many/ more beatings.

Once that flash bang comes in, Specs curses, dropping her eyes away from the grenade as she tries to duck out of range. There's no need, really, for several reasons. First, the mysterious benefactors of these crooks seems to be well aware of the common failings of thermal imagery, and has built in safe guards against sudden extreme spikes in heat and cold. She doesn't know this, of course, and that's why you should always read the manual, but the second reason is by far the more pressing. The two shots fired by Kwabena strike her just as she unwittingly turns into them, getting propelled off her feet as the flak jacket around her body falls away in tatters. It's never really discovered, upon later inspection, whether it was the plasma or the bullet that pierced her heart seconds later that killed her.

Meanwhile, Psylocke is locked in a pitched ninja battle of her own. The thrown weapon is struck out of the air with a quick move, cut cleanly in two by the obviously very skilled Snipes. That is of course, until all hell breaks loose. Not that things weren't going badly before, but the appearance of a flashbang blinds him momentarily, not gifted with the same visor as his watchful ally. However, he's trained enough to fall back into a defensive position until his vision clears. Then of course, two warning shots of plasma cascade nearby, missing him (intentionally), throwing him off his already shaken game. What that means, of course, is that a highly trained fighter might notice a small opening in his near perfect form. An exposed swatch of midsection on his right side.

While this is happening, the crook fighting Xavin grins as all of him get a jump on the powerful man, and it doesn't seem to fade even as a fist strikes the man's rocky chest for the first three times. The fourth, time however, elicits a cry of pain as he backs off, all five of him suddenly massaging his knuckles and looking wide eyed at the man as his arm turns into a familiar orange hide. "Hard-light illusions, buddy. If you think you can take all of me on at once, you're crazy." Though of course, the man is starting to shuffle backwards slightly, very clearly beginning to believe himself the crazy one.

"Come on, come on! We don't have much more time! When is that door going to be cr-" THUNK! "We're in!" The Boss grins as the other man finalyl gets through the vault door, and he quickly gestures to the opening. "You know the plan, get the money and run. I'll cover your escape and we meet up at the agreed location." The wiry man nods his assent before he ducks through the small hole.

That Domino isn't suddenly turning into ash is a good sign that her attacker is down for the count. With her back to the wall and the rifle in her hands she takes a quick breath, holds it, then turns to dive straight into the fray. She knows she's not alone in this fight, the sounds and yelling are testament to that. Now seems like a great time to join the party good and proper, see who else is lending a hand as well as who else is requiring one.

Those escaping into the vault get her attention first, snapping off a brief full-auto burst after them. Hit or miss, hopefully it can keep them pinned inside of the vault for a little while. The suppressor cuts down on the initial noise and mitigates the flash but she didn't bother with low velocity bullets, they still greet the world with a sharp crack apiece.

The lobby is a lot like how the merc pictured it: An absolute mess. She's got a quick headcount and an updated list of conditions to pick through (what the hell is -Kwabena- doing here?!) One of the thugs somehow managed to downsize himself into several copies, all of them interested in just one (mutant..? Meta?) Looks like that guy could use a hand! Dom seeks cover first, then tries for some very careful shooting second. Don't hit the friendlies, don't hit the hostages. Small, quick moving targets surrounded by a lot of hazards. Just like a day at the range.

Hell indeed breaks loose, and it's hot today. Though not gifted with cutting-edge technology - beyond whatever the small, barely-inspected device she took from the downed smoker may be - Psylocke has been in far stickier jams than this. Flashbangs, hurtling plasma and the accompanying rancid, ichorous smoking of scalded matter are just like another day in the Danger Room; and she keeps her head level, riding the cresting wave of her own adrenaline as she otherwise allows the admirable instincts of Kwannon's body to take over.

A slow blink of the eyes shields her from the worst of the optic confusion, moving forward seamlessly as her foe moves back. One boot skids on a patch of super-heated metal, but she balances with a twitch of her leading arm, as the other bears her beam katana higher, hovering like a beacon in the haze. A hawk seeking its fragile prey. With all the metal-severing power of Snipe's own blade, all she needs do is guide it true.

Seeing her opportunity emerge, the Violet Butterfly becomes a violet blur as she fires off another burst of telekinetically-enhanced speed. Rather than bring her mind-focused weapon into play, she leads in with a stepping kick, the sheer velocity of her approach driving her foot deep enough to batter internal organs. To start a rush of internal blood that certainly won't kill outright-- but it's an agonizing blow, designed to immobilize the man...

And then she spins upon her grounded foot, sinking low as she shifts to a double-handed grip and brings her telekinetic blade sweeping down, down, to sever his right arm below the elbow. A coldly efficient blow, she brings her arms back at the instant the cut is made, keeping the beam katana aloft as she glances around the chaos of the lobby; in time to spot Domino take cover.

Eyes narrow, face expressionless, Psylocke marks her apparent ally and drops into a roll that carries her to the opposite wall. Digging deep, the effort causing a bright manifestation of purple energy to cascade from either side of her stern countenance, she sends out her voice wide and untargeted; speaking to the crooks, though the signal is unshielded from others.



As the fighting breaks loose, Kwabena quickly realizes that he won't do good very much longer if he hangs back against the wall. He starts running, barefoot, into the main room, firing his weapon a few more times toward the heads of the thugs who are retreating toward the vault. As he passes the hostages, he notices many of them moving, as if they were going to stand and run away, which would expose them to cross fire. He motions toward them with his free hand and shouts, "Stay down! Stay down!"

Just then, he catches sight of Domino, running toward the creature surrounded by what appear to be clones. A similar thought runs through his mind. /Domino? What in the.../

Just then, a bolt of plasma cuts right past his shoulder. It singes his shirt, and the skin that it touches turns into black smoke. However, energy weapons were far different from anything Kwabena had yet encountered. Instead of reforming, the plume of gas is caught up in the plasma bolt, flies with it back into the wall, then reforms into an ugly little piece of red and black flesh and skin.

Yelping, Kwabena slaps a hand against his shoulder. It's not bleeding, so clearly some of that smoke reformed into skin, but he realizes there won't be any charging into the fray, letting bullets fly through him, if it would leave pieces of him all over the place.

Spinning about, he tracks Psylocke again, and moves in a way that keeps him in an almost symmetric position opposite the lobby from her. Once again he takes aim, making a point to fire toward those crooks who aren't engaged, in the hopes that they won't come to the aid of the apparent heroes.

"Oh, you poor, stupid man."

Xavin's rocky right arm contorts and ripples for a brief moment... and then he's gone. Specs' visor would be able to pick his heat signature out clear as day, and he's still there on Psylocke's mind map, but otherwise, he's gone. Dealing with decoys over fleshy duplicates is hardly an improvement, but it /might/ make putting the many-fold man down a little quicker.

"I was just going to say the same thing."

Most of the upper third of his body appears about five feet to the right of the point he vanished from, where he sticks an arm out and flicks an invisible force field about the size of a marble towards one of the thug's bodies. He vanishes again, but when one of Domino's bullets whizzes by him, he can't help but shout, "Hard light copies!" to the albino shooter. "Be careful."

After a beat and an invisible grimace, he flicks marble-sized fields at several more of the robber, hoping to isolate the one that actually cares through elimination before they home in on his voice and footfalls.

As Domino comes in and fires off a burst at the vault, The Boss, the only one of the two still outside the vault grins as the bullets seem to halt in mid-air and ricochet harmlessly into the walls and floor. However, with Domino's attention on the Hard-light copy crook, he turns away as well, quickly moving towards one of the hostages closest to him and hauling her to her feet after a couple quick button presses on the wrist device. He smiles, pulling her close to him and pressing some more buttons as he holds up a grenade. Missing a pin. Kept from igniting as he holds down the striker lever. Now that that's done, a single plasma pot-shot is taken at the running Kwabena, and the man grins as he notices red while moving him and his hostage further away from the vault.

Snipes, the man clearly trained as their head weapons and combat expert, goes down under the brutal, super-speed ability of Psylocke. Granted, with power like that, he probably never had much of a shot, but unable to defend himself properly it was all too easy for him to be taken down and literally disarmed. The man falls to his knees, staring at his stump of an arm before he falls over to the side, bleeding from his two wounds and slowly passing out.

Finally, just the hard-light copy crook remains, and even then, bullets start raining down around him. Two copies have bullet pass harmlessly through them, before the marble-sized force-fields start to fly through them as well. Things are clearly going badly for him, and his arms shoot into the air in the classic pose of surrendering just as he's hit in the face with one of the force-field marbles. "Ow! That hurt. I give up!"

The Boss notices this and grimaces, just as plasma starts raining down all around him, bouncing off the force-field around him and blasting off various places, blowing away furniture and pleasant looking knick-knacks as the hostages scramble along the ground, conflicted between staying down as told, and getting out of the way of the plasma bolts that ricochet off the field. The Boss grins, and calls out, "Here's the deal, you ain't gettin' through this force-field, no matter how hard you try. I'm also the only thing keeping this grenade from taking me and this lovely young woman out. So, you have two options, continue to attack me and be responsible for the death of the people you're trying to save, or let me and my associate leave with the cash. Choice is your's, heroes." He grins, as the hell of the siege dies down to a standoff.

Hard light..? "What the &*# is hard light?!" Domino yells back, apparently facing some fancy new tech which she's not had any prior experiences with! Okay, here, the guy with displacement issues seems to know what he's dealing with. She's gonna just..let him..take care of this one. Right. Her ammo count is still in great standing and everyone else here seems to be holding their own quite well. Kwabena over there seems kind of lost, though. Would he listen to her if she tried to give him direction? He already took one plasma hit like a real pro, she could stand to have that kind of backup.

Alright, think. Err--frig. Boss guy's got a real ace on the line with whatever's powering that personal shield. And he has a hostage. ..And he has a grenade. Can't try to shoot the fuse off of it, can't try to shoot the power supply for the shield. All protected. And he's the best shot that Dom has at getting some answers. -Damn!- Her plan's shot to pieces, her use for Kwabena evaporating. She's got the Boss in her sights, but she stays her index finger. The money she could care less about, there's no need for a hostage to die over it. Options..?

"You let her go and I'll -help- you carry the money." It's the only way Dom can think to keep close to this guy and look for her opportunity for a proper interrogation. Chances of it actually working? Slim to nil. It's not like options are in abundance at the moment.

It's ever the case that at the point one starts to believe the day might be saved...

The worst occurs.

Unrelenting as she is, particularly given her loyalty to the X-Men, Psylocke draws the line at acting when innocents are assured to be mortally injured or killed. Glancing toward Kwabena as the whole sticky mess unfolds, she runs through all the options in her head, simultaneously beginning to submit to what she's sure is going to become necessary; namely, the complete loss of her own defences. The beam katana, still flickering at her side, sputters away with a hiss, evaporating into scintillating sparkles before disappearing completely. Drawing her hands upward, she loops her long, purple hair into a loose knot and sinks downward, back set against the wall as she maintains eye contact with the dark-skinned new mutant.

Focusing deeply, trying also to still the frantic beating of her heart, the giddy pulse of adrenaline through her enhanced mind, she locks eyes with the man - her ally, thus far, despite the open threat in her initial 'greeting' - and silently entrusts him with the safety of her physical form. Violet gaze bores deep, and then gains a perilous distance as she sinks within; in preparation for leaving her physicality behind completely. With her powerful legs crossed, she outwardly appears to meditate, eyelids lowering like shutters. Breast rising and falling.

It's always draining, entering the astral world-between-worlds, diving through the neural pathways of one's own thoughts in order to fly through what lies beyond. Disorientated in the moment of expulsion, Psylocke hastens herself through the telepathic void. Infinite space lies about and beyond, the fragments of thoughts and feelings - including the impenetrable core of Xavin's alien consciousness - hers for the seeming taking.

As violet wings spread about her still countenance, the X-Woman's astral self flies forth, reaching out for the mind of the Boss. Beyond the forcefield she can only assume - and fleetingly hope - is purely physical in nature.

If she can penetrate that far, all she needs to do-- is plant a single thought.



Lacking the accent of her own voice, if she even gets this far it's his own subconscious voice that the cruel-hearted, greedy man will hear. Many possess the will to deny another's command - it takes greed, or bravery, or sometimes simple stupidity - but few can deny themselves.

If she can pull this off, the rest will be up to her erstwhile allies.

The plasma bolt sent his way, Kwabena ducks to try and avoid it. It comes close, damned close, so close that his body briefly turns into black gas, reforming just as he strikes the ground and rolls to a crouch. He brings the plasma gun up to bear, ready to fire again...

...but he holds, finger trembling against the trigger for a moment as he stares at the Boss and his hostage. Finally, he pulls the finger away and raises the gun, aiming at the ceiling in a sign of surrender, even if it's temporary. He seems momentarily drawn toward Psylocke; perhaps an effect of her psychic capabilities; and locks eyes with her across the way for a long moment.

When Psylocke's eyes seem to go more distant, he frowns. His mismatched eyes, one brown and one glowing silver, flicker once toward Domino, back to Psylocke, then back to the Boss. He keeps the gun in hand, though it's still aimed at the ceiling, ready to use if utterly necessary.

Instead, he stands still, chest heaving, the skin of his shoulder slightly deformed from where a piece of him was ripped away, and waits.

Xavin's thoughts are full of alien mathematics and worst case scenarios and tempered glee for getting to cut loose on dishonorable criminals and - fingers crossed - avoiding casualties in the process. He is also green, with pointy ears and a weird, ridged chin in all of his worst case scenarios, for whatever reason.

Domino's offer draws a bewildered look from the young alien, but he's back to glowering at the Boss soon enough, hands clenched and still at his sides. "I could make a field around his hand. The one with the grenade," he thinks aloud.

The feedback would probably knock him clean out, but he keeps /that/ part in.

"We shouldn't--we shouldn't /help/ him," he tentatively argues to the albino.

The Boss smiles, completely unaware of any mental tampering that's being attempted by Psylocke. Something is clearly going wrong with that plan. He shakes his head slowly at Domino, still keeping the grenade up near the tear-streaked face of the woman hostage, "I must seem like an idiot to you, huh? No, I think I'll keep... What's your name, Babe?" He asks, his hand shifting from his hostages arm to her jaw as he squeezes slightly, forcing her to open her mouth, "Huh? You gotta' name?" She can only manage to sob some more, before he roughly turns her head away from him, and she looks pleadingly at Kwabena. "Guess not. I'm keepin' 'er anyway until I'm gone. Don't worry, I don' want the extra baggage, so I'll let 'er go nice and easy. Seein' as I'm the only one 'ere who hasn't killed no one yet, I think I can be trusted to do the right thin' better then you, yeah?" He smirks as he starts edging his way towards one of the holes opened up by Specs, shifting so the arm connected to the hand holding the grenade is wrapped loosely around the woman's neck, keeping her between him and the plotting heroes. "Oh, I think not, Freak. You can try, sure, but this field was designed with uh... Certain things in mind, and I don't think you'll be pleased with your results." The man grins wider.

"And then some," Domino verbally fires back to the Boss man's question. This is falling apart fast. On one hand, the Boss is only concerned about himself and his one buddy left standing. There's still one, maybe two of those thugs left alive, right? It's hardly ideal, but maybe she can lean on one of them for some answers. This guy, though? If bullets, plasma, whatever that violet-detailed woman is doing and whatever the guy that knows what the heck hard light is can't get through the shield then she's willing to bet that dropping the ceiling on top of him won't fare any better. Her gaze slowly drifts from one 'hero' to another around the sights of her truncated rifle. "Yeah..I've got nothing."

She hates to lose. She -really- hates to lose. Still, there is one thing Dom can remain confident in. In the end, the pieces always manage to fall in her favor. "Go. Get the hell out of here." Maybe she can track him down later, she's got some solid connections around this city.

Even so detached from her body, Psylocke retains enough of a link that the sheer shock of her failure manages to find a way back to the physical shell she leaves behind. Her shoulders tighten, corners of her mouth twitching downward in a faint grimace before everything stills once more. If anyone were monitoring her heartrate, they'd notice it quicken as she struggles to keep her astral form in check; the best way to describe what's just happened, that she's thrown a punch with her full weight only to have the target suddenly disappear.

As if there was no target to begin with.

Where the Boss stands in the physical plane, there is a definite form. A mocking voice. In the astral, there's the sketched semblance of a man - enough to operate without bearing the nuances of function that allow her abilities to work. Further, that allow one to be human. It's a fine illusion, and clearly no accident of purpose has caused the phenomenon; whatever hand controls this unfolding event is dangerously intelligent and capable. Dangerously prepared.

What stings is that Betsy knows; were she better with her abilities she could retreat and affect instead the physical form. Remove the grenade. As it is, her recourse would be the kind of full-bore sucker punch that - if it penetrated the forcefield - would leave more dead than just the crowing, seemingly-non-extant person of the Boss. It seems all she can do is limit damage, so that's what she does, shifting her astral course to find the terrified woman.

This time there's no vocalization, but a subtle sweep of relaxing, calming emotion.

Whatever happens here, the most important thing is trying to keep this woman safe.

Fear is easy. It can also be fatal.

Kwabena's glances turn upon Xavin, then back to Domino when she speaks and offers nothing, save for letting the villain go. All the while, a thought has been forming. His eyes turn toward the shield, scanning it from side to side. It's energy, but when the plasma struck him before, it didn't destroy his flesh, per say. No, the small piece of his flesh is still back there, where it had stuck to the wall and fell to the ground, almost as if it wanted to be a part of him again, but was unable.

He looks toward Psylocke one more time, and considers the fact that she still seems to be locked in that strange trance. The time has come to make a move. Setting his jaw, Kwabena turns and makes a hissing sound at Domino to get her attention. Then, he engages the safety and tosses the plasma gun across the room toward her. "Cover her," he says, before turning and running straight toward the force field.

He leaps into the air and collides with it, arms and legs spread out. His body immediately turns into smoke, but it seems caught there, as if tangled up in the force field itself. His clothing, left behind, begins to incinerate into dust (which will make his rematerialization, if and when it happens, /extremely/ uncomfortable). The force field begins to glow and tremble, flickering a couple of times as Kwabena's gas form spreads out along it, like the fingers of a growing demon. The colors swirl and fade into each other, and then, with a brilliant popping sound, the force field disappears.

Also gone is any sign of Kwabena, even in his gaseous form. Perhaps he was disintegrated along with the force field; perhaps a part of him is trapped in what ever device has generated it; perhaps his body's form has dissipated so thinly that there's no more of him visible.

What nobody probably noticed, which would be the quintessential clue to such a puzzle, is that the small piece of his flesh that was blown off earlier, has also disappeared into thin air.

Whatever happened to Kwabena, one very important thing is true.

The force field is gone.

Xavin starts to raise his hands, all set to call the Boss' bluff until he gets a look at the captured woman's terrified face. His head lowers when his hands do. Failure. Unacceptable; almost as much so as risking that poor woman's life for the sake of pride.

"Fine," he murmurs to the Boss' demands. "Just--"

Before he can get another word out, Kwabena's barelling towards the field. And /jumping/ at it. And--Xavin has to turn his face away from the smoke and colourful, terrible flashes. Once they begin to subside, Xavin tentatively looks up at the field and sees... nothing. No Kwabena.

No force field.

"How awkward," he lowly remarks as he extends a hand to try and cocoon the Boss' hand and the grenade in an invisible, (hopefully) indelible field of energy; the woman might feel its curved edge grazing over her skin as it forms.

Psylocke's efforts are significantly more successful on the woman then on The Boss, as she suddenly calms, and almost even smiles faintly. It comes perfectly timed with the self-sacrifice of Kwabena, as Boss just laughs -- up until the point that field flashes and disappears. There's a brief second where he simply stops, and blinks, before he growls, and tries to make himself as scarce behind the now serene woman as possible, intending to use her as one last defense. "I can still ki-" And now another field goes up around his hand, sealing the grenade safely away. It's enough to get him to release his hold on the ignition lever, at which point, the grenade goes off. A flash of contained energy, before he tosses the woman to the side and glares at the group, making no pretense of trying to escape, nor strangely, of trying to salvage his hand, because as the smoke clears, it's obvious the only thing the grenade damaged was his clothing, leaving it burned and smoldering. His hand, however, looks perfectly fine. The Boss finally glances down to his hand, and considers it a moment in interest, before he raises it along with the other over his head and bares a disturbingly content smile at the group of heroes.

"I surrender."

Just before he whips out a smaller plasma pistol and fires one energized bolt into the woman's head, then drops the gun before offering out his hands to the group, ready to be cuffed.

Timing. It's always with the damned timing. There's a plasma rifle being thrown at Domino. Not only is it nice to pad her own growing arsenal with, it's a link to this whole high-tech weapon dealing that she's getting into. If she can't question people then at least she can now take some evidence home. It'll be a nice conversation piece, but the problem is that she has to -catch- it first. Catching it ruins her formerly steady aim. Getting it properly situated into her off-hand keeps both her attention and her aim off track. The result? Where she might have had a chance before to intercept the Boss as he draws that pistol and executes his hostage, now it's all a lost cause.

"Like Hell you do."

The plasma rifle stays in her left hand. The familiar weight and balance of her own carbine fills her right. That's the one that reaches out at arm's length and fires at the Boss. Not to kill. Not this time. Her aim is to maim. One shot might do the trick, she goes for three. If she has her way, he'll never walk again without a limp or be able to hold a weapon in his dominant hand. But, she's willing to take what she can get. Her stance isn't the best for precision, this one's more down to instinct and skill than bracing. Regardless, she is -not- letting this smug asshole walk out of here without bleeding for his cause. Not after this!

On the astral plane, Psylocke's awareness of the primary, physical plane is rooted in nuance and emotion. Like an animal more occupied with olfactory or auditory senses, so strong is the mental and emotional that it overwhelms anything that might pass for ordinary sight or sound. Reading the situation despite this, she has a handle on Kwabena's astonishing sacrifice-- and once more, it requires all of her control to not react explosively. At least by her own standards.

Maintaining control, she keeps her gentle easing of the hostage going until the last, and the emergence of that pistol. Ending her outward journey so promptly that she opens her eyes with a pronounced gasp, Betsy comes to cross-legged and straight-backed only for an instant, before she's scrambling to right herself and *burst* forward through the lobby. Transferring so rapidly from telepathy to telekinesis drains her however, and even if she'd have had a hope at full capacity, it dies with a worthless sputter when she's only halfway across the room.

The speed of a mundane, however well-trained, can never beat a plasma bolt. The X-Woman comes to a screeching halt in a half-crouch, back now bent and one hand finding the floor with the solid slap of cool flesh against unrelenting marble. "No," she whispers, voice gaining a vicious edge in its sibilance. Violet eyes flare as they cant upward, finding the smug faux-form of the Boss. Unthinking, acting purely on brutal instinct, Psylocke throws her mind forth once again.

The resultant blow comes in tandem with Domino's own insidious shot, seeking to take this apparent puppet full in the frontal lobe with an enormous psychic sucker-punch. Pushing herself upright, Betsy is breathing hard as she stalks to his side, ready to restrain him...

If he even needs restraining any more.

Xavin would be furious, outraged to the point of violence in spite of surrender... if only he weren't sprawled out on the ground with blood dribbling from his nose.

All in all, a bit better than he was expecting; he'd be pleased with himself if he were still conscious. Thank goodness for Domino and Psylocke to shoulder the burden of giving the Boss what he deserves; if he's lucky, he'll even get to hear about it, some day.

The Boss only looks smug as the rifle reports ring out and his body is suddenly punctured with bullets, strange considering not even a grenade could do that to him before. Then of course comes the strike to his head and caves in like putty. His body crumples to the floor, certainly dead weight by now -- at least before there's a drawn out laugh in a slightly different decibel then the original voice.

"Well done, well done... I must say, you filled your roles perfectly." The Boss grins up at them, somehow functioning despite his broken body and caved in skull. "He'll be pleased." It's then, that any plasma rifles still in connection with a body, turn towards the boss and open fire, obscuring him in a cloud of smoke, before it fades and reveals a black smear and a charred skeleton. Gruesome, to say the least, and the hostages who were watching the whole event gasp, and look towards the heroes, suddenly shrinking back from them slightly, even as they're no doubt helped outside, only relaxing when they put distance between them. Reporters flock the scene as the police move in, escorting the one remaining thug, as the other seems to have been able to escape with a hefty amount of cash out the back, apparently given enough time to cut a hole to freedom, into a cruiser, and the EMTs start carrying out the rest of the bodies. Already the hostages are talking with paramedics, police, and even a stray reporter who seems to have been able to get past the police line. So the question is, was the day saved, or was it even in danger at all? And if not, what was the point of all this?

What the -Hell- just happened here?! Domino's at a serious loss! Something isn't right, not at all. There's so many more questions than answers, but she has to look at the cold, hard facts. The threat is over. She's got her fancy new energy slinger. This place is about to become ground zero for the media. This all means one thing: It's time to go. She doesn't care how she leaves, what matters now is not getting caught up in the media, or with the authorities, or anything that could put the attention onto her. Leaving may not be enough, she needs to -vanish.- ..Like Kwabena.

Okay, maybe not -exactly- like Kwabena.

"..."

There are times when no words will do. With the rhythm of battle still cacophonous in her skull, the weariness inspired by the protracted use of her abilities descends on Psylocke... along with the cruel bitterness of a not-quite victory. Fourteen lives saved doesn't feel enough when two lie dead; even without the added mockery by the literal shell of a man before them. Worse, that the apparent sacrifice of brave Kwabena - and his intriguing developing powers - could not entirely save the day. Bittersweet doesn't begin to cover it.

Mouth curving into a grimace, a frown deepening the olivine skin of her brow as she stands there a moment. Glancing at her one remaining (conscious) ally, she inclines her head to Domino as others begin to flood toward the scene, remaining consciously aware of the latter...

Painfully aware. Without further preamble, she draws a tight, controlled breath and turns to leave, breaking eye contact at the very last moment. Which brings the downed form of Xavin into her vision. Glancing back, she curses inwardly-- he'll have to be counted among the hostages, a selfish decision she immediately regrets. One more to the pile.

A moment later, rapid steps carry the statuesque kunoichi away from the dawning crowds, smoke curling in her nostrils and doubt flooding her tired brain. As she departs, she promises herself, this is certainly not over; she bears a device tucked into the tight material clinging to her hips that demands investigation. And somebody will pay for the lives lost here today. Like Domino, though, she'll disappear for now, into the shadow rather than the smoke.