…with walls and towers were girdled round…

[Rahne Sinclair]

(( kicking off the BH prison-breakout part of Alphonse’s Allegiance ))

Rahne isn’t entirely clear on the purpose of this mission, but by now she’s become accustomed to that. Not that she objects: she is a Hunter, simple and pure, and is content to go where she is sent. Especially in a case like this one, where her task is clear.

Penetrating the security perimeter of this prison facility had proven a slow, tedious process, but ultimately easier than she’d expected. The map Primer had provided allowed her to bypass the automated defenses, and the supposedly “random” patrols had proven to be nothing of the kind; like any other herd animal, prison guards followed paths of least resistance, laying down trails that were easy for Rahne to sense and avoid as she made her way to the spot Primer had marked for her.

The sign on the door (“Guardhouse: Absolutely No Admittance Through This Door!”) does not stop her, and would not even if she could read it, but the heavily armored door itself proves more of an obstacle. Still, penetrating it is not her assignment. She sends the first pre-arranged signal, to indicate that she is “in position”.

Less than a minute later alarms go off all around the prison complex, and Rahne can hear the sounds of furious combat from its front gates. Through the armored door she can hear the sounds of frantic activity, and a voice of authority shout “OK people… this is not a drill! Alpha Squad, with me; the rest of you suit up and report to battle stations!”

Almost immediately the armored door slides open and a dozen heavily armored troops run out towards the disturbance. Rahne wonders idly whether she could eliminate the so-called “Alpha Squad” herself. Primer had obtained one of their armored suits for practice sessions, and Rahne knew where its weak points were and had learned to take one down rather efficiently… but a dozen might prove too much for her.

Not that it matters… that isn’t her task. Instead she waits until the last guard has run past her, then quickly slips through the closing door, into a crowded room filled with guns on racks and empty armor suits and four dozen guards quickly and efficiently getting themselves suited up.

Three are down, bleeding freely from neck and belly, before anyone even notices her; two more before they even attempt to defend themselves. Not that it makes any difference: they are strong and combat-trained and in condition, but without their weapons and their armor they are no match for the Beast inside her, especially not in such close quarters. She has neutralized about a third of them before anyone so much as picks up a weapon.

The closest weapon-wielder hesitates, unwilling to open fire in such a closed space with so many of her squad-mates in the line of fire, and Rahne takes advantage of the hestitation, ducks under the large gun-barrel to drive her claws through his abdomen and up, piercing lung and heart before moving on to her next victim. Another actually fires, though more from panic than anything else, and Rahne scowls as she dives behind one of the armored suits for cover. A hurled corpse is enough to disarm the panicky soldier, but the damage has already been done: nearly half of her remaining targets are crippled or killed by machine-gun fire. "Ye ought nae’ve taken m’prey, wee man… for that, ye’ll be the last I take."

It doesn’t take long to finish it… her last few victims succumb to the shock and terror of seeing their squadmates slaughtered all around them long before she takes their lives. Finally, all that’s left is that single trigger-happy soldier, huddled nearly catatonic in a corner, covered in blood and mumbling something unintelligible about werewolves. He hardly even responds when she drops in front of him, her snout less than an inch from his face, and she sighs. He’s hardly worth killing, really… but her orders were clear, and she follows them.

She checks the barracks one last time for survivors, then sends the second pre-arranged signal Primer gave her, to indicate that the defensive armored guard units have been neutralized. Recognizing the showers adjacent to the barracks, she returns to human form long enough to wash off the blood – no sense leaving a trail, after all, and skin is easier to clean than fur – before moving on to her next assignment.

(( OOC: If it isn’t obvious, I’m assuming there’s a Master Plan, though Rahne doesn’t know what it is. We don’t really have to decide what it is, unless someone’s really feeling tactical… it’ll all go south when Alphonse and the pesky Institute types show up, anyway. ))

[Bobby Drake]

(( …and mixing in the annoying Institute contingent… ))

One of the hardest things for Bobby to get used to in the post-Invasion era is that the X-Men actually work with the military from time to time, when mutant issues come up. He’s been vaguely aware of the fact, he’s even met this Colonel Fury character from SHIELD a few times when he’s come to the Institute to visit the Richards, but it still feels weird, and this particular “field assignment” from Professor Putzkammer’s Team Combat Tactics class is not alleviating that feeling.

He understands the rationale, of course… this Maximum Security prison holds a lot of mutant criminals, along with crime lords and who-knows-what, so it’s a likely target for mutant terrorist action… basically an east-coast version of Neverland. Sooner or later someone will try to take it out, and the X-Men will get involved… so it’s good for the X-Men to share tactical information, practice working together, etc. It all makes sense… but it wasn’t all that long ago that Bobby’d led a team to extract classified data from a West Coast office of this same department, trying to get it shut down. It just feels weird.

It’s even weirder to be out in public in his training uniform when he knows full well he’s not an X-Man. Of course, neither are half the Institute people in the room, “socializing” with these skeptical-looking military types. Again, it makes sense… nothing important is going to happen today, it’s just an introductory meeting to let the prison staff get to know their mutant allies, learn about each other’s capabilities, etc. And since there’s no way of predicting who will end up getting involved in a real crisis, it’s a good idea to let them get to know everybody who might be involved.

Perfectly sensible, but it doesn’t make Bobby feel any less like an imposter. He suppresses the urge to hide when one of the guards, whose name Bobby has forgotten from the wave of introductions, approaches him. “So you were one of the guys who took out that terrorist team in Congress last year, huh? You put up that ice-wall, and froze that Blob character?” Bobby nods cautiously, not quite sure where this is going. "The Blob took a few of us working together to neutralize, but yes, that was me."

He’s relieved when the guard almost cracks a smile. “That was pretty good work, for an amateur… protecting the civilians, I mean. I was on the detail that cleaned up after you guys, before I got myself transferred here… saw what those characters could do with my own eyes. I’ll tell you the truth, I wish all you muties had never turned up in the first place – you just make my job a hell of a lot tougher – but, well, since you’re here… it’s good to be – "

Whatever else he was about to say is lost in the klaxons of intruder alerts, and Bobby drops the coffee he hasn’t been drinking to look out the nearest window. He can’t make out much, but the bulky figure charging through a fortified wall is achingly familiar. "Oh, hell… it’s the Juggernaut! Captain, tell your men to stay out of his way – he’s a cross between a tank and a charging bull and stronger than both put together. Gas attacks are your best bet. I’ll go slow him down – remember, normal gas won’t affect me, so don’t hold back!" He opens the window, that being a faster route than going back to the entrance, and shouts back over his shoulder to the Institute group"You guys back up the armored guard units they just finished telling us about – if Jugs is attacking, I’m guessing the rest of the Brotherhood isn’t far behind; they’re going to need all the backup they can get!"

[Bobby Drake]

I am going up against the Juggernaut, Bobby thinks to himself as he slips out the window and speed-skates towards the commotion at the front gate.

Alone. Well, not entirely alone… there is a battalion of well-equipped, well-trained prison guards trying to hold the line. But against a guy who nearly took down Storm and Logan barehanded, that might as well be alone, right?

Am I insane?!? Sending the rest of the team off in another direction as he charges half-cocked into combat with one of their strongest opponents, who might have all kinds of backup Bobby doesn’t know about, is the sort of damned fool stunt that would ordinarily make Bernie assign him five thousand words on the importance of teamwork.

Unfortunately, Bobby can’t think of a better answer: this frontal assault is just too pat, too stupid, to be the Brotherhood’s real plan. Hell, Magneto’s idea of subtle involved dropping national landmarks on our heads and even he wouldn’t have done it this way… and whoever’s running the Brotherhood now is downright sneaky! This has got to be a distraction… which means we can’t let it distract us. And no way am I sending anyone else in to deal with Jugs alone. It doesn’t even occur to Bobby that an inactive junior X-Man is hardly in a position to be “sending” anyone anywhere.

By the time he reaches the front gate, it looks like a war-zone, with wounded soldiers and trashed munitions everywhere. Wow… they aren’t joking about their security! This might have done some good against a different target. Bobby spots three guards hastily setting up what looks like some kind of heavy artillery… probably not enough to take Jugs down, but maybe enough to slow him down. Unfortunately, Jugs seems to spot them at the same time and picks up a wrecked Jeep, ready to throw it in their general direction.

Oboy… OK, so much for “assess the situation before taking overt action.” Bobby concentrates quickly, feeling the heat of the vehicle in his mind and sucking every last bit of it out. The suddenly brittle side-panels crumble in Juggernaut’s hands and the car falls to the ground and shatters, and Bobby follows that up with a snowball to his opponent’s head to get his attention. "Hey, meathead!" he shouts derisively, "How about picking on someone in your own league?"

The massive invader smiles as he turns around to face Bobby. “Sure, kid… you got anybody in mind?” Bobby winces. Right. You’d think after living with John for so many years I’d have learned not to set myself up like that… I have got to work on my distracting combat banter. But at least I pulled attention away from the soldiers.

"Yeah, actually. Me." He positions himself carefully before concentrating his cold-power on Juggernaut’s body and the ten meters or so of blacktop between him and it. God, I hope this works… His opponent shivers briefly and turns slightly blue, then seems to shrug off the attack; he snarls in the back of his throat and charges Bobby like a raging bull.

[Bobby Drake]

OK… here goes – SHIT!!! Even with Juggernaut slowed down slightly by what would have been crippling hypothermia to anyone else, even with Bobby expecting the charge, it’s still blindingly fast; Bobby just barely manages to sidestep it as Juggernaut slips on the newly iced blacktop and skids past Bobby’s position and charges headfirst through a gas-pump and into the front of a small garage.

The subsequent explosion actually knocks the charging villain off his feet for a moment, which is more than Bobby had actually expected… but only for a moment, and before Bobby can follow up on his advantage Juggernaut is already hurling a heavy piece of machinery at him. A hastily-erected ice-wall deflects the missile, but shatters into shards when Juggernaut comes charging through it a second later; Bobby’s attempt to dive out of the way is only partly successful.

The blow that clips him is a really just a glancing slap, but with Marko’s strength behind it it’s enough to leave him dazed and reeling on the ground twenty meters away… and before he can recover his wits, let alone his feet, Juggernaut has charged him again, kicking him like the world’s least aerodynamic football into a pile of sandbags.

Bobby is vaguely aware of a crunching sound in his chest when the kick lands, and another in his elbow when he hits the ground, and he has no idea where his attacker is; he ignores all that and concentrates on getting an ice-dome up around him… too little, too late. Marko crashes through it without even slowing down, lifts him off the ground with one meaty hand around his throat before Bobby can even try to defend himself, and smiles a gap-toothed smile as he slowly increases the pressure. “Nice trick with the gas tanks, kid. Think I’ll toss your body in there when I’m done, see if you melt. Haw, haw, haw…”

[Bobby Drake]

On the one hand, the pressure on Bobby’s throat isn’t as deadly as it could be, since he doesn’t actually have to breathe in ice-form. On the other hand, it won’t take much more pressure to simply pop Bobby’s head off his shoulders. So he lets himself go limp, hoping Juggernaut doesn’t realize he’s faking, and gathers up his reserves for one final strike.

OK, here goes nothing… he thinks, focusing all his concentration on sucking the heat out of Juggernaut’s brain. He’s never done this to anybody before, and he tries not to think about what it’s going to do to the guy… it really is a kill-or-be-killed scenario.

After a moment, though, it becomes clear that he needn’t have worried…. something about Marko’s body seems to resist having the heat drained out of it, and not only does Bobby’s attack not kill him, it doesn’t seem to do much more than daze him slightly. “Don’t know what you’re doing, kid… but all it’s doing is givin’ me a headache. Now say ‘cheese’… The Brotherhood’s bruiser pulls back a fist, ready to shatter Bobby’s head into shards, and Bobby wracks his mind for some clever last-minute stunt to no avail.

When the resounding CRASH and shockwave hit, Bobby’s surprised that it doesn’t hurt, and when his body falls to the ground he’s surprised that he can still see and hear. Fixing a broken foot was disturbing enough, but can he seriously regrow his own head in this form? That’s just fucking creepy…

It takes him a moment to realize that what he’d heard was the sound of that artillery thing the soldiers were setting up striking Juggernaut in the back; apparently it packed enough of a wallop to drive the hulking figure down to one knee and make him drop Bobby’s body. Score one for the home team! Bobby cheers.

My cue to retreat, I think… Unfortunately, between all the punishment he’s received and the rate at which he’s been using his powers, Bobby barely has the energy to climb to his feet and stagger away… and Juggernaut hardly seems winded when he gets back up. Fuck… this bastard really is indestructible! How the hell do I get out of – he’s distracted by several hissing sounds, promptly followed by billowing clouds of smoke from what he assumes are gas grenades. YES! Go, team! Thank God someone listened to my advice…

Unfortunately, though, the gas doesn’t seem to be slowing Marko down. No… not fair! He’s not immune to gas attacks, I remember his file! Despite Bobby’s best efforts, he’s too slow get away, and it only takes a second for his opponent to grab him again.

“You’re just fucking… full of tricks, aren’t… you? Well, Primer prepared… me for this one. So your… little tricks won’t… save your hide this time!” Bobby’s confused for a moment by the weird cadences of Juggernaut’s speech before realizing that the mercenary is breathing heavily through his nose while speaking. It takes him a second to understand the implications of that, and when he does he can’t help but grin.

"Actually, Jugs… they really, really will." Bobby is down to his last dregs of energy, but it doesn’t take much to bring the space around Marko’s head down to subfreezing temperatures. It’s not enough to hurt the man, of course… he’d already demonstrated that once… but it’s more than enough to destroy the filters in his nose.

“You lousy son of a…” Juggernaut hits the ground with a resounding THUD, and Bobby lets himself fall over a moment later with a sigh of relief. Oh good. I can collapse now.

Of course, there’s still some kind of Brotherhood invasion going on around him, and he really ought to drag himself back to his feet to deal with it… find out what Juggernaut was distracting attention from… and who this “Primer” character is… and… stuff.

In a minute.

Or maybe two.

[Alphonse Giordano]

((And also tying in Alphonse's POV))

----Flashback: 3 Days Prior----
Summer is better than winter. In summer, people are more wasteful. That means more food. The summer also means that its warm rather than cold. But still, having clothes at hand is never bad. So if one spotted the young, black-haired, red-eyed, Italian homeless man, you'd see the stereotype of him wearing tattered clothing and pushing a shopping cart full of "his possessions."

Alphonse walks with an optimistic spring in his step as he makes his way through Times Square. He notes that there is a press conference. After spending all this time in the Big Apple, he can understand a decent amount of English. Speaking it however, is a seperate story. But still he cannot help but feel slightly interested as it appears that this is a big announcement. There is a city representative standing at a podium, a mass of reporters, cameras, and microphones, and two large television screens. As the city rep begins speaking, the image on the screens flashes to a face that Alphonse never thought he would see again...

'I'd like to announce that, as of today, notorious mafia boss, Giovanni Vespucci is no longer a threat to our city. He was apprehended late last night and will be held at The Maximum Security Prison, also known for holding infamous mutant criminals. Needless to say, this is a major leap forward in crime prevention."

Alphonse's eyes narrow as he picks out a few words from that speech. "Mafia, Giovanni Vespucci, and Maximum Security Prison." Alphonse closes his eyes, remembering a younger version of the hefty Italian man on the screen picking up Alphonse by the neck as a child, hitting him, stealing what little he had. Week after week....beatings...pain....all because of that man. [That bastard...that BASTARD! I thought I was free of that man when I came to this country! But no! I know where that place is...I shall make him pay...I can do that now...]


----Present: The Prison-----
Alphonse was now wearing a new outfit: a black sweater, black leather gloves, black pants a half size too big, black shoes, and a black overcoat. Typically he is against stealing from stores, but this is a special occassion...

When you can walk through and on walls, a prison really is not a prison: Just a large box. He is silent as he passes through the first fence. It is fairly easy to avoid the spotlights and guards, taking breif moments to dive and hide in the ground should anyone come close to seeing him. Inside the first wall becomes the first difficult bit of his vendetta. Mutliple cameras, multiple guards, countless cells.

The next few minutes are a combination of phasing through floors, hiding in or through walls, and hiding on the cielings as he makes the descent towards the maximum security division. Then, by some miracle, he arrives. The large multiple-lock titanium door is not the problem. The two armored guards with heavy weaponry are. Alphonse sighs as he remains hidden, actually in the wall with the fainest portion of his face sticking out. But, somehow...he gets a break. Or, much rather, a breakout...

[Primer]

The grounds and outer buildings of the prison have plunged into unrestrained chaos-running, screaming, gunfire, and battles both aerial and earthbound- but inside the main building’s walls it is still far, far worse. Here everything is contained. The wails of the klaxons bounce off concrete walls and rebound again and again and again to merge with the screams and curses and shouted questions of equally contained prisoners who pound on the steel doors of their cells, or huddle in corners, or pace their tiny quarters while red emergency lights make their shadows dance and flicker like wild, dark dancers. A few particularly hardened prisoners stand calmly by their doors, muscles tensed and eyes bright like hunting hawks about to have their hoods removed and tethers cut, but they are overwhelmingly outnumbered by the passionately violent- killers, rapists, gang members- and the relentlessly afraid- white color embezzlers, drug addicts, and petty thieves who were stupid or unlucky enough to have their mutation revealed during their arrest guaranteeing them a ticket to this place so far out of their league. Nowhere to go, no windows to see what’s coming, and all of these tiny pockets of stone and steel with inhabitants whipping themselves into a rage or a panic without any pheromone influence at all.

Perfect. Primer stands in the control room and watches them pace in their cages, nudges the body of a guard who had decided life was not worth living a few minutes ago and impaled himself with a pair of scissors aside with one shined boot, and surveys the buttons on the panel before him. There must be an instruction manual here somewhere… there are screams from the room below, Rahne he guesses, and hopes she remembers what he said about not chasing after any prisoners. Most of the guards stationed near the doors of the prisoners have abandoned their posts to join the fight or see what’s become of their screaming comrades now and he smiles as he searches, gloved fingers probing drawers and cabinets and- ah. A few pages and button-pressings later the klaxons have fallen suddenly silent in the main building though they continue to screech over the grounds and his voice has filled their silence inside the main building-

“Homo superior was not meant to be caged. The Brotherhood of Mutants has given you your freedom today. Remember us.”

Over hundreds of doors a red light turns green, a small hum of computerized change sounds, and there is complete silence for the briefest of moments…and then the doors spring open and the prisoners stream from every corner like rats whose nest has been revealed, running and screaming and shoving their way into the yard. A good number, pumped full of adrenaline that has drowned reason, run straight into the waging battle, a large percentage of them will never make it off the grounds, but enough to make Primer happy are clever enough to have been looking around them during their time here, waiting for a chance. Now, given it, they act deliberately, taking less watched routes. By tomorrow evening’s news no humans in the surrounding towns will feel safe, by tomorrow evening they’ll know to think twice before they try to subjugate their betters.

He steps over the guard’s body and starts down the stairs, his clean up crew should be here any minute- younger more inexperienced Brotherhood members charged with doing a sweep of the practically empty prison for abandoned weapons and technology that could bolster their supplies. There is one cell he’s left shut- a human prisoner, some mob boss or another- and he can hear the man cursing wildly in anger and can’t resist veering towards the man’s cell on his way to the exit…

[Ororo Munroe]

Ororo tears down the hallway, narrowly avoiding an aide carrying a stack of file folders. Alarm klaxons sound in the background.

This is not good.

She and Fury had been finishing up looking over a few battle scenarios in the base's situation room. The colonel was worried that someone would attempt to attack this base, much the way its sister site had been assaulted.

Unfortunately, it appeared that time was now. And she had a group of students here! Storm curses under her breath and hits the door running, bursting through.

"Is everyone okay? What's going on?" Storm skids to a halt on the polished floor. To her left, a few military types look out the window in utter horror. One finally wrenches his eyes away from the spectacle and looks over to her. His voice is dull.

"Your students have gone to support the armor units. Except that one... Iceboy or whatever." The man feebly points out the open window into the distance.

Horrified, Storm looks out and sees Bobby dueling with Juggernaut outside the perimeter - alone. Oh, Gaia! This isn't happening!

"Out of my way!" The command startles the onlookers into action and they move to each side of the wide picture window. Storm runs toward it and jumps.

As she clears the frame, her eyes begin to glow, and a stiff wind catches her as the ground rushes up. Storm manipulates it carefully, using momentum to slingshot herself in the direction of the fight.

Hold on, Bobby!

The pair of figures rushes up at her, and she hits the ground. Impossibly, Juggernaut has fallen to the ground, apparently unconscious. Bobby, too, is lying on the ground. No! What she'd taken for kicked up dirt at a distance is actually some kind of gas, and Ororo reaches out with her powers, driving it off.

"Bobby... are you alright?" Storm lifts his body partially with her arms, but he's a bit too heavy for her.

"Bobby?"

[Bobby Drake]

This is more punishment than Bobby has ever taken in his ice-form before, and the side-effects are unusual. He’s pretty sure he’d be unconscious if he were flesh-and-blood, but he’s not… he’s aware of the wind kicking up, of Storm landing next to him and picking him partway up off the ground, of the soldiers taking care of Juggernaut’s body.

It doesn’t even hurt, really… though there’s a strange fatigued feeling that he’s not sure what to make of, and he can’t quite seem to move.

> " Bobby... are you alright?...Bobby? "

It takes him a few attempts before his dazed brain can work out how to speak again. Come to think of it… howcum I can speak in this form? It isn’t like I have vibrating vocal cords, or lungs to vibrate them with, or… anything! It’s not the creepiest side-effect of this weird new power of his, but it’s certainly up there… it was bad enough having to listen to Hank complain about his original powers being thermodymically impossible, but this new thing doesn’t make any sense at all, sometimes. He wishes Piotr were still in town; the young Russian might have more insight into this business of having an alternate body that seems to follow its own laws of physics. Not that this is the right time to be thinking about it, he chastises himself.

"I’ll live… this new ice-form of mine seems to be pretty hard to kill. But Storm – this has got to be a distraction, doesn’t it? I don’t know what this Primer guy is after, but we’ve gotta stop him. I’ll – gaaah!" The scream is unintentional, more one of shock and disgust than pain, as he tries to get up.

Only his distinct lack of a digestive system keeps him from actually throwing up when he realizes his left knee has literally been pulverized, and what used to be his left leg is flopping around freely, attached only by his uniform pants (which, perversely, seem completely undamaged). He recovers quickly, though, balancing on his good leg and waving away Storm’s concern.

"It’s OK… this has happened before, I know how to fix it." The truth is he’s not so sure… a foot is one thing, but how far can he really take this ice-sculpture reconstruction thing? There have to be limits, and he’s scared that he might have just found one.

On the other hand, it’s not like Storm can do anything to help anyway, right? Either I can fix this or I can’t. Sure, it’d be nice to have her around to hold my hand while I do it, but not during a fucking war. " It’ll take me a little while, though. Meanwhile you’ve got to go stop whatever it is they’re – "

Bobby is distracted when the klaxons suddenly stop. A moment later he hears a weirdly modulated voice over the speakers: " Homo superior was not meant to be caged. The Brotherhood of Mutants has given you your freedom today. Remember us. "

Distracted by anxiety about his knee, it takes Bobby a while to grasp the meaning of that. Actually, the soldiers figure it out first: “Holy shit – he’s released the damned prisoners!” Bobby looks up at Storm, dismayed and suddenly panicked… "Well, that answers that – they’re staging a breakout! Geez, Storm… there’s over two hundred mutant criminals in here! What the hell do we do?"

[Ororo Munroe]

> "It’s OK… this has happened before, I know how to fix it."

Ororo suppresses the nauseated feeling that rises up inside her. Bobby’s leg, from the looks of it, was actually completely severed. Can he really…? Ororo shakes her head, trying to clear nasty mental images from it. It was apparent that Bobby’s body didn’t behave normally while in ice mode.

“If you’re sure…” Storm looks up to the skies. It’s dark and gloomy - possibly an effect of her mood. What were they going to do? Herself and Bobby were the only members of the X-Men on the premises… the rest were all students from Bernie’s tactics class. Strike that - Bobby’s not a member, technically. She’d suspended him after the Baxter Building mission… but in terms of raw skill level, they were the only two that were likely able to hold out for long. Especially against numbers like they were up against…

>"Well, that answers that – they’re staging a breakout! Geez, Storm… there’s over two hundred mutant criminals in here! What the hell do we do?"

And he couldn’t walk. Yet, at least. “Bobby, there’s no way we’re going to stop all of those escapees. Maybe if we had some more people with wide-scale powers on site, but right now…” She trails off. Josh, John, Susan Storm and Laurie would all be useful at this point. Mutants like Logan and Toni were helpful in a fight, but their crowd-control abilities were limited.

She makes up her mind. “We need to get to the other students and make sure they’re okay.” Her eyes light up, and the wind spirals around the two of them. Ororo lifts the two of them into the air. “Any way you can mend that on the way?”

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby starts probing carefully through the material of his uniform to determine just how far the damage to his leg goes.

It seems like he ought to just know – it’s his body, after all – but it doesn’t seem to work that way. He can tell there’s something wrong with his lower leg, but beyond that it’s a mystery. And while it would probably be easier to assess the damage if he pulled the fabric out of the way, he’s fairly sure that would cause his leg to fall dramatically to the ground, which he would rather Storm not see. OK, to be honest, I’m not really excited about seeing it myself.

Still, between his fingers and his heat-sense he gets a fairly good sense of how bad the damage is, and what he has to reconstruct. Except… how is he supposed to reconstruct a functioning knee? It’s supposed to bend, and flex, and stuff… how can he just…

Except it’s all just ice, he reminds himself. There’s nothing special about it, as far as Hank and Reed have been able to establish; it’s not magic mutant flexy-ice, there’s no internal structure to it. He’s what makes it flex and bend… his mind, or soul, or whatever. So… it should work.

> " there’s over two hundred mutant criminals in here! What the hell do we do? "
> " Bobby, there’s no way we’re going to stop all of those escapees "

That’s enough to pull Bobby’s attention from his injury and back to their situation, but for a moment he’s not sure what to say. He hasn’t been able to think of anything, but on some level he’d taken it for granted that Storm would; hearing her admit that the problem is beyond them throws him for a second… then he nods and accepts it. " So, OK. If we can’t stop all of them, we need to prioritize, right?"

The briefing they’d just been receiving from the prison staff had included a summary of who the inmates were, and Bobby tries to recall the more memorable ones. Fortunately, none of them were Brotherhood-caliber mutants (no surprise there; they’d have been recruited a long time ago if they were), but they’re still tough enough to pose a threat to the community. "They’ve got two serial killers in here… one’s super-strong, one’s half-weasel or something, they’re probably the most dangerous. A bunch of burglars and white-collar criminals we can ignore for now, I guess; they’re probably not gonna kill anybody. Another, I dunno, couple of dozen in for assault, rape – shit, I don’t remember half of them! " Not that it really matters, he realizes… there’s no way they’ll be able to corral even that many, unless they’re amazingly dumb.

> " We need to get to the other students and make sure they’re okay."

Bobby’s surprised at first, then kicks himself – of course Storm’s primary concern would be the safety of her students. It should have been his, too. "Right, of course – I sent them to back up the secondary guard units, I bet you can catch up with them at the guardHOOUUSE? " he practically squeals as the wind lifts him off the ground.

> " Any way you can mend that on the way?"

Are you fucking kidding me?, Bobby thinks but thankfully doesn’t say out loud, I’m not sure I can mend it at all! He’d taken out the goddamned Juggernaut, after all, didn’t that and a fucking broken leg earn him at least a few minutes of someone else taking care of the problem?

Yeah… who, exactly?, he asks himself cynically. Storm’s the only active X-Man on-site, and she needs backup, and Bobby – half-understood new powers and off-team status and broken leg and all – is still the best available candidate, and he knows it. So he shrugs, trying to keep a vaguely vertical orientation as the wind buffets him through space, and tries (mostly unsuccessfully) to keep the panic out of his voice as he replies.

"I can sure try… and if not, I can always use the leg to hit bad guys with, right?"

[Rahne Sinclair]

Even in her human form, Rahne can hear the sounds of battle in the distance as Rahne finishes showering off the blood, and she nods in satisfaction… Primer had told her to expect that, some kind of distraction at the front gate.

When she’s clean and no longer leaving bloody paw-prints for a tracker to follow, she shifts into wolf-form and shakes herself dry, then cocks her head to one side to listen more carefully. At the far end of the compound, near the front gate, there’s an explosion, and the sound of some powerful weapon firing, and quieter sounds of combat. Not her problem. More relevant to her mission, there’s a roaring noise like one of those jet engines she’s finally become accustomed to passing overhead, but nearby and coming closer.

In fact, before she’s quite finished drying off it cuts off with a thundering crash not far from the door to the guardhouse. “WowSam! ‘sagoothingyrblastinprotectionforcefieldthingcoversyrpassngrstoohuh? Wow thashurabigholeymade guessyrlandingless’nsaren’tworkingsowellhuh? Anywaywrhere. I’llgotalk t’thesecondguard omigod they’re all –” the hyperfast stream of chatter is cut off by the sounds of vomiting as Rahne slips into the shadows, then joined by a (thankfully) slower male voice. “Y’all gotta slow down, Zip! Ah c’n barely understand half of what y’all are—hoooly Mother of – they’re all gutted! Last time ah saw somethin’ like that was when a wolf got into my Daddy’s sheepfold, when I was a kid… we gotta call somebody, let ‘em know!”

A wolf among sheep, eh? Close enough, boy. This “Sam” is the first person Rahne has heard talk of such familiar, rural things since her arrival in New York, and it’s a pleasant feeling. It’s almost a pity she has to kill the boy… not that the feeling will slow her down at all. Sooner or later the children will come through that doorway to investigate, and Rahne will slaughter them the way she did the guards.

Sam steps gingerly past the bodies to the communications console, trying to remember the protocols they’d just gotten finished learning about. “Uh, hey… this here’s Sam Gu – um, this here’s Cannonball, reporting a, um, code… red? Damn, ah can’t remember what – it’s a ten-double-zero – ah mean, look, the whole blamed second armor unit’s dead here, they’re all gutted open, never even made it into armor. Hey, is anybody listenin’? Am ah usin’ this thing right? Ah – ”

The klaxons going off interrupt Sam’s increasingly frantic call for assistance and he takes a step back and slips on a pool of blood, falling to the ground. Instantly, Rahne changes her plan and leaps from the showers into the locker room, bounding against a wall to launch herself, claws extended, at the boy’s helpless supine form.

“Sam, whatreallthosealarm – Samlookout!!!” Zip enters the room just as Rahne begins her leap, and stands frozen for a panicked millisecond or two before she realizes Sam can’t move in time to defend himself. “Omigodomigodomigodomigod…” She picks up one of the rifles scattered on the ground and wrestles it until it points in the wolf’s general direction, then squeezes the trigger, but nothing happens. Must be some kind of safety or something, I don’t know anything about guns! Frantic, she hurls the rifle at the beast, then follows it up with everything else she can get her hands on.

Rahne barely has time to register Zip’s return before the hail of debris is cascading on her; she dodges the bulk of it but misses her target before realizing that Zip’s attack, while blindingly fast, is essentially harmless. She lashes out with a hindpaw against Sam’s exposed neck, but the extra second is all the boy needs to gather his willpower together, and her claws bounce harmlessly off his forcefield as he blasts horizontally across the floor, smashing a hole in the wall and skidding across several dozen meters of asphalt and dirt before coming to an explosive stop by colliding against a second building. The girl blurs and is gone after him.

Rahne is about to follow them, the thrill of the hunt pounding in her bloodstream, when Primer’s voice comes over the speakers: " Homo superior was not meant to be caged. The Brotherhood of Mutants has given you your freedom today. Remember us. " She skids to a halt, then, reminded of her orders – once the prisoners are released, she was to scout the empty prison and assist stragglers. Reluctantly, she decides the “mutant” children can wait for another time, and bolts down the now-opened stairway into the main complex.

Dozens of prisoners stream past her, rushing towards the surface; only one or two even seem to notice her presence as she slips around, over, and through them. Once past the main horde, she does find a few stragglers, and assists them in their struggles with the overwhelmed prison guards before moving on. Further on she notes other Brothers, scouring the complex for weapons and technology as Primer had ordered them.

And then she stops short and doubles back to confirm a scent – yes, that’s Primer’s scent. She’s surprised… she hadn’t thought he’d be going into the prison, but of course he doesn’t tell her everything. Sill, there’s no reason she shouldn’t head down that corridor and report; perhaps he will require her assistance.

As his scent gets fresher, Rahne also starts to notice a second unusual scent trail… not along the corridor, but crossing it at right angles, as if its owner were walking through the walls themselves, like a ghost. Not the most unusual thing she’s encountered since joining the Brotherhood, granted… but still odd.

Ultimately she catches up with her leader as he opens a door that (unknown to her) reads “Maximum Security Division – Authorized Personnel Only!” She shifts into hybrid form a few meters away and reports in a whisper "The second guard unit is nae longer a problem, sir… an’ the prisoners are escapin’, as ye planned. There are some other “mutants” here, also – a girl they call ‘Zip’, a boy called ‘Sam’ or ‘Cannonball’ – dinna ken where they’re from."

[N.P.C]

The halls are mostly empty by the time Merrick starts to make his stealthy way out of his cell, which is just as he wants it: after that awful Congress incident, he’s learned the folly of aligning himself with others. He’s not at all sure what resulted in his freedom, and that of the other mutant prisoners, but he does not intend to be caught in whatever mass roundup will inevitably follow.

Instead, he moves carefully from shadow to shadow, from conveniently unlocked door to unlocked door, until he finds himself in a concrete pillbox near the prison’s front gate… frustratingly close to freedom, except for the dozens of guards arranged in defensive formation. So… not this way, then.

He turns to seek another route, only to find his passage blocked by an armored guard who swiftly levels a weapon at him. “Freeze! I swear, you so much as twitch and I spray your brains all over that wall, you hear me? Central, this is unit seven: escapee found, block seventeen, backup requested.” Merrick stands still as requested, raising his hands as the guard approaches warily.

He wonders idly whether he could rip the gun out of the guard’s hands before he (or she?) fires, and how difficult it would be to rip that armor off. Not that he intends to do either, of course… that would be inefficient. Instead he stares intently at the guard’s translucent helmet until he’s fairly sure they’ve made eye contact, and exerts his will.

"Drop your weapon, remain silent, make no other movements." He feels the familiar thrill of mastery as the weapon drops to the floor, and he picks it up carefully. "Good. Now, follow me – no, better, lead me to somewhere your colleagues won’t search for a long time."

Several minutes later he emerges from an interrogation room. The guard’s armor is ill-fitting, but serviceable, and the brief but efficient summary of checkpoint protocol gets him past the backup team when they arrive. Of course, eventually they’ll realize that the bullet-ridden body of the “escaping prisoner” is actually one of their own, but he’ll be long gone by then.

[Primer]

"The second guard unit is nae longer a problem, sir… an’ the prisoners are escapin’, as ye planned. There are some other “mutants” here, also – a girl they call ‘Zip’, a boy called ‘Sam’ or ‘Cannonball’ – dinna ken where they’re from."

Primer barely restrains himself from visibly startling as Rahne speaks suddenly from behind him, turning quickly on his heel and nodding, motions more crisp and controlled than usual as they tend to become when he’s startled into using his years of strict self-control in his presentation of himself to the world. Still, Rahne isn’t a senator gibbering his fear of the cop car that had driven by him while he was scouring the parking lot desperately for a male partner whom he must pretend to listen to, she’s alert and perceptive beyond even most mutants, his startled reaction could have been observed, and the thought of that briefly irritates him so that it’s a moment before he registers what she’s said.

“Good work.” he responds after a moment, “The other mutants are nothing to worry about, a fringe group that opposes us rather ineffectively.” And perhaps that’s a bit untrue- the X-men were victorious at Liberty Island and then at Alcatraz after all- but that was under Magneto’s direction, back when the Brotherhood had different scruples and aims. So far his forays into leadership had been at least moderately successful, something he felt the strain of keeping up daily.

“Anything else to report?”

[Bobby Drake]

For what feels like the hundredth time since Storm joined them, Bobby’s astonished by how effectively she’s got them working together: Cannonball doing aerial recon, Zip doing ground-based recon, and she and Bobby and the remaining armored guards neutralizing escapees.

Fortunately, the Brotherhood didn’t seem interested in coordinating the riot they’d started; with the escapees acting on their own it wasn’t too hard to take them down. They’d recaptured twenty so far, including a couple of the worst offenders, and –

“Zp hr I spotd tht wizl gy’n cl blk sxty”

Bobby’s ruminations are cut short by Zip’s announcement, and he still can’t help laughing at Zip’s attempts to speak slowly enough to be understood over their comm-gear… if anything she seems to be talking faster to compensate for the pauses she’s inserting between words. Still, context helps: Bobby would never have interpreted that last part if he hadn’t more or less known what to expect.

" Weasel guy in cell block sixty, check. I’m on it, Storm!" He’s still moving a little stiffly on the reconstructed knee, but he suspects that’s as much psychosomatic as physical (assuming there’s even a difference in his case); regardless, it barely slows him down as he speed-skates through the prison complex. Which is good, because he really doesn’t want to see this one escape. Not that he’s that tough – no more than a class 2, or maybe a class 3 at best – but he’s crazy, and more than dangerous enough to leave a trail of bloody bodies behind him before they arrested him the first time. That’s not gonna happen again.

He slows down as he approaches cell block sixty, stretching his senses out. Mostly empty, as he’d expected, but there are three heat-signatures within range… one readily recognizable as Zip, another with the exhaust-venting pattern he recognizes as prison-guard armor, and a third running ten to fifteen degrees hotter than normal human temperature. That’s my boy, then.

"Target acquired, Zip – good job." Her signature disappears before he can blink, leaving only two… and then one larger blob, faster than he’d expected. Crap… he’s going after the guard! Bobby speeds up, which turns out to be a mistake; his knee goes numb for a moment and he stumbles. It takes him a few seconds to recover and move more carefully towards the battle.