Baxter Building

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh gasps in pain as a force blast clips him in the side of the head. He pulls himself up off the ground and ducks behind a column as Toni cackles in a chemistry-gasm nearby.

>This one…this one…smash these two together...

>Toss this one into the florescent light up there and you’ll get a homemade flash grenade.

>I mean—Oop…too late; I already did.

If their circumstances weren't so dire he'd have started laughing. Josh ducks around the corner of the pillar, and a variety of vials and flasks hurtle their way through the air. Oh… fuck. The napalm he diverts from the pile and sets gently on a table. The rest bob gently in midair between him and Toni. I don’t think I’m interested in burning anyone’s flesh off right now, thanks. Might be useful later, though.

Immediately after she tosses the last vial, Toni is smashed backwards into a wall by the Thing. Torch starts blasting John with flames - better him than one of us - and Hank is deadlocked with Mr. Fantastic. His enhanced agility and strength is enough to hold his own against Reed, but the other man’s mutation makes it extremely difficult to actually do any damage.

> Mexican standoff here, Josh. Any bright ideas how the hell I’m meant to bring down Flametard?

The force blasts chipping into the marble pillar cease, causing him to worry Susan is up to something. Um. You can’t put out his flames like you do normally? Crap. Wait. I might have an idea…

Josh steps from around the pillar, flash-bomb hovering nearby. He begins heading towards the firefight (witty!), but suddenly lifts off the ground mysteriously. Immediately, his gaze lands on the Invisible Woman, who has a wicked smile on her face. Uh oh. Is this how my enemies feel?

“Help!” He gestures, and a piece of broken metal jumps up from the ground on a collision course with her head, but a quickly placed force field deflects it harmlessly away. As soon as Josh feels the shifting of her fields he’s certain of his destination - she’s going to throw him into John, and both of them are going to be killed by the Torch’s flames. Bitch. As apparent as it was that the Fantastic Four were not on their side, he’d not pegged them as vicious animals. Cause John’s only immune to flames under his control… right? He makes a note to brush up on the particulars of everyone’s mutations, if he lives through the next 30 seconds.

His plan might still work. Sure enough, she tosses him directly at John. Close your eyes. Now. This he sends to Toni, Hank, and John. As he hurtles through the air across the room, Josh locks the position of the fluorescent light fixture in his mind. He closes his eyes and hurls the hovering flash-bomb into the light fixture. The pulse is visible even through his eyelids, and he hears a variety of pain-filled shouts. Josh opens his eyes and immediately wrenches the heavy industrial fixture from the ceiling, smashing it into the Torch’s head.

Between the flash-bomb and the equivalent of a baseball bat to the head, Johnny Storm doubles over, pained, cutting short his fiery assault. Josh crashes into John, topping them both to the ground.

Josh rubs a spot of the back of his head. Hey, I took care of the Flamer for a second, at least. Can you do anything to him now?

[Pyro]

< You can’t put his flames out like you do normally?
John bites back the urge to fire something off about how he really hadn’t thought to check… of course it isn’t fucking working like that (though does the fact he’s thinking about not thinking it mean he sort-of is thinking? … Whatever. Waste of brain space..).

Whatever this master plan of Josh’s is, it had better be bloody brilliant… and executed pretty damn sharpish, because fighting The Human Torch isn’t so much actual fighting as ‘trying not to die’; with winning rendered near impossible, the best he can do is ‘not lose’, and that’s far more of a struggle than he’d expected (there’s only one fight this compares to, and that’s Alcatraz…)…

… simple would also be good, because he can’t afford to be paying attention to Josh as well as Johnny…

… which is why he has no idea what Sue’s doing, other than hearing Josh’s yelp and hating himself for having to ignore it (well, getting himself killed isn’t going to help anyone… and sure, he can pretend it’s all noble and shit, and not just *my neck first, everyone else second*) and why, trusting that Josh really has got something spectacular up his sleeves and following the telepathic order, he expects a blast of flame breaking through as his concentration slips, and not a flying Josh, to be the thing which knocks him to the floor after… whatever the hell that was (even with his eyes clenched shut, both in accordance with Josh’s shout and in preparation for whatever’s about to hit, the flare blazes insanely bright, and he’s reassured that he can’t possibly be dead because Stay away from the light… is far too inane a comment, too stupid a snarky side-quip, to be his last thought… and though ”Fuck!” is probably a far more appropriate last word he’d like to think he could come up with something better).

< Can you do anything to him now?
John untangles himself from Josh, recovers his breath and wits a fraction of a heartbeat before Johnny. That’s the million dollar question, really, isn’t it; what can he do to someone flameproof?

… well, Johnny isn’t flaming any more, so he’s got a shot. As ‘superheroes’ they’re stuck in a dead heat (ha, ha ha) and so it looks like it’s the human alter-egos who have to duke it out. John can’t pretend he is, or ever was, especially strong or tough, but you don’t survive life on the streets without developing a sort of vicious resilience, and while he hasn’t had the benefit of Logan’s ‘How to kill with a will-placed poke’ classes (or whatever it is that’s transformed Bob into super-commando-ninja-killing-machine) Mystique’s probably as good a teacher. Keep Big Sis out of the way, I might have a shot… Swinging round, a sharp kick at Johnny’s ankles sends the dazed Human Torch stumbling enough for John to scrabble into action and get him in something like a choke lock, and while Johnny’s the larger and stronger of the pair John’s holding on for grim death and refusing to be dislodged.

8 seconds. That’s how long Mystique reckoned a properly applied stranglehold should take to pinch the blood supply to the brain enough to win. 14 at most. The first 6 or so of those feel enough like a lifetime, with Johnny trying to dislodge his diminutive assailant before deciding screw this and…

Fuck! John should probably take some sort of comfort from the fact Johnny can’t fully flame on (whether that’s down to the choke stopping his famous catchphrase, or oxygen deprivation screwing up his flame generation, or whatever), take it as a sign that he’s winning. As it is, he’s gritting his teeth to steel himself against the sting of fiery fingers at first scratching, then finding a hold and digging into his wrist, trying to force him to slip loose the hold and release Johnny’s neck from its clamp. Sure, John’s more flame-resistant than most, but with having to concentrate on keeping his hold as well as fighting Johnny’s control over the flames nearest his skin makes it all far too complex and it hurts (he hasn’t been burnt in what feels like forever; if he had the breathing space to question when the last time was, again the answer’s Alcatraz, though that was cold burns… and oddly enough in about the same place…) – not the searing, agonising burn that it would be on any of the others, true, but a stinging, smarting pain none the less.

Just a few more seconds… That’s all he needs; a few seconds. Just long enough to take Johnny out, even the odds and put himself back in the game…

5… 4… 3…

[Bobby Drake]

At first, the experience of touching the Baxter Building’s network with his mind is transcendent, consciousness-expanding. He explores the endless knowledge stored in Richards’ databanks, samples the output of real-time sensors throughout the building, augments his own thought processes with the computational power of one of the most advanced analysis networks on the planet.

He now knows the Fantastic Four’s powers, from the results of countless detailed tests and the theories of two genius geneticists. More, he knows their histories, and has some notion of their weaknesses. He also knows what they came here to discover – yes, this lab is the source of the Mutant Growth Hormone treatments the military has been using… although, paradoxically, earlier entries of Richards’ indicate he has – or had – no desire to weaponize his discovery. Neutralizing hostile mutants, yes… creating hostile mutates, no.

Obviously something changed Richards’ attitude… what? Bob’s mind continues to expand throughout the network infrastructure, seeking additional information hidden behind security codes and passwords, none of which were designed to stop something like what he is becoming. He understands what caused Richards’ change of mind; understands that the Fantastic Four are not in control of themselves, he understands so much!

And still there is more, and he expands to assimilate it, transcending his own physical boundaries; he is no longer a body in a storage locker, he is the building itself! The sensors are his own eyes and ears and proprioceptors, the databanks are his own memories… and beyond that there is the city, the Internet…

No. No, this is unacceptable; the risk of losing himself this way is significant. However it feels, his real existence is still in his old, organic brain; if he loses his connection to it he dies, and at this rate of decentralization he may well lose that connection. He has to pull back his awareness.

The problem, he realizes, is that he can’t. It doesn’t work that way; his extended consciousness is too large and complex and reformatted to reside in his old brain.

It’s a quandary, made more difficult by emotional responses that keep recurring… fear, mostly. So he purges those again, and then the solution becomes clear: he must cease to live within the Baxter Building’s network, and he cannot continue to live as he is now outside of it, which leaves only one option: he must cease to live as he is now. It was only his residual fear of death that kept him from seeing that.

Without it, allowing himself to die is not very difficult.

And the death itself is almost painless.

[N.P.C]

Johnny Storm


Johnny struggles with the invader’s grip on his throat and, even more disturbing, on his flame. Whoever this guy is, he isn’t exactly fireproof, but he’s the next best thing… Johnny’s flame barely seems to scorch him, and he can’t shake the kid’s grip… he doesn’t look so tough, but he’s wiry and stubborn as hell, and Johnny’s already dazed from whatever had smashed into his head and blinded him.

He’d promised Reed he wouldn’t jump-start his flame anymore, ever since their most recent lab tests showed his average temperature climbed significantly every time he did that, a little more each time… especially since the last few times, he’d felt something when he tried it, like the flame was getting harder to control, or something. He hadn’t mentioned that part to Reed, but it had encouraged his agreement not to jump-start again.

But now… well, it’s either that, or let this kid strangle him. He stops struggling with the boy’s hands then, lets them squeeze as hard as they want while he concentrates, hard, on making the transition to flame again… and cheers triumphantly when he does. For a moment, at least.

And then he feels a strange ripping sort of sensation running all the way through his fiery body, as streamers of plasma fly out of him in every direction. He tries to control them, but he can’t, and the more he tries the worse it becomes.

He tries to call out to Reed for help, hating himself for it… but he can’t, his throat won’t make sounds anymore, the air is rushing into him too quickly, like a jet turbine. He can feel his temperature climbing, out of his control; feel the floor melting away beneath his feet, feel even the unstable molecules of his uniform falling apart around him. God… what’s happening to me?

[Bobby Drake]

Bob blinks, disoriented, as the extended cybernetic consciousness that built itself around his mind suddenly disintegrates, along with most of the information it contained. All right… that didn’t work. He wants to experiment with other approaches to the same problem, but this isn’t the time.

Still, he remembers a few things that were directly relevant to the problem at hand... weaknesses and weapons, mostly. Susan Storm’s forcefields are nearly impenetrable to most matter and energy, but not to light, or sound, or gasses. Her teammates share those vulnerabilities. That will do for now.

More carefully this time, he extends his consciousness into the penthouse’s security systems, keeping tight rein on himself to avoid losing his way again. Ah. I see… yes. That could work.[/u]

He begins moving quickly around the room, assembling a pile of pieces of equipment, his mind flickering between the inventory/labeling database and the containers surrounding him to find what he’s looking for. He doesn’t hurry, exactly… or at least, he remains perfectly calm and in control… but for all that, he moves as fast as he can.

[Toni Craft]

[[Well what do you know? I was actually able to squeeze a post out after all. Now I expect lots of posting when I get back from Edmonton *points accusingly at 'I'm the slowest poster ever when it comes to the Baxter thread' Pyro*]]

Bracing her back against the wall when the Thing takes a step back to cock a fist, Toni jumps and places the soles of her feet against his rocky chest. Using her augmented strength she forces her legs outward, sending her counterpart stumbling back. He teeters and falls with a heavy thud onto the floor, landing on his back.

“Can you tell I’m a dominatrix just waitin’ to bust out?” Toni asks, grinning widely (with just a hint of evil). “Now what’d you say you start playin’ nice?” She stands over him and places a foot on his chest, leaning down to rest her arms on her knee.

With an angry growl, the Thing grabs her leg and prepares to hurl her off, but his attempt is replaced by a painful groan as the room erupts in a flash of blinding light. Toni, having been amply warned by Josh, opens her eyes and snickers.

“Woooaaahahaha! Take that you mutant-wannabe bitches!” Content that the Thing was temporarily subdued by her and Josh’s makeshift flash bomb, Toni steps off to investigate the condition of her team-mates, still sporting her armour.

She notices, just in the nick of time, as John lunges at Johnny (who really should be sporting an ‘out of order’ sign right about now) and establishes a rather desperate and un-John-looking strangle hold. It probably wouldn’t look so bad, if it wasn’t for John’s obvious lack in height and overall body strength in comparison to Johnny’s traditional model-like frame. Hmmm…someone’s been primin’ themselves up for some lovin’.

“Be nice Johnny…er…John…I kind of like that one. May be a little hot under the collar, but I like that in a man.” John doesn’t let up though, and Johnny’s getting a little frantic looking as his face starts changing a variety of colours. “Fine, kill him then. But I get his manly bits. I’ve been meaning to make a seven organ soup and I’m still missing one.”

Toni jolts back though when the Storm kid erupts into flames again.

“Aw nuts…the soup won’t work if manly bits are barbequed first!” Her humour falls flat when the temperature in the room continues to rise, the wind blowing in furiously from the broken windows. “Okay, now how am I going to make my soup?!” Toni can practically see Johnny’s body absorb the oxygen and expel the carbon dioxide.

She’s pulled away from her long-winded, rapid-fire thoughts of ‘how is a human…mutant…hutant (I’m having that copyrighted the moment I get out of here) that’s spontaneously combusting with no obvious source of fuel even physically possible’ when, out of the corner of her eye, Richard Reed stretches her way.

“Oh fuck no. I’d rather take on nova-boy over there then deal with your icky stretchy fingers…Wait a Elizabeth Taylor-flavoured popsicle…is that why she married you? How long can you make your tongue?” She would have kept talking, but a rubbery hand clamps itself over her mouth, and the associated arm begins wrapping around her head. Toni stumbles back in surprise, not fully realizing for several seconds that her air supply has been completely sealed off.

Instinctively she grabs at the massively deformed limb and pulls, hoping to remove her attacker, but the section of arm gives way freely as another layer secures itself over her face.

Even through her armour Toni starts sweating, really a combination of the rapidly rising temperature, and the shock of adrenaline in her system. She can feel another layer of stretching flesh lock itself around her torso as Mr. Fantastic continues to suffocate her.

I reeeeeeaaaaaaaally hope someone’s got a way to get this creepy…yet oddly sexy…old guy off of me….oooooooo! Frog-legged bunnies!

Funny really; she hadn’t seen mutated bunnies the last time she’d suffered from oxygen deprivation.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh scrambles to his feet as John launches himself at the Human Torch. That’s a direct solution, I guess. Mr. Fantastic swings a rubbery hand at him, tossing him backwards backwards onto a wide lab table. Fortunately, the surface is largely empty, having been swept clear earlier by the melee, and he stand back up, coughing from the impact.

The Torch blazes brighter and brighter, and Josh can feel the heat being put out. He encases both the Torch and John in a telekinetic bubble in order to try to protect the rest of the the room’s occupants. It doesn’t do much, as the temperature keeps climbing, and the effort of holding back the plasma is visibly stressing him. Why do I have the feeling this isn’t planned? He glances over at Hank, who seems torn between scientific fascination and utter horror.

“I believe our beloved comrade Mr. Allerdyce would synthesize a scintillating statement somewhere along the lines of fecal matter and a ceiling fan… if he weren’t so obviously occupied with containing Mr. Storm’s parallel pyrokinetic phenotype.” Hank’s eyes dart around the room, until he sees Mr. Fantastic strangling Toni, and leaps in their direction. Josh shakes his head, and looks over at Susan.

Her eyes are fixed on Johnny in horror. “Johnny, no! Reed and I told you that - -” After a split second, the emotion drains from her face and she angrily looks around the room for another target. Josh, hands outstretched towards the growing inferno, seems to fit the bill.

Something is not right here. Josh’s seen people behaving like that before, and rings a bell… He tentatively stretches his telepathic senses out towards the Invisible Woman, and gapes.

Emma Frost? How had he not figured this out before? At a guess, Sue had slipped out of her grasp at the shock of seeing… whatever it is…. happening to Johnny, and she’d had to tighten her control, make it more overt.

Emma Frost frowns. I may have overplayed my hand… Dalton had almost certainly detected her hand in things, no matter his power level. The bothersome Susan Storm’s emotional reaction to her brother’s imminent demise was at an extremely bad time. Emma sighs dramatically, and reaches for her martini, sipping at it in a desultory fashion. The Fantastic Four were becoming a tiresome bunch, and the X-Men weren’t much better. She had better things to do… such as cementing her plans with Cerebro. Her usage of the Mutant Growth Hormone had led Xavier’s little pets to the Four… just as she’d planned.

She’d not been holding back while controlling them. With any luck, Johnny Storm’s recently mutated cells would explode with the force of a supernova, taking out nearly half of the X-Men. She was after the three Class 4s, specifically… a pity Ororo Munroe wasn’t present. Getting rid of Hank McCoy forever was simply a delectable bonus, as was boffing that annoying Italian woman.

Emma startles, spitting her mixed drink out across her office. You little cretin! Dalton had apparently benefited from her duel with his mentor a few days ago, using a quick mental trick to cut her puppet strings. She reaches out telepathically and gives him the mental equivalent of a backhand. You’ll regret that, you little nothing. Mark my words. Emma makes a noise of disgust, and tosses her glass across the room.

Josh bites his lip. The look of horror has returned to Sue’s face… which has to be a good sign. She immediately encases both Johnny and John in an impenetrable forcefield, ostensibly to starve her brother of oxygen. The room’s temperature immediately drops, and Josh dissipates his telekinetic bubble. Thank god. Torch’s flames seem to be waning already. As he steps towards Sue, he suddenly clutches his head in agony and drops to the floor, gasping in pain.

[N.P.C]

The Fantastic Four Three Two
Reed’s attention is focused on suffocating the annoying metal-covered woman, or at least getting her to stop talking, so he doesn’t immediately notice the Torch turning into a raging inferno.

Susan’s cry of dismay pulls him back to reality for a moment. “Sue? Johnny? What in the name of –” He stops short when Emma Frost re-establishes control over his mind – not the relatively subtle, perception-altering control she’d started with, but full mental domination – and returns his attention to eliminating the invaders… then stumbles again, disoriented, when Josh distracts Emma.

Which is why, when Hank completes his leap by smashing Reed’s head into Toni’s armored chest with a blue-furred, prehensile-clawed foot, Reed forgets to use his power to protect himself. Which is why his head, rather than SQUISHing harmlessly like Silly Putty, THUDs resoundingly like… well, like a head hitting a nonelastic surface very hard. Which is why he collapses to the ground in an unconscious lump.

Meanwhile, the Torch’s flame, raging ever stronger, consumes the remaining air in Susan’s forcebubble in seconds, then peters out for lack of oxygen... and a moment later the Torch, already short on oxygen thanks to Pyro’s hands on his neck, joins Reed in unconsciousness.

[Bobby Drake]

It takes him a little while to find one of the recharge tanks for the Baxter Building’s halon extinguishers, but he’s starting to get the hang of his new abilities faster than he’d expected… certainly faster than he had his natural ones, years ago. And interfacing with the inventory system while rummaging through the supply closet makes finding what he’s looking for much, much easier.

Still, it takes long enough that by the time he makes his way back out into the main room, the tactical situation has changed. Reviewing the security camera recordings in his mind, he figures out what happened, and concludes that the most significant remaining threat is Ben Grimm, still half-blinded and working his way to his feet, across the room from the others where Toni hurled him.

Well. He needs oxygen just as much as anyone else, according to their files… so, same weapon, different target… and a slightly different delivery system. He’d initially counted on the Torch’s flame to set off the tank, but adaptability is an important strategic asset…

He catches John’s eye as the boy recovers from his struggle with the now-unconscious Torch. "John: burn this!" he shouts, hurling the recharge tank at the Thing. John’s flame should cause the tank to burst open, and the contents will hopefully be adequate to render their opponent unconscious.

[Pyro]

Johnny stops struggling, and for a moment John thinks he’s won… but today isn’t shaping up to be straightforward like that. Instead it seems dead set on finding new and increasingly painful ways to kill him. Case in point; all of a sudden Johnny’s ‘The Human Torch’ again, and he releases his hold and drops back with as speedy a panicked scramble as he can manage and watches the world go to hell…

… and as he snaps back into ‘control flame’ mode, it’s clear something’s changed; that sense that the fire is fighting against him, and under someone else’s control, is gone. Which would be reason to celebrate if it wasn’t for the general sense of ‘oh god, we’re all going to die’ that implies… because why else would Johnny be working to contain and repress his flame?

Shit Fire he can handle, sort of, as long as he keeps focusing, but plasma is something different entirely, and every time he thinks he’s got a handle on it the situation just escalates and everything keeps heating up and he’s no idea where everyone else is, might have to assume that they’ve been taken out because it’s like the whole world’s aflame and… Fuck. Stop it. You panic, you die. (You die, everyone dies is tagged on as a suitably heroic afterthought, of course, but it’s clear where the real strength of feeling is…)

And it’s getting… a hell of a lot… harder to breathe… Like someone’s sat on his chest, or something, so it hurts to try and hold any substantial sort of breath down… Like the air’s become thinner, and doesn’t fill what space there is right… John might not be especially scientific, but he understood that flame used up oxygen sure; it’s just… shit, he’d never actually been faced with that before. It seems insane and somehow unreal… and yet it’s, clearly, painfully real. And the big panicked breaths he’s taking probably aren’t helping, idiot.

His version of ‘calming the fuck down’ is admirable, all things considered, though it’s a miracle he’s still standing (or near-it, swaying and stumbling and stoically fighting it off, blinking back the urge to go to black and gritting his teeth, trying to hold his breath as long as humanly possible), and everything’s rapidly becoming the sort of swimmy-spinny-blurry he more usually associates with being drunk, or drained enough to okay, don’t think about blacking out, or falling asleep, or anything other than pulling this off…

Almost not registering the fact that he’s succeeded (or, rather, Johnny’s blacked out and removed the problem, which counts as victory-by-proxy or something), it’s the return of something like normal air – cold, *thick*, breathable air – which grabs his attention, and he finally allows himself to slump, drinking deep like he’s just broken the surface (which he has, in many ways, except that it was flame and not water he was drowning in), oblivious for those few seconds to the rest of the battle raging arou…

< John: burn this!
Bob’s shout (Bob? … Oh, there’s Bob! He’s not dead!) snatches his attention back, and still gasping and re-capturing his breath, his head snaps round to find him, and then tracks the ‘this’, whatever it is, firing off a blast from one of the lingering smouldering patches from Torch’s assault, catching the tank which causes it to burst open and release something which, even at this distance, makes his head spin… and which, for the orange man-mountain close enough in to get the full force, quickly renders a third member of Team Fantastic unconscious. A quick glance – anyone else? – suggests that Sue’s not an immediate threat, and if she is someone else (another quick glance, taking in nothing other than who’s not dead, seems to suggest that they’ve still got a full complement of mutants) can deal with her because for the next few moments he's not focusing on anything other than shakily recovering.

[N.P.C]

Susan Storm


Susan prepares to hold Ben back once Johnny’s extinguished, but her visitors manage to subdue him more efficiently than she would have expected. They may not seem like much, but they work together pretty well, she thinks approvingly. Not that she’s in any position to judge them after they not only survived the “Fantastic Four’s” ambush but freed her from mind control.

She looks around the shambles of what used to be her living-room quickly to make sure there’s no other threat immediately visible, then looks at Josh and waves at her three unconscious teammates. “Can you repeat whatever it is you did with me, with them? I’d rather they not keep trying to kill you.”

[Toni Craft]

It's hotter than hell in the giant, posh room, and Toni's starting to see purple, frog-eating, flying dolphins.

Wait...what?

The hold on her head and mouth is impossibly stubborn, and even though she keeps trying, Toni can't get another breath in.

Another strange-coloured dolphin leaps into view, though after a moment, she realizes that it's not a dolphin at all, and it's blue and kind of fuzzy. Like Hector!

No...wait....

Something collides with her torso, and a moment later the layers of stretched arm around her head begin to loosen. Coughing and gasping for some much needed air, Toni falls to her knees, urging her lungs to work a little faster.

"Whoever that was, I'm gonna thank you as soon as you stop looking like a fuzzy, blue squirrel." She squints up at her aider and waits until the spots in her vision begin to fade. "Oh...my bad. Sorry Hank."

"Hardly the juncture in which I would proffer to take your transgressions into rumination, my esteemed confederate." Toni blinks.

"Okay then, Mr. Cookie Monster, sir. What ever you say." She stares at the unconscious Reed for a moment. "Did you just schmuck him into my....you did! Hank!" She says rather scoldingly, "I thought we agreed that type of play wouldn't come out of the bedroom!"

Her attention's drawn when the temperature in the room plummets to a more livable level as the Human Torch collapses to the ground.

"Well, it appears that one of our fantastic compadres has reconquered some form of comity." Hank says, oddly pleased, nodding towards Susan as she drops her hands after depriving her own brother of air.

A resounding BANG! catches their attention as the Thing is blasted backwards by a venting Halon tank. Instants later, the giant, orange, rock-man is out like a light.

"You know, this really says something about the resilience of women on an all-male team. I guess that bodes well for me." Toni grins and pulls herself back onto her feet, her body contently readjusted to it's access to the air.

“Can you repeat whatever it is you did with me, with them? I’d rather they not keep trying to kill you.”

"Yeah...I'm gonna go with a firm 'Aye!' on that one. So Joshie-poo, do your special mind fucking thing--Joshie-poo?" Toni's none too pleased to see Josh holding his head while curled into the fetal position. "Um...is there a psychic in the house by chance? I kind of like my students lithe and nubile, not cringing and dying."

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

After a few moments, the pain emanating from Josh’s skull drops to tolerable levels and he opens his eyes. Wow, that was fast. After he’d broken Emma’s mind control over Sue, they’d gone from being in serious trouble (read this: catastrophic atmospheric ignition) to being totally in the clear. This last he assumes from the grateful look on Sue’s face.

Can you repeat whatever it is you did with me, with them? I’d rather they not keep trying to kill you.

>Um...is there a psychic in the house by chance? I kind of like my students lithe and nubile, not cringing and dying

Well, there’s a start, I guess. Josh slowly slides into a sitting position as Toni approaches. “I’m going to need a second. My head is killing me. Emma Frost doesn’t like it when people get the best of her.” After a few moments, Toni’s words sink in, probably due to the scrambled-feeling the majority of his thoughts were still in. “…Nubile?”

Josh slowly staggers over to the couch, which has burn marks all over it. “I can’t do it alone. She’ll be expecting it this time, and she’s way more powerful than I am. Which means I need to get ahold of Jake.” Josh stretches his thoughts out from New York, zeroing in on the Institute in Westchester County.

…Yoda? I need your help. He catches the faint amusement at the nickname, but quickly Jake’s mind grows serious, even worried, when Josh relates the events thus far. We need to prevent her from taking over again. The last thing we need is for them to start trying to kill us, especially with whatever’s happening with Johnny Storm. Josh catches assent over the telepathic link.

Erm…right, of course. Let’s see what I can do from here… Jake begins shoring up the Fantastic Four’s mental defenses. Josh tries to help where he can, but truthfully he’s not entirely certain of most of what Jake’s actually doing - he’s working far too fast. You’ve got to teach me this at some point…

As the procedure comes to a close, Josh catches a final mental burst from Jake. Patience, Padawan. You’ve come a long way in a short time. The link closes, but not before Josh feels a distinct mental giggle at the silly titles. He opens his eyes.

“Okay. She shouldn’t be able to pull a Carrie on you guys without a lot more effort, now.” The telepathic exertion, coupled with the residual damage from Emma, leaves him feeling like he could sleep for a few years.

Sue picks through the rubble and moves towards the seating area. “Thank you, all of you. What I’m not quite sure of is why Emma Frost decided to take control of us…”

Behind her, the temperature begins to rise as Johnny Storm slowly begins to regain consciousness.



(OOC: Jake NPCing okayed w/ Py, kids. Don't try this at home!)

[Bobby Drake]

Robert nods in satisfaction as their last erstwhile opponent falls to the floor unconscious, and joins the group as Joshua Dalton reinforces their mental defenses.

"Excellent. I recommend relocation: if Emma Frost has had you under her control for any length of time it’s entirely possible she has planted explosives or other fall-back devices in this – " he cuts off as the temperature starts to climb again, far more rapidly this time.

Robert isn’t quite sure how he’s doing it, but he can feel himself shaping his desire to know just what’s going on into a remote cybernetic agent that, once uploaded into the Richards’ computers and allowed to run free on their database, begins to calculate likely outcomes. Meanwhile, the rest of Susan Storm’s team is recovering from their temporary unconsciousness, their expressions showing a combination of disorientation and horror as they work through recent events with now-cleared minds.

Her brother is a special case, however – his expression is more agonized than anything else as he awakes and bursts into flame again, apparently without volition. Within seconds the space around him is intolerably hot, and getting hotter. He is clearly trying to get to his feet, perhaps to fly out of range, but equally clearly unable to.

Robert reaches technopathically into the Baxter Building’s controls to activate sprinkler systems, atmospheric control systems, emergency alarms, everything useful he can find – but it has little effect – the water and fire-retardant sprays simply evaporate before they reach his body. Not only does the temperature keep climbing, uncontrolled bursts of superheated plasma are flying randomly across the room.

"Sis, I can’t… hold it back… for long! GET OUT!" His voice is more like a roaring flame than anything produced by a human throat, but there is no questioning his sincerity.

Susan Storm hastily erects another shield around her brother, but recent events have clearly weakened her -- it barely dims his incandescence, and she staggers with every plasma strike against her shields. ” I hate to say it, but he’s right. Emergency evacuation, right now!”

Robert turns on his heel and heads towards the elevator – then stops short as his analysis agent returns its results. "We have less than five seconds to evacuate! There’s no – correction: there’s exactly one way!" He turns back and heads towards the broken window.

He hesitates for a moment when his remote agent downloads additional root cause analysis on Jonathan Storm’s condition, and he realizes it applies to him as well. He wants to turn on Richards’ then, challenge him – how could the man possibly have justified distributing his Mutant Growth Hormone when he knew it would kill its recipients?!? – but his anger and outrage and fear of death are counterproductive; they interfere with both rational analysis and the efficient use of his new abilities.

Fortunately, it takes no more than a moment’s error-correction to purge them. Unfortunately, that doesn’t immediately help. He’s not at all sure how they’re going to get down safely when Joshua Dalton is the only one of them who can fly, but he’s quite sure it’s their only remaining option.

[N.P.C]

Reed Richards, Henry McCoy

Reed gets dazedly to his feet, trying to make sense of the last few minutes… and, for that matter, the last few weeks. Now that Henry’s young telepath has freed him, he realizes with shock and no small amount of horror that attacking Henry and his friends is the least of the atrocities he’s committed since his mind was suborned. How could he have distributed his Mutant Growth Hormone when he knew –

> "Sis, I can’t… hold it back… for long! GET OUT!"
> ”I hate to say it, but he’s right. Emergency evacuation, right now!”
> "We have less than five seconds to evacuate! There’s no – correction: there’s exactly one way!"

It takes Reed no more than a moment to work through the situation in his mind and realize the boy is approximately – no, exactly! – correct, and there’s no time to waste in discussing the issue. He’s sure his elastic body can survive the fall… but what about the others? Given time he could probably form a “safety-net” capable of protecting the others… but there is no time.

So he makes a snap decision – he’ll rescue who he can and count on the others to find their own ways to safety. The nearest candidates are Henry and the iron-clad woman, Toni… and Reed is not at all certain of his ability to stay airborne with her mass in tow, so Henry it is. “The boy’s right, Henry: we have to evacuate quickly. Trust me, old friend; I’ll explain everything later.” He wraps both arms around a skeptical-but-cooperative Henry’s waist and launches them both out the window, putting as much distance between them and Johnny as possible before stretching his body out into a huge flat surface, a gliding wing that brings his terminal velocity down to something they should both be able to survive unharmed.