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Cyclops cursed, and this time it had nothing to do with the injury his arm had taken.
"Repeat multiple targets inbound," Rogue said her voice clip and crisp despite her southern twang. We got about 12 or 15 uniformed toughs moving in on the right. A few of them are larger than normal humans, but other than that I can't make out any other features. Some kind of porcelain mask or something covers their faces, and I think they're wearing dark blue or purple but I can't tell in the dark." Night goggles were food for seeing in the dark, not so good about color.
"We've got incoming on my side too!" Spyke said quickly. "At least three, dressed in the same uniform minus the masks. One of them looks as large as Colossus, the other one is… really weird looking. Gray skin, I can see that even in the dark, and someone else that looks as if he's got some kind of rocket pack on his back. Yep, he just now took off, into the air." Indeed the boo of a rocket launch could be heard even in the house. "I think we can kiss any attempt at anonymity goodbye boss!"
Cyclops thought furiously and began to bark orders. "Vanguard, can you take that sniper under fire?"
"Affirmative," the answer came back calm and clear, an ocean of professionalism in this sudden combat.
"Do it. Keep the sniper under fire until I'm clear, then switch over and see if you can help Spyke, you're in charge over that end. Shiang-Chi, move back through the forest to take them from behind." With his disdain for ranged weapons Shiang-Chi would be at a severe disadvantage against armed opponents unless he could close. "I'll move in to help Rogue, then whoever finishes first can come to the aid of the other." Even as he said this the distinctive "FZZARK!" sound of the plasma rifle sounded in the evening air outside.
Cyclops turned to the Guthries and Colossus. "Colossus head out now, meet up with Spyke on the left. My bet is those two girls that were in here will meet up with trio that is already approaching from that side. Rouge and I will finish off their other troops and join you." He looked over at the downed Empath, and asked the Guthrie matron. "Do you have anything we can use to tie him up with?"
She frowned angrily, still crouching behind Colossus' metal legs. "What the hell is going on?!"
"It turns out that the professor isn't the only one who knows Ah'm a mutant mama." Sam said. "The guys shootin' at us want to recruit me for something a hell of a lot worse than just figurin' out how to control mah powers and maybe using them to help others. This one," Sam said kicking the downed empath in the side. "Did something to us, which made both Paige an' me think it was a good idea tah listen to him and maybe even go with 'em. Cyclops interrupted that." Paige in particular shuddered a little.
"I'd love to stay and chat," Cyclops interrupted as more plasma shots rang out outside. "But right now I have two quick questions: would any of your neighbors that might hear all this come to help or call the police, and are you two willing to stand and fight?"
That last was directed to Sam and Paige, and both of them got bullish expressions on their faces. No one had ever said a Guthrie backed down from a fight before, and neither of them was going to do so now.
With an apologetic glance at her mother, Paige began to peel off her outer skin, wincing not in pain but because it looked a little gross, and she didn't like showing it to either of these young men. The peeled skin revealed underneath a metal body much like Colossus, though she had to some odd contortions to peel the skin off and keep her cloths on at the same time.
Sam simply grinned, reaching into a pocket to pull out a pair of clear glasses. He didn't really need them, since his force field kept the wind from bothering his eyes, but he thought they looked cool. "What do you want us ta do, sah?"
Their mother glared at both of them and shook her head. "Police? Out here? You must be joking, we've got two deadbeat sheriffs, that's it. As for the neighbors, they might, if the fight goes on long enough, but sound doesn't travel far in these woods, so it'll take a bit. And as for you two…" she glared at her kids but shook her head resignedly. "Come back safe, you hear? I'm not going to have to bury you next your daddy, understand?" Both kids nodded.
By this point the other two Guthrie children had recovered from their fright, and with Shadowcat following them came to look for their mother both of them wearing expressions of fear as the sounds of combat resounded outside. They stopped and stared at their sister however, now clad in metal, and their brother who was hovering a bit off the ground as his powers activated.
Cyclops nodded. "If they get involved, we'll deal with it as we can, hopefully by that point we'll have made the fact that were here to defend you all clear enough. Paige, you head left when we get out the doorway, you're with me and Rogue. Sam, overhead watch, knock their flier out of the sky then head to the right, see if the team on that side needs any help."
Sam grinned cracked his neck and with a roar took off from his standing start slamming out of the room in a plume of fire coming from his legs. Soon he was moving as fast as if he had been shot out of a cannon.
He was followed swiftly by Colossus, who only took a few shots from the dark of the forest before he was in among the woods on the right side. Rogue hadn't been able to intercept her group before they got within gun range of the house unfortunately.
Paige and Cyclops rushed out as well, with Cyclops stopping to lay down some cover fire as bullets began to rip up the ground around them from where they were rushing toward. They had also spread out, making her unable to cover the entire axis of approach.
Two of them made the mistake of coming out of the woods to try and take Paige from the side, but Cyclops blasted them off their feet. He had taken the time to switch his visors setting to a more lethal punch so rather than simply blasting them off their feet, both men were smashed back in a welter of blood and burned flesh.
Paige had reached the woods, slamming as fast as she could into one of the larger bruisers coming out of the woods. The thing had been wielding a large side pumped SAW of some kind, but she crushed it with one punch. Along with making her skin metallic, she also gained much of the strength of the metal form. After a series of punches one punch slammed into the big guy, lifting him up off his feet to crash into a tree. The tree trunk cracked under the blow, and began to fall and there was some cursing behind it as four more men scrambled out of the way.
Paige now felt bullets slamming into her, but she ignored them confident in her metal body's ability to take the punishment.
The man she had just punched got to his feet woozily, but a thin arm grabbed him by behind, gripping his shoulder and tossing him further into the woods. "Ahm Rogue, you must be Paige."
"That's me." Paige grinned, flashing the older girl a peace sign. "So what do we do, just smash as many of these bastards as we can?"
"That's the plan sugah, but there's more of 'em than I thought. Lets stick together okay, just in case they've got somethin' we can't face alone."
"Good thinking," Cyclops said as he joined them, smacking Rogue lightly on the shoulder to warn her about situational awareness. He ducked under a tree, since he wasn't nearly as bullet proof as the two girls. While his suit gave him some defense against bullets, unless he wanted to be a black, blue and broken bruise tomorrow he had to watch that kind of thing. However he had been trained for things like this, and both Logan and Harry had made certain that he and the rest of his team knew what to do in a night operation. "You two keep together, move in a half circle around the house and take out anyone you see. I'll fade to black and hit them where and when I can. They need to have some kind of team lead too, so if I can take that out their organization goes by-by."
Just as he said that his eye beams lashed out smashing into another of the troopers who he spotted through the woods, sending him lifeless to the ground. "Let's do it!" With that he moved off leaving the two girls to exchange a shrug and then moving in the opposite direction, charging a pack of shooters through the trees, smashing aside anything in their way.
Above them, Sam had found a few drones with guns trying to blast down at the action below. These he smashed out of the sky with almost contemptible ease only to find his air superiority challenged by a streak of someone coming from the right, reminding him of his original job.
The man tried to attack him with two handguns, blasting out at full auto. However, Sam's blast shield didn't drop so long as he was moving, something had a bit of in common with the Juggernaut for some reason. The bullets therefore did nothing but irritate him.
In response, Sam flipped around to face towards the man, boosting towards him as fast as his powers could go.
The man tried to dodge, but he did so too soon, allowing Sam enough time to compensate. Sam wasn't trying to slam his full body into the man, he knew that might kill the man so instead he had aimed for what he assumed was the man's rocket. "CRAck-ooom!" With a boom and the sound of exploding metal and ripping skin, the thrusters that were actually cybernetically molded to his back disintegrated under the impact, while Sam kept on going.
The man screamed aloud in agony even as he began to fall like a stone towards the ground, unable to regulate his mutant power without the thrusters there to guide the propulsion he created. Sam swooped back, reaching out with his hands to grab the man's leg and slow his dissent enough to let him land relatively intact. At this point he came under fire from below, and rocketed back up into the sky zooming around to see if he could find any more targets.
OOOOOOO
Domino cursed as she saw Jetstream fall out of the sky. He wasn't her favorite person really, he and Empath were a little too egotistical for her tastes, but still a team member was a team member. She ducked under another plasma blast, circling around a tree and then leaping up into the branches as silently as she could. That damn sniper was getting on her nerves, and Domino knew they had been moving closer to one another.
She moved silently from tree to tree as the battle continued around the Guthrie house, stopping intermittently to range through her night scope at any target of opportunity she could see. At one point Domino glimpsed a woman dressed in red armor of some kind over a brown and yellow suit. She took a shot at her, only to watch it bounce off the armor without the girl even noticing, but right after she had to dodge another plasma bolt.
Ducking back down to the ground Domino set up the rifle on a high tech tripod based off a new military version of a base defense system that fire on any movement in a 275 degree radius.
With that she jumped to another tree, pulling out a handgun in one hand and a long heavy knife in the other. She kept waiting, watching as the gun was taken under fire from the plasma user and then rushed in that direction as silently as she could move.
"Chyort voz'mi!" Vanguard cursed as he realized he'd been had, and began to divest himself of his latest hide, but was barely able to do so before bullets began to fall in where he had been laying.
A second later he brought his shield out from behind his back, catching the skittering blade his opponent, a woman by her figure, drove at him point first but in a fit of bad luck for him it skittered along the edge as he couldn't. The blade caught right above one eye, cutting a thin but deep cut there.
"Yob tebye suka!" He cursed again as the blood began to fall into his eye blinding him but he kicked out at the same time catching the rather attractive woman, from what he could see in the dark anyway, in the leg before she could dance away.
"I've been called much worse than a bitch you Oyobuk!" Domino laughed wildly even as she cursed the man in the dark red suit back. She opened up at point blank range, but Vanguard activated his power grateful that all the training had finally give him some control over it, though he couldn't keep it up for long or bring it up quickly. The bullets spanged off his impenetrable shield.
He raised the shield of the Red Guardian and threw it towards the woman who ducked under it quickly, reaching up after dropping her knife and actually catching it by its strap, pulling it down to use to block his charge.
"Nice try sookin syn!" she muttered, handgun now pressed against his chest as she emptied the clip but even there his shield was between him and the bullets ricocheted directly back into the gun, making it explode, though she was quick enough to drop it before it could take her hand with it.
"Back at you, shloocha!" He grinned as he punched her in the side of the face throwing her way. But even then she was able to recover her balance and kicked out hard catching him in the crotch.
The blow was so strong it actually lifted him up off this feat despite his shield, and he grunted a little thankful beyond words for his mutant power right now. The shield lashed out slamming into his head edge first but his power blocked it again throwing her back off-balance, literally flying off her arm and she cursed luridly.
His shield flickered out just then, his lack of endurance telling at the worst possible time. A kick lashed in, catching him on the shoulder, but Vanguard rolled with it, his hands lashing out to catch and twist the leg.
Domino however had run into sambo users before. She kicked out at the hand holding her leg, catching his wrist and forcing him to let go.
Another exchange of blows followed, but without his shield Vanguard was now getting the worst of it. It was only his own training and the fact he was a good foot taller and much weightier that kept him in the fight, since every exchange seemed to subtly go Domino's way. She would dodge just enough of a punch even when of balance or surprised to not take the full force, while the exact opposite would happen to him.
Domino grinned, knowing she had the young man on the ropes. Pity, he's been well trained, and his power is damn interesting too. Ah well. She spun around, ducking under elbow blow and away kicking backwards as hard as she could, catching Vanguard in the stomach.
Luckily for Vanguard his powers once more sputtered to life, blocking the blow. Vanguard stumbled but didn't drop and his return blow caught her in her thigh. She winced, but rolled away putting some distance between the two.
Out of the corner or her eye she saw a hand suddenly coming out of the dark formed into a chop aiming toward her neck from the right. She desperately dove forward, and once again her 'luck power' aided her in letting her dodge despite the suddenness of the assault. She kicked out only to feel it blocked but she used the momentum this gave her to roll away. She turned quickly, grabbing up her knife from where she had dropped it and holding it along one forearm as she stared at her new attacker.
The man in front of her now didn't wear any kind of suit, he was dressed simply in a red martial arts gi with a line of blue on the sleeves, though his face was marred by a black eye and a major looking bruise on his jaw. He stood there in a Nhất Nam stance, one hand thrust forward the other kept low to protect himself, his body half turned to her presenting her with less of a target.
"What is the phrase, 'tag in', Vanguard? I regret to say that my skills availed me little against the troopers that Rogue has taken to call bruisers, though I was able to take out a few of the regular troopers before this was rather strongly pointed out to me." Regardless of his skill, Shiang-Chi was not bullet proof, nor superstrong. He had in fact disabled the bruiser that injured him by attacking his pressure points, but Shiang-chi had noticed that the man had already sat up by the time he had pushed himself to his feet. Deciding on the better part of valor, Shiang-chi moved off in search of softer targets, and had found Vanguard and the woman dressed in black and dark blue fighting it out.
Vanguard grimaced around what he knew was at least one cracked rib along with numerous other wounds. He hated to admit it, but he had been getting his ass kicked. One hand went up to the cut over his eye, trying to wipe away enough blood to at least see out of it again. "Thanks for the save, giáo sư. You, woman, what is your name?"
"Domino, remember it, xyecoc!" Domino muttered, her eyes flicking between the two young men.
"I will remember it. My name is Vanguard, you remember that, yes?" Vanguard turned to Shiang-Chi, but before he could say anything a howl of pain sounded out past his savior's shoulder. "I will leave you to this, I think I've been overlong getting back to the others."
"Spyke and Colossus will probably need your aid more than the others, go." Shiang-Chi replied. Vanguard got, leaving Domino and the Vietnamese to stare at one another from their respective stances.
OOOOOOO
While Rogue, Paige and Cyclops were basically rampaging through the regular troops the three Hellions were proving a bit more of a match for Spyke.
Beef was a massive boy who was his teams strong man. He was nearly as tall as Colossus, twice as wide, and had a surly disposition, cursing every time one of his blows missed. But he was slow allowing Spyke to dodge his blows and return his own. He was durable, but Spyke knew he could get through to him eventually
The one who introduced himself by morphing his pasty white yet muscled arm into a three barreled gun and firing some kind of green energy at him shouting, "You think you got a chance against Random spikey!" Was more of an issue. His skin seemed to give way under any blunt blows but hardened against cutting attacks. After either there were no visible wounds or anything, and he seemed to be able to change his body shape into a few set mutations, as evidenced by his cannon, which seemed to be his favorite, and the sledgehammer his other fist transformed into randomly.
When they escaped from the Guthrie house, the two female Hellions joined in quickly, with Catseye closing in quickly to aid Beef up close. She was more than a match for Spyke in terms of speed, and the two of them exchanged blows several times in those first few moments, but she couldn't get through his bone armor giving him an advantage there.
She did however pin him down enough for Beef to land a blow upside his head. Spyke winced as his bone helmet cracked a little under the blow, but that was all.
Roulette seemed reluctant to be pinned down to this fight, but when she tried to fade into the dark of the woods Spyke targeted her with a few of his bone bullets. She dodged them, returning fire with black balls of some kind of energy, occasionally throwing black balls at him while hitting his opponents with white ones. Spyke only noticed what they were doing when Beef impossibly was able to Dodge one of his blows because he moved in the correct direction to do so and Spyke tripped at the same exact time.
It was only because he had speed and mobility on his side that Ororo's nephew lasted the few minutes that it took Colossus to slam into the battle. He picked up the girl who was throwing around the odd energy balls from behind before slamming her to the ground face first.
Piotr was a pacifist at heart, and more than a little bit chivalrous but that woman had irritated him quite a lot, and he had been just gentle enough to knock her out rather than permanently wound her with that body slam. He jumped forwards now, moving much more quickly than anyone his size should have been able to, closing swiftly with Meat.
Colossus slammed into the Hellions' strongman throwing him away from Spyke. A quick jab to Beef's stomach made him double over, and a follow up spinning kick sent him flying away before Colossus jumped in front of Spyke to take a few of the odd green bursts of whatever-they-were coming from the older looking strangely lumpy and white skinned fellow. The blast hit him with force, throwing him back slightly on his heels, but that was all. His metal body was well up to the task of taking those blasts, whatever the heck they were. They didn't seem like anything Colossus had run into so far.
The bone user took this opportunity to charge forward, trying to getting in close once more with Random, but Catseye had other ideas. She jumped in growling and hissing to land on Spyke's back. Once there she gripped him with her legs around his waist while she began a spirited attempt to trying to claw out Spyke's eyes, which was the one place he couldn't cover with his bone armor. "Let's see how hot you are without your eyeballs!"
Colossus reached over to try and remove her, but gasped as his face took a few hits from the odd gun of their opponent, this time however he caught a glimpse of the actual gun. Somehow the man had changed the shape of his hand into that of a gun and firing at him with it. At the same time Roulette, clutching her head from Colossus' slamming her into the ground. With two probability balls she shot both boys' feet out from under them.
Taking this opportunity Beef rushed in, concentrating on Spyke along with Catseye, while Random's arms changed into some kind of clamp, pinning Colossus down. "Got you now boy!"
Whether this would've worked for long or not would never be known because at that point Sam and Vanguard arrived on the scene from their own respective battles. Vanguard had taken the time to call Sam down out of the sky for a moment to talk as he raced away from where he had left Domino and Shiang-Chi. The two of them arrived on the scene at that point in a coordinated strike.
Nikolai's rifle fired twice as he ran in, blasting into the side of Catseye and Beef's shoulder. The girl gurgled and was thrown backward in a welter of blood, out of the fight. Beef however simply took it rolling with the blast, cursing as he felt his skin burn, but that was all.
At the same time Sam rocketed out of the air barreling into Random with punishing force slamming the large gray-skinned man down into the ground and then away with a "Wuff' of agony. Before Random could recover Sam had one of his legs between his hand and was rocketing back up into the air.
Random recovered surprisingly quickly from that initial charge. He tried desperately to change his legs into a configuration that would lock onto his captor's hand while both of his arms changed into tri-barreled cannons which blasted away at the rocketing man. This proved ineffectual however since Sam's shield was active since he was in flight. It did blind Sam for a moment, but it didn't stop him from whirling around in midair before he let Random loose to fly away from the momentum. "Have a nice trip, ya hear!"
Back on the ground Colossus had struggled to his feet leaping forward to smash bodily into Beef, bearing him down to the ground before the other strongman could try to get away. Beef tried to fight back, his large ham-sized fists pounding on Colossus, but his metal form was more than up to the task of taking his blows.
On the other hand Beef's brain and face couldn't take the punishment that Colossus dealt out in turn. As one hand held the other muscleman down Colossus wailed on him, landing several quick, hard blows to his face and side of his head, rattling his brain box and pounding Beef's face into mush. He stopped as the other man's struggles ceased. Colossus quickly checked for a pulse, sighing in relief as he found one.
With that done Colossus stood up, quickly moving to the girl who had been shot in the side by Vanguard. Luckily Vanguard hadn't aimed to kill, for some reason the girl had looked a little young to him in the dark, and so he hadn't wanted to kill her. The girl was badly burned on her side, but was alive nonetheless.
Seeing she was alone now against at least three enemies, Catseye used her reflexes to bound up into a tree and away, using the nighttime forest to her best advantage to put distance between her and her pursuers. But Vanguard and the others didn't have any thought of pursuit.
Vanguard moved over to Beef, turning the huge young man over. He could tell now they were this close and with his night vision goggles that the boy was actually a little younger than him, at least his face, what could be seen below the damage Colossus had done, implied that. With Colossus holding the large man's arms behind him as he laid chest down on the ground, Vanguard looked around for something to bind them.
Shadowcat came upon them at that point, gasping a little as she saw the damage that the other girl had taken. She looked reproachfully at Vanguard, but he was already looking up at her gesturing at the two. "If you've got any something that can secure these two, use it. Colossus, Spyke, on me. There's still a battle going on." Through the woods they could still hear the staccato blasts of machine guns, rifles and other weapons, so they knew the battle was still ongoing on the other side.
Struck by a sudden thought, Shadowcat paused even as she reached into her special pouch. "Can I have a have a house-elf's help please?"
With a pop Clare appeared before her smiling brightly, curtsying. "Yes mistress?"
The brunette teen's eyes widened in shock, she hadn't actually thought that would work, but she then shrugged it off as a mystery for later. "Do you think you could get me some burn paste, please?" If she was going to be stuck looking after the prisoners then she would do something about the girl's injuries. Shadowcat knew that was actually a pretty good use of her talents especially since she didn't want to fight and there wasn't any time for her to scout around. Most of the damage to the musclebound boy looked cosmetic in nature, so she'd leave that for later.
As the house-elf popped off Nikolai left the other two off through the woods.
OOOOOOO
There were at least twice as many regular troopers and bruisers than what Rogue had reported, which meant the fight on the other side of the house had dragged on and spread out. Paige and Rogue however were practically immune to the weapons of their enemies, and they ran roughshod over the opposition, but could only be in two places at a time, having split up despite Cyclops wanting the more experienced Rogue to stay with the excitable Paige. This allowed the battle to spread out even as the Hellions themselves went down.
Cyclops had taken the roll of a classic skirmisher, hitting and fading back into the dark, regardless of what the enemy soldiers tried to do to stop him. Even when they closed, his training with Harry and Logan enabled him to match them in hand to hand. Cyclops had just met up with Paige, who had broken off from Rogue, turning back an attempt to get around the house even further to possibly take hostages, when the battle changed.
The noise had brought out the locals and they announced their presence in no uncertain terms. In this area of Kentucky nearly everyone owned a gun, if not for self-defense then for hunting, and all of the locals knew how to use them.
They were aided in this endeavor by a hail of sudden fire coming out of the woods, the staccato 'bang, bang,' of hunting rifles and the 'boom' of a shotgun. This fire took the troopers from surprise in the side after they had turned to fire on Cyclops and Paige. Two of the six regular troopers went down at once, while two more dropped into cover.
The final two had no such chance as Paige was in their faces, her metal fists lashing out to smash them boneless to the ground.
There was a bruiser with this group, and he turned to bring his SAW machine gun to bear on the woods where the hail of gunfire had come from. He ignored the few bullets that smacked into him almost contemptuously even as they struck sparks from his body, something underneath his skin. Before he could however, Cyclops' eyebeams lanced out, slamming into him with lethal force.
The two troopers who had taken cover tried to make a run for it back to their fellows, but Cyclops caught one of them, while the crack of a hunting rifle rang out just once, dropping the other with a bullet to the back of the head.
There was a brief moment of silence there in the woods behind the Guthrie place, even as the battle raged elsewhere. Cyclops and Paige stared into the woods where the bullets came from, with Cyclops trying to spot the group that had opened fire, but finding no sign of them, a startling realization given the night vision setting on his visor, while his body was tense, ready to dive for cover or fire if need be.
This silence was broken a crackling, elderly sort of voice ringing out in tones of censure "Paige Guthrie is that you under that shiny stuff? And what by our holy lord are you wearin' young lady?"
"Erk!" Paige gulped, her hands now trying to cover her body, which still wore the tattered rags of the daisy dukes and tight t-shirt she had put on after being woken up earlier. Despite her body being metal underneath, she knew that wouldn't matter much to the owner of that voice. "Yeah, its me. Um, er, sorry Mister Timmons. Er, this happened so quickly, Ah wasn't able to change out of my sleep cloths."
Cyclops watched as five locals made their way out of various hides, whistling in appreciation at how well they had hidden themselves. After that first group came seven more, with another older man followed by two sheriffs with gleaming badges who moved forward to stare at Paige before flicking his eyes over at Cyclops.
This man though wasn't the one who had spoken up. That was a small, mousy man who looked sort of like a teacher of some kind, who began to remonstrate with Paige on her lack of proper attire in no uncertain terms. It was amusing to see the self-possessed, confident Paige shrink under this verbal assault, but Cyclops had other fish to fry at present.
The old man who strode towards Cyclops was a broad shouldered man with close-cropped gray hair, a trimmed, well-kept beard and a tattoo of some kind visible only thanks to Cyclops' night vision visor. "Tom Lawson, mine manager. Who're you son, and what in god's name is happening here?"
Cyclops had learned a lot on how to read people since that first Danger Room session against Harry, and he sized this man and the locals up quickly. He decided to tell a bit of the truth, It wasn't like he had a choice at this point. "My codenames Cyclops sir, I work for a group that want to take in mutants and help them train in their powers peaceably if we can, but also in self-defense. We were warned that young Paige had activated her power, but ran into another group that tried to abduct her and her older brother, who had already signed on board with us. They call themselves the Hellions from what they said when they tried to convince Paige and Sam to go with them, but they also have a lot of regular seeming troopers with them. I'd say they're some kind of terrorist group."
"It's true Mistah Lawson." Paige interrupted, looking over at the mine manager who had taken a pay cut of his own to help the Guthries along before Sam started to work the mines in place of their father. "One of 'em, he tried to do something to our minds, get us to agree with their sales pitch."
She shivered a little, remembering what else the man had tried to do to her, deciding then and there that maybe she should change her style of dress. Fun as it was to flaunt her body now that she had one worth the effort, it might attract further attention she didn't want to deal with.
"Nice to see some signs of thought in that bubblehead of yours." The mousy Timmons snorted, then touched the ancient single-action hunting rifle that was slung over one shoulder. "What do you think we should do Tom?"
Tom stared at Cyclops, trying to get an impression of the young, he could tell that much from the voice, man behind it, then nodded decisively. "I'm going to believe you for now son, but if you think we're just gonna stand aside and let you take Paige and young Sam away without more than that, you've got another thing coming. For now, let's get it stuck in again."
Cyclops grinned, then tapped his earbud, activating his com gear. "Vanguard, how are you doing on the left flank? We're about to enclose from the right and behind with local partisans, so watch your fire discipline! Now let's finish this!"
OOOOOOO
Shiang-Chi and Domino continued their battle for nearly twenty minutes after Vanguard had left them, though it seemed much longer to both. Hands and feet flashed, smashing into one another with brutal, punishing force, with neither of them gaining the upper hand while the main battle started to die out.
Domino was more flexible, much more aerobatic, able to leap and jump around far better than Shiang-Chi. But he was the better trained martial artist, and in close it was only Domino's luck powers that let her stick around with him. She had lost her knife in the first pass, the man she was fighting breaking it with a kick when he dodged to the side, allowing it to sink into a log rather than his side.
She kept on trying to pull out some of her holdout daggers, more throwing daggers than a her short sword unfortunately, but even there, Shiang-Chi was good enough to keep her from using them. Whenever she tried to get some distance he would close rapidly, sometimes disarming her before she could put fully pull out the knife, other times simply forcing her to abandon the effort.
They were both covered with bruises and wounds here and there, but neither had been able to get the upper hand until finally her luck kicked in decisively.
Shiang-Chi gasped as he suddenly lost his footing for just a second as he tried a high kick, extending it too far for him to recover quickly. Domino ducked underneath the kick pulling out a knife at the same time, slashing upwards into his chest. Even so Shiang-Chi was able to dodge that slash just enough to make it nonlethal, opening a wide gash over his chest, and thundering back with a wild blow had caught her in the side of the head.
He sprang backwards, doing a handstand and flipping himself over, one hand going to his chest as he stared at Domino who had been flung to the side by his punch. She had rolled with it however, and came up pulling out a holdout pistol now that had been strapped to her back, blasting away at him forcing him to dodge.
Domino grinned, pushing forward to continue pressing her advantage, eyes alert as she stared into the woods around her. However at that moment the tiny display on the small monocle that covered one eye pinged at her. Tapping her headpiece she cursed as she noticed that only Random and Catseye's life-signs were still reading as active among the Hellions. Jetstream was still reading as badly injured, Roulette was now reading as injured and unconscious, then faded to dead as her vitals stopped. Beef and Empath were both unconscious.
She changing the display to show her the life signs the regular troopers that had been assigned to her team as backup. Her frown deepened as she noticed there were only five of them remaining, and as she watched they all went out, one after another. Two of them were unconscious joining ten others including two bruisers, while the other three flat-lined, joining the majority of the squad.
Domino scowled, but like any good leader, she knew when to cut her losses, and she opened up the com unit, waiting only a second as the mouth piece extruded itself from her headpiece. "Catseye, fall back to the transport but see if you can loop around in direction where Jetstream went down. Random, see if you can do the same thing, or if not prepare to defend the transport ship, I'll see if I can get Empath out and meet you three there."
"I'm already retreating." The catlike girl's voice was somewhere between a female growl and a cat's snarl. "Beef's down and Roulette is probably dead. She took a shot from that red bastard's high-powered blaster."
Domino nodded. "Understood, just do it." With that, she faded into the gloom of the now near silent forest, throwing as many of the smoke pellets as she could around to cover her treat from her battle with the marital artist. A moment later however she cursed, moving back even further into the woods. There were now a dozen men surrounding the Guthrie place, all of them armed. Those were odds she could have taken on, but she noticed two women there as well, the one clad in metal and the other the one who had ignored her bullet before in the woods. Even as she watched more people came out of the woods, dragging the unconscious bodies of a few troopers.
Damn, Shaw's not going to be happy about that. Empath was important to our ongoing recruitment efforts, without him it will be much harder to convince mutants to join up with us. Still, Domino knew better than to throw good money after bad. She once more silently moved away through the woods away from the Guthrie house.
She toggled her heads up display again and was able to use it to home in on Catseye's position, and the two of them moved through the woods towards where her heads up display told her Jetstream had crashed. They found him burned, battered, and his back maimed from the explosion of his thrusters, but still alive. Catseye and Domino grabbed an arm each, ignoring his groan of agony and began to drag him along to the extraction point.
The team leader was pleased to find Random already there, battered and bruised and nursing what looked like a broken arm despite the mutagenic properties of his arms. "Who the hell did we run into?" he growled. "These guys fought like damn professionals, who else is putting together a team of mutants?"
"I don't know." Domino replied. Professor Xavier had been very good at erasing any hint of the X-Men from anyone who saw them in action, and this had kept them and their powers a secret from most up to this point. Added to this, no one on American soil save for a few SHIELD agents knew about Vanguard and Colossus. A few people in the government knew about Charles running the X-Men, but they didn't even put that in writing, certainly not on any computer or anything else where any of Sebastian Shaw's agents could find information about them. "I don't know, but when next we meet with them, we'll have a much better idea of what they can do."
"Our Intel was off too." Catseye growled. "Whoever these guys are they had already met the Guthries, they were waiting for us inside for fucks sake! Could someone have told them we were coming?"
Domino frowned as the three of them dragged the badly wounded Jetstream into the small VTOL plain they used as a transport. It had much the same technology as Xavier's new black-jet. Though much slower it was even more invisible, and had much more offensive capabilities as well. Domino was actually tempted to take it and bomb the hell out of the Guthrie place in the hopes of getting some of their opponents, but that wouldn't be in keeping with the low profile that they were supposed to try and keep. Of course this entire nighttime battle wasn't exactly very low profile either, but it hadn't been avoidable either, not after Empath went down.
She climbed through main sitting area into the cockpit as Random secured Jetstream into a chair while Catseye took out the small emergency medical kit to see if she could find anything to help him. Soon both of them were feverishly wrapping up every wound they could find, while sticking in an emergency pack of blood, though the prognosis was still very grim for the flyer.
Domino started up the engines, lifting them off the ground. Before she turned the plane away however she chanced a glance back into the main section of the jet. Seeing the two youngsters, and despite what he looked like Random really was young, around college-age actually, were busy, she toggled a few switches in the plane which made a hidden section of the controls iris out from where it was concealed.
Another glance back showed the two teens were still busy with their work, and she turned back. A big red button was the first and easiest for her to hit, but the others caused her to frown, feeling a bit of guilt for what she was about to do. After a second however she pressed the buttons next to the scrawled names of Empath and Meat's names, before once more toggling the controls. As the hidden section once more slid back out of sight, she turned their VTOL away.
OOOOOOO
Shadowcat had been forced to give the badly burned Roulette a potion to put her to sleep since the moment she tried to apply the paste Roulette had woken up from the pain of having her burns touched. The damage she had taken was also worse, and deeper than Shadowcat had previously thought. But the only one of those she had access to was the Draught of Living Death, since it was the only one Harry had brought with him from his old dimension. This moment of serendipity was the only reason her current patient's kill switch was not activated with the others by Domino.
She was just finishing her work when next to Roulette Beef suddenly shuddered, his hands scrambling at his chest as a hoarse scream came from his bruised mouth. She gaped for just a second then scrabbled over to him. It was too late however, the small kill switch that had been embedded next to his heart had imploded, killing Beef almost instantly.
Appalled, Shadowcat backed away, her eyes wide while her hands covered her mouth. She turned quickly, but thanks to the potion couldn't tell if Roulette had been similarly killed. "Clare!?"
The house elf appeared once more, her face wide and beaming once more as the young mistress called for her by name. "Yes mistress?"
"Can you tell me if this girl is still living, I gave her a potion and something happened and, it, I mean that big guy, he's dead! I mean, she's got no pulse, but I don't know if that's because she's you know, or because of the potion I gave her." Shadowcat babbled.
The house elf nodded slowly, looking over at the sleeping woman. "She is fine mistress, she be alive but sleeping deep, very deep. The potion you gave her will be keeping her alive, but stopping all blood from flowing and stuff." As one of the younger house elves, Clare had taken to Ororo's lessons on how to speak quickly, but her general knowledge, especially of potions, was still lacking.
Shadowcat breathed a sigh of relief, thanking Clare profusely for her reassurance, letting the elf disappear once more.
The others soon converged on her position, bringing with them the local partisans led by the mine manager. All of the locals were looking a little wary of the costumed crew, but Cyclops had impressed them with his openness, and Sam and Paige were well known. Though Paige had broken off to dress more appropriately, much to the noticeable chagrin of the younger set of locals.
As they came up Scott was wondering how Professor Xavier was going to want to handle this. He'd made the call on the spot to be up front about what was happening with the locals, but now he was second-guessing himself a little, and worried about what the professor would think. That thought flew out of his mind when he spotted Shadowcat, who was shaking a little as she looked down at Beef. . "Shadowcat!" he said sharply making her look up. "It wasn't anything to do with you! We took a few prisoners as well, and they all died suddenly a few minutes ago. They all must have some kind kill switch or something inside them."
Indeed, in the bruisers' case it went further than that. The regular troopers had the same thing Beef and the other Hellions had, small bombs set right next to their hearts. The bruisers however didn't just have a small bomb surgically placed in them, they had several small packs of incredibly powerful acid placed at certain points of their bodies. It was an incredibly painful way to die, much more so than even the normal method, and it served to erase nearly all the clues anyone could use to figure out where the bruisers had been… modified.
The sight of the girl shivering in place at the dead body at her feet mollified Tom Lawson. Whatever else these kids were, they obviously weren't remorseless killers, which after the battle in the woods was a comfort to him. He watched as the girl with the southern twang named Rogue went over to put her arm around the other girl's shoulders giving her a brief reassuring hug.
Sam looked disconsolate. He didn't like the idea of killing, though he understood the necessity and was willing to do it to defend himself and others if need be. Life was hard here in the mountains of Kentucky, and had bred hard folk. Paige simply shrugged. She wasn't one for deep thinking.
After a moment Shadowcat composed herself and looked around at the others who were talking quietly with a few of the locals going over the bodies of the dead they had dragged here while even more people moved towards them from the Guthrie place, leading the rest of the family. "What do we do now?"
Cyclops, Vanguard and Colossus exchanged glances wondering the same thing. It came as no surprise however to those who knew him when Colossus came up with a sensible suggestion, even if he did have to say it in Russian and have Vanguard translate for him. "This has gotten completely out of hand, there are far too many witnesses, far too much physical evidence. I think we need to call in Guardian. He and Professor X should be the ones to decide what to do."
That made Scott frown a little, knowing that the Professor might erase minds first and ask questions later but there was simply too much physical evidence around for that to have any affect other than making the locals even more paranoid and distrustful. Still he knew it was a decision for the two older men, and he nodded. "I'll get in touch with the Professor, hopefully he and Nightcrawler are finished their task. Can one of you contact Guardian?" He smiled briefly, thinking how apropos the name was for Harry.
The X-men's field commander was able to get through to the professor quickly enough, or at least Kurt anyway. "Nightcrawler, are you and the professor finished? We need the Professor here soonest. This became quite a bit larger than we expected."
Nightcrawler's voice was apologetic, but firm. "We're on our way back, but the professor might not be able to help you right away." Despite his firm tones, Kurt's voice was a little shaky. He was an individual who believed strongly in God and the goodness of man, but in the last hour or so he had seen things that shook that faith considerably.
The two of them had found the target ship, and Nightcrawler had easily been able to make his way aboard. Thanks to Kitty's runic additions to his X-Men suit his bamfing no longer carried that smell of brimstone, and as long as he was careful enough to pop in out of someone's line of sight he could sneak around very easily.
The target was a refugee ship, carrying a group of refugees fleeing from the area between Vietnam and Cambodia, where battles were still going on between pro-communist guerilla groups and the governments of both countries. They had fled to the sea in an attempt to get to the promised land of America, but they hadn't made it out of even the South China Sea before their ship had been boarded by pirates.
Before this event Nightcrawler had a somewhat normal teenager's view of pirates, thinking them honorable rouges who swashed their buckles. Now he knew the truth. The only men still alive aboard the ship were those needed to run it, all of the others had been killed and their bodies had been flung up on deck in preparation to be thrown into the sea after the… festivities… were over. The women had been rounded up, and the group of about fifty or so Pirates had taken turns gang-raping each of them in turn, regardless of age.
Upon finding the bodies stacked up on deck Kurt had become grimly serious and begun his work to kill any of the Pirates that came upon him, but upon finding the women he had immediately begun to massacre the Pirates, using his powers ruthlessly, appearing here, there and everywhere, cutting them down. His swords, gifts given to him by Wolverine before he left the mansion, were literally drenched with pirate blood by the time he was done.
He was surprisingly aided in this by Charles who was still driving the jet in the sky above the ship. The Professor ruthlessly shut down the mind of any pirate that tried to get a bead on Nightcrawler that he didn't see or any of them that were even tempted to try and use a hostage as a shield. Those shutdowns were permanent, he literally liquefied their brains in his fury. Charles was all for giving people a second chance and for due process of the law but there were just some crimes that even he would not forgive.
Kurt would never forget the broken gazes of those women, even as he ruthlessly killed each and every one of the pirate he could find aboard the ship. He had been gripped by a monstrous fury which he willingly let loose on all the pirates. The fight with the Hand had given him nightmares for days. This fight would give him nightmares as well, but not a one of them would come from what he had done, only that he hadn't gotten there sooner.
With the Professor signaling an all clear Kurt began to help the women up onto the deck, flinching occasionally as they flinched from him in turn, though it faded quickly in each with Charles' mentally calming them as Kurt helped them through the bloody abattoir of the boat's interior. Eventually he found the telepath whose scream had brought her to Charles' attention. She held a family resembled to another woman beside her, who looked to be middle-aged. The possible mother had several broken bones, certainly internal bleeding, showing she had fought their captors, but if they got her aid quickly, she would possibly pull through.
The girl was possibly as old as 18, it was hard to tell given her thin body type, with short dark black hair and no broken bones to speak of though bruises aplenty from where her captors had been rough with her during their turns with her. Her mind now was blank, having shut down in self-defense during the ordeal. It remained to be seen if Charles would be able to coax her back to life from wherever her mind had retreated.
Kurt was able to get the two into the black-jet, while Charles called in the position of the ship to the nearest authority using the blackjet's voice scrambler, which in this case was the Vietnamese government. Corrupt it might be, they would still send aid out to the ship, especially since Charles had broadcasted it on every frequency, including ones Japanese and Chinese ships would pick up. Vietnam would rush ships here to help if it meant keeping Chinese interests out of their waters.
After that, Kurt took over the controls of the plane to let Charles begin his examination of the two rescued women. Thankfully the black-jet had a small med bay, which allowed Charles to work on the more horribly battered woman first. The daughter was of more importance to him, but he could not leave the woman's injuries as they were.
It was as they were pulling away that the call came in from Cyclops. Hearing this the team leader frowned sadly shaking his head at what had occurred and wishing by all the gods that these two events had happened at different times so he and the rest of the X-Men could have aided Kurt. He knew intellectually that they still couldn't have gotten there in enough time to do stop what had happened, and that Kurt seems to have handled it as well as he could, but still.
He looked over at Vanguard and the others, relaying in quiet tones what had occurred. Luckily Colossus was eventually able to reach Harry.
OOOOOOO
Jean woke up rather irritably for a few reasons despite feeling the oh-so delicious glow of having her body worked to the limit. Harry was no longer beside her, a situation that irritated her any day since she had begun to sleep in the same bed as he and Ororo. But last night had been the first night the two of them had spent together alone since they had originally got together, and it had been amazing.
First Jean had cooked for them, simple fair since she wasn't as accomplished a cook as Ororo or Harry. Homemade pepperoni, sausage and roasted tomatoes deep dish pizza, salad and fresh-squeezed cherry lemonade had been the faire. The pizza was a major hit, since Harry hadn't yet had the deep dish variety.
For his part, Harry had remodeled the viewing room up in High Note with the same spell he used on their suite in Hogwarts, making it seem as if they had simply strode out and was standing on a floor suspended in space, with nothing else on every side of them save back towards the door. They had spent the entire date there, with Harry simply transfiguring the furniture to suit their needs.
They talked about Harry's plans going forward with the team, bandying about names for said and his potions company. They of course also for his space ventures, going over the enemies the FF had run into, from Galactus to the Skrull. Harry mentioned the blood sample from the Russian magic user, and his worries there, which concerned Jean as well, but the magical aspect not so much. She had been learning to use her telekinesis to block or offset a lot of what magic could do, and her powers were still growing steadily.
From there the discussion turned to sci-fi shows and books, with Jean expounding on some of the ideas developed there, missing Harry's introspective look when she mentioned the Star Trek food dispensers, but Harry listened very intently when she talked about the problems of being in space.
After that Harry transfigured the table and chairs into a sofa and the date continued as such things do, ending with them both once more naked and the two of them having done literally everything but go all the way. As she pushed herself up on one arm, Jean smacked her lips, remembering that Harry had tasted of blueberries and star fruit this time. He had mumbled, while she had her legs clamped around his head, that she had tasted of cherries and oranges for some reason. She looked through her tousled hair to see Harry sitting up, his legs over the side and a pair of conjured jeans covering his legs already.
Rather than a smile and a warm welcome on his face for her, his attention was taken by the receiver he had in one ear. He had been always carrying it just in case during their holidays, and it looked as if something had happened. "All right Colossus, we'll be there presently." With that he pulled away the communicator, putting it down on the bed very carefully. No longer holding the fragile communicator, Harry's hands clenched, magical power sparking from them as he was gripped with a terrible fury of some kind.
Jean reached out hesitantly touching his shoulder. "What happened?"
Soon enough she was as angry as Harry. Still she reached forward and kissed him gently on the cheek, knowing she had to diffuse him somehow from the rage that he had descended into after hearing what Charles and Kurt had run into. "Harry, it's not your fault. Neither of us knew this would happen, and judging from the fact the book didn't warn the others that anything was happening in the Chinese Sea, we wouldn't have been warned about it anyway."
"I know." He replied grimly. "It doesn't make it any easier though. Still, we need to get moving."
"If you want some advice, I think we should handle the stuff in Kentucky low-key. Don't come over governmental, citified or anything like that, I think we should port in someplace close, then take your Huayra up the rest of the way. We need to be seen as human and down to earth, and while the Pagani isn't what I would choose for that kind of thing, it's what we've got. No suit either, jeans and a good shirt maybe."
Harry nodded, putting what happened in the Chinese Sea out of his mind. Charles handled it as well as it could be handled, and I think we can trust him and Kurt to keep doing so. Still, Harry did ask Cory to pop over to the mansion and drop off some of their healing potions. That was all he could do from here really without going himself, and Colossus was right, he or Charles needed to be there for this. With that done he and his redheaded lover got ready for the rest of the day.
Or at least Jean did. Harry used his time to call Ororo who promptly ordered a few house elves to take her over to the mansion herself. She knew she wouldn't be able to fly to meet the black-jet in his sort of time to come to their aid, but Ororo was determined to be there and help however she could.
Seeing Harry so grim Jean knew she needed to get his mind out of the dark places it had descended into after hearing what Kurt and Charles had run into. She could almost see flashbacks of his war against Voldemort going off in his brain, and knew he had to get past this before they arrived. So she decided to not only dress down a bit to appear more human herself, but also to get a rise out of him.
She came back in a pair of her daisy dukes, which were actually longer than the ones Paige had worn into battle, but then again Jean had a better body and longer legs. She also pulled on a very tight, cropped T-shirt, with the words 'Engineers Do It With Imagination' stenciled over her breasts, underneath which she wore a sports bra. Her hair was a wild mane down her back, barely showing any sign of having been combed, and there were visible bite marks and hickies here and there on her neck, legs, and arms. All in all she looked fantastic.
It certainly arrested Harry's attention. "Good God Jean, when you're dressed like that I just want to drag you back to bed!"
She pulled him into a kiss before pulling away hugging him closely. "You were falling into your memories Harry, right now you need to concentrate on the good things, not the bad."
Harry blinked, then after a moment nodded. He kissed her gently on the forehead. "Thank you," he murmured. "You and Ororo, always keeping me grounded one way or another."
"That's only part of the package love, now come on. We've got work to do." After moving High Note over America they flew down in the general direction of Kentucky, eventually homing in on Colossus and the others thanks to Sir Dennis back in Hogwarts guiding them.
"We need a heads up display or something!" Jean growled as they neared the ground, both of them once more covered in one of Harry's Notice-Me-Not's. "I could develop one of those if someone else can do the programming, and we could add them to our head gear."
"Sounds like an excellent idea to add to the battle rattle. We'll be sitting down and talking about that in the near future you, Nikolai, Kitty and me."
"Kitty? Why Kitty?" Jean asked as they alighted on an empty dirt road. This early there was no one around, the sun was just peeking over the horizon, and this wasn't farm country so people got up a little later than would be the case there.
Harry reached into one of his pockets and pulled out the small shrunken Huayra, setting it on the ground and enlarging it quickly. "Because she's probably going to be put in charge of designing most of the runic arrays for it. I have a few ideas, and one or two of them in particular I'll do myself, but I want to see what kind of technomancy you and she can come up with between you."
The two of them got into the car, with Harry driving of course, though Jean quickly took control of the radio turning it to the local country station. "Really?" Harry said dryly. "Really? Do you think country is appropriate for this car?"
Jean smiled happily at this acknowledgment that he was out of his funk. "Yes Harry, it's most definitely appropriate. We are in a hot, fast car on a dirt road. You don't get more country than that!"
"Despite the fact this is a European car?" Harry replied drolly, and kicked it into high gear as they raced along the road up towards the small mining town that was their destination.
By the time they arrived even more of the locals had gathered around Lawson and the two sheriffs. Many of the menfolk had gone through the woods gathering up the dead, exclaiming at the size of some of them and wondering why the hell they looked as if they had been crossed with robots then their robot bits melted. One of the youngsters knew what a cyborg was and tried to explain it to the others, which didn't really go over well to this God-fearing bunch. Anyone who wanted to add metal to themselves like that just wasn't right in the head in the local's opinion. Empath's body had also been removed from the Guthrie house to join his fellows.
The two sheriffs had wanted to call in, but when the youngsters with the superpowers had tensed up at that had decided against it. They could still do it of course, but both of them realized that none of the locals had anything that could really stop Colossus or Rogue. They had watched the Southern girl pick up and throw around tree trunks to get at the bodies underneath, and Colossus had done much the same with even more ease.
Then too, all of the X-men and their allies had gone out of their way to talk to the locals. Colossus in particular had become a favorite of the locals along with Rogue. Rogue's accent was pleasant to the ear, and Colossus was obviously farm boy, a group of individuals everyone there was well familiar with, even if his being a Russkie was worrisome. Scott came off as a soldier, which was even better, though Nikolai who did the same was not as welcome due to his foreign accent and not having his countryman's easy going manner.
Some of them had even brought out food, and despite a little lingering tenseness it was a convivial atmosphere, the locals understanding Cyclops and his team had helped Paige and Sam, both popular youngsters, from being kidnapped, whatever else was going on. Certainly there were a few who were unhappy about their presence, but they were in the minority. This feeling was heightened as coming up the dirt road leading up from the town to the Guthrie place they all began to hear a booming sound.
The car coming up was of a kind that none of the locals had ever seen before, and they all gaped at its smooth lines and the speed of it coming up the road. It stopped just as quickly though, and the country song 'Small town throwdown', which was appropriate which all the locals commented on, was beating out the refrain "We've got a field of daisy dukes, sure we know how to grow 'em" as it pulled to a stop.
Paige laughed and danced in place for a moment as the song blared out, it wasn't blue grass, but it would do. She was not at all put off by what had happened that night, simply having had a lot of fun testing out her new mutant powers. She was pretty much a typical egocentric 16-year-old girl in that manner, and despite the fact that she had killed a few times last night wasn't thinking about it. In the dark of a sleepless night it would come back to her, but for the moment she was still elated at how well she had done and the fact that she might be joining a superhero team.
All the locals gaped at the statuesque redhead that had gotten out of the car. Despite the clothing she wore Jean looked like someone had just stepped out of a Miss America contest, she was just that good looking. "I'm Phoenix." She said walking over and reaching out to shake hands with Paige. You must be Paige Guthrie?"
The younger girl smiled shaking her hand. "Where can I get one of those T-shirts?"
"First you have to actually be an engineer," Jean laughed, then looked over at the others nodding at the people she knew and bowing her head towards the locals she didn't. Sam was still looking at her with a blush on her face, and Scott had taken one look then sighed loudly and dramatically before burying his head into Rogue's neck. Rogue laughed a little at his overreaction patting him on the head.
Despite their various injuries all of the fighters save Vanguard and Shiang-Chi were somewhat elated at events of the evening before. They had faced a numerically superior enemy, many of whom had powers similar to their own and not only survived but defeated them, forcing them to retreat. All of the youngsters were elated at how well they had done, save Shadowcat who simply saw Beef and Empath's dead bodies and couldn't help but be sad. They looked her age for God's sake.
Vanguard on the other hand knew he had lost the one on one contest fight against Domino, as did Shiang-Chi. Neither was happy about it, though Vanguard also knew that the next time they saw Domino she would be better prepared for what they could do. It was never a good idea to let an enemy go like that. Shiang-Chi was simply unhappy that he had lost.
Harry got out of the car after pulling out the keys, cutting of the country station much to the disappointment of a few in the crowd. He moved forward clasping Cyclops's hand, nodding in approval at Colossus and Vanguard. That told them they had done the right thing, and both young men stood a little straighter. While Harry could obviously have handled it better, and would have very much preferred to be on site, Harry also knew that some days he wouldn't be available to lead his team, and they needed experience. He couldn't simply rely on his powers and those of Jean and Ororo, couldn't simply assume they could overwhelm the opposition.
As for the X-Men, they had performed excellently under fire, and this was precisely what he wanted them to be doing, acting on their own as well as they could. He certainly didn't want to be around holding their hands all the time.
"We'll talk about the specifics later." he murmured looking around at the locals who were now looking at him as well as Jean, wondering which of them were the higher ups that the X-team had called in. A few of them were already moving over towards him, probably spokespeople. "But for right now, give me the highlights."
"Other than what Colossus told you sir, we came in as quietly as we could and were able to convince the two local mutants, Sam and Paige over there, of our good intentions." Scott nodded his head towards the two Guthrie's who were now talking with Jean.
Sam was still blushing hotly at the sexy redhead. Certainly he wasn't alone in that, even Colossus and Vanguard had stared at her when she first got out of the car. And all the local men were sneaking glances her way. Rogue, Shadowcat and even Paige were sexy in various ways, but certainly weren't dressed to show it off as Jean was. Paige might have been last night, but it had been pitch black, her body had been metal underneath, and she had quickly changed her clothing after the battle, not wanting to deal with Mr. Timmons.
"After that, the opposition arrived. We still have no idea who they were, they called themselves the Hellions, but that's it. They went with the soft sell at first, we got the drop on them after one of them started to do something to Paige and Sam's minds." Scott was now talking loudly enough for the local trio of leaders to overhear from where they had walked up to stand behind Harry. They were still waiting though. "After we ambushed the first three, the rest of their team moved in, after their leader, or who we think was their leader anyway, she was definitely older and more experienced, shot at me through the Guthries' window."
Cyclops gestured to his bandaged shoulder, which was held against his body by a makeshift splint. Harry nodded, wiggling his finger to indicate he would heal that up later, and the X-men's field leader went on. "Their forces consisted of a platoon or so of troopers, both regular and cybernetically modified, along with three more powered members plus their leader. Vanguard and Shiang-chi both fought her, they said her name was Domino, and that she might have had some kind of, well, luck power or something. They're not too clear on that."
"I see…" Harry nodded. "I'll be interested to see you and Vanguard's AAR." Harry however had heard the name Hellion before from Emma and he frowned looking over the bodies before moving in that direction. He waved Scott and the others to follow him as he moved over to examine the bodies.
The three younger men did, while behind them Shadowcat hugged Jean a little shakily, relating what had happened. The locals had heard this before but it had definitely been a mark in Cyclops and the other's favor that they were willing to take prisoners. After comforting Shadowcat for a few moments Phoenix moved to join Harry, frowning thoughtfully.
The two of them met up and exchanged glances, Jean having made the same connection Harry had. Harry simply looked at one of the bodies and nodded grimly, then looked over at the teens, especially Shadowcat, who he could tell was barely holding herself together. He wished he could care for her now, but he had to deal with the locals first. "I think I know who was behind this. Don't blame yourselves, the man is ruthless in the extreme, and very hard to nail down. If I could I would move against him now, but that's not going to happen. Not unless we can find something incriminating on these bodies to give us a target anyway."
"You're not talking about taking the law into your own hands are you Mr.?" Asked one of the sheriffs. He was fingering his rifle, which was slung over one shoulder by its strap, looking a little poleaxed really. All of this was a little beyond him really but he could understand the gist of what the man with the hot car (and hotter redhead) was thinking.
"I look on laws more as guidelines, like, you know speed limits." Harry replied drolly, which earned him a bark of laughter from all within hearing range. Ignoring that, he looked over at Colossus and Vanguard. "I don't suppose either of you were able to give my sales pitch to young Paige?"
Both shook their heads and Harry shrugged. "Not important, I can do it now. Besides, if this community's as close as it looks the locals should all hear what I'm going to offer her and her family."