The X-Project

Storm leads the first squad against the main transportation terminal.



Prenova was much as Jenny described it; a squat industrial town of barracks, refineries, transmission lines, gas pipes and high fences. Jenny’s team had made the initial attack, flattening a long section of fence and moving through it towards the base and housing complex. That’s where Jenny hoped she’d find reinforcements she could free. Ororo’s team followed, angling off towards the large train station, topped with helicopter pads that served as the only way in and out of Prenova other than on foot. Already, the surprised Magistrates were rallying, running for defensive positions behind which they could lay down some fire at the invaders.

Luckily, this was a situation for which Ororo felt prepared, unlike so many of those they had faced in the past few days. With crisp clarity she gave the orders that scattered the team, making them harder to target as they began to engage the Magistrates, distracting them so that Jenny and her people could begin the difficult task of shutting down the complex.

Subtle, Vance was not. Despite the rifle slung over his shoulders, the younger man wasn’t engaged with the gun in question, but rather left it strapped around his shoulders and back in case things got really, really desperate. But lethal was for last resorts, in Vance’s opinion.

Instead of taking the low ground like the others, Vance took to the high ground, creating a series of floating pink platforms he raced up before he jumped on top of one of the containers and ran along it, a pink shield held in front of him in a half bubble to ward off any incoming fire that happened to strike him as he ran full tilt, drawing fire and attention away from some of the others.

Streaks of neon pink flared into being, picked up smaller objects and flung them in the direction of the Magistrates pulled to following Vance, striking and hitting them-- distractions until Vance could close the distance and slammed into them with the might of his TK shield, driving them back into containers and crates as he made like a bull in a china shop.

Despite her sparring and training sessions with some of the guys over the past few days Layla did not feel the least bit prepared for this. She tried her hardest to stay relatively close to someone she hoped would save her ass when she invariably started to get her ass handed to her. While she knew confidence would really help in a situation like this, Layla was mostly relying on spit and vinegar to get her through mostly unscathed. That and anger. And fear, fear could be useful here.

The teenager ducked behind a large container, hoping if she stayed out of general sight she could use it to her advantage when she had to hit someone. She circled around the back, checked where her nearest help was, and then skittered over to the next container. There she found a magistrate hiding, waiting for someone to pass by so he could strike them with a surprise attack. This meant he wouldn’t be watching his own back and she knew Herr North wasn’t far off.

He was, in fact, right behind her around the corner. North kept his back tight against containers but made little effort at stealth as he drew a jagged path across the area, away from the housing area. There were Magistrates following him, he knew, and he took out those within immediate range of his gun, avoiding direct combat so that he did not give anyone a chance to take advantage of his busted knee and decreased mobility.

The precognitive warning was almost too late, likely because the hidden Magistrate had changed his mind at the last moment, and North spun on his heel only quick enough to dodge a blow to his head. Metal connected with metal and the German was forced to drop his gun, unable to reach for the other holster when the Magistrate swung his baton at him in quick successive blows. Dodging and hissing when the larger man managed to land a hit, North kicked out at his legs and grabbed a beefy arm, twisting it with a snarl.

The magistrate rolled out of the arm hold but not quickly enough to keep his legs under him. He went down but he aimed to take his opponent with him. The baton was quickly closing in on that injured leg when a hand came from behind in, sweeping the arm to the side and down. Layla wasn’t really sure what to do with him once she had him there but she figured thinking wasn’t really going to be that useful with her immense lack of knowledge. Turning her brain firmly off, the girl stepped back and pivoted just barely in enough time to miss the magistrate twisting and coming at her with something in his hand that she couldn’t see.

North subconsciously adjusted his actions such that they would not conflict with Layla’s, splitting his attention between real-time and the scene in his head. He intercepted the arm aimed at the teenager, even as she pivoted to avoid the would-be blow to get at the Magistrate’s legs. This time, North succeeded in disarming the other man, teeth bared in what could pass off as a grin as the slight girl drove her fist into the man’s solar plexus. As the Magistrate doubled over with a grunt of pain, North swung the baton, allowing momentum and its subsequent impact to crack open his skull.

As North was cracking skulls and Layla was punching like a champ, Adrienne was covering them from another container at their five o’clock. She’d Read the first of the two handguns she planned on using (there was also a rifle strapped on her back and for a split second she lamented the fact that Vanessa wasn’t here to see her) and had determined that this was a good position for her to provide cover fire, since no one she knew had been killed in any of the six Readings she’d taken (she’d been shot in one, North in another, but all in all, she liked the odds.) “Watch your back!” she called out to North and Layla as two Magistrates approached from behind them. She aimed and fired as calmly as she could, hitting one in the shoulder and the other in the torso.

Reacting to both the yelled warning and the picture of a dead teenage girl in his head, North swept his handgun off the floor and pushed his blond charge behind him, swiftly lodging the two remaining bullets in the cartridge into the heads of the two charging bulls. When their still bodies hit the dust, he handed Layla the bloodied baton to use as a weapon and reloaded his gun, cocking his head at Adrienne as his hands worked. “We’ll make a master marksman out of you yet,” he remarked with something akin to amusement. “You might want to come move from there, though.”

"But then who's gonna cover the asses of Zombie Roadkill and yourself?" Adrienne answered teasingly, hitting another approaching Magistrate in the chest from her position as the soldier tried to approach from around the other side of Layla and North's position.

Paige paid little attention to the exchange of bullets, a few strays glancing off her metal husk and with a stroke of luck, hitting one of the members of the small group of Magistrates she was dealing with in the arm. His gaze flickering down to the streak of blood, Paige swiftly looped her hands around to the back of his neck, yanking him down onto her impending knee. It was so nice having a team she trusted to take care of each other.

Even as Adrienne gave covering fire from on top of her container, Vance made his way to another, crouched down and waiting. His hand swiped away a small trickle of blood from his nose, and he lashed out with his TK, upending a Magistrate turning to fire on his team, sending them spinning away as he made to assist Adrienne with the covering fire, so to speak.

Everything was all going to plan, and as her team corralled the Magistrates and pushed them back Ororo felt a wave of pride in what they had accomplished under such dire and drastic circumstances. She was just about to shout orders to regroup when she sensed a wave of heat and pressure roiling in from the west, the very ground shuddering as if to announce the arrival of some slouching behemoth. She turned, and through the shimmer she could just make out two figures, one dressed in the suit of a mutate, her very steps licked by flames. Oh no. No, no no...

And then the burning began.