The X-Project

Strike team one joins strike team two attempting to contain the Guard, who are starting to overrun them.



Jessica cursed, her vision even more crimson as she hit the ground once more. Her body ached, invulnerability or not. Her head swam and she looked up to see the member of the Imperial Guard grinning at her. She cursed and coughed, looking around with bleary eyes. Fuck, she needed help.

Though Ororo had been safe from the worst of the effects of the Guard while aloft in the air, it meant she had a bird’s-eye view of the carnage being wrought below her. The sight of not one but two of her companions writhing in pain was enough to cause her to drop back to the ground, sending on onslaught of icy sleet towards their opponent in an attempt to at least distract her, if not incapacitate her completely.

It took a few moments for Logan to realize that the ringing in his ears wasn't just in his head. It was from the red skinned asshole attached to him like a tumor punching his face in with unholy glee. One misshapen clawed hand aimed for his face and Logan sliced upwards with his claws. The smile that crawled across his face was far from pleasant. He was back in the fight.

He bucked hard to dislodge the rest of the red knobby blob that was attached to him. This was when claws on his feet would really come in handy. He could make out a head and arms, which he sank his claws into hard and fast. The flesh around his claws swelled and hardened into a tough shell like texture. Hobgoblin shoved back from him and landed on all fours several feet away where several additional protrusions rose and swam across his back. Were those wings forming?

Logan rolled to his feet and shook his head, swiping at the blood covering his skin. He'd deal with that later. Right now, he needed to figure out what the hell this ugly thing was and how to take him down. He darted forward and slashed at the thing only for his claws to deflect off hardened skin. He circled around to chop at the half formed wings and was fascinated to see his claws cut through them like butter. Hobgoblin howled in pain, twisting to protect vulnerable flesh and sinking talons into Logan's gut as leverage to shove him away.

As the earsplitting sonic attack on Logan ended, Callisto felt her own pain lessen somewhat. She was still as good as deaf, head ringing both from the noise and from Titan’s backhander, and would be for some time, but her other senses would make up for that and at least she could pay attention to the matter at hand.

Meanwhile, the Matter in question had, well, gained rather more matter. Broader than ever, the now-giant had lumbered over to where Callisto had been tossed by his last punch and was now swinging one of those medicine-ball fists for another go.

Springing to her feet, Callisto moved right into a dodge, ducking the fist and skirting round to flank Titan. A leg kicked out - not fast, but faster than one might expect someone of such a size to move, and Callisto was forced to back-up, reaching for the knives from her thigh holsters to replace the ones that had been thrown from her hands by the punch she took.

Jessica flew upwards, dodging Hardball’s latest bounce in her direction. She was battered, bruised, and on the verge of crying in frustration.

‘No matter how hard I hit this sonovabitch he keeps getting back up.’ She thought as she floated upwards. The man below her could bounce, but he couldn’t fly. He had to wait for her to come back toward the ground, an advantage that Jessica was willing to exploit. Suddenly, pain exploded across her back as something struck her and she struggled to maintain her altitude. She turned to see another member of the Imperial Guard grinning down at her. The man’s hands were surrounded by a strange, dark energy, and Jess cursed loud and long in response.

“How many of you motherfuckers are there? Well, you just sealed the deal buddy. There’s officially going to be one less of you when I get my hands on you!” She screamed as she launched herself at her foe.

However, Jess’s advance toward Kal-dipta and the swirling mass of Darkforce pooling in his fists only made the shaded Guard member grin wider. It became apparent why in the last ten feet of her collision course as the distraction provided enough time and loss of height for Hardball to properly gain the intercept course he needed. Jess only got a blurry look at Hardball in the reflection of Black Light’s sunglasses before impact, but not the impact either flyer was expecting.

A leather-jacketed blonde man met Hardball with a flying kick seven feet below the aerial battle. There was no rebound between the two, however, as Longshot gripped onto the Guard member’s loose clothing and followed him to the ground. They landed with a thud, Arthur rolling to his feet to greet Jessica with a wink before he launched into a back handspring to dodge Kulanch-Gol as the bouncing man worked to recover his squandered momentum.

Longshot tucked into a reverse three sixty vault over what had once been a roadblock, and beckoned the rubber man. "Let's dance, Bollywood."

The cavalry was here.

Remy followed up Longshot's charge with a spread of cards. The assault drove them back a bit, allowing them to regain their footing.

Somewhere between getting slammed into another wall and Remy's arrival Wade actually spotted the asshole who kept flinging him around like a rag doll. He let le Beau's flashy cards cover for him for the single moment necessary to actually figure out what the hell was going on. And then he had it.

The guy was siphoning energy from his own people, but it didn't look like any of them were upset about it despite the fact that they were all bleeding. He could just vaguely see the energy being absorbed by the Guard and then - then he was ducking because the almost invisible energy had been redirected and was coming right at him. Again.

Cammie came in after, saving her energy by a quick walk, not a full out run. At least not until the last moment. When she did take off though, she was quick and right down to business. Her business being conducting with her fists. Fighting was where she felt alive and it showed. It was also a release of anger for her as well as toxin and right now, Cammie had a lot of anger to release.

Jessica smelled her hair singe as a blast from the Guard member above her grazed the side of her head. She didn't give two shits about her hair, but she was stressed and ready for a fight. She glared up at the man above her, before she gave a passing glance down to where Rogue was still struggling to battle against the living sandpit she seemed to have found herself pitted against. Jessica's smile was practically Grinch worthy as an idea formed in her mind. She rocketed upwards, toward Blacklight, moving at an incredible speed. She flew in a zigzag pattern, doing her best to make herself a hard target. She rounded over Blacklight's head, tapping him with just enough force to make it sting.

"Come on you motherfucker! Is that all you've fucking got! Bouncing boy down there did a better job of kicking my ass!" She taunted, rocketing downward. It was all she could do to stay confident and hope that the guard member took the bait.

"Jean is clear." Remy's voice came over the comm. "It's time to get de hell out of here."

"I want everyone to regroup!" Ororo instructed, trying not to let the relief show in her voice. "Pair up and neutralise the Guard in preparation for retreat."

Callisto ducked another swinging fist, and gave a short nod. "'Kay, we're done here," she muttered, and feinted in one direction before lunging into a forward tumble between Titan's legs as he stepped to follow. Swiping both arms out as she righted herself, Callisto then sprung to her feet and turned, waiting. Facing away from her, Titan's eyes widened. A moment later, he was crumpling to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut - which was, as it turned out, almost exactly what had happened. Having cut both his hamstrings, Callisto now surged forward as he fell, climbing his body as it pitched forward and plunging one dagger neatly down into the back of his neck, severing his spine.

Rogue was quickly wearing down. This weaving and flying business for little progress was ridiculous. She needed to make a strong enough impact to scatter the material so a punch or two could finally put him down. ‎

Checking around, she saw Jessica battling with an equally difficult foe. "Jess! Toss it my way!". If she timed it right, the enemy would smash right into hers, causing enough of a scatter that Rogue could finally knock him out.

Jessica nodded both to herself and to Rogue as she led Blacklight closer to her. She stopped abruptly and flew upwards, moving behind Blacklight as she did so. Her hand shot out and wrapped with a vice like grip around her opponent's neck. She held him tightly, but not too tightly, before she arched her arm back. The man struggled and protested in her grip, but Jessica steeled herself before she hurled him forward. She watched him whiz the short distance toward Quake, confident that she'd hit her mark

And did it ever hit. Atta girl, thought Rogue, pr‎oud of her girl. The impact caused enough of a surprise that Quake lost control of his sand. Taking full advatage of the opportunity, Rogue delved deep inside to get access to his powers fully, and coated her fists in a few layers of his own silica matter. Acting as boxing gloves, she pummeled her opponent senseless, leaving him in a heap next to Blacklight.

Turning, she gave a thumbs up to Jess.

Cammie was still fighting. It was an odd place she was in, starting to actually feel tired and worn down and not wanting to fight. Which was the first sign that things were bad, learning when you couldn't win was a survival tactic that had served her well in the past, but cutting and running here meant people were going to die.

"Fuck," she muttered.

"Fuck," Cammie repeated. It might make her a coward but she was leaving, though she never think her life was worth the life of others she wasn't going to try to talk anyone out of a decision that would let her live to see another day and if that made her a horrible fucking person, it made her a horrible fucking person. It didn't take much to get her to where she was standing close to Callisto.

"So, fuck this party. Fuck this party and the horse it road in on."

Wade heard the call for retreat through his earwig and rolled to his feet. He dodged another concussive blast. As he took shelter behind one of the few remaining columns, he took another moment to go over the information he had on the creeper throwing siphoned energy at him.

It looked like the pale dude with the ridiculous fingers was pulling directly from the people around him. Theoretically, he needed the energy to be like, alive. You had to be living to create energy, your synapses quite firing their little electric pulses or whatever when you croaked.

Thus, also theoretically, taking out the energy source... would require that the energy source be less... alive. He caught sight of Arthur rebounding back and forth on the field, somehow avoiding the little bouncy dude and all the other powers related fiascoes going on out there.

"Hey, Longshot," he shouted, making himself visible for just long enough for the other man to see him. "Get over here real quick!"

Arthur was in the middle of a conversation.

"The thing I don't get about Bollywood, Bollywood," Hardball lunged aggressively in a blur, "Is why it hasn't been bigger in the States. Ridiculous stunts. Dancing. Beautiful --" He paused mid floor routine, turning to face Wade's direction. Hardball's hyper-accelerated punch hit air, and the man's momentum carried him forward and away. Arthur frowned, turning his gaze to follow.

"I'm in the middle of a thing."

"Yeah, but I have an idea for a different thing and Ping-Pong over there'll wait," Wade called, gesturing for Arthur to move. "C'mon, real quick." He was working on a time limit. He thought. Maybe.

The other man shrugged and walked across the open area toward Wade's cover without a stray bullet or energy blast grazing him. "Okay. Shoot. But not literally."

Wade waited until Arthur was close enough and then turned and shot a few bullets in the pale, creepy dude's direction before sliding into position behind the other man.

One bullet ricocheted off a downed piece of steel girding and hit an ISF soldier right between the eyes. Another soldier, reaching for the first, stepped into the second bullet and went down with a brand new hole in his heart. Yet another man, blood running down his arm from his willing offering to Zenith, ducked behind a steel drum of some sort, tripped, knocked it over, and essentially fell face first into the third bullet. Peeking over Arthur's shoulder, Wade said, "You are my favorite," as he started shooting the other ISF soldiers.

Longshot sighed long and hard, pressing himself against the inside of pillar with knives primed for any advancing attackers. "Reassure me that you're not just using me as a rabbit's foot."

"I'm not just using you as a rabbit's foot," Wade said, pausing just long enough to reload both his guns. "I'm also using you as a shield. And a potential backup weapons system if I go down - hey, did that bouncy dude just get stuck in that thing over there?"

They shifted together, guns and knives, to allow Arthur to get a better look at Hardball.

Deadpool was correct. In Hardball's ricochets, having been previously forced to the corner of room where Zenith held his hostages, the bouncing man had hit an importune angle and gotten himself wedged between a defensive barrier, a doorway, and what looked to be a half-closed, half-dented blast door. He also blocked the inflow of ISF soldiers.

"Well then. 99 problems and a ..."

They rolled again as a concussive blast whooshed overhead. A smattering of debris fell from the ceiling.

"What is that guy's deal?"

"Energy projector sort of, I think," Wade said. "Looks like he uses blood. Trying to lessen the number of people supplying that. Looks weird, right? All... pale and creepy. What's he even use those fingers for?"

At this, Zenith grabbed a passing solider and used his claws to rip a gash in the man's arm to supplement his dwindling number of volunteers.

"There's that," Arthur supplied unhelpfully. He threw a knife at the security panel near where Hardball was hard-pressed, and sparks flew as the door stopped moving completely form where industrious soldiers had been working to resolve the Guard's plight. Bollywood was looking pale.

"So the plan is to liberate his hostages?"

"Uh," Wade said, pausing as he lined up another shot. "Well." He almost agreed with Arthur purely to get things done, but then - he couldn't lie to Arthur. It'd be like lying to a puppy and withholding a delicious treat from it. "Not exactly."

Arthur rolled his eyes, and his left eye flared bright. "Speed then. Cover me."

At that, he rolled from the pillar into Zenith's line of sight.

So Wade covered Arthur even though... it didn't... seem like covering him was entirely necessary. He shot around the other man, took out an ISF soldier coming up in his blind spot, and waited to see what Arthur's plan turned out to be.

"Plan" was likely generous, as Longshot merely launched himself at the white-masked man with a generous helping of knives. To say Zenith was caught off guard was a bit on an understatement, and Arthur's continual rolls and side movements made getting a clear blast off very difficult.

One blast. Another ISF volunteer down. Messily. Arthur closed the distance.

A second blast. Wilder. A portion of the wall taken out.

Arthur gripped Zenith's mask and did a 360 turn against the newly freed debris and knocked the man off balance. A horribly wild, powerful concussive blast pulsed upward only to send boulders and debris down up Zenith's remaining blood donors.

Wade couldn't help grinning. "I wanna take you on all my missions," he called to Arthur even as the walls and ceiling settled.

Logan wrapped himself around the arm Hobgoblin had buried in his gut and held on tight to keep from being thrown. "That's it, bub. I've had it with you and your shitty friends givin' me the day from hell. I'm puttin' you down and you're gonna stay down."

Hobgoblin slammed him into the ground several times with no avail then finally resorted to turning his skin slippery. Logan slid free and immediately started slicing away parts of Hobgoblin in a constant whirl of flashing claws.

Zenith shook off Arthur's attack, staggering to his feet. The only target close enough to him was the green haired girl, and he leapt at her almost on instinct. She was turning as he landed beside her, only to be staggered by a punch that nearly broke her cheekbone. As she reeled, he grabbed at her, claws shredding her shirt over the one shoulder pulling up furrows of blood as the other grabbed her bare throat.

"Hey, fuck face, LET ME GO!" Cammie shouted, releasing as much toxin as she could both into the air and into this guy's skin where he grabbed her. What happened next was something that had never happened before. Shit exploded, knocking her back on her ass, singing her hair and leaving a toxic smelling hole in the ground. Cammie's was seeing double and tried to get back to her feet, convinced since she was in one piece (if not shocked and burnt) that this asshole would be too. The ringing in her ears made it impossible to hear anything and she stumbled around, fists up.

"Nice try, asshole! I'm still here! Come and get some!" she yelled, barely able to hear herself.

Powers interactions were a fascinating topic. Also a potentially explosive one. The toxic gas formed by Zenith and Cammie's combination would've been almost a boon in the right situation - but not with so many of their own people in its path. It was longer than Ororo would've liked before she was able to whip up a wind to sweep the gas away with a gust of wind, but hopefully before anyone suffered its ill effects.

Jessica grinned as Rogue finished off the sandman wannabe. Her confidence grew as the man collapsed next to Blacklight and she attempted to telegraph this to Rogue. Before she could open her mouth to say anything, however, the sound of rushing air reached her ears. It was familiar to her and reminded her of the sound a body cutting through the air at a high speed made. Her stomach dropped as she turned to see a powerfully built man rocketing through the air toward her. She opened her mouth to cry out all while attempting to fly upwards, but found that neither of her efforts were sufficient to avoid what came next. A powerful fist was thrown her way and drove straight into her nose. She yelled, confused and in pain, as blood spurted from her nostrils. The force of the blow through her head back, followed by the rest of her body. She spiraled downwards, senseless, before she struck the ground with a clap like thunder. She attempted to stand, to move, but blackness was creeping in on the edges of her vision. She clawed at the dirt, but found that her efforts were in vain and collapsed.

The only certainty in battle was its inherent uncertainty. One second Rogue was filled with ‎pride at her pupil's moves, and the next she was as equally blindsided by the attack on Jessica.

Now that she was free, Rogue flew at a speed she didn't know she possessed and pulled the same move on ‎Gladiator, barreling into him enough to get enough space between Jessica and him.

Hell hath no fury like one pissed off Southerner.

Rogue made quick work of him, a few hits to her own body as collateral but she didn't feel it. She was going to protect Jessica, dammit. The girl shouldn't even have been here in the first place.

Wade paused just long enough to check his ammo in his handguns before making a dive out into the middle of the zone still sort of noxious with poison. Didn't bother him, though, so he paused just long enough to holster a gun and scoop up Cammie. She wasn't looking so hot. Then the mercenary started backing slowly toward their other team members as they began their retreat. This wasn't looking good. Not good at all. And he didn't know where Arthur'd gone in all the rubble that'd fallen. The dude was probably alright. Probably. But given the number of reinforcements he could see approaching, he couldn't stop or go back to check without risking getting captured himself. He hated these situations.

Meanwhile, Callisto was making quick and economic work of the remaining ISF forces. She'd been shot in the thigh at some point, a dark stain spreading out across her already filthy pants-leg, but with the adrenaline coursing through her system it had already almost worked its way back out, and it certainly wasn't stopping her from putting the boot in where required. The sight of the skinny brunette literally swinging one burly soldier into another like an athlete swinging a hammer might have been comic were the situation not so dire, but as the dead and unconscious bodies built up, she began to look worried.

"That gas was heavy," she called in Ororo's direction as she retrieved one of her throwing knives from an unfortunate man's gut. "There's still some in the air; I don't think we wanna be here much longer."

"Agreed," came the muttered response and then, across the comms, "the Guard has been delayed-" not neutralised, but there was no hope of that now "-I want all team members to evacuate. Now."

While we still can.