The X-Project

Phoenix and Cyclops meet the Marauders head on as a three sided fight erupts.



The Marauders moved to attack, ordered by Malice, with everyone seeming to be their targets now.

~"Keep their focus on us, not the civilians."~ Jean said as she telekinetically flung a manhole at one of the Marauders to get their attention. ~"I'll play continue playing telepathic switchboard."~

A series of red blasts swept out across the battlefield, bouncing off rocks and lamp posts and they wove through one another to form a cage around the Marauders, penning them in as the beams went racing on towards "Death" as Cyclops nodded, sending out the first command into her telepathic net. "We need to contain the Marauders and Deadpool, I don't wanna see what would happen if he gets into the civilians. Switch up your attacks between all of them, the longer we can keep it up, the better our position when we go on the offensive."

Oh, good-boy-old-man-lost-a-wife-and-couldn't-stand-with-an-alternate-reality-in-his-eyes. Deadpool was positively giddy. He took a few potshots at the caged Marauders, holstering his guns so he could throw a couple handfuls of shuriken at the cage to see if they might break the little lasers apart. Take out flighty-little-world-destroyer and half the people here he was supposed to kill would be down one form of communication. But she got sizzly when annoyed and he didn't feel like -- "HEY," Deadpool yelled, suddenly motionless on the field of battle. "Nobody gets to shishkabob Bob but ME."

Where was Bob again? Trying to kill people with a pocket knife, probably.

Shimmying to make sure his katanas were settled properly on his back, Deadpool yelled, "TURN DOWN FOR WHAT?"

"You're right about the down part," Jean said, launching a telekinetic blast toward Wade intended to knock him over. "How does the rest of that go? Fire up that loud?" She added, as a fiery raptor billowed to life around her.

"I'll give you fire." She knew this wasn't really the normal Wade talking, but they were threatening people's lives. That was something she couldn't stand for.

Deadpool rolled his eyes dramatically. "First of all," he said, "Do you think we learned nothing from your 'evil me gonna eat whole stars and solar systems and universes' schtick? Our suit is fire proof, you cheap imitation replacement for somebody that I used to know!" He sang the last part, knowing it had meaning somewhere but not sure if it slotted in next to the weapons or the box of things they never touched or just the yellow post-its. Writer only knew, his head was a whirl of merry go rounds and food trucks he hadn't eaten at in years.

Well, he corrected himself, what was left of his suit was fireproof. Silly Spectrum and her laser beam hurricane eyes. Only the liquid kevlar stuff and its plastic-y hang-y parts covered certain parts of Deadpool’s upper front.

A red beam flew out, aimed directly at Deadpool's chest as Scott shook his head sadly, "All this time and you know what, you still talk too much." The red-suited man's constant spiel was easy to get lost in, distracted by but that was the point. He wasn't like Logan who would just single-mindedly come after you like an unstoppable force, instead Wade had always enjoyed pushing buttons and distracting people before closing on them. The problem was, he knew them too well, and which buttons to press. A series of red blasts followed up, curving in on him as Scott shifted his attention to the man for a moment. "Does your fancy new suit come with airbags too?"

Deadpool dodged the first beam aimed at his chest, rolling out of the way of the flames dripping off Jean's fire raptor. He pulled his katanas back out - they were getting a lot of work today - and stood his ground as the next several streaks of red came right for him. Flicking his swords into a pattern honed by decades of muscle memory, he ate the first beam, taking it to his thigh, but managed to reflect two toward Phoenix and the last right back at Cyclops. "Don't need airbags, slick," Deadpool grinned. "Not when I've got Dirty Daddy Wolverine's healing factor pastd on." Even as he spoke, his leg swelled beneath his suit, then shrank, tumors refilling the temporarily flattened area.

Jean was still puzzling over the eating stars and solar systems remark, but the cheap imitation replacement bit did sting just a little. She quickly brought up a telekinetic shield, her boots skidding against the ground from the sheer momentum of the blasts, which bounded off, causing the force beams to dent a nearby wall.

"Stop this. People are going to get hurt. Innocent people," she said.

"That's your boy's plan. Death over there? Yeah, Malice told us he's one of you. And now everyone he kills fuels his master's return." Arclight cracked her knuckles. "Prism?"

"On station." His presence didn't set off Jean's telepathy, and when they turned, he suddenly emitted a staggering kaleidoscope of light and colours, like a flashbang mixed with a bag of sparkles, blinding them both. As they staggered back, Arclight brought both fists down and the ground beneath their feet exploded outwards.

There were some instincts that couldn't be taught, that could only come through a lifetime of experience and training. As the ground bucked beneath him, sending him sprawling Scott answered, a pair of optical blasts lashing out in the direction of the enemies as his hand reached down to break his fall, pushing the man into a tumble as he came up, blinking desperately to try and clear his vision.

"Death, death, death," Deadpool chanted as he picked himself up from the ground where he'd fallen. "So much death-talk. So boring. It's not like any of them even know Death, not the way I do," he continued. "You gotta romance Death, you gotta take every opportunity to - take - them - somewhere - special." With each of those last words, Deadpool sliced into the bodies around him, not caring who they belonged to. "You die, you die, and you die. Stomach wounds are naaaaaaaasty..." Considering all the random people he was killing, he'd sort of expected the X-Men to put up more of a protest. The Marauders? Not so much.

Jean brought up another reflexive telekinetic shield, but it didn't do much against light and color. It did help from getting completely knocked on her ass, though. "Let's see how you like getting blinded," she then added, sending some of the dirt that hadn't been cleared away from road work nearby to swarm around the two Marauders. A few pieces of rubble that were mixed in aimed for anywhere with a soft squishy part to hit: torso, head, stomach. Something to knock them down.

Prism reveled in his element. As the dirt rained down on him, he erupted in lazed light. The dirt was tossed aside in long spools of dirty glass, fragmenting and shattering as it went past them.

"Oh good." Arclight said, with an exaggerated windup and hit the ground, sending a wave of energy at Jean.

Jean was knocked backwards, slamming into a nearby wall. She slid down, slightly dazed, but lashed out back at her, sending a stop sign at Arclight to try to hit her in the face.

It was like being a marionette, a spinning top, Arclight's waves of energy sending the Cyclops bouncing around across the ground as he banked a shot at Arclight before the man's trajectory sent him into a wall, the air rushing from his lungs as his vision clouded with stars.

Phoenix's telekinetic shield might not have done much against light, but it certainly kept her from getting shot twice through the forehead. A moue of disappointment curled Deadpool's lips -- not that anyone could really tell, given the spandex covering them -- he threw his hands up in the air, handguns twirling around his fingers before he chucked one straight at Cyclops' head. The second gun flew at Arclight's stupid face.

The fight was getting boring. Surely there were more interesting people to kill.

As if answering Deadpool's thoughts, Jean pulled herself up and summoned a rather large army vehicle, launching it at both Prism and Deadpool. The goal wasn't to kill, but if they could slow them down, that'd be a bonus.

Ha. Leave it to to not-evil-just-yet-but-probably-heading-that-way -- wait, would that make them be on the same side? -- to make the fight more interesting all of a sudden. But the mercenary's attention had already been caught elsewhere, so he shoved Prism more directly into the path of the now-plummeting vehicle and rolled out of the way just in time to avoid the worst of it. The army truck did catch his left hip and Deadpool had to pause for a moment to wrench it painfully back into place, but he’d already ducked out of sight.

As an afterthought as he sped away, the mercenary yelled over his shoulder, "I love raptors!"



Bevatron and Dazzler take the next wave of Marauders, hampered by Deadpool’s continued interventions.



The key was putting a line between the Marauders, Wade, and the collateral damage inflicted on the innocents fleeing the concert, and Bevatron and Dazzler were sent to be that line.

"Calisse." As if this battle against his cousin's old flame who appeared to be around the bend was not enough, now the Marauders had poked their noses in and made things even more complicated. Jean-Phillipe had to content himself with a single word of swearing rather than the usual litany he would have rattled off, because of the need to act. "Dazzler, wide spread, vary the energy as much as you can," he directed. Prism was out there somewhere and he remembered the difficulty that Nica had encountered in the previous mission against him.

"Why does this always happen? All I wanted was to enjoy the music but no, something has to happen," Alison complained, drawing a brilliant green aura around her hands. "Every." Pulse. "Single." A stronger pulse. "Time!" and then Alison threw her hands out and Jean-Phillipe got his wide spread, powered by the righteous annoyance of a pissed-off music lover and backed by the sound of a surprisingly loud music festival crowd.

Jean-Phillipe did not know enough about Alison's power to say whether the choice of sound made a difference to the energy she produced, so it could have been the roar of the crowd she was using to fuel it, or simply her following his direction, but the wave of coruscating energy that spilled out toward the Marauders was definitely varied. It spread raggedly but purposefully, shifting colors that ebbed and flowed, to be joined by the bright actinic flash of electricity as the Frenchman seeded the area of effect with his own power as well.

"Ooooooooooooooo," Deadpool crooned, watching as the wave of light and energy from Dazzler swept through the Marauders. He loved Dazzler! Too bad she was playing for the team he'd been paid to -- "Heeeeeeeey" he stopped himself mid-thought. "Hey, hey Lady D, I GOT THIS!" Reaching over his shoulders, the mercenary propped two bluetooth speakers up so they partially dangled in front of him and then fiddled around with a teeny tiny iPod. Seconds later, the iconic, tinny guitar intro along with the soft-voiced crowd singing, "We'll be singing -- we'll be winning..." came through the speakers. Of course, he nearly deafened himself with how loud it was just to be heard over the panicking people around him, but Deadpool didn't care.

As the classic mid-90's one hit wonder finished opening, Deadpool unsheathed his katanas and, dual wielding, bellowed, "I GET KNOCKED DOWN, BUT I GET UP AGAIN!" Across the field of battle. That's right, nobody was gonna keep him down! Dancing all by himself, Deadpool continued on with his mission, slaughtering festival-goers as he made his light-footed way toward sizzle-hot-naughty-impressionable-brotherhood-boy. He'd save Dazzler for last. As a treat.

"This better go better than last time." A voice said behind Bevatron as Deadpool closed with him and two fingers touched the nape of his neck. A dozen cracks echoed in the air as Bevatron felt his powers erupt out of his control. Lightning arced from his body, whiplike, smashing into both Dazzler and Deadpool, lashing and twisting as they formed a single painfully electrified conduit.

"Oh yeah, so much better than that fucking Canadian." Scrambler said, stepping back temporarily immune to the raging of JP's power.

Alison had a perfectly pithy reply to that. It was a shame she was too busy screaming to use it. Really, it was great. Just that perfect amount of snark to throw people off balance and get them wound up enough that they got sloppy without going too far into the berserk button territory.

Instead she got to try to very much not be standing where she was, something made infinitely harder by the fact that half the muscles in her legs had locked due to the current.

For his part, Jean-Phillipe grimaced and grunted as his body sang out in agony. The electricity itself wasn't actually the issue for him as much as the others - steady exposure to large amounts of electricity over the years had actually caused his nerve endings to be more resistant to the flow of current over them. It was a side effect that had less to do with his power than a subtle adaptation of his body to the stresses his power sometimes put on it. As such, that part wasn't really subject to Scrambler's ability to suppress or disjoin powers. The general neural disarray that came from the scrambling, however, that he felt full tilt.

Unfortunately for Scrambler, though, temporarily immune wasn't the same as permanently. And not all of the charge that Bevatron had been holding had come from his own specialized mutant organs. In the same way that he had added his own power to redirect large amounts of electricity from exposed wiring, or even the magical lightning of the Avenger Thor, so too had he gathered power from his surroundings, acting as a sort of massive capacitor, holding a reserve of electrical potential for the battle.

And once a capacitor no longer continues to receive charge to maintain its electrical potential, in the same way that an object's potential energy is converted to kinetic when it is released, a capacitor discharges, releasing the electrical potential to ground following the path of least resistance. And while Scrambler had air gapped himself from Jean-Phillipe, he was still within arm's length of the Frenchman, who had just enough control of himself to touch his own fingers back against the Marauder, completing the circuit and allowing the torrent of electricity to pour through the other man, leaving a smoking, twitching corpse to fall to the ground.

"No, no, no," Deadpool shouted, waving his arms in the air like the mad man he definitely was. "Bad people-thing-clones. Bad. That's my Dazzler." The mercenary gnashed his teeth so much he actually sliced into his cheek with his molars, but that didn't matter. The sharp copper tang seemed to center him, letting him focus. He paused, though, when Egg Head fell over dead, giving the X-Man a golf clap. "Well done. Well done."

Alison grit her teeth. She wished she could say it was from the electricity. There was... too much death. It was starting to make her sick.

She didn't exactly begrudge Bevatron for it. She just... would put those complicated feelings aside to deal with them after this was all over. Compartmentalize. That thing she was told was unhealthy. Well, she could make an exception just this once.

With no small amount of resistance, she flexed her legs and arms to loosen the muscles, and did her best to give JP a look that communicated Well... now what?

Jean-Phillipe pointed sharply at the remaining potential threat. This was certainly not the Wade Wilson they had known, and he was not sure what the other man might do.

The pressure inside Deadpool's head suddenly increased tenfold and he shook himself to try to loosen things up somewhere. Probably another brain tumor. Those always sucked. Whatever was going on inside his cranium, it made room for a thought that wouldn't have been allowed through just seconds earlier. Pointing right back at Colbert-the-Younger, Wade said, "Remind her about Genoshan Death. Remind her about the cards. Death's a fickle friend. Corvids collect shiny things. Remind her of Death Inverted." Wade suppressed a wince, bringing the heel of his palm up to smack his own forehead despite the weapon he was holding. "I'm not there. Not anymore. I'm the other direction. The end of the world. Time to -- time to jump."

With another violent smack, this time to his temple, Deadpool reasserted himself, but his attention was drawn elsewhere, away from Dazzler and Bevatron. Stabbing a man trying to stumble out of his way, the mercenary listened to the general screaming and headed toward where the noise was the loudest.

"Crisse de câlice de tabarnak d'esti de sacrament de trou viarge," Jean-Phillipe growled. With no apparent threat nearby, he allowed himself to vent his extreme anger through the blasphemy of Quebecois sacres. He was even less interested in breaking the news to his cousin now. "Scrambler is down, and Deadpool is on the move," he reported over the comms. "Dazzler took the brunt of some of my power, and I am drained, but we are otherwise uninjured." He listened, waiting for direction from Cyclops.

Dust moves to support the injured Echo, but ends up on the receiving end of attacks by Greycrow, Vertigo and Deadpool.



Now Bevatron and Dazzler were helping force back the Marauders and Wade from the crowd, but as Sooraya reached Maya, she could see the cracks appearing in their defense.

Scanning the field around her, Sooraya quickly fixed everyone's relative positions in their minds as she assessed if they could form threats in the future. That bastard Greycrow was skulking around nearby, though he seemed to be focused on Deadpool for now, but with this range that could change soon enough. Quickly she thinned her sandform, sliding under Maya and firming up so she could lift her. "Just getting you to a safer place for the moment." She quickly comm'd to Maya.

Maya for her part was only mostly still on the battlefield, and the rest lost somewhere in a haze of pain and shock at having been shot. It didn't matter that it had been her foot that Wade had shot, or that the bullet had passed through her foot and wedged into the ground. She supposed there could have been worse places for him to shoot her but it was still...Wade. He had shot her. She'd seen the damage the cancer was doing to him, the tumors coming and going but she hadn't imagined. In what world would Wade shoot her? It was Wade, he'd never hurt her.

It didn't make sense.

"Just pull me back a bit, and give me something to lean against," Maya finally replied, knowing she didn't have time to go into shock when there were Marauders around, and Wade to still deal with. "I can turn one of my batons into a crutch for now if I can get enough time."

"We can take a few moments for proper first aid. Those idiots are keeping him busy for the moment." Sooraya replied strictly as she guided them to a nearby tree and propped Maya against the tree before resuming her own shape. "You'd be putting your teammates only in more danger if you do so." She reached for the pouches of first aid materials that Maya carried on her uniform. "Now, is it just your foot or is there anywhere else I need to take a look?"

Maya bit back the aggravated response she might have made, this wasn’t just her teammate but Sooraya, one of the least mean people she’d ever met. It would be like kicking not only a puppy, but one that happened to be carrying a Santa sack with a kitten in it to boot.

“Foot, Deadpool shot me,”

She used the codename deliberately, divorcing this person from the Wade she’d known, even if for a moment there he’d been himself. She’d give herself time to mourn later. Not right in the middle of a fight.

“Through and through but I think it’s damaged the bones.”

"Jesus, you X-Men are a shitshow. Get here late and then use kid gloves on... whatever that is." Greycrow said, entering the field for the first time. He ignored Dust for a moment (or at least seemed to), concentrating on Deadpool. His rifle barked; quick three round bursts punctuated by a cone of flechettes directly at the mercenary. Behind him, Vertigo stayed silent, moving close enough to Dust and Echo to reach out with her powers and invert their worlds.

Deadpool's body registered each bullet impact, jerking as they attempted to shred him, but the flechettes were just pretty. Almost as quickly as they embedded, his healing factor began pushing them right back out. The mercenary tried to catch the flechettes, managing to grab three from his throat before the others fell to the floor. "Bad crow-pet, no cookie," Deadpool said, returning the flechettes to their owner all at once with a flick of his wrist and following them up with two throwing knives aimed at Vertigo. He didn't bother trying to find cover, just letting the bloody bullets hit the dirt and trampled grass beneath his feet as he reached for a grenade, popped the pin with his thumb, and tossed it toward the two Marauders. "Here, catch!"

Dust quickly finished wrapping the emergency bandage around Echo's foot to stop the bloodloss, keeping an eye on the situation from the corner of her eyes. "Did you take your painkillers?" At her younger team member's nod, Sooraya added: "Good, stay down and out of the way as much as you can. Putting weight on your foot is most likely only gonna increase the damage." Her form shivered as flesh shifted into sand and Sooraya rose from her crouch just as the grenade exploded in front of the two she recognized from the creepy town.

It was then that Vertigo’s power reached them and Maya groaned as dizziness hit and she leaned away to vomit up what had been breakfast a few hours ago. She had to get up, now that these ass clowns were here, she couldn’t leave Sooraya to face them and Wade alone.

Greycrow snapped out some kind of energy shield on his arm and as the grenade passed through it, it seemed hit and pinwheeled off the ground, harmless and inert. "Jesus, 45s, katanas, M67 grenades and shuriken. What, did they stick you alone on an island before Japan surrendered and just let you out now?"

"Too much talking, Greycrow. You know better." Vertigo said through gritted teeth. Her powers worked best as a single hit, and the field of nausea she was maintaining on the X-Men was taxing her.

Maya had managed to wedge one of the batons under an arm to push herself upwards, the pain from her foot one of the most excruciating sensations she’d felt up to this point, and that included listening to her gym teacher trying to give them ‘the Talk’.

She might not be able to ‘fight’ but that didn’t mean she couldn’t wait for a moment to help, her powers stretched beyond just hand to hand.

"I have an appreciation," Deadpool said, annunciating carefully. "For classic weaponry." Reaching behind his back, the mercenary gripped something and twisted hard as he yanked it out of whatever was holding it in place. "Like the labrys, you uneducated fuck-weasel." With a running leap, Deadpool sprang over fallen festival goers, some of their insides on the outside, thanks to him, and headed right for Greycrow. "Betcha don't even know anything about Loxodonta!"

Well, that was a big word and Deadpool wasn't sure where it came from, but as he closed in on Greycrow, he felt the likelihood of that mattering was virtually zero. Pulling a spare gun from his thigh holster, he started shooting at Vertigo, pumping four different bullets in her direction before closing with the other man. "Let's go, crow-boy."

Two of the shots grazed Vertigo, forcing her into cover and relenting her powers used on the X-Men. Dust and Echo finally had a window to move without feeling like puking their guts out. Greycrow, on the other hand, took Deadpool's charge towards him for a moment of scrutiny and then carefully blew out his right knee with a large bore hollow point. As he toppled sideways, Greycrow tracked the fall and put a second shot directly in his stomach, tearing through his back and damaging the spine.

"Gone." The barrel swung up to focus on Deadpool's head, right between the eyes.

Dust sped along the ground, lashing out with a tendril as soon as she was near enough. The tendril firmly wrapped around Greycrow's ankle and she rose upwards, flipping him upside down and dragging him through the mud as she rose more, Greycrow dangling beneath her like a toy. "Aw, look who is in trouble now?" She started going in circles, building up momentum as Greycrow groaned.

Maya pulled one of her backup batons from the harness on her back and quickly threw it overhead toward Deadpool's head, hoping to distract him so Sooraya would have enough time to take care of Greycrow without the added issue of Deadpool and Vertigo.

Deadpool ducked. The baton went flying over his head, thwacking Vertigo in the stomach. He was a little preoccupied, what with regrowing his kneecap and also his stomach-slash-intestines. That always sucked. Still, he managed to drop a few more throwing knives into his palms, sending them soaring toward Crow Boy. He followed them up with another live grenade and then a rain of bullets, catching more than a few straggling festival-goers instead of his ostensible target.

Dust flung Greycrow at Deadpool as soon as the knives left his hand. Frankly, she couldn’t care if knives or bullets hit Greycrow before he hit the merc with a mouth, but the bullets made her instinctively flow in a thin wall of sand that managed to catch at least a few of the bullets, one tendril lashing out and batting the grenade right after Greycrow.

"THAT'S WHAT I CALL TEAMWORK!" Deadpool bellowed, only to duck a second time and dive to the side before frowning and catching the grenade to lob back toward Echo. "Nevermind." A bit like a squirrel on crack, a food truck caught the mercenary's eye and his entire head swiveled in that direction. "Ooooooooooooo..." Forget the fight for a hot second, he'd never seen a Mighty Mac's Meaty Burrito & Taco Truck outside... somewhere. Brooklyn? Maybe. Whatever. The window was closed and he could hear several panicked voices whispering inside. Playing hide and seek with the fish tacos, were they? Not on Deadpool's watch.

"Oh, hey, nearly forgot." Turning, the gun in his hand like an extension of his body, the mercenary shot Vertigo three times -- twice center mass and a single bullet to the forehead. He couldn't risk that one making him throw up his fish tacos later. Banging on the window, he called, "Hey, I need some tacos!"

Unsurprisingly, no one responded.

Maya swore in Spanish and dove behind a car that someone had abandoned as the grenade landed and rolled toward her. She felt the explosion rock the car toward her and a shower of dirt spilled around the sides as she clutched her head.

She’d had her implants in to be able to hear her teammates but that meant a direct line to her brain for any noise and the explosion had just short circuited them, and given her the very worst headache known to man.

Dust was going to need to deal with Greycrow, because Maya was almost out of options.

Wrapping another tendril around Greycrow's ankles, Sooraya dragged him closer, the man letting out a loud groan as she did so. Ignoring every sign of life, she rose into the sky, simply flinging Greycrow in the direction of Deadpool. When the Marauder hit Deadpool straight in the back, she used the distraction to wrap two cords of sand around his neck and quickly tightened them.

"Hey - rude - ow," Deadpool yelled as he was forced straight into the ledge of the closed serving window. Turning around, he raised his handgun again and emptied the rest of the clip into Greycrow. Then he found himself rising off the ground, thin little wisps of sand wrapped around his neck. He half-gagged in protest, then gurgled, "No - nope. It's coarse - it gets every... where..."

What fucked with sentient sand?

Dropping one hand to the back of his belt, he grabbed a grenade, popped the pin with his thumb, and dropped it right in the middle of little miss sand. How far apart could her bits and pieces get before she stopped being a whole thing and just turned into lots of little separate things?

Another grenade? Seriously? After she had just lobbed the last one he tossed back in his face? A small whip of sand lashed out and batted the damn egg shaped thing away from them and from the food truck. She thought Marie had been insane a few years back, making her practice with those beanbags all the time. Catching, tossing, batting them away... slowly she had seen how useful that part of her training was. Then the tendrils of sand tightened even more around his neck.

"Fuck." The mercenary paused to wheeze in a partial breath. "Off." Hissing through his teeth, Deadpool pulled another grenade out of a pouch, pulled the pin, and then just held it right out in front of his chest. Sure he was gonna blow himself up in addition to the sand, but he'd be able to put himself back together with relative ease. Could the annoying woman say the same?

Two tendrils of sand separated from the writhing mass of sand again. One forced its way between the glove and the grenade, shredding the leather and upper layer of skin without hesitation to wrap around the grenade, finally pulling it from Deadpool's hand and tossing it after the other grenade. The other tendril hovered in front of Deadpool's face, cursive writing forming to read: "Seriously? Just surrender."

Deadpool pulled a relatively large ceramic flask from a different pouch and crushed it before the woman could take it away from him. The fluid inside sizzled as it ate through his glove, but more of it fell onto the writhing mass of sand than stayed in contact with him. "Absolutely fucking not," he wheezed. Sulphuric acid should fuck her up well enough to at least drop him - and his skin was already mending, though the chemical ate through each new layer as it formed. His remaker had given him so many new toys to play with - and so much information on the people he was going to have to deal with here. He wasn't going to lose to sand.

Okay... she had no idea what this was, but it could not be good and she needed to get this of herself. Sooraya reluctantly let go of Deadpool's neck and spiraled up to have some space. Still... she could try to cause as much... As soon as the thought formed, thin, razor sharp tendrils reached out, slashing where they could... cutting through the suit, the belt... wherever she could until she was out of his reach and Deadpool was left standing, his suit smoking in some places from whatever chemical he used, blood dripping from many tiny cuts and slashes.

Flipping backward as soon as his boots hit the ground, Deadpool managed to avoid the majority of the thin slices Dust attempted to leave him with. "Not today, Satan," the mercenary rasped, pulling yet another grenade from a half-opened pouch. Shit he'd forgotten he had that one. Pulling the pin, he slapped it into his acid-drenched hand and then covered it with the one that'd been sand-scoured but had healed over already. "Sonic grenade. Let's see you maintain cohesion now."

The grenade went off just a moment later, the pitch of the thing going so painfully high that Deadpool felt one of his eardrums burst from it. Hurt like a bitch, but he just sat the grenade on the food truck's sill and staggered away. That should keep Tumbleweed McRude-and-Sandy Pants busy long enough for him to regrow the bits of himself that he needed to and also to find someone else to fight.


Dazzler, Spectrum and Blink face a barrage from the Marauders and Deadpool and respond in kind.



The biggest advantage that the X-Men had in the field was their training, allowing them to work together and coordinate through the telepathic switchboard as a unified entity. A fact that was finally starting to give them the upper hand on their opponents.

'I could use some help here!' Alison thought at their little corner of the mental conference room. 'As much as it looks like I've got this under control, I really don't!'

~I've got you!~ came Nica's unmistakeable mental voice and a blast of infra-red light soon followed.

It was enough. The light blast managed to trip up the encroaching Marauders for a moment, but just for a moment, as the very understandable human reaction to cover their face with their arms in the wake of an incoming 'projectile'. It bought Alison just a second to catch her breath.

It was just long enough.

A faintly glowing orb of light flickered to life in her left hand. It seemed to flicker and shift with the noises of the crowd and the (rather loud) complaints of the nearby Marauders (who could absolutely get the hell over it, Alison thought internally. She had little sympathy for them in that moment) as it grew in intensity. In a small moment of whimsy, she raised her left hand and let the ball roll down her arm, across the back of her neck, and into her right hand, glowing brighter with every moment.

"With a show this splendiferous," Alison said aloud, "the only thing you can do is..."

With a high leg kick that was part baseball player and part dancer's grace, Alison wound up and threw a picture-perfect fastball right down the middle of the group.

"Give 'em the old razzle Dazzle!"

And the ball of light exploded into a brilliant Dazzle in the middle of the group, completely encompassing them. It was the wrong flavor of light, the wrong wave of noise, to be as solid as one of her lasers. Instead, dozens, hundreds of balls of light of all size and intensity, brilliant colors in every shade of the rainbow and some beyond, erupted into the group. It was a special kind of sensory overload that had exploded at the Marauders' feet.

'Thanks'

"Flashbang." Blockbuster muttered, pausing to put his head down, eyes closed, meaty hands over his ears and his mouth open to diffuse the sonic impact. Riptide did the same, groaning at the input, but partially shielded by his partner's bulk. They waited until the cacophony died down, trading a moment of vulnerability for a clean return to senses. Even so, they were shaking black spots out of their vision.

"I don't see anything." Riptide blinked rapidly, trying to clear his eyes.

"Just stay close." Blockbuster rumbled. putting him to the back for the moment. He grabbed a booth that had been selling fresh lemonade, and tossed the fibregrass and wood imitation of the giant fruit towards where Deadpool and Dazzler were.

Deadpool's ears might've been bleeding and he might've been blind, but that didn't stop him from cackling like a hyena. "You assholes," he laughed, shaking his head like a dog as his eardrums healed after rupturing for the second time that day. "Goddamn-"

He didn't finish his sentence, too busy being brought to the ground by the booth he couldn't really see and didn't feel like dodging. Honestly, these people and trying to blind him. Flattened as he was at that moment, Deadpool pouted and then wiggled his toes where they stuck out from beneath the structure. Bench pressing the whole thing up and away from his chest, he felt several rips snap back into place – also again – and possibly some of his internal organs attempting to fix themselves. Difficult to tell, really, given the constant tumor growth. It wasn't like it mattered, anyway.

Heaving the booth to the side, Deadpool did a kip-up and threw six knives at the Marauders in quick succession. "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!"

"That's only temporary and he heals," Clarice yelled from her vantage. "Spectrum, get Riptide, Dazzler, take Blockbuster, that's a more effective use of your skills!" And she was going to take Deadpool. Because she knew how he worked better than they did. And she was much more willing to do what might be necessary, even if she didn't want to. She just hoped the field first aid she’d performed on herself would hold.

'At least it's not Prism,' Nica thought as she dived through the air towards the blinded Marauder. She was still trying to figure out how Prism was here at all; she'd killed him after all, accidentally but still. With a small annoyed noise, she thrust the thought aside and focussed on the fight in front of her, choosing to solidify her hands and attempt to punch Riptide in that sweet spot on his jaw that would knock him out instantly.

Unfortunately, the hiss of warning had the still blinded Marauder do the only thing he could think of; reflexively spin. As her fists entered the whirlwind that formed, instead of hitting him, her solidified hands were pulled into the spin, suddenly finding her energy form attached to her fists being spun at insanely high speeds.

Alison kind of hated fighting brutes, and Blockbuster was a Brute with a capital B. Big, slow... kind of stupid. And not nearly blind enough for this.

...there were days Alison hated being like 80 pounds soaking wet with a brick in each pocket. Not many mind you. But some. Because when it came to fighting the big, slow, hard-hitting jerks like Blockbuster, she really only had the one recourse: Stay fast and keep moving. What she didn't have in strength she made up for in agility, at the cost of not being able to take more than maybe one or two hits straight-on. So she went for what she'd done a million times on stage and honed a million times in the Danger Room: she danced around the wild swings way too close to the line of intelligent decisions.

Any over-extended punch, or missed lunge, Alison would slip under or around, and then blast him as he staggered. When he'd get too close, she'd attempt to drop a flash of light directly in his face. It was a game of inches in which Alison had to win every time and Blockbuster had to win only once. What she needed was an opening, or this would get scary fast.

"I can't believe you have all this bitch's albums." Blockbuster rumbled, trying to catch up but was at the point that he was mostly blind, swinging away blindly.

Riptide stopped for a moment, sending Nica flying at high speeds away, tumbling over and over as her energy form was dragged behind her hands. He paused and then started to spin again, throwing blades Dazzler's way. "Hang on, big man. I got this."

Fortunately for Nica, the spinning and then being flung away was enough to break the concentration she needed to keep her hands solid, but not before she'd covered several hundred meter's distance. She paused, collecting her wits, before zooming back into the fray in a streak of ultra-violet. That changed to infrared as she reached the battleground again and she took advantage of Blockbuster's blindness to blast him full in the face with super-hot energy.

Clarice redirected to Riptide to give Nica an assist instead of Deadpool, opening a portal to catch and redirect the resin blades towards Deadpool, pushing hair out of her face as she launched herself at Blockbuster. Teamwork makes the dream work!

It also, funnily enough, had the side-effect of freeing up Dazzler from her deadly dance. With Monica drawing Blockbuster's attention and Clarice redirecting attacks towards Deadpool, it left Alison with enough breathing room to shift most of her attention away from the meathead and towards Riptide.

Alison timed it so that she slid up to him just as he was winding down from his spin, and blasted him in the back of the knees with a pair of twin lasers.

"Hey! You are being very rude. Didn't anyone ever teach you not to cut in on a dance??"

The combination of the spin ramping up and the structural damage as the lasers cut through his knees tore a scream from Riptide's throat as his lower legs were pulled clear from his body and he collapsed, insensible with pain onto the ground.

As Clarice charged towards Blockbuster, Nica spun in the air to face Deadpool. Last time he'd stabbed her, but this time she wasn't going to give him the opportunity. Hovering in the air out of his reach, she raised both hands and hit him full force with a full spectrum combination of EM energy. It wouldn't stop him, she knew from watching him fight Rogue, but it might give them time to plan.

"Ugh," Deadpool muttered, skidding backward a bit from the force of the beam hitting him -- at least, that's what he'd claim and ask the writer to write, since stumbling would just be embarrassing at that point. "Nobody likes a one-trick pony, pretty-hair-light-show!" Because she did have pretty hair and Brad Mondo would flail if he saw it, but goddamn, the chestpiece of his suit was toast already thanks to her and he needed the rest of it to last through the end of the next fight. Shaking his own head and wishing he had a giant, silver platter, the mercenary pulled a teeny, tiny mirror from one of his still-intact pouches and reflected a portion of the blast toward Blink and Blockbuster.

Sure, his exposed skin was sizzling and he could feel the blisters rising to the surface like a particularly awful sunburn before they popped and wept and new ones formed. But Deadpool'd had worse. He’d had so much worse.

Alison looked away from the still-breathing Riptide (she wasn't just going to kill him. Honestly, she'd not even meant to blow his legs off, just knock him down. This... she'd also compartmentalize this for a later date) and up to Deadpool. He was distracted, dealing with Nica's most recent attack.

Well, if physical damage wasn't going to do it, then maybe a more indirect attack was called for.

As if they'd practiced it a hundred times (because they had? Actually? Holy cow go danger room practice!), the moment that Nica's beam ended Alison was coming down hard at Deadpool from a blindspot. Hands clasped together, fingers interlaced and high above her head, she saw her opportunity and she took it.

"...Hammer DOWN!"

In more ways than one.

From behind, against a distracted and at least somewhat injured and off-balanced target, Dazzler dropped an overhead hammerblow directly to the back of Deadpool's head. Given her flying start, but excepting for the fact that she was The Smol, about the best she was expecting was to knock him off-balance, if not down to the ground.

But the blow itself wasn't the point.

The point was that the impact sound itself was the catalyst for all the lingering luminal and sonic energies that were still hanging around the field. What happened was that a dome of light, eight feet across and just as tall, full of the brightest and most complex lights Alison was capable of without speciality equipment, burst from her hands. Each individual flash, while inside the dome, would have been enough to blind her if being immune to bright lights wasn't part of her power. There were dozens all around, and, thanks to using the attack as the catalyst for it, it burst out entirely around the two of them.

"Goddammit," Deadpool shouted, going to one knee. "Stop making the battlefield look so pretty." Not that he could really appreciate it, light-blind and literally dazzled as he was. Still, his souped up healing factor kicked in and it took less than three seconds to have his eyes back to normal. Relatively normal, anyway. Rolling forward, away from the miniature songstress he was eventually going to get an autograph from – except for how he was supposed to kill her, maybe – the mercenary exited the sparkle-dome-zone. He just let himself keep on rolling for several seconds before washing up against the side of a food truck painted all over in vegetables. Eugh.

The good ol' razzle dazzle was the perfect opportunity for Clarice to add insult to injury. Using a portal under Blockbuster, she popped him out some 100 feet in the air. Directly over Deadpool. Go go gravity. He'd survive. Maybe.

"The fu-" was all the big man had a chance to get out before he crashed down on Deadpool. At that height, his mass crushed Deadpool's shoulder and the right side of his ribcage as he landed awkwardly. The impact knocked them both to the ground, senseless.

The pain of the healing factor's ramped up process snapping his ribs back into place brought Deadpool's senses back to him, but it still took a bit longer than he would've liked to get himself out from under Blockbuster's weight. Wiggling and cursing in equal measure, the mercenary finally freed himself enough to get his arm bone back in its shoulder socket, then took a moment out of his precious time to pull one of his katanas from his back so he could chop the Marauder's head off because what an asshole. Given the sharpness of his blade, it took him far less time than it might've otherwise and then Deadpool pulled himself all the way out from under the now-literal dead weight of the other man's body.

Time to bounce. Places to be, people to kill, makers to avoid.