Logs:Lights Out (Prometheus Raid, Team 1)

Lights Out (Prometheus Raid, Team 1)
cn: violence
Dramatis Personae Jax, Matt, Ion, Skye, Hive
In Absentia	2021-10-16 "There ought to be clowns." (Prometheus raid chaos, concurrent with support team and team 2, Part of Prometheus plot.)
Location <MA> Dirac Research Laboratory - Western Mass
Massachusetts is gorgeous in the fall, the leaves blazing in full autumn splendor, the sun bright overhead. It's gorgeous out here, too, a wide and lovely campus to come to work, no doubt choice assignment for those who are lucky enough to receive it -- long winding walking trails through the picturesque woods, a fitness center set with huge picture windows looking out on the small pond, a tennis court, a wide roof deck atop the sprawling main building with an excellent cafeteria attached. If some of the windows are suspiciously heavily barred, well! It's not the windows in the top-floor offices with their lovely views of the grounds. If the drones circle the grounds continuously, well! Extra security for the many high priced automobiles in the parking lot, and really they're high enough up not to be obtrusive. The guards outside seem relaxed as befits the splendid mild autumn day -- a pair of them in the driveway outpost outfront, one filling out crosswords while the other scrolls Facebook, another pair who should be on patrol but are leaned up against a tree engaged in intense discussion of the season finale of You. If they have noticed the buses that have parked themselves a distance away under the trees they certainly make no sign as yet. A short distance behind, the facility itself looks almost serene. Jax has been quiet through most of this ride, off in the back of one of the buses with Shane, head bowed in quiet prayer. Maybe it's the season or maybe the black-on-black tactical gear but he's looking even paler than usual as he steps out into the sun. "Gosh," his voice is soft, thumb running slowly over the tiny nobs on the small rosary ring on one finger as he looks over the campus beyond. "Evil's got some good perks, don't it? -- alright, y'all, once they make us an entrance --" He's nodding towards the other teams, off just ahead of them, but leaves the rest unspoken; it's not as though they have not gone over this extraction a hundred times in practice before. He is, perhaps, trying not to watch Shane head off with the others, trying not to listen too hard to any chaos up ahead. "Let's go." "Tch what, you want trees we got trees in Riverdale, they pretty as fuck too and we didn't torture nobody for em," Ion scoffs -- though he's eying a sleek Stark convertible in the parking lot with a gleam in his eye. His eyes are bright, a bounce in his step and a charge in the air around him. It seems to take him a good deal of restraint to stay with Jax but through main force of will he does not go zipping off ahead! Hopefully there'll be cookies waiting for him later. Matt is a quiet presence at Jax's side, not as pale as the photokinetic though certainly pale enough in his own black gear. Though it may not be obvious, he is already at work, his power threaded into his teammates' and bolstering them in strength and range alike. "Time was they did all this for it's own sake." He sounds cheerful enough. "Now it's all Pro-me-theus, all the time." He stays close as they move forward, keeping alert for any hostile powers ahead. Skye is on Matt's other side and slightly ahead of him, her brown eyes darting and wide with fear behind sleek goggles. The pun still draws a groan out of her, though. "Oh my God Matt, seriously? Now?" She's already bouncing up and down subtly while they wait for their entrance, but once they move out her stride is quick and easy with the relief of motion. "If I banned puns he wouldn't come and then where'd we be? A bit more tired, a bit less pained --" Jax is still shaking his head, making a beeline for the just-opened wall and passing through the still-dusty wreckage into the building. << Hive, a path? >> He's leading his people wherever their disembodied guide directs, through the building into its bowels. Things inside are oddly quiet. Should there be alarms? Perhaps B has disabled the alarms. There is a lone Sentinel that skitters through the hole after them, following the team with a bland lack of expression on its faceplate as it scurries away and down the stairs to the lower levels. Somewhere below them, where the drone has disappeared to, there are a considerable number of footsteps. Then quiet again. Hive, at least, can feel the bustle in the minds of the guards, a mix ranging from apprehensive to confused to cocky to eager ( << thought they said these were over >> << didn't we get their teleporter ? >> << pffft these fools think they're getting out of here alive >> << Shit I hope I get the photokinetic >>). Skye jumps at the sight of the drone, but before she can quite round on it, it's already gone. "The fuck it's like the world's shittiest haunted house." She's heading down the stairs herself, though careful not to get too far ahead of her team. Now that they are inside there is little stopping Ion from darting on ahead of Jax, a jittery-bright flash that vanishes -- for a second -- reappears -- vanishes again. He's reappears beside Skye at the foot of the staircase, hand pressed to the wall -- already there's a good deal of smoke and electrical-burning smell coming from inside it that probably shouldn't have been there. "Hive best let them know we here because them kids inside should be juicing back up right about now." Matt follows the others down, coughing at the smoke. Possibly this is all that saves his team from some kind of commentary about "juice." His senses are stretched to their limit in every direction, questing for any mutant, friendly or otherwise. "I don't like this," he murmurs ominously, his breath audible to Jax though not quite wheezing. "There ought to be clowns." A shield blossoms in front of them as Jax presses down into the basement floor, teeth clenched and a blaze of light carving the security door open before them. "Why would you wish for something like that? Clowns is the one thing that'd make this place worse." The floor below them looks just about like it has looked in all their practices so far -- a guard station just in front of them and beyond that stretching out to either side, two hallways full of cells whose doors under Ion's ministrations are failing open. There are other stations at the ends of each hall with pairs of guards in each -- though at the moment considerably too far away to reach. The nearest of the guards, ready in body armor, night-vision goggles, a considerably amount of weaponry to hand are looking not just ready but eager for the intrusion, though. One has drawn his gun already, aiming it straight at Matt. "Oh," says the other, oddly cheerful as he gets to his feet in a growing mass of shadow that is rapidly creeping outward, "I see clowns, alright." The lights in the hall all go black. Skye sidesteps to place herself almost directly in front of Matt. Her fists clench tight and a shockwave travels through the air just beyond the shield at about chest level, expanding in an invisible cone as it goes, though it doesn't really have far to disperse before slamming into the guards. Beyond the guard station in the darkened cellblock hall there are, despite Hive's susurrating instructions, cries of surprise. One very large person was already slamming his shoulder repeatedly against their cell door and when it opens abruptly they tumble out and knock down a labmate emerging from the cell across the hall. "Is this a fire drill?" someone is shouting from the other end of the hall. "It's the raiders!" someone else answers, ecstatic, "we're sa -- oof!" Yet another someone is shoving his way down the hall, a gruff voicing demanding, "Make a goddamn hole and follow me! Fucking civilians..." "Yo! This way, we getting out be snappy though. Anyone can't see good now follow me." In the darkness a light crackles, skitters bright; Ion's expression lit up with brief sparks is easy to track through the pitch black, leading the way through the hall and to the stairway back up. The shockwave sends the guard with the gun slamming back into his console, audible in a heavy thump even if hard to see in the dark. The other one doesn't apparently go much of anywhere; there's a ripple but not much else. A long tendril, thick and cool like a heavy tentacle shaped out of the darkness wraps itself around Skye's leg, yanking hard. At the sound of the skirmish by the guard station some of the labrats are panicking and running in the wrong direction, pushing and toppling over the ones trying to follow Ion. There's a scream of pain and some angry commotion in the press, someone yelling, "Stop we got kids here!" The stout and muscular person who has shouldered his way to the front of the packing is shouting at Ion now, "Why aren't you taking down the suppression? What kind of fucking rescue is this?" The "ostie de viarge de marde" tumbling out beneath Matt's still noisy breath sounds almost perfunctory as he fumbles a flashlight (it's tacitcal!) from his belt. He throws even more weight behind Jax's photokinesis while he tries to get hold of the shadowy guard, feeling about for something, anything he can shut down or manipulate. "Only so many places we can be at once, friend." Jax's voice is steady in the darkness, though his teammates can feel clearly enough the cloying suffocating feeling of the darkness leeching away at him. << Close your eyes -- >> The sudden flare of light is brilliant, bright, just about blinding even without the night vision wear. For just a moment before Jax's flare, everyone but the guards closes their eyes in tandem. Just a moment. Skye might have screamed if she had time, but suddenly the shadowy tendril has pulled her leg out from under her. Her other leg kicks out at the thing that has hold of her, wild but not completely unaimed, and the air around her hums discordantly with her panic. "Sorry did you have some better team you was waiting on I'll fetch 'em." Ion is not fetching anybody, mind! Though as he disappears and reappears through the walls he has left another burned and charred mess behind, has freed the rest of the basement wing up to use their powers as they see fit. The lights, alas, may not come back on. That is beyond him. He reappears at the guard station, sending a short curious-testing ZAP of electricity out toward the shadowperson. The tendril cracks down hard on Skye's leg as it pulls -- it has more force in it than actual muscle of its size would have any right to have, snapping down hard enough to break bone just before the sudden light flare. It jerks back away, briefly withering -- by the time it starts to regroup Matt has clamped down on the ability, lights flooding back through the hallway. The man is not left defenseless all the same, and has drawn his sidearm, taking aim out the door to the guard station as the lights come back up. He's shooting toward escaping rescuees and the team both -- Matt, the burly labrat who has decided to take charge, Ion. Blam-blam-blam. His partner is just getting back up from the rather disorienting blow from earlier. Woozily regaining his balance against the console. Rubbing at his head. Ow. When the suppression grid drops the chaos in the cellblock only gets more chaotic, lightning up Matt's senses with a mess of new and unknown powers. Even has the lights come up, the thickest part of the labrat traffic jam has gone even brighter. Unfortunately that light comes from flames licking in irregular bursts from the body of a teenager while those who had just been crushing him to the wall shriek and try to scatter. Something about the air feels -- or looks or sounds -- wrong. "Oh God Gemma don't, you gotta calm down," a frightened high-pitched voice is pleading. The Army bro trying to Take Charge has decided he's going to take charge at the guard station and charge right into the hail of bullets. Probably the gunfire is not helping Gemma, whoever they are, calm down. Now the air is...bending? Skye's leg breaks -- visibly -- and she does scream now, the sound itself terrifying and inhuman. The blast she had been trying to aim up at the shadow guard starts to dissipate in a deafening BWAAAAA. It starts to dissipate before Matt redirects and refocuses it, if sloppily and still loud, at its intended target. Immediately after he drops Skye's power to throw more of his strength behind Jax's, struggling now to keep not-presently-shadow-guard suppressed. He's drawn his gun but hasn't the time or attention to take aim. "Who's Gemma?" he's shouting down the hall, if he can even be heard about the panic. Joshua appears beside Skye -- just for a second, crouching to rest a hand on her shoulder. And vanish again, taking her and the inhuman scream with him. "Ion, ain't gonna be fun for nobody but you might need to get some folks a ride out of here." Jax has thrown up another shield, this time simply encasing the two guards into their guard station and stanching the hail of bullets as they fly. "Anyone can't make it on their own, Ion's got you a jump out, but it'll smart some. Be quicker'n walking, though." << Matt, you holding up or we gotta get you out of here, too? >> Ion may have gotten just a little bit! Shot! But only a little bit and it doesn't seem to be slowing him, much though there's a crackling spike of pain flickering across their minds and a liiiittle bit of blood seeping out from under one sleeve. He's vanishing down the hall to take stock of who seems the worst off of the crush of labrats and whisk the first couple off -- Matt has just suppressed any of the remaining labrats in a bid to stop whoever was about to blow up, but he's wavering a little now and Jax can feel his support flagging. << I can hold out if I let go of someone. >> In their minds he highlights Jax, the still-not-shadowy guard, and the potentially-exploding labrats. Also highlights the faint aura--an odd ringing pressure behind his splitting headache--that is probably his brain trying to work itself into a seizure. "The fuck?" The Army bro, toting one of the guards' dropped guns now, is bleeding but evidently not much bothered by it, suddenly looks down at himself. "Did someone turn the grid back on?" He's not waiting for an answer, but starts shooting at the guards trapped by Jax's shield, standing very helpfully between the two remaining team members and the exit to boot. "Die you motherfuckers, die!" Meanwhile the remaining labrats, either injured or helping those who are, finally make it out, but in the staircase they've hit the very edge of Matt's range. And then out of it. The hallway bends, and bends, and appears to fold as it pulls in toward the group of straggling escapees cut off from Jax and Matt by their trigger happy leader. Sudden there's a noislessly snap. The rest of the building returns more or less to its proper shape and leaves the hallway behind strange and wavy around a single floating point of nothingness where the labrats had been. << Forget me you're killing yourself -- >> Jax starts to think, but then, for a moment, when the straggling rescuees simply vanish, so does the rest of whatever he was going to say. "What the --" His concentration falters, his shield flickering and dropping momentarily before reasserting itself. "Matt do you have any idea what --" << shit shit shit >> He loops his arm through Matt's, starts to head toward the exit. Stops by the strange wavey nothingness. "Can you bring them back, do you know what -- they were just here." 'BLAM'. There's almost a glee in the umbrakinetic when he sees that shield drop, takes the quick shot towards Jax. << Fuck just here, they're not now. >> Hive's thoughts are laced with blood -- not any of the current teammates' but Flicker's shed over (and over) (and over). Whether the others want to or not, they're turning -- and heading out and up the stairs even if one has to drag the other. Matt clutches his head when space snaps back to normal, his senses to the hivemind blinded by what feels to him like an explosion of impossible colors and angles. He does stumble after Jax, his brain struggling back into some semblance of functioning, but one look at the kaleidoscopic mess of space and he's decided. << {I can't, we have to go--} >> He's already starting to drag Jax away when he feels the shield drop. His feet may not be his own but he seizes Jax's power and walls the entire hallway behind them against the gunshots--just long enough to stumble-fall around the corner into the stairwell. The pressure in his head suddenly lets up. That part of Hive goes blank as he collapses jerking and twitching against Jax. With Matt out of commission the hallway light is getting sucked into shadow again. The cold darkness seeps into the air, into Jax, the light bled out of the basement rapidly and a smothering blanket of shadow taking its place. A whiplike tendril cracks its way down the length of the hall, snapping hard around Jax's torso and arresting their escape -- Matt is left to twitch on his own as the shadows yank Jax back among them. There's a sharp flare of irritation in Jax's mind that mingles with concern when Matt collapses; his annoyance at being ignored is rather short-lived given suddenly more pressing concerns. The flare of light that blossoms around him is short-lived, too, what reserves he had left rapidly dwindling. The blare of panic in his mind as he tries to scramble back away in whatever window it buys him is louder still than the blinding flash: << -- Joshua! -- >>