xVampire3go
Achronum
Scrawl Banditta
Not a Sayan
Morose
teenangstlife
Ohm
VenusSundew
Things all seemed to move rather quickly the next morning. Antoinette got to say a quick goodbye before she climbed into the plane and flew with everyone to this warehouse location. There were many seagulls in the area, all vying for attention it seemed. Antoinette watched them fly over head, swooping and diving this way and that when she heard Guin speak up. Bringing her attention back to the present task Antoinette looked at the big building and nodded. "Seems we should." They had quite the group on their team. Antoinette had no doubt that they wouldn't be able to get the job done.
"Odds are that they will dedicate the largest area of space for Cerebro, as I'm sure you both know, it isn't exactly that small of a structure. So that will be where we'd want to focus our efforts, and it likely will do the most damage. You can cast illusions right?" Cyclops said, turning to look at Annie, "See if you can hide us from view with them so that we hopefully don't run into any trouble."
"Piet, do you think you can do a quick scan of the building?" Guin asked Quicksilver. She could have hacked in to look at camera feeds, but she didn't know if they even had any inside of there and besides, using her boyfriend's super speed would be faster. It would also keep Pietro from jumping around like an impatient teenager - he did that sometimes if he had to stay still too long.
Antoinette blinked at Cyclops but nodded. "I can only affect small numbers so I'll have to target our opponents specifically," Antoinette explained. "You might not be able to see what I am doing but hopefully it will work." She moved forward so that she could go into the building first; however, she did wait for Pietro to give them information on how many people were inside and their location hopefully. Once she had that information, then Antoinette would know where to look.
Pietro went racing off, zipping around every which way that he could think of in order to get a decent perspective on how many people were in the area. "So... There is good news and bad news... The bad news is that there are quite a few people, I'd estimate around 30 or so, working on the Cerebro wannabe right now. The good news however is that the main console and power area has not too many people around it, less than 10 or so I'd say..."
Guin grimaced. With that many people working on Cerebro, they'd have a difficult time getting in there to set up the charges. It also meant that the progress on the machine was likely further along than she would have liked. "Annie, would you be able to handle the people around the console area? Pietro can get us there... Or we could purposefully cause some sort of commotion out here, draw the workers out, and then me and you go inside to handle the explosives?" she suggested to her friend. She wished they had more time for plans but she knew that people in her own family did their best thinking at the last possible second. Hopefully Guin would fall into that pattern at the moment.
Antoinette mulled the problem over in her head. Her power was equipped to handle the small amount of people, if the people themselves were of simple capacity but if Memsmero was controlling them at all, that could pose potential problems for her illusion casting to work properly. Still, with forty or so people, not all of them would go running to one distraction. Not when they were working on something so big as Cerebro. At least, that was Antoinette's thinking. "How about two distractions for the price of one? I can handle the ten or so people in the main area, while some commotion is caused out here, distracting the workers around Cerebro. Even if half of them retreat outside, those numbers are easier to get past and set your charges. I'm thinking rats. Who knows, maybe with everyone running around complaining of rats, we won't need another distraction." Her right eye started to glow a little as she tunneled into the idea of an illusion.
"Would make sense, if need be we can see about causing some sort of distraction rather easily out here. Or perhaps cause a distraction within the building itself. We know that they likely are aware that we are coming, so that isn't too much of a problem."
"I can get us in and out of there no problem," Pietro commented, looking at everyone else. So far they were lucking out and no one had heard them talking or anything like that, so it would seem that they had a little bit of time.
"Alright," Guin said, taking charge even though Cyclops was technically leading this mission. "Annie, Piet, and I will go by the console area. Annie'll cast the illusion on those by the console so that way they don't see us. Cyclops, Beast, and all can then cause the distraction to get the majority of the worker bees to go engage with them. If they think you guys are going in there to destroy Cerebro, then they'll probably be instructed to stop you, clearing the way for us to actually destroy the machine."
"Brilliant!" Antoinette agreed with a smile. She stepped closer to Guin so it would be easier for Pietro to gather them up. "Shall we then?" Even though this was Antoinette's first mission she was more than ready for this.
Cyclops nodded in agreement with Guin, before Pietro walked over to the two of them. It wasn't going to be too difficult for them to get in, at least for the most part. He proceeded to fire off a laser at a nearby pole, causing a loud bang as the pole then proceeded to fall over with a loud boom. It definitely was loud enough to get anyone inside's attention. Pietro picked up Guin and Annie and raced them inside. Somehow, the entire area ended up clearing out. There wasn't a worker or anything left in sight by the consoles or anywhere near the main area.
"Pinch me, I have to be dreaming, we are never this lucky," Guin said softly. She still had her bag of explosives slung over her shoulder and she went up to the console, quickly getting into it and doing a search to see if there were any online back ups of the Cerebro plans. "Okay, now this makes more sense - they're not entirely dumb, they backed up the plans," she explained. "However, they were dumb enough to think that this could keep me out," she added, typing rapidly as her fingers flew across the keyboard. She wiped the plans and then made a virus to boot that would delete the plans if they were stored anywhere else online. The only place safe would be the computer systems at Xavier's.
Antoinette took a moment to stabilize herself after Pietro set them down. She was not quite accoustomed to the fast speeds that he and Guin were. Once she felt a little less dizzy she walked up to Guin and watched her fingers fly across the keyboard. Numbers and words popped up onto the screen in rapid succession but with Guin's words, all seemed to be going well. Antoinette turned around, leaving her computer genius of a friend to her task and looked about the vast warehouse. Her left eye started to glow brighter as she tried to pick up on anything that might suggest all was not well but things seemed to be just fine. Swinging her arms by her sides lightly, Antoinette smiled.
"I was rather looking forward to creating rats. They like to chew through wires. I thought it would cause quite the alarm," she explained.
"You might still get to use your powers yet," he said softly. Currently he was playing lookout while they were messing around with things, and he heard footsteps nearby. They weren't too close to where they were, but they sounded like they were getting closer at least in his mind.
"Guess you do get to make Master Splinter appear after all, then," Guin told Annie, figuring that Pietro would have only said that if someone was coming. She took the charges out of her bag and began to discretely set them all up at various points around the structure. There was a slight danger that one of them could go off early and blow up in the face, but fortunately that didn't happen. All of the charges were synced to a little remote of sorts that she had with her, meaning that they would be able to control exactly when the explosion occurred and make sure the civilians were clear of the area. "Okay, charges are set. We just need to clear out and then we can take down this hunk of metal."
Antoinette turned and looked back at Guin and quirked an eyebrow at her. "Master Splinter?" She looked back in the direction Pietro was looking and shook her hands out, she was starting to get a bit nervous now. Guin however said that the charges were set so they could leave if needed, still, there was someone coming and if they were going to avoid casualties, everyone had to be out. "I need to see them before I can do anything."
"Yeah, well fairly certain you're going to get your wish on that one" Pietro muttered, as a group of about 7 people came walking around the corner and into view towards them.
"You got this, Annie," Guin told her softly, keeping her voice low as to not attract the group's attention.
Antoinette scanned each person who came into view and blew out a breath, thankful for Guin's encouragement. She shook her hands out, taking a second to think of her dad before she switched to thinking of medium to large size, plump rats with long tails and little sharp noses and teeth. Her lavender eye glowed as she focused on the seven people, bringing forth the projection of hundreds of rats scurrying across the floor towards the intruders. They would see them exactly and hear them as they scuttled across and made their sounds of fight.
Annie was lucky, as the group seemed to be made up of the wimpiest people around. The instant that they saw the rats, all 7 of them turned around and ran away, screaming from the rats.
"... Wow, that is pathetic, not gonna lie," Guin snickered, looking at the people who fled the area quickly. "You'd think Mesmero would hypnotize better help."
Antoinette smiled a little, the illusion fading as the last of the people disappeared. "Well rats do carry all sorts of diseases. Still, we best be off now."
"So... This our cue to exit or what? Thought I'd ask this for ahead of time or whatever..." Pietro asked the two of them.
Guin nodded. "Yeah, we're good here. I can remotely activate these charges. Right now, I have them set up to go off five seconds after I hit the detonator - which should be plenty of time for Pietro to get us to the minimum safe distance. The building's structural integrity should hold up as well, and we can shift to helping the others taking out the worker bees Cyclops got to go outside," she explained. She never wanted to be a leader, always feeling that she was more of a rebel, but it seemed she had gone full on Han Solo and ended up in a role she never imagined for herself. "When you're ready, I'll hit the button," she told Pietro.
Antoinette smiled gratefully at Pietro for the question that for her, was a warning so she could prepare a bit better for the sudden speed change that would follow. She listened to Guin, smiling and nodding along. Leadership, at least in this situation seemed to suite Guin well. "Well let's get a safe distance away to watch the show and then be able to help where needed."
Pietro nodded before he picked up both Guin and Annie and raced them back outside. The group outside was about half down now, since they did have to be a bit careful about injuring them in any severe way. "We should probably see about helping them knock the rest of them out."
The Stark Industries heiress had hit the button not more than a millisecond before Pietro whisked them off outside. It was one of the most boring explosions in the history of the universe in her opinion. It destroyed the Cerebro machine, yes, but it wasn't spectacular or anything like the Hanson Power Plant - which Guin had to remind herself was probably a good thing. The Hanson Power Plant explosion would have killed the entire team if Pietro hadn't had his sudden change of heart back then. "Could make it into a game - whoever knocks out the most civilians safely wins," Guin said cheekily, trying to keep the mood light rather than fearful. It was partially for Annie's sake, but also for her own.
Antoinette watched in awe of the mild explosion. Sure it was lame to Guin but it was wonderful to Antoinette. She hadn't seen such a thing before and it was nice to not be in the middle of it. It was even less intense then it had been when Antoinette first found the team. She grounded her feet once Pietro let them go and she felt more stable then she had the first time. Breathing out a sigh of relief she looked to the rest of the party and nodded, her eyes glowing a bit. "Oh, what do we win?" Antoinette was rather intrigued and excited with the prospect of a little competition. Although she wasn't much of a competitor, she couldn't turn down the offer.
"Eh, fairly certain we could come up with some sort of a prize," Pietro said with a smile at Annie, before he went charging into the fray of people.
"I think for now, bragging rights," Guin said. She put up her hood, wearing her all red combat attire and she dove into the fray as well. Her bow was out but rather than using it in order to shoot people, she used it as a weapon in hand to hand combat. Bobbing and weaving, she took advantage of her small stature and agility in order to knock out individual after individual, moving with an epic grace that would have made Black Widow proud. She flipped one of the civilians onto their back, knocking them out cold and she stood up, turning and firing off a taser arrow at another, similar taking them down for the count. "That's nine!" she called out, announcing her score.
Antoinette scanned the crowd, seeing where she could jump in. Turns out, she didn't have to look hard as someone came after her. Luckily Anotinette was able to get this one knocked down but when she tried to create another illusion, using a high pitched sound to disorient several people, it didn't go so well. She sighed but did not become deterred. "There should be a prize for littlest take down. Or perhaps number of rats created." Antoinette mused as she moved around, keeping her fighting stance ready to take on any others that she could.
"It doesn't matter how many you take down Annie," Pietro called to her, several of the civilians were trying to attack him, but they kept missing by a mile, made it easier for him to keep up his own count. He basically went bowling it would seem, except with more people acting as the pins and he was the bowling ball. "I got 14 down Guina," he said with a slight smirk.
"Piet is right - all that matters is you try your best," Guin told Annie. It was funny, how calm she felt now in a real fight compared to the terror she had felt the day before in the Danger Room. Something about having someone there with practically no combat experience was helping Guin to put things into perspective a bit. She had to stay calm for Annie, she kept on telling herself. She then saw four people coming at her, all from different directions and she waited until the last second, before jumping out of the way and they comically all collided, crashing to the ground. She sent taser arrow after taser arrow flying, hitting her targets as if she had been born to use a bow and arrow.
Spying some coming towards her, Guin went at them at a run and kicked off the ground and slammed her feet again them, doing a flip and landing on another foe. She NEVER had this good a day when it came to combat. It helped that these were just civilians, but still, she was feeling the adrenaline rush of success. "I'm at twenty!" she called out to her boyfriend.
Antoinette nibbled on the bottom of her lip, watching as her comrades took down person after person like they were standing still. She was starting to get that familiar itch to run. She was of no use here but she also didn't feel in any immediate danger, which was a strange concept considering all the fighting that was going on. Antoinette tied her hair back and shook out the desire to leave. With the amount of people that Guin and Pietro took down, there weren't that many left and Antoinette tried to think of it as a training session.
She focused on one trying to sneak up on Guin. Antoinette was positive Guin knew the assailant was there but still, Antoinette used the element of surprise to get the jump on this person. She ducked from getting hit and drove her hand into the civilian's stomach, knocking the wind out of them before she actually did knock them to the ground. Well, two plus seven equaled nine.
Pietro managed to knock down 6 more, before the fighting essentially ceased. Cyclops walked over to them, "Guessing mission accomplished then? Cerebro's been destroyed? Or at least their makeshift one anyway."
Guin took a moment to catch her breath, putting down her hood and she looked at Annie, glad to see that she was fine. Combat wasn't always something people looked forward to - especially if they didn't really have any experience in it beyond being abducted by O.M.E.N. agents. She then returned her attention to Cyclops and nodded. "Yeah, we're all good. Plans were erased and their fake Cerebro has been blown up."
Antoinette shifted, relaxing. She still had some adrenaline pumping through her system though she she bounced on the balls of her feet beside Guin, looking around them every once awhile as her eyes shifted. "It was quite the brilliant explosion," Antoinette complimented.
"Now we wait to hear back on how everyone else has done with their parts of the mission," he said simply in response, nodding his head at the girls.
