trans_9 | The Battle That Ended The Century

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The Battle That Ended The Century

People say that war is hell. This looked it.

Buildings and cars and bodies are scattered like broken toys as far as the eye can see, stretching out toward a dirty horizon. Even the clouds seems streaked with mud and blood, and they're taking it out on everyone below with a constant stream of cold, soaking rain.

The sounds of fighting seem to come from all directions, but at this moment, there's no one else in sight.

A breather. The calm before the storm.

[[OOC: This is for everyone who was involved with "The Lurking Fear". Questions go to Milo or Kaylin.]]

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Kara'd gotten her weapon, and she was quite enjoying using it. She was envious of the fact that Katara and Toph still had their abilities, but she wasn't about to complain. There were more important things at hand.

"Underground passages?" What was Sheeana planning?

Julian had fought his way through the fog, literally, and for a moment he ended up a little bit away from the others. Not far, but far enough that he was on his own for the moment. The only good news was that he only had one soldier to fight against. Well, one soldier and a dark God, anyway.

They're all gonna die, a voice whispered in his head.

"Shut. Up," Julian spat out through gritted teeth, glaring at the soldier he was locking horns with. The soldier only grinned darkly at him in return.

They'll all gonna die and there's nothing you can do about it.

"I said shut. Up!" That was followed with a hard right that caught mid-swing. All Julian could do was grunt loudly as his arm was wrenched and twisted.

What's wrong, kid? Can't stand the truth? You don't have powers, kid, not that it would make much of a difference anyway. It didn't for Brian, Jay, Laurie, DJ, or any of the others. Hell, if Emma hadn't kicked your sorry ass into overdrive, Laura would've died in your arms. And it was only because X-23 was willing to do everything that you wouldn't that Cessily got saved.

Some hero you are. No wonder they all dumped your ass in the end.

You used to parade around like you were a God, thought the world was yours. So tell me, how does it feel to know you're so far short of being a God that nothing you do will ever matter?

Despite the pain, Julian stopped struggling after a moment as a realization hit him. Something someone once said to him-- that 'the X-Men are a lesson in humility'-- finally made sense, as did a few other things.

Apocalypse. The Phoenix. Magneto. Mr. Sinister. Whoever was behind M-Day. Every time mutants tried to play God, it blew up in their faces spectacularly. A lesson Scott and Emma failed to learn, considering how they thought they could overcome extinction by using someone else's baby.

The thought of the 'messiah child' suddenly mad him sick.

And he, himself, who thought he was invincible, only to be shown one thing...

"You're right, I'm not a God. I'm not a hero. I'm a goddamn X-Man!" Julian punched the soldier in the mouth, twice, then kneed him in the stomach. It was enough for him to finally pull his arm free, though he didn't let up. He pressed on, throwing one punch after another.

And, of course, he wasn't going to shut up while doing it.

"You know what that means?" Aside from making that guy eat fist, anyway. "It means that I'm just a mutant. Just a person, as screwed up as any other. It's not about powers, its about taking the talents I was born with, and use them to make things better tomorrow than they are today."

Grabbing the soldier by his uniform, Julian slammed him against the side of the shelter. Repeatedly. And each time was punctuated more talking. He was on a roll with this speech. "Not because I think I'm a God. Not because I need to be a hero. Not to make humanity feel inferior-- though that's an added bonus. But to show people what's possible when they use everything they've got." And fuck you both, Scott and Emma, for forgetting that. "And today I'm going to show you that I don't need my powers to raise some hell."

He reared back his fist to throw another punch, and there was a faint green flash of his eyes. His lips curled into an absolutely wicked grin, and he unloaded a punch that hit the force of someone twice his size.

That was still just a spark, just a glimpse of the power that he was still largely cut off from. The Nightmare King was still in his head, but his hold was slipping. But he didn't care. For the first time in a long time, he felt like himself again.

And he would have, even if he never had gotten his powers back. "...but having them certainly helps."

Now to really get himself back into this fight...

Toph felt the ground beneath her feet, felt the reverberations of the artillery fire and suddenly she could see.

There were passages, all right.

"Yes!" she called out to Sheeana. "A couple of them, right under us. Do you want me to open them up? It should be easy, I can --"

Then she felt something else. Distant vibrations in the ground, still a ways off, but all signs pointed to something big.

"Uh, guys? Something's coming..."

Katara was happy to have all the help, and she was they were grateful too. Within minutes, the men coming after them were reduced to a handful, and already they were backing away: the combined strength of Sofia, Julian and Kara with a giant worm was definitely wearing on their courage. At least, that was what Katara thought they were running away from.

"Something big? Like what?"

She didn't have to wait long for her answer. There was a roar that pierced the air, and now the group found themselves face to face with an entirely different and more deadly threat. Katara had spoken, and noted, Red Snout: he was clever, quick, and certainly an able warrior behind those eyes. What she saw towering over them looked like Red Snout, but bigger, dumber...and meaner. It did not mean to talk to them or to threaten them. No, its only mission was to kill them, and she could see that in its eyes.

She turned to Toph and Sheena. "You guys might want to start going underground, at least you'll be in a pair and Toph can help with the earth." She turned to the others. "I...REALLY think I could use your help here. Big ugly reptiles are kinda new."

The worm could feel it too and became agitated, shifting and roaring in short bursts. The t-rex was nosing at the immense doors of the hangar. Soon the flimsy corrugated steel doors would be open and it would go stomping through to eat them.

"I have to stay up here. Tauf, yes, please open one up and get everyone who doesn't have their abilities through..."

Bang, cronk, crank, roar, bang. An immense head poked through the doors like the 'HERE'S JOHNNY' moment in The Shining. Baleful, cold eyes regarded them the way a fat man regards a ham and cheetoh casserole. The mouth was filled with slobbery steak knives. The stench was like nothing any of them had ever experienced.

And the worm went slithering up to meet it. Sheeana could only exert limited control of it. The part that was Leto had ceded temporarily control to the part that was animal. Sheeana repeated the Litany Against Fear to herself.

"Sister, keep the rain off of shai-halud...We're about to be witness to a battle a hundred million years in the making."

And the worm was up against the door too, rearing up like an immense snake to present a faceless face, tripartite mouth that was just as big, a staredown between two ancient gargantuans that would make a pro wrestling promoter cream his suit.

Kara was confused. She'd gotten so used to having her powers, and doing everything with her powers that, despite all of her training, she was still lost on the battlefield.

That wasn't good. Like, at all.

And there was no way for her to fly up and survey it from above before shooting back down like a comet and attacking what needed to be attacked.

So she did what anyone else would do in her situation.

She followed the orders of her teammates and hoped for the best.

Sofia was too far away to hear any orders. She had kicked and scratched and even shot her way through the soldiers ranks until the Tyrannosaurus Rex arrived and scared the rest away.

She saw the dinosaur nudge at the shelter covering her friends. She thought back to what had happened just before she came here. Taking on the Zodiac, getting shot for it, probably dying for it.

Her fingers tightened on her gun. It probably wasn't going to do any damage, not unless she got lucky. And at the very least she might help distract it- along with that giant worm thing. And maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't get killed.

"Well," She said softly in Spanish. "There are worse ways to die."

Sofia lifted her MP-40, aimed for the dinosaur's mouth, and pulled the trigger. And she didn't let up.

And Julian made his way back to the others in time to--

Is that Sofia machine gunning a dinosaur?

...that was kinda hot, actually.

But he didn't have much time to gawk at her, though. What with the Dinosaur advancing despite being shot in the mouth.

"Katara! Kneecap the lizard!"

Sheeana cursed under her breath in Fremen as the scaly giant turned, stung by the German semiauto, cut a tiny bit but easily shaking it off. It bore down on its attacker. She's going to be eaten and all because she had to make the heroic self sacrifice for us.

"Toph! Get her underground!" She called at the earthbender, hoping for a last moment save.

Toph had pretty good reflexes, so when the giant lizard reared its head - possibly to wind up to bite off Sofia's head -

A giant, crumbling rush echoed through the place, and a tube of stone, complete with lid, formed around Sofia. Toph grunted from the exertion. She had to make the earth-tube strong enough that the lizard couldn't bite it, but move gingerly enough that Sofia would drop gently, unharmed into the cavern below.

Take out the kneecap. Good advice. It would probably even weaken the dinosaur enough that the worm would have no problem taking him out. She would have to make sure that none of the moisture got on him though.

Katara gathered the water, and here she formed several circular discs: they were razor sharp, and Master Pakku would have remembered them well, as he narrowly avoided several of them when Katara challenged him the first time. Unlike her teacher, the Tyrannosaurus had limited vision and was still clumsy on his feet: that was going to hurt it all the more. Katara let loose four discs, and they left rather nasty cuts on the dinosaur, who responded with a loud roar that shook the ground a little. This, however, did little to deter Katara, who rushed to the worm and brought the water back, gathering it in her hands. With the dinosaur unfocused as he was, the worm could go to town on him.

Unfortunately, seeing the weakened dinosaur seemed to inspire a new bravery in the allied powers. They started to advance on them again, and Katara clicked her tongue impatiently.

"Sheeana, if you can get rid of the lizard thing, please get to Aang, he's going to need all the help he can get! We're going to have to stay here a bit longer: I don't want to leave these guys yet! I'll be there soon, I promise!"

She ducked a flurry of bullets from a nearby troop who yelled something like, "Sterben schlechte Wasserhexe!"

Katara responded with a BG inspired poke to the chest that sent him sprawling. "I don;t know what you said but it sounded mean!"

Edited 2010-03-13 18:35 (UTC)

Sofia had spent the whole round and was scrambling to reload the gun when that happened.

"What?" At first she thought she was about to be buried alive but then she saw that the dirt wasn't closing in around her.

One thing was clear: she wasn't about to be eaten. At least, not yet.

From right behind Sofia's little tomb there was a rumbling of rocks, and then Toph poked her head out.

"C'mon. There's a tunnel here, we can get you back under cover. Big lizards... you don't want to mess with big lizards."

Whereas above ground it was patently obvious that Toph was blind, here underground she carried on as though this were a completely normal state of affairs.

"We need to get back up and help the others."

Sofia jumped at the unexpected movement. "Thank you." Sofia lowered her gun and followed Toph. "You saved my life."

His prey suddenly vanished, the ancient predator-king stomped back over to the warehouse to reengage with the worm. The doors crashed open. The worm roared but reared back at its wet adversary.

Sheeana was flattened against the interior of the doorway. "Cover your ears for three seconds! After that, keep the water off the Worm and he will take care of the Dinosaur!"

And as soon as Katara did: "Gegenseitig umbringen!" Their attackers were abruptly much more easy to deal with as they fell upon each other in an orgy of bloody fratricide. This probably wouldn't have worked on such a large group of true people, but these were dream things, alive in only the most technical sense.

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The Battle That Ended The Century

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tl;dr "How Julian Got His Groove Back"

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