2531/Apokolips Now: Justifiable Violence

Apokolips Now: Justifiable Violence
Date of Scene:	23 September 2017
Location:	Mutant Town
Synopsis:	One of Apokolips' Generals arrives to capture mutants for conversion to the Apokoliptian Army.
Thanks to:	Jean Grey
Cast of Characters:	Phoenix, Lazarlite, Black Rose, Okhotnik, Breath, Armor, Tendril, Boom-Boom
Tinyplot:	Apokolips Now

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Phoenix has posed:
STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT
HOLY COMMUNION MINISTRIES
FOUR SUNDAYS AGO

"And without further ado," Pastor Jace announces while gesturing to the slender, smiling man at the far end of the choir, "I'd like to present the head of New Glory Ministries, come all the way from Baton Rouge to bring you today's guest sermon: please, give a warm welcome to the Reverend G. Godfrey Goodsteen!"

Bathed in applause, the Reverend strides up to the pulpit with one hand to his heart and the other raised high to wave at the congregation. Once in place, he takes a moment to steady himself against the edges before turning his eyes and smile upon the crowd. He remains silent until the applause dies away, giving him time to take the audience's measure.

"Brothers, sisters," he finally begins, tone pitched just so to ride the line between authority and congeniality, "Today I come before you as a simple man with a humble spirit-- nothin' more, nothin' less. Just a product of this world, like each and every one'a you..."

PHOENIX, ARIZONA
BETHEL BELIEVERS CHAPEL
THREE SUNDAYS AGO

"... a man with few certainties in this sinful world: The watchful, all-seein' eyes of the Almighty," Reverend Goodsteen ticks off as the congregation nods and murmurs along, "the faith of good, true believers like yourselves; and most of all, fear-- of Him who shepherds me, of the dark deeds of faithless men, and of the wretched abominations bubblin' on outta the Pit itself, day by day draggin' this world a little further down-- of creatures from beyond the stars, and wicked men who would traffic with demons for power! Of the so-called 'scientists' and 'futurists' who twist our friends, our families with their forsaken theories-- and then, of course,"

The Reverend's voice falls as he leans forward,

"there's the fear of lookin' into your sweet, darlin' baby's eyes every mornin' and wonderin': 'is today the day she becomes a monster-- mutated by the touch of sin in her blood?!'"

Gasps ripple through the audience as fearful looks are exchanged.

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA
FIRST PROPHETIC APOSTOLIC
TWO SUNDAYS AGO

The Reverend gives it a few moments for the gasps to fade and the attention of the audience to find its way back to him.

"I know, my brothers and sisters, I know that the world is full of temptation, of evil, but I'm here to tell you today: we must not let that fear make us weak, and we must not hide from it! For it is by embracing our fear without being conquered by it that we find the power to cleanse the filth from this world before we pass joyfully into the next. Today, I implore you..."

Phoenix has posed:
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
REDEEMED VICTORY FELLOWSHIP
LAST SUNDAY

"... look deep within yourselves and find that which makes you scared-- which makes you angry, and know: the wrath you feel a-churnin' in your guts for this fallen world is righteous, and your fears are justified!"

Godfrey pauses when relief and a fresh round of applause wash over the room, smiling upon his flock with his arms spread as if to accept their relief, their adulation-- and whatever else they're willing to give.

"Brothers," he finally continues some several seconds later, "sisters: soon, there will come a reckonin' for this sinful world, just as surely as the sun rises and sets. And when it comes, I'mma need each an' every one'a you to be ready to fight to be on the side'a right. Be ready to stand tall, and let anyone who'd dare oppose you know:"

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN(AKA 'MUTANT TOWN')
MIDNIGHT
NOW

A series of *BOOM.*s shake Mutant Town, followed by a hungry chorus of howls. Three sets of concentric white rings invade the neighborhood: one in a residential park/tent city; one outside of a rundown community center with a basement secure enough to take in war-weary locals; and one in the middle of a club, where the owners are throwing an End of the World party. Several hounds large enough to bear human riders bound from the portals and immediately commence either sniffing after, or outright leaping upon prey. Closely behind them are squads of black-garbed soldiers wearing positively Medieval helmets with thin, red slits across their eye-lines.

As if sharing a mind, they intone, "Darkseid justifies my hate," while prowling in search of mutants, or firing energy rifles overhead to subdue revelers and/or tent residents-- or, in a few cases, just cutting to the chase by seizing the nearest warm bodies and chucking them right back through the portals before they can disappear, "Darkseid justifies my fear. Your reckoning is at hand; submit and know His mercy."

And just like that, Bushwick becomes another front in the Apokolips War, with terrified locals trying their best to repel their hunters; and Justifiers and their canine steeds dragging every mutant that steps into their paths kicking and screaming into the nearest Boom Tube-- some with more scorched flesh than others.

Lazarlite has posed:
Lytle has been spending a lot of time in New York, searching for the rumored schools for supers. The Alien Invasion was trouble...his family was on the front lines allover Canada, even he took a part. However after the first round, things were quiet in most of the world...but not near here...therefore Lytle was here. Given the way he looks, he tends to hand around Mutant Town...even if he is not technically a mutant there are not many places that easily welcome a guy with blue skin and huge lidless solid black eyes. When he hears the Boom he rushes to see what the trouble is. Seeing armored thugs with energy weapons, he immediately throws himself in the way of nearest attacker's blast. He Fires a blast back, nearly a blue reflection of the blast that hit him, incinerating one of the giant dogs.

Black Rose has posed:
    By now, Yana had become 'used' to the step-disks, and emerged into Mutant Town with the others, decked out in her full New Mutant fashion suit. Her blue eyes survey the scene around them, "This," she says, quietly. "Is bad. Is really, really bad." She has her collapsable night-stick with her, on her belt. And, a few other pouches filled with steel ball bearings, playing cards, and other odd 'throwable' things she can weaponize with her abilities.
    "I know I'm not a field leader," she tells her friends, "I know I need experience, but we need someone to keep us organized in this chaos." She looks to Tabitha, meaningfully, making a solid effort to respect Boomer's boundries after they talked. But, Yana knows she has a point. She also knows Diya isn't a leader -- she's a reactor. A fighter. A weapon, when it comes down to it, that needs to be focused. That is where she's at her best. "And if nobody else wants it, ...," well, she trails off.

    "Lexi, remember what we've been over. Stay close to someone. Diya, myself, or Boomer." Regardless if she's field leader or not, that seems to be an order.

    "Let's kick this assholes out of Mutant Town."

Okhotnik has posed:
A guest at the Mansion, Diya is supposed to be staying out of sight and not drawing attention to herself. But when she learns of a threat to the people of Mutant Town, she insists quite forcefully: she's going. She owes the homeless of Mutant Town; they are hers. She protects them, and she will protect them now.

The soldier has been givne her war. The telepaths can be forgiven for finding the inner peace, contentment and excitement that brings to Diya distasteful. But it is for things like this that she was shaped by the Spetznaz and her own determination. Now she will get another chance to inhabit that space of 'right weapon in the right place at the right time'. It is a thing only other soldiers could understand.

"Sorry. I'll be back as quickly as I can." That's all the warning anyone gets. As soon as they arrive, Diya sprints away at nearly blurring speeds, darting down this alleyway and then that one, around a corner, down another passage, and then through a cleverly disguised door. She emerges ten minutes later, laden with weapons and gear, suited up: she looks now like the soldier she is, wearing body armor, web harness covering her, festooned with weapons, pouches of ammunition, and other gear. She carries an assault rifle, with two SMGs on straps and clipped to her hips. A true long gun - a field sniper's rifle - is strapped to her back, just in case.

And then the Hunter goes to work.

The first hint of this comes as she comes bareling around a corner, firing repeatedly into the face of one of those canine steed killing machines, driving it away from one of its intended prey. "Get to the tunnels. Go." Diya snarls to one of 'her' homeless, as she advances fearlessly forward. Now, she must rejoin the others. This is not a war best fought alone behind enemy lies; too many innocent losses that way.

And besides, somewhere in all of this, Lexi is in trouble.

Breath has posed:
Breath is standing on a rooftop, now and then jetting a few blocks over to a new spot to pause. This is sort of the edge of her usual stomping grounds, and she finds it a bit odd to be in a place where she is seen as the non-freak. This puts her near the community center when things start appearing. She snarls a bit and clenches her fist at the violence. Fed. Up. They remind her of the bullies who attacked her for walking 'wrong' and moving 'wrong'.

So she just swoops down to the ground in a straight jump onto the sidewalk, scoops up a handful of gravel, tosses it lightly in the air, then unleashes a tornado-strength gust of air straight into a cluster of bigots, through the gravel.

Then, because she isn't stupid and they had guns, she steps behind the corner of the building and starts running, then blows down to launch herself back into the air to look for reinforcements.

Armor has posed:
Hisako Ichiki - ARMOR - emerges from the stepping disks. She has put on plain yellow-and-blue X-Fatigues because she has something else on over her. The slightly bulbous red shapes of her titular power!

She has no objection whatever to Yana taking a position of leadership. Someone has to. She nods along with Yana's words, and tells her - and the group, perhaps, before everyone breaks out - "Be careful with their blows. One of 'em got through my armor once. But -"

Then she leaps.

Where?

Towards a dog! A giant dog. A gigantic riding dog. Armor has the unique pleasure and honor to aim one huge red fist at the side of a massive canine friend in a manner most unphotogenic, but then, if there ever were a truly Bad Dog, it would probably be these.

"Hey! I hear you like picking on REFUGEES! What's up with THAT?" Hisako shouts as she aims to follow up her dog-punching skills (learned painstakingly in the Danger Room!) with a rushing left straight at an armored spaceman's breadbasket!

Tendril has posed:
    The mauve girl nods a bit at Yana, if a bit nervously, but with a determined expression. "R-right...I'll stay close ta you guys. No running off." she says, sprouting a pair of tendrils from her back that curl up on either side of her. "...who th' fuck are these guys??" she mutters, then blinks as Diya takes off. "Wait! Shouldn't we stay....fuck!" she mutters as the weretigress takes off. "Right soEEEEEEE!"

    The last comes when one the canines in questions suddenly comes romping around the corner, charging towards Lexi and nearly running her down as she leaps straight upwards like a startled cat. One tendril wraps around a light pole, the other swings to smash into the rider, sending him flying halfway down the block.

    The dog, meanwhile, has treed itself a Lexi, and starts snarling and barking, trying to jump up to get at her as she pulls herself up on top of the pole. "Back off fido!"

Boom-Boom has posed:
    Boomer was ready to go, and so with the others she did, dressed also in New Mutants colors - though she had added a pair of hight purple sunglasses to the look.
        Yana was taking charge, but for once all Tabitha did was offer a thumbs-up. But then everything go to crap - the tigger's suicidal human form takes off running at the enemy and there are dogs getting smashed everywhere. One even tries to chase Lexi up a light post. Well, Boomer can't have that.

    "Hey! Poochy! Herel doggie. Have a treat!" and she tosses a good-sized time bomb at the beast, meaning it to pop up into its mouth. That should be a spicy meatball.

Phoenix has posed:
Blue light bores a hole clean through a warhound's skull, and as its rider tumbles to the ground, the beast begins to burn from the inside out.

"Did you ever wonder," the rider intones while stiffly rising to her full height and leveling the rifle in her hands upon Lytle, "what it might be like to live without pain? Without uncertainty?" The weapon flips 'round in her hands, and then she lunges to try striking the blue-skinned boy across the face with the butt of it. "Darkseid can show you the way; all you need to do is submit!"

"Submit!" a nearby Justifier agrees while dropping his rifle to charging towards Lytle, intent on tackling him from the side. "He's already in you!"

Diya finds her target a bit harder to subdue, meanwhile: the warhounds of Apokolips resemble Earthly canines in general form, but she finds that while her fusillade does do the trick as far as driving the canine and its rider back long enough to let their would-be victim flee, it's more 'bloodied and pissed' than it is 'shot to death'. As the beast shakes blood from its eyes and lets out great, heaving growls, its rider draws a bead upon the weretigress-- and holds.

The community center's doors are no match for the blaster rifles. Breath arrives in time to see Justifiers streaming into the community center while intoning, "Wherever they hide, we will find them. Wherever they run, we will chase them-- for Darkseid is our will, Darkseid is our way--"

-- and intervenes in time to cleave several members clean off of the breach squad as the first few Justifiers through the door are bowled inside, while the rest are buffetted by gravel and gales. Those caught outside are blown across the street and down the sidewalk, but once they've bounced and rolled a few times, they begin picking themselves right back up again, their armor serving to protect them from the absolute worst of the air-manipulator's wrath.

Inside, a half-man, half-elephant charges through one of the center's walls in the hopes of taking the invaders off-guard before they're able to find their way to some of the less sturdy refugees, and winds up goring one of the thugs picking himself up from Breath's buffet. Unfortunately, the weight and obstruction of an entire body dangling from his face leaves him open to one of the other thugs, and one blast later, he's down to three good knees and the fanatics are regrouping.

Armor and Tendril's dog-hunting efforts leave the former rolling around on the ground with a dazed Justifier who tries to juggle punching back with intoning, "Through Darkseid... I have forsaken my limitations... !" and catching his breath, while the latter finds that - unlike most dogs - Apokoliptian warhounds' jaws are powerful enough to bring metal light poles tumbling down, should something inspire them to it. As it bites - and wrenches, and growls - foam sprays from the corners of its mouth until the pole is in freefall, at which point it turns its attention towards loping after the tumbling, tusslin' Armor-- just in time to join its fellow canine in chasing after his mutant-grappling rider.

Fortunately for Armor, it finds a plasma sphere lodged between its powerful jaws the first time it lands; less fortunately, it manages to leap one more time, coming down just a few feet from the mutant's grappling before the time bomb goes off and the lower half of its face winds up everywhere.

And back in the alley...

*BOOM.*

... a fourth portal between the Hunter and the rest of her pack, just long enough to let one more warhound - clad in spiked, red and purple armor - stride forth, bearing a towering figure in a purple and red breastplate whose similarly hued, square-topped helmet leaves his set jaw and brightly golden eyes perfectly visible. It is only after the newcomer gives a slight dip of his chin that the Justifier aiming at Diya fires-- if, indeed, he is even upright, by the time that last portal opens.

"What are you?" he wonders as a spear flies from the closing Boom Tube to settle into his waiting palm, leading t

Phoenix has posed:
"What are you?" he wonders as a spear flies from the closing Boom Tube to settle into his waiting palm, leading to a forward charge meant to leave Diya impaled. "What strange variety of mortality will Devilance, the Pursuer bring before his Master today?"

Tendril has posed:
    Tendril erks as her lightpole is bitten through, starting to topple as she leaps upwards off it, more tendrils sprouting smoothly to grab hold of a nearby sign as she whips around it, landing with her feet on the edge of the building again. "Okay, it's totally not my fault..." she mutters, seeing she's not away from the others, before she leaps out, grabbing onto another post as she swings over to smoothly land by Black Rose and Boom Boom again. "We gotta join up with the others! They're fighting on their own!"

Black Rose has posed:
    "Boomer, we need to separate, and conquer. Can you throw a few of your bombs into the group, at diffferent angles," Yana yells. Then, "Lexi! Spiked Tendrils! Drop down on your target. Armor! I want you in there right after Boomer's bombs, seperate, and conquer. Push them away."

    The blue-haired Russian sees these people -aren't- playing around. They're here to kill. But, she's remembered what Jean said, still. She pulls out one of her ball bearings and whips it at a rider, hard enough to crack the skull, and send someone into a massive concussion -- but not kill. Then, buffeting herself, and her collapsable Baton, she agrees with Boomer, "Right. We need to separate them, and come together with our own resistance forces. The people of Mutant Town are fighting back. Let's go, New Mutants!"

    "Diya! Clear the way for us!"

Lazarlite has posed:
Lytle has is weaknesses, being grappled is something he avoids. Fortunately he CAN avoid it. His powers, other than his absorption, are limited...but he has a few tricks. For example, he is an expert in the use of his cape in combat. He can use it to confuse and enemy as to his location, and then trip said enemy into crashing into a different person. He can fly...thogh his flight is very limited it allows him to move three dimensionally in amazing leaps that can turn in mid-air. He can procuce holographic illusions, such as copies of himself for others to chase. In other words...he is darn hard to get a grip on. He does not want to be grabbed, but has absolutely no problem with being hit. He moves to get between the enemy and any innocent mutants he can find...taking blows as fast as he can and using the poser of the first one to speed up his metabolism so he can get in the way of the next...he can still only be at one place at a time...his laser scan spotys a group of people in what looks to be a uniform fighting the bad guys, perhaps he should join forces with them...if he can get that far without being grabbed.

Okhotnik has posed:
As soon as the homeless is gone from the beast, seeing that it has not been sufficiently deterred, Diya opens up again, this time firing two grenades at the animal and its rider now that no one she wants to save is within the radius of that explosive payload.

Sadly, that is the last thing Diya manages to do, before she turns to face Devilance, pinned to the wall behind her by the massive spear that pierced through her body armor, front and back, driving through her chest and impaling into the wall. Blood bursts from her mouth in a gasping, choking sound as her lung is pierced.

Her arms weakened by the explosive messages through her nerves, the soldier releases her assault rifle to fall to the ground from nerveless fingers as blood pours down her chest from the wound. Diya stares up at the figure that just killed her ...

... and then a deep subsonic rumbling vibration courses through the air. Grey-green eyes turn mostly a glowing amber, as something fiercely terrible looks out of those eyes at Diya's attacker. And arms weakened by pain reach up and seize the shaft of the spear, pulling Diya further along the haft towards Devilance, as the soldier snarls.

"What am I? You're about to find out."

And then sounds the roar, full-throated, something impossibly larger than the woman soldier literally dragging herself up that shaft towards her murderer with ferocious, implacable intent.

Breath has posed:
Breath circles around, spotting a somewhat organized group forming up. Oh looki! Somebody who might actually be able to do something besides knock these things down! She comes swooping along toward them in time to hear the order to 'Clear the way'. Well, she's good at THAT!

She kills her airspeed, lands, and plants her feet on the ground in one long exhalation of air at the forces in the way of.. whichever way it is they looked like they were planning to go, sweeping her gale back and forth a bit to spread the path out.

She finishes out her blast, chirps a quick, "Breath here! After you!" and starts inhaling an enourmous roaring breath of air, pausing a moment to suck the air out of her glider wings and collapse it back into her backpack.

Armor has posed:
"You seem pretty limited to me," Armor answers the dazed Justifier, her tone a little hot. Can you blame her? She looks towards the side - a dog is lunging towards her but then it goes

BOOM

Hisako's face tightens into a grimace for a moment. Then back towards the Justifier, who is coming right at her with a punch. Hisako seems to give ground to the Justifier. It is a lie, because when his arm is at maximum extension, she throws herself backwards -

Her armor, after all, is weightless.

Grasping the follower of Darkseid's arm near the shoulder with her knees, she lets momentum carry her forwards, twisting round and bending his arm back as she shouts at him, "You think you can just roll up here, hurt people, scare people?! You think you invented hurting the helpless?!"

Yana's suggestion is solid to her. Armor twists round, 'rolling' on the curved plate of the psychic exoframe's hip as she rotates the Justifier around and hurls him into his kinfolk with bone-jarring force. "Got it!" she shouts to Yana, leaping afterwards to start swinging her arms around and generally making a mess amongst this unit. If they're in disarray - shooting at HER - they can't murder the helpless!

Right? Probably.

Phoenix has posed:
Bright red energy collapses a wall from the inside, revealing the End of the World party - in all its screaming, smoky glory, as Justifiers and a handful of remaining clubgoers exchange blaster fire and actual fire(and lightning, and hyper-fast debris, and a few globs of acidic mucous) - to the rest of the battlefield. Hunkered behind upturned tables and chairs, the two groups seem to be in something of a stalemate, but Apokoliptian technology seems set to tilt things in the Justifiers' favor in the long run: every shot that lands against the mutants' cover takes out chunks of it, which are repaired by a telekinetic in the group-- but the repairs are getting slower and less complete with each assault.

Yana whips a bearing at a Justifier hard enough to send cracks shooting through the narrow slit of his visor and drop him from his steed-- which just leaves the massive, now masterless warhound to lunge after Kinetic with its teeth bared, while an unmounted Justifier not far away breaks off from chasing tent-dwellers to squeeze off a beam in the blue-haired girl's direction. Her barking orders doesn't - at least, for the moment - seem to be drawing much added attention.

The same can't be said for Tabitha's bombs, however: by chucking a couple into the midst of a prowling pack of Justifiers, she manages to both draw some heat from tent-dwellers and bring dead-eyed zealots rounding on her. Advancing on the trailer-raised blonde, the four zealots left out of the group she disrupted open fire, sending her darting in search of cover as Tendril moves to support her!

Lytle leaves a tangled pile of Justifiers in his wake, meanwhile, but his evasive movements have the side-effect of making him extremely visible-- and when confronting a group of militarized zealots not playing with a full deck of self-determination, visibility has its ups and its downs. On the one hand, Lytle's abilities make him a difficult target to pin down-- but, on the other, Justifier after Justifier breaks off from dragging, herding, or hurling mutants into the nearest Boom Tube to take a crack at the persistent target, meaning that he won't be getting many breaks on his way to the other heroes. At every turn he is met by blaster fire, lunging warhounds, and charging zealots; this does, at least, give some of Bushwick's residents the room they need to get the hell out of the way.

Over at the Community Center, Breath is able to prevent the Justifiers marching to rejoin the rest of their unit from crossing the thrshold by blowing them half a block or so down the street, and this time, they aren't nearly as quick to get back up again. Inside, meanwhile, the handful thugs who made it past her first exhalation move on from crippling their pachydermic aggressor sweep their cold, red gazes through the darkness as they close in on the stairs to the shelter.

"We are all helpless beside Darkseid," one Justifier notes as another bowls him over. "All of us, every little thing exists purely at his mercy!" another cries from the tangled pile of humanity forming.

"Helplessness is certainty!" a third shouts after taking a right cross to the jaw.

"Certainty-- is-- strength," a fourth forces out after taking a bulbous red fist to the gut.

"Strength is justification," says a fifth while dropping back far enough to unload a few rounds into the mutant's psi-armor. "Darkseid justifies our hate," Justifiers six, seven, eight, and nine add along with a few rounds of their own, bit by bit, with seven and nine dropping shortly afterwards thanks to stray blows.

And in the alley...

"Show me," the Pursuer demands of the woman-- the beast now drawing herself towards him. Dismounting, he shoves the lance - and the weretigress - away from himself, only to hold his arm high, imploring the weapon to draw itself free from her body to rejoin him, freeing her - for better or worse - to make good on her threat.

If she can catch him, that is:

A beat after reclaiming the spear, he hops - damn near flies - towards her flank in a si

Phoenix has posed:
A beat after reclaiming the spear, he hops - damn near flies - towards her flank in a single step, then bounds behind her back to plant himself on the other side, feints-- only to withdraw and roll himself behind her for another thrusting feint. Having already wounded Diya, he seems to want to tire her out, to get her so turned around that she's vulnerable to one last, terrible thrust-- and, perhaps, to have a bit of sport with his prey.

Lazarlite has posed:
Lytle is fine with being hit...energy blasts and punches both just give him more energy he can divert into maning himself stronger, faster, or more potent in other ways. He is soon moving ten times faster than an olympic sprinter and firing out short bursts of laser fire to destroy the weapons of the Justifiers. He may not be getting very far, but where he has been the forces of Apokalypse are losing ground.

Black Rose has posed:
    Yana sees the blast coming, and increases her own speed to dive to the ground. So buffeted and protected from most kinetic attacks, she actually then speeds up her own slide to carry her further, faster, and out of the way of that blaster fire. She rolls to her side and then she tells Lexi, "Get one of their weapons. Fast as you can. Then start shooting back at them. Got it? Stay on the move. Don't sit still." She slaps Lexi's back, "You're buffeted, for now. May need it back. Go. Get it. Quickly." Lexi will find she'll move faster than ever, now -- but not so fast she'll not be able to react.

    Yana, meanwhile, drops the buffer on herself to imbibe another ball bearing, which is whipped at the masterless hound, and thrown with as much force -- and accuracy, as her last.

    "Hit their flanks. Seperate them. Give the reistance a chance to push back, we've got another entire force just sitting in their, guys. Let's get them out of there, and get these asshats off our streets!"

    "Where's Diya?" Yana shouts, even as she rebuffets herself, and runs in, full steam, now, into the fray at a fast 100mph or so. She's headed straight towards one of tose riders, intent on literally smashing straight through it, and taking out rider and beast at hte same time.

Okhotnik has posed:
The roar of an enraged tiger echoes through the concrete canyons of Mutant Town. It is a full-throated cry that Okhotnik's friends have never heard; they have never seen her given a reason for a cry like that. But it is one that sends the atavistic primal core of most humans cowering in terror.

The biggest problem Diya has in the short term is really not her wound, which is rather rapidly stopping the blood flow. It's not the pain, which she has leashed to fuel her tiger's rage and power her transformation.

It's her gear.

Diya wanted the gear, because this was going to be a war, and she was going to fight as a soldier. But now this is something else entirely. And that gear is in the way.

The body armor rips like it's fastened with velcro - it's not - as the woman is set free from the lance that had pierced her body. She lets herself fall to her knees, as her body warps, limbs bending impossibly, tendons audibly snapping, bones shattering and reforming. There's not much more than pain can do to Diya, and she embraces it all, as she rips free of her gear ...

... and as a less than six foot tall woman soldier is replaced, in rather rapid succession, by a twelve foot long, six foot tall at the shoulder Siberian tigress.

A tigress who happens to be very pissed. And guided by an intelligence no natural tiger has. An intelligence that understands tactics.

An intelligence that is not terribly impressed by Devilance's toying with her.

The tigress rolls away from her attacker when he tries to flank her, and does so in a way that jukes wildly, unpredictably and unnaturally, avoiding any attempt to follow that up with another stab. The entire alleyway vibrates with the guttural growl of anger in the cat, as she paces around, the hole in her chest almost completely closed now. The next time Devilance tries to flank her she lets him ... and then whips around with blurring, impossible speed to seize upon him with both ginormous clawed paws and that gaping wide mighty jaw.

Armor has posed:
Armor, now back on her feet, crosses her arms as she is given a light gentle pattering of anti-well-anti-armor-fire-now from the Justifiers' weapons. She leaps towards them, aiming to smash among them and complicate their aim, but she calls back to Yana, "Tell them to hurry up!"

The shots leave puckered dimples in her armor. They recoil, of course, slowly - like breaks or dimples in gelatin or thick rubber - but at THIS pace, they're going to start actually landing in the same point and hitting Armor's tender little mcnugget of a body before too long.

Tendril has posed:
    At the sudden roar, Tendril says helpfully to Yana. "That way!" before vaulting up on a nearby building, long tendrils curling around a fire escape as she swings up, then sees Boom Boom being menaced by the four. "Boomer!" She growls, focusing, as all four of the long muscular and prehensile lengths curling over her shoulder shifts at the tips, hardening and lengthening into razor sharp points of bone-like material, before she throws herself at the four from behind. Each tendril stabs down towards the four men, with enough force to punch through a car...and any unlucky enough to be speared are promptly hurled away from the group, as Lexi bares canines in a snarl. She won't think about this...she will not..think...about that...she just has to do. She can face it after...when her friends are safe again....

Breath has posed:
Breath advances, using the other battles with bigger, scarier, sturdier people.. Armor mostly, really... to keep the attention off of her. Hit their flanks? She already was! She listens for the sounds of fighting, then dives into a doorway that features it. After all, she doesn't want to draw too much attention that she starts getting shot at more than the huge types that seem like they are used to it.. she's soft and squishy!

In a certain ancient culture, they were a huge fan of a certain throwing axe in large battles - not seemingly a great weapon, but when thrown, they tended to bounce distractingly, making shield lines fall apart - depriving the enemy of their formation and tactics. And this is why she tosses a handful of dust, sand, and grit in the air, then blows it into the next cluster of bigoted attackers she sees in that building, sweeping her breath back and forth to spread chaos and fling them into the crowds, then ducks immediately behind the doorway again to deprive them of an immediate target for their retaliation. Duck, hide, inhale, hope she isn't being charged from both sides by haters..

Phoenix has posed:
Lytle is, indeed, doing quite a lot to thin the Justifiers' numbers with his sheer existence, but once it's abundantly clear that just shooting(or punching, or rifle-thumping) him is utterly pointless, the final group of zealots between him and his goal seem seat on trying to make up some ground. He's intensely, impossibly fast, so they try to counteract this by spreading themselves out around him as they emerge from alleys and pull away from smaller melees; nothing they throw at him seems to stop him, so their next move is to throw converge, seeking to throw themselves atop him all at once as if they were on the 50 yard line rather than the middle of a warzone.

Like Diya, Yana gets an object lesson in the difference between Earthly mammals and Apokoliptian ones when the hound she hurls at is struck hard enough to bring it crashing to the ground as its head backwards-- only to deliberately draw itself back up as blood gushes from its skull and primal rage flares in its eyes. As the thick cables of muscle in its legs twitch and tighten, it lets out a howl that draws several nearby hounds - long since divested of their riders - loping near to join it in when it charges headlong upon the girl barking orders, thirsting for blood and vengeance.

The Justifiers' armor is fairly sturdy, but doesn't quite hold against a mutant launching many hundreds of pounds of narrowly focused force against it-- and neither do the people beneath: each Justifier hurled away by Tendril sends an arc of blood through the air, and not one of them seems to have anything Darkseid-related to say about it. Unaware of the danger she nearly pulled to herself, Boom-Boom has already moved on to disrupting the Justifiers' flanks by dashing and darting through a knot of them, leaving short-timered bombs in her wake that serve to scatter the soldiers and kick up a hellacious cloud of debris.

Would that Armor were so lucky.

"... like your life-- hff!" one goes after taking an uppercut.

"-- to experience a structurrrrr--" another goes after a psi-plated knee lands in her gut.

"-- ed existence? Wouldn't it be so much eas--" yet another continues before being smacked into a hound.

Slowly but surely, Armor's managing to winnow the Justifiers focused on her down, reducing her overall BPM('beams per minute') with each victim-- and thanks to the efforts of the other heroes, there aren't many more to slip in for reinforcement's sake.

At this point, it's just a question of which side wants it more.

Inside the Community Center, the Justifier at the head of the pack goes tumbling down the basement steps when Breath unleashes debris and chaos upon the unit. The rest of them are sent sprawling across the hardwood of its multipurpose room, and while they're far quicker to try and rejoin the fight than their leader is, the mutant's subterfuge pays dividends by depriving them of an immediate target and forcing them to split up and check the doors on both ends of the room-- just in case they're dealing with a speedster.

Breath may also hear the sounds of combat rising from downstairs shortly after armor ceases clattering across concrete, but it's short-lived-- and largely bereft of the tell-tale report of energy weaponry.

In the alley, the tigress finds herself biting into what may as well be a man made of diamond after catching the Pursuer with her paws. As quickly as those first blows came, they caught the God off-guard, dazing him and drawing blood from his bared shoulders-- but not quite dulling his instincts, leading to their current predicament: a fantastically dense arm caught between fantastically powerful jaws. The spear clatters to the ground; their proximity makes it worthless. His lips curl in something not entirely dissimilar to a smile, for the hunt has begun, and his prey is lively-- even as the rest of his party seems to be collapsing around him. Without a further word, he tries to rain hammering blows upon the tigress' skull in the hopes of encourgaing her to let him go-- or crush her into submission; either o

Phoenix has posed:
Breath may also hear the sounds of combat rising from downstairs shortly after armor ceases clattering across concrete, but it's short-lived-- and largely bereft of the tell-tale report of energy weaponry.

In the alley, the tigress finds herself biting into what may as well be a man made of diamond after catching the Pursuer with her paws. As quickly as those first blows came, they caught the God off-guard, dazing him and drawing blood from his bared shoulders-- but not quite dulling his instincts, leading to their current predicament: a fantastically dense arm caught between fantastically powerful jaws. The spear clatters to the ground; their proximity makes it worthless. His lips curl in something not entirely dissimilar to a smile, for the hunt has begun, and his prey is lively-- even as the rest of his party seems to be collapsing around him. Without a further word, he tries to rain hammering blows upon the tigress' skull in the hopes of encourgaing her to let him go-- or crush her into submission; either outcome would suffice.

Outside of the community center and in the park, the Boom Tubes finally draw shut, leaving just one pulsating in the midst of the nightclub, where a laser rips through two tables and a waning telekinetic field to blow a hole clean through the electricity-flinging mutant's containment tux. This doesn't kill said mutant outright, but it does put a cold stop to his comrades' side of the shoot-out as panic and concern distracts them.

Lazarlite has posed:
Lytle works his way as swiftly and methodicly as he can towards the others. They well no doubt see the blue-skinned and blue clad man making his way up the street...didging INTO energy blasts and blows and firing off flashes of blue light from his eyes. Right nowm Lytle is not too worried about being grabbed, he could probably break free if he is, but better to keep avoiding it...if enough of the enemy pig-pile him he will be helpless.

Okhotnik has posed:
A thousand-plus pounds of angry and keenly intelligent weretigress is a nasty opponent in close quarters combat, as Devilance is discovering. Okhotnik's jaw aches, as she bites down to find what is within that armor is instead diamond-dense. Ow. That hurts.

This pain is augmented by a series of pretty strong blows raining down on her skull and neck.

But she does not simply yield and let go. Instead, she clamps down and snaps those mighty muscles of her feline body as she twists not just her neck but her entire twelve-foor long frame and hurls her opponent with all the might in that tremendous body into a wall. Face first.

The tigress is done with her opponent, and she proves this by bounding away, out of the allway and then down the street at a ground-eating pace no natural cat could achieve, aiming for where her nose and ears tell her that her people can be found.

To be fair, those Justifiers and warhounds she encounters along the way will earn her angry attention. And she is not a wannabe X-Man in training. She won't be leaving them alive in her wake if she can help it.

Tendril has posed:
    Tendril crouches for a moment, then, as one of the rifles lands with a thump on the ground nearby, gets an idea...which is to curl out a tendril to grab a rifle within, the tip reforming slowly to 'grasp' the rifle's grip..then swirling out again as she starts scooping up any she can find nearby, arming herself. "Okay...got this..." says, raising a hand as another tendril shoots upwards like a grappling line, as she tries to get above the street again so she can lay down...well, we'll call it supressing fire, because marksmanship has -not- been one of the skills Kinetic has gotten around to training her in yet. On the other hand, she figures it's pretty intimidating? Right?!?

    The roars from the alley, however, draw her attention, as she shifts to move so she can peer down it...and sees the tigress throw her target into the wall, then flee. Leaving Devilance in a tight confined space without a lot of room to manuver.

    This seems like a good moment for supressing fire!

    A blaze of fire starts streaking down as all four weapons starts firing a bit wildly down into the alley, definitely in a more spray'n'pray sort of use to cover Diya's escape, as Lexi calls down. "Kinetic! There's a BIG guy over here! REALLY BIG!"

Black Rose has posed:
    Yana is more than surprised at how hardy these 'dogs' are, of Apokolips. There is no 'mercy' here. It is kill, or be killed. And that switch goes off in the blue-haired Russian girl. Kinetic amplifies her own self, calling to Lexi, "Grab and go, Lexi! Grab and go!" Lexi would be smart enough to realize Yana's about to take her buffer back. The collapsable baton is extended and earns Yana's buffer as Lexi's goes away, and Yana keeps the same buffer on herself. Then, she moves in to engage the dogs, kicking one with her foot that, when so empowered, is enough to put a huge dent into a steel door or crush cement even while she's on a speed boost, while slamming the baton down onto the skull of another beast.

    "On it!" she calls to Lexi.

    And then she's running, at 100mph, towards where Lexi, and Diya are. And, where Devilance is. "Armor, with me! Lexi, fire on everyone chasing us, keep them at bay. We need to regroup, and take out the Really Big Guy. He's probably their leader." It's often how these things go. The biggest guy is often the lead person in any fight. She hasn't seen any signs of a 'leader' yet, in the forces she's observed.

Armor has posed:
"I have - enough structure in my life - THANK YOU, you - hah! - did not need to - bring us more!"

Hisako is swaying. The armor is not free, and it's being badly battered, even if she has now proceeded to the part where she is giving justifiers choke-slams onto the cold, hard ground rather than try to engage in further debate - so much for the tolerant X!

She exhales. (Fortunately she is heedless of what the tigress is up to. Let the last known survivor stalk its prey in the night. Hisako's spent too much time near Logan to be like, totally allergic to this.) Glancing at Yana, she calls, "Be right there!"

Because--

She leaps towards Yana, but not straight away. First, a lateral move to power-stomp near the menace of a 'pig pile' near Lytle. (Quoth Hisako Ichiki, dainty Japanese schoolgirl: "Booyah! Come on, man!") Then another leap, potentially with Lytle on board, to rejoin Yana.

Breath has posed:
Breath looks around some.. Lyte and Armor look pretty badly swamped, and there's a pretty big space between them, and a lot of the people harassing the others are kind of sort of between them too, so she huffs and puffs and blows across the space between the two of them, let's see how effective they are at fighting those two in cat five winds! Get them free to make headway instead of just trading blows and being distracting!

She hears more fighting from another doorway somewhere, but can she get to them? Probably not from here in time. Maybe somebody else can, though... She gets moving, turning as Armor starts jumping around to see if she can pile all the attackers up in a pile in the corner for somebody else to deal with!

A quick pause to blow into the tube by her neck inflates her glider, then she blasts into the air.. and runs out of lungs diving toward the ground as she sucks in a fresh breath of air, inhaling just in time to jet out of the dive and skim the ground and lay down more wild windy havok in her wake.

Phoenix has posed:
Diamond-hard, Devilance is driven not just into, but through a wall, leaving him on his hands and knees inside of a bodega's stock room.

Smiling.

Sort of.

Once he's wrenched himself back up to his feet, he's just in time to watch Okhotnik work her way through the rest of the fight as the blood still clinging to his lance begins to sluice along barely visible circuit-lines that draw it all to a point near the middle, where it finally draws inwards and vanishes.

"Another d--" he begins to muse before a series of energy blasts drown him out. Three splash against his armor, but the fourth burns a long line along one of his arms and pulls his lips back in a grimace before he is able to commence twirling his lance protectively before himself to ward off further shots. He doesn't seem particularly put off by the confined space: the lance carves clean through the still-standing wall on his left with each revolution.

"She'll give me more of a chase than the rest of this rabble would've," Devilance evenly remarks above the whistling lance and pulverized brick, gold eyes fixing on the mauve girl, "but I have her trail, now-- there's nowhere she can run where I cannot find her. This is her life, now: prey, to be pursued - perhaps for a long time, perhaps less so-- we will see - to be herded, driven until she cannot run any further-- until the only thing left for her is to submit. To let the Evil Factory remake her, perfect her-- give her purpose, just as it will the lowlies who've already been set on the path to destiny tonight."

Kinetic arrives, issues orders; his eyes shift towards the blue-haired mutant as he concludes, "And when she does - and it does - I wonder: will you be there by her side then, too? Will you be prey-by-proxy?"

Out on the street, it turns out that nobody, not one of the Justifiers is ready for Hisako.

With nearly a dozen writhing goons in her wake, Armor breaks off to disrupt the pile-up threatening to form upon Lytle with a ground-shaking stomp before regrouping with Yana-- and manages to make it there without taking any more blaster fire to the back, as the two sturdy posthumans have managed to go a long way towards out-attritioning the fanatics, and Breath's assistive exhalation serves to keep the handful of goons who seem to have enough fight left in them to still be stirring from making any further moves by sending them tumbling across the street.

Before he knows it, Devilance finds himself staring down five, maybe even six pissed off metahumans. Even for a God of his confidence, this is more than enough cause to disengage, given that his hunting party is all but dismantled: thus, he sharply spins the lance one more time, just enough to drive the butt of it into the ground, conjuring a *BOOM.* and a series of concentric white rings in the air behind him. An airy step backwards bears him past its event horizon, and as it seals itself shut--

*BOOM!*
*BOOM!*
*BOOM!*

-- Tabitha's flank-clearing brings her to the End of the World party, where she manages to turn the tides with a series of well-placed detonations on the Justifier's side.

Which just leaves a devastated neighborhood; a dozen or so dead or maimed alien canines; far more Justifiers bleeding, writhing, or just plain still all throughout; and a Boom Tube lingering just a foot or so off of a blood-slick dance floor that shows no signs of closing.

Lazarlite has posed:
Lytle says to the others, "Umm, Hi I am Lazerlite. Are you like training together or something? I have been looking for a school or trainer in these parts."

Okhotnik has posed:
The giant tigress bounds up to rejoin those whom Diya arrived with earlier and then proceeds to look around quite pensively, as if waiting for more trouble.

Black Rose has posed:
    Yana's eyes narrow, upon those Boom Tubes -- fascinated and at the same time, horrified. Still, she looks as Diya bounds in, "Next time," she tells Diya, "You stay with me. We're a team." Her words are firm, and as a commander speaking to one of their infantry. Then again, Yana can tell that if Diya's transformed she lost control of her human emotions and mind -- to some degree. Something happened. She does not reaffirm she's kept her promise to Diya, though, by forcing Devilance's hand in escaping. Still, the devestation could be worse.
    Briefly, she looks back to Lytle. "You can follow us back. And talk to the Vice Principal about joining."
    And then, looking back to everyone else, "Regroup. Let's get these people some help, and then we're going straight to Jean. We have to formulate a plan. They're not done with us."

Tendril has posed:
    Lexi leaps down, landing near the group in a crouch, the rifles still clutched in her tendrils as she walks over. "But...Kinetic, that portal might not stay open, an' it might be the only way to go find those people they took? If we go alla way back, it might shut while we're gone, an' then what do we do?"

Okhotnik has posed:
The giant tigress reaches up and bats a broad, fluffy paw against Tendril's hip, where the girl's cellphone happens to be tucked away. Then she looks meaningfully up at Yana, waiting for the blue-hair to get it.

Now they're thinking with portals!

Armor has posed:
Armor looks back to Yana, straight on, after she mentions the VP.

She's still tapped out at the Justice League's medical bay," she tells her, stoically. "This is going to be on us. I guess you can think of this as an early exam, if you want." Back to the others, she explains, "I'm sure she just blew herself out stunting. She slammed, like, you know that giant brass planet on that pulp paper in Metropolis?"

Black Rose has posed:
    "And if it closes after we go through it, we might get stuck on the other side, Lexi," Yana points out, very matter-of-factly, and with a sharpness to her edge to suggest that her decision is absolutely final, done, and done.
    "We'll stay here and protect it. But, we're pulling in Jean on this. I'm not going through until I know we have a way back. It does us -no- good to go through if we -don't- have a way back. And, since I'm not a portal expert, and they're not -on- earth, I'm not certain Illyana can take us somewhere from wherever it is these people are from. So. No one goes through until we have clearance."
    Yana will text Jean, and ask for her immediate arrival on-scene. And in the interim, "Right. But she still needs to know what's going on. And, help ensure we have a way back. Telepathic link with Magick. Or, maybe they have a retrival device. I don't know."

Lazarlite has posed:
Lytle says with a sigh, "Well, it would not be the first time I wind up stuck in a strange alien place. If you want to chase them, I will go with you."

Breath has posed:
Breath soars in and blows at the ground, slowing and dropping to the ground with a stumble, then sucks in a huge breath with a roar of air. "..Hey girls! And Lazarlyte. Is everybody okay?" She looks back and forth at the already pretty involved discussion and shrugs a little.