ArchivedLogs:Them! Episode 1

Them! Episode 1
They dig up a little problem.
Dramatis Personae Shane, Sebastian, Peter, Bobby, Kitty, Lucas, Kris, Stanton, Jackson, Kurt Wagner 1.0, Hank
In Absentia	2013-05-29 Xavier School sends out a community service detail to help at the Grover's Mill disaster site. (Part of Them! TP).
Location <NJ> Grover's Mill
It's Wednesday, it's after lunchtime, and it's time to go. Afternoon classes have been canceled, and everyone was given an extra sammich, and choice of fruit in the lunch line. A water bottle too. Everyone is told, and checked before vans, to have on grubby work clothes, and sturdy, close-toed shoes. Anyone not wearing these things will be sent back to change, /making everyone wait./ Once ready, everyone is piled into two big fifteen passenger vans, and they head off. The faculty present are Scott, Jean and Aloke in one van, with Dr. McCoy, Kurt and Jax in the other (aka, the cool kid's van). Neither van is completely full, either, as both are carrying coolers with more water, and lots of various tools, gloves, etc. Now, about an hour or so later, everyone is piling out of their vans, stretching, twisting out the cricks, and peering about at the general clean up effort happing all around. The destruction is so wide spread, it's very easy to just step up and start helping without bumping into anyone else on site. The group has parked across a rift from the hospital island, and reaching it is fairly manageable now that workers have set up bamboo, catwalk-style bridges in several places. Up close, the damage is truly bizarre. It literally looks like the ground fell out from under all of the buildings in town, EXCEPT for the hospital, which is now standing on a short pedestal of undamaged concrete, about ten feet higher than the surrounding crumbled street surfaces. All around are places to help out. Clearing rubble, helping out at the hospital, bringing water and stuff to other workers, etc. The work site is so large that it is still not effectively managed, so its really a jump in where you feel like sort of effort. Also, the media went home days ago, so the scrutiny is somewhat less than in the beginning. Minor uses of abilities will be easy to hide. Once everyone is on foot, it becomes clear that Hank, Jax and Kurt are remaining to do some experiments from one of the vans. Scott, Jean and Aloke are all on foot, helping out as well, and supporting the kids wherever they need help. Shane was TOTALLY in the Cool Kids' Van. He's even got sunglasses on to prove it -- or maybe that's just because minor uses of abilities are easy to hide but being blue and sharky less so; even in the warm afternoon he's, for the purposes of school field trip, covered up more than he ever bothers to in his /down/time. Baggy sweatshirt, hood pulled up, jeans, brown boots. He sticks nearby his brother for this, and even if the van is the coolkidsvan he is out of it in a flash to EXPLORE. Or pick up rubble. "Jesus fuck, you'd think we were in freaking Florida or somewhere, doesn't the ground eat people all the time there?" Bastian, on the other hand, often covers up when he goes out so his baggy sweatshirt (it is black and reads 'HERBIVORE' in a yellow cross over the heart) is not unusual. Aside from the darker sweatshirt his clothes are clone to his brother's; same jeans, same boots. No sunglasses, though, just wiiide pupilless black eyes taking in the damage. He's not far behind Shane. "I'm pretty sure that's because Florida is over the mouth of hell. But so's New Jersey. There's a few hellmouths." Peter got to go with COOLKIDS van too, and is soon moving to help Shane and Sebastian with CLEANING efforts. Because, despite looking relatively scrawny and all around /teenagery/, he's actually capable of -- WHOA that's a big slab of concrete he's hefting up. As big as his torso! Just, 'hup', and suddenly he's plucking it atop of his shoulder to carry with him. He's clad in loose fitting blue jeans and a /very/ loose fitting white t-shirt; he's also got on -- leather wrist-watches? Really, really funny looking leather wrist-watches. "Yeah, like. People in Florida just, WHOMPF. Fall into sinkholes. I read about some dude who's whole house just dropped out from under him down there. Buried alive. Really sucks." The quiet kids van has his adviser on it. And his room mate. Two plusses - people Lucas knew. But even though he was riding, his nose was down to his phone... texting someone. He had dressed the part - being from where he was, work clothing was almost like a secondary wardrobe. When they arrive, he empties out with the rest of his group, and he looks around, hrming. "--so, I didn't watch much news before I came here," he remarks toward Stanton lightly, glancing toward him and shrugging. "... What exactly happened here?" He begins to move to walk with his roommate, and start cleaning up somewhere. Anywhere that is a good spot to start, really. Bobby Drake took aviators. That's probably not going to score him any cool points, but considering his abilities, he may end up being the go-to guy for relief from hard work anyway. The young mutant decided to wear jeans and brought gloves. Seeing the disaster spread out before them was enough to shock him into relative silence. His lip quirks and his brows turn up - he's genuinely affected. He grabs a shovel and straps on his gloves, then gets to moving some of the rubble over to one side, near the pile where a truck will be waiting to pick it all up and haul it off. He's shaking his head as he's doing it, still pretty shocked. He listens on to Shane, Pete and Bastian as they chatter, keeping an ear on it, but he's still pretty stunned. Kitty's dressed in jeans and a navy-blue hoodie shy of ... anything to mark her out at all, really. She's late out of her van, busy staring for a moment. "I hope they found everybody," she says to nobody in particular as she steps out ... but there's a flicker of her eyes around the other students, checking for a moment to see whether anyone reacts to the speculation. Kris piles out in denims and a loose white t-shirt with a simple pony-tail and concealed sheath at her back beneath said shirt. Right now, she's piling out of the van with a sort of confused look around. Eventually, she gets her bearings, though she finds little to be 'stunned' about,"It happened in in the surrounding areas near Cebu from time to time. Old buildings would tumble into holes or weak muddy ground." She turns for the hospital and begins walking,"I'm going to see if they need help cleaning or folding, or with first aid." NOT having been in the COOLKIDSVAN-- opting, instead, to go in the van less likely to get his notebook thrown out the window by someone objecting to his paying attention to only himself-- Stanton's got one headphone on, and the other pushed up and back over his other ear, so he can at least nominally pay attention to his surroundings. His surroundings like Lucas. And sinkhole. He bounces on his heels a couple of times, surveying the landscape. "Katamari happened. Let's go help where we can't break anything worse, right? Haha. Um." He starts picking his way down into the closest collapsed-ground hole, then pauses to glance back at the brown-haired navy-blue girl. "Yeah I hope so too. But we got gloves so." Jax is surveying the outpouring of teenagers from the vans with -- well, his kind of wary look might well be for the destruction all around them. It doesn't last long; his expression is never far from a smile and his pierced lips curl up into a quick-bright one. Even in work-clothes his attire is bright, too, jeans patched all over in a rainbow patchwork of fabric, black t-shirt dotted with purple and blue stars (it reads 'believe in fairies' on the front and has a pair of blue butterfly wings on the back.) "Don't quite know yet," he answers Lucas, "we're just here to help put it right again." The smile dims, slightly, admittedly, at Kitty's speculation. But doesn't vanish entirely. He's starting to unload supplies from the van, handing out thick gloves to those students who are staying at the rubble and have not yet taken a pair. Jean and Aloke accompany the students more inclined to hospital service. Scott remains outside to get his sweat on. He also dials his goggles down and is surreptitiously breaking up big chunks into more manageable chunks when it seems like no one is looking. For anyone right near the Secret Experiments van, a soft whirring noise /might/ draw your attention to tiny flying drone the color of concrete being released from the window. Anyone more than 15 or 20 feet away would have trouble focusing on it, but it swoops around and heads straight for some rubble a little ways off anyway. The mystery van must be doing some tests with advanced sensor equipment. A window rolls down, and Hank's distinct voice can be heard, "Professor Holland... I think we're nearly ready, if you wouldn't mind rejoining us in the van?" "-- would probably notice if there was anyone left down there," Shane says, absently thoughtful, but now he's maaaybe sniffing a little bit harder as he works. Much like Peter, the compact-skinny sharkboy is hefting rubble that by all appearances he has no right to, although at least in his case he has a clone to help him out with it. "I thought Ohio had the Hellmouth -- woah." Animal senses are attuned to movement and he is no differences, eyes riveting to -- well. He doesn't focus very /well/. Just frowns at the brief glimpse of ??? in peripheral vision and goes back to hauling concrete. "That sounds like a bad joke, Perry," Lucas responds softly, rubbing his nose lightly as he dons his gloves, glancing toward Jackson... The professor he doesn't know yet. However, he does listen... and he nods slowly. "I see," he comments quietly, and begins to dig into moving rubble himself... and he moves to dig around, moving things here and there as he can. At least he's physically able. He's not quite close to the Secret Experiments van, of course. But the phone in his pocket vibrating with a text message is more catching his attention. As he pauses in his rubble-rousing, he reaches into his pocket and takes it out... removing a glove long enough to thumb-type a response to whomever it is he's texting, before putting it away. Bastian does not take gloves. Because that would be silly. "A /whole/ house, yeah, it was freakish." He eyes Shane suspiciously after this. "Ohio /did/ have a Hellmouth, when did you turn into a nerd? Woah what?" His eyes mostly just follow his brother's. "Maybe the Old Ones are coming to eat the world. Though I don't know who'd start with New Jersey," he admits with a crinkle of his nose. No gloves for Peter, either. To Kitty, Peter responds! As he HURLS his particular slab of concrete toward the ever growing pile. WHOOSH. *Crnch*, *clatter*. "I don't think so, I heard in the news that nobody was missing -- I /think/. I mean, it's been like half a week right? Uh." At Stanton's comment about GLOVES, Peter blinks owlishly. "...ohjeez I'm not gonna like, pick up -- a /leg/ or someth--Hey," Peter says, to Shane and Sebastian, "do either of you two smell -- I guess you don't --" HEY WHAT'S THAT. Peter's head snaps up, catching the flash of -- movement? Overhead, too. But then, SHRUG, probably just a bird. Peter reaches for another slab, hands slapping down and /clinging/ to it. HUUUURGH! Bobby looks over his shoulder and listens to most everyone else. For once he's not a chatterbox. But it's not like he's had his mouth taped shut. Kris's observation has him thinking. He notes to Kitty, and then maybe to Peter, talking to them both at once, "I don't think they'd let us out here if they were terribly worried about something like that." That's an attempt at encouragement, of course, since he doesn't know that for sure. His shovel digs into the ground with an asphalty sound as he starts to toss it over towards the pile. It's slow work - for him, anyway. He looks at Peter a little enviously. He is oblivious to yon drone. "So you're pretty experienced with this, then," he observes of Kris as she walks by. "I am going to seriously hope that Hellmouths are actually just the products of Joss Whedon's imagination," Kitty observes aloud. "I realize this makes my life boring, but I can /live/ with boring." And then she sets about carrying water to other volunteers already there -- the ones who look like they've been working the longest, and need it most. It helps them directly; it helps Kitty get a general idea of the lie of the rubble, and where she might be able to duck out of sight herself ... and whether any areas seem particularly prone to treacherous shifting underfoot. It's been like half a week, though, as Peter put it. Maybe they'll be lucky and this will just be straightforward and hard. Kris pauses on her way to the hospital when Bobby speaks to her,"Yeah. Actually, I guess I am. This was handled better, though. People actually have engineers and stuff out there to see how it's safe to move things, and we're not using horses and beat up trucks to drag and haul stuff. Plus everyone's getting pretty good medical care." She pauses to examine some of the rubble,"You hear any rumbling, you back up as fast as possible?" Whatever else may be said about him-- and about the insistent kick drum going about 140 bpm in one ear-- Stanton doesn't shy away from moving big things off of small things, even if the big things are things he can barely lift. "It's a wretched joke, mate. But if there's anyone dead down there, shit-all I can do for them, is there? Anyroad, teachers said no one's missing, so shouldn't be." He completely misses floaty little flying things-- vaguely listening, he, to other conversations. Finally he gets to things that aren't pieces of roof, and his face goes a little tight before relaxing again. They're someone's /things/; things obviously precious before they were smashed or drowned or burnt. Hand-lettered videotapes: home movies. Souvenirs. Old things. A soggy cardboard box labelled 'Chris & Mary's Honeymoon'. "Here give us a hand, Lucas, some of this might not be ruined. There a cart for this house yet?" Jax takes one more look around the scattered X-teens helping out, and pushes fingers through his bright blue hair. "Yessi -- right." It is a reflexive correction; prooobably one he has to make often, having made the transition from Hank's /student/ to his colleague. He has watched the takeoff of the drone, but now he heads back, disappearing into the MYSTERYVAN. The SUPAR SEEKRIT MYSTERY EXPERIMENTS van of mysteries suddenly becomes remarkably suspicious. Anyone nearby would hear some muffled discussion among the teachers inside (Hank, Jax, and Kurt), and then -BAMF-. A noise familiar to many of the veteran students of Xaviers, yet made particularly odd by the fact that it sort of echoed within an enclosed space, with the additional bizarre oddity of that peculiar indigo smoke squirting out the partially opened windows. Meanwhile, now underground, the three teachers find themselves in a broken section of sewer pipe, which leads into a breach in the side of some kind of tunnel. Armed with Hank's headlamp, and the lamps he hands out to his colleagues (even Jax, silly Hank), their light reveals a very round tunnel, about 2 meters in diameter, apparently made of packed dirt. It's not perfectly smooth like a machine did it either. The inner surface of it is ridged, and bumpy. Hank puts a hand up to the tunnel wall and scrapes one claw across it, but it barely flakes anything off. "This is hard as stone..." he remarks absently, fascinated by the discovery. Nothing weird about that, AT ALL. Even with the help of the drone, Kurt was a little nervous about the blind jump into the pipe system. He tried to play it off, but the high-energy tempo of his tail probably told Hank and Jackson everything they needed to know about his attitude. Still, he put his bravest face on and insisted on holding each of the other men's hands, his grip tight and his eyes screwed shut as they made the jump. And, of course, nothing has gone wrong. Still, a high-stress jump with two passengers along, even a relatively short-distance jump...Kurt needs a minute to recover. He takes the headlamp with his tail, leaning forward to brace his hands against his knees and pant, trying to regulate his breathing and his heartrate. "Hnng." "I would totally take Hellmouths over some of the shit that -- I mean, come on, I could fuck a vampire's shit /up/ just have my dad smile at them." Sunlight mutations: Instant vampire repellent. Shane doesn't seem particularly bothered that his boasting of vampire slaying prowess relies on hiding behind his dad. He hoists another large slab of concrete onto his shoulder. "-- a cart, what, you mean we can't keep what we find?" The toothy smile Peter gets might not be the /most/ reassuring. "Nah, s'ok, I don't smell anything tasty around here except you guys." "-- NNnooo, we're not, uhm, here to /scavenge/ people's lives." Sebastian wrinkles his nose at this. The familiar BAMF draws his attention back in the direction of ~mysteryvan~. "Uh -- did they just --" He frowns. "Pa can't stop Hellmouth vampires if he's -- I mean maybe he's gone /into/ the Hellmouth to stop them at their /source/." "They brought meat-snacks. You brought meat-snacks, right?" Peter calls back, to Jax -- who is. Oh. Huh. Not there, apparently? "--they brought meat-snacks," Peter insists, despite the absence of a response, to Shane. Peter stomps on over to the pile, still hefting his big slab of concrete as he does. "If I hear any rumbling," Peter mentions to Kris, passing her on his way, "I am just /booking/ it the heck out of here I mean holycrap. Th'heck is a Hellmouth?" Peter adds, apparently NOT knowing much about Joss Whedon's imagination. At least not that particular aspect. Bobby probably isn't the only one to notice the telltale sound of Nightcrawler making an expeditious journey to elsewhere. He blinks for a moment as he turns it over in his head what might be going on. His lips purse. Finally, he shoves his shovel into the dirt and tracks down one of their overseers, Jean Grey, hopping over scattered debris here or there. Drake, with a major case of senioritis and with at least some involvement with Bigger Goings On in Xavier School operations, seems rather suspicious all of a sudden. "What kind of research are they doing?" he asks. "There are coolers," Kitty calls aside to Peter as she passes. "So there are /probably/ meat-snacks. I mean, if the coolers were research stuff, they'd be labelled. -- Or at least really obvious once you opened them." Even if occasionally the science terrors get a little distracted. Closer, and therefore quieter, to Peter and Kris: "And if anything /does/ collapse and you get caught in it, don't panic, we'll get you out in like five minutes max. I'm good for like three things but rescues are one of them." Kris waves her hands in front of her nose, trying to clear the smell of brimstone, but otherwise ignores it. She nods at Peter,"Grab as many people as you can on your way out if you DO have to flee." As for research, she takes a guess,"I bet they're taking seismic data to see what caused it. Seismic surveys are kind of a big deal around areas like this." She turns to get gloves, having decided to stick with the larger company of people sticking around outside. She can still work a shovel, after all. "Good to have you along Kitty." Okay, *there*, the skinny British kid with the headphones scowls up and over at Shane-- before he decides it's got to be a joke, and Sebastian takes care of the admonishment. He starts pulling things out, then-- oh that computer is never turning on again-- and there's unfortunately something kind of hilarious about a Super Rugged Passcode-Protected Ultra-Secure External Hard Drive with a piece of rebar through it. Hilarious in that snort/wince way. And then there is BAMF, and while the air near the van most certainly smells like rotten egg, the air in the sinkhole where Stanton and Lucas are digging suddenly smells of ozone, and MY THAT FLASH OF LIGHT WAS BRIGHT WASN'T IT, and if there was any chance of any of the data on any of that hardware being salvaged it's so gone now. Stanton rips his headphones off and /throws them on the ground/. "FUCK. What the fuck!" "What is it, Stan--" BZZZGTHT A surge of electricity shoots up Lucas' arm and through his body, bouncing around and causing all sorts of forms of discomfort as he becomes electrified. Of course, his phone is toast. There's a distinct sound of shattering glass as it sort of goes -BAP- in his pocket. Because, you know, iPhone. When the wave finally passes through completely, Lucas looks slightly frayed and a little toasty; however, he's not out cold. "T'fuck, man?!" Jax may not /need/ the headlamp but he is glad enough to not /have/ to rely on his reserves of power if he does not need to. So he switches it on all the same, and reaches one hand to Kurt's shoulder. "Y'aright?" is his first question, and his second, more practical: "Want water? Chocolate?" Hydration and sugar, at least, always /his/ go-to solutions for power-overexertion. His eye is roving the tunnel around them, teeth digging in against his lip. First looking up at the ceiling, then down at the earth, toe scuffing against the packed dirt. "... feel like I'm in somethin's burrow," he mutters. "What is it, Stan--" BZZZGTHT A surge of electricity shoots up Lucas' arm and through his body, bouncing around and causing all sorts of forms of discomfort as he becomes electrified. Of course, his phone is toast. There's a distinct sound of shattering glass as it sort of goes -BAP- in his pocket. Because, you know, iPhone. When the wave finally passes through completely, Lucas looks slightly frayed and a little toasty; however, he's not out cold. "T'fuck, man?!" "I'm fine, I'm fine." Kurt assures Jackson, flailing his hand briefly as if that might indicate how 'fine' he is. After a few moments Kurt gets himself under control, straightening up to put his headlamp in its proper place. "Ah...chocolate? You brought chocolate with you?" There's a puzzled little glance of Kurt's bright eyes, but he doesn't exactly /refuse/ the treat. Instead, he trots up behind Hank, brushing his hands down his front. "Ja, I agree...and a burrow this big...I am not sure I want to meet the 'something', if that is what it is, rather than a 'someone'. I am not meant to be bite-sized." For the record, Aloke has disappeared into the hospital to Check On Things. Scott Summers, easily the one with the coolest shades here, shoulders his shovel and steps up to where Lucas and Stanton are working. "Hey fellas, take it easy. You ok, Lucas? Mr. Wagner's ability makes that noise. They're just going to take a closer look at something Dr. McCoy noticed. Nothing to worry about. You two ok here?" Ms. Jean Gray pauses, levitating a good sized chunk while pretending to carry it the old fashioned way. She smiles at Bobby and nods. "They noticed some odd thermal signature. You know Dr. McCoy, Bobby, he just couldn't resist getting a closer look. Don't worry, they'll be fi-" Jean cocks her head, suddenly distracted by some telepathic impulse. And then, there's Hank. Completely absorbed by this discovery, he is right up against the wall, peering, until he finally removes a small metal tool resembling a dentist's pick, and scrapes a significant chunk of the tunnel surface into a sample baggy. The noise of his metal tool is like fingernails on a chalkboard. SCRIIIIITCH. scri scri scri SCRIIIITCH And then, madness. At the sound of scrabbling from down the corridor, Hank swivels his head, and therefor his light to cast some further illumination. Unfortunately, it /finds/ something. Something big. Filling the entire tunnel is an enormous, red ant. Two meters wide, two meters tall, and it looks kind of cramped. Like somewhere with more room would be more comfortable. When it rounds the corner, it cocks its head and considers Hank for a moment, before turning its head, twisting as best it can in the tight quarters, and /speaks/ to the huge ant coming up behind it. It's voice is a scratchy, high-pitched squawk, and even more disturbing, is speaking in pigeon english. "Not Thea." The first one informs the second. "Kill it!" The second one shrieks. Hank's eyes go wide, and he glances back at his colleagues. "Gentlemen!" Aboveground, Shane is happily oblivious to the giant and potentially about to EAT his dad and advisor and twin's advisor down below. He just grins at Peter wider and waves a hand towards all the other students. "/Totally/ brought meat-snacks. -- I don't think they'd have brought us here if everything was still collapsy though anyway. I mean, this happened a little bit ago, right? Probably all the collapsing's done with. Holyfuckingshit, dude --" Now he's looking wide-eyed towards that sudden flash of light, pausing mid-stoop en route to picking up a new chunk of rock. "-- You aright?" This might be to Stanton or Lucas either, it's hard to tell. "I was joking about the meat snacks, you didn't have to /cook/ him for me." "Ohmygosh," Bastian suddenly has WAY MORE IMPORTANT priorities than rubble, "/Peter/, you've never seen Buffy?" His eyes are enormously wide. At least until that flash, which sends them abruptly squinting more shut with a startled flare of gills. "What? What wait what happened?" "I won't panic I /never/ panic I am the /best/ at not panicki--wait what do you do?" Peter suddenly asks Kitty, clearly /INTIRGUED/. Meanwhile, he is slinging the giant rock slab in his hands toward the pile, spinning briefly like a frisbee -- WHOOSH. Crash. Once it's gone, he's dusting off his palms and throwing Kris what /might/ be a cocky grin. "Oh man, don't worry, I am pretty awesome when it comes to grabbing people. And no," he adds, glancing to Bastian. "I haven't seen--what? Buffy? I think I heard of that. S'one with vam--" FLASH. "--the heck?" Peter turns. Bobby squints a little and dips his head as Jean cuts off and tilts her head a little. Coolguy shades dip on his nose a bit, as well, when he does. "...Ms. Grey...you were just in the middle of telling me that everything's fine...?" He uncomfortably folds his arms in front of his chest as he stands berfore the teacher, skeptically eyeballing her. Little did he know the terror going on in the underdark - in fact, he is quickly distracted by the minor lightshow that goes on between Lucas and Stanton, his head snapping there. It's The Wrong Thing to be worried about, naturally. "Rescue people and break things?" Kitty offers helpfully to Peter. "... okay, that's not particularly unique, but I'm pretty okay with sharing." She shrugs brightly at him, then tucks her hands into the pockets of her hoodie. It's possible that he might see her take them out again through the cloth in the corner of his eye as he turns toward Bastion. Her own attention's distracted toward the cock of Jean's head, and she listens in absently for the answer to that 'you aright?' question as she turns to survey the wreckage again. Kris decides to ditch her shovel in favor of a long, big hammer. A smaller sledge. What for? To break up some concrete rubble so that it can be handled easier. It's hard work, but she doesn't seem ready to complain,"I'm with them. What IS a Hellmouth?" Grunt. "This would be easier if I could blow things up." Complain complain. "But she does have a smile on her face,"Something wrong with Professor Grey?" "Shit I told you mate! Sorry, sorry--" Aw and then Scott's looking at them. Stanton just... grimaces a lot, even though his pocket is smoking. And so is Luke's. "Sorry. 'S all right sir. I mean. I think. I mean Luke's pissy not unconscious, right? So it's fine. Right?" He jerks his slagged headphones up out of the rubble and wings them overhand into the closest bin. "Everything's. Fine." And. Now he is also completely red in the face. "...shit," he mumbles, and ducks his head and goes back to just yanking up obvious trash and flinging it binwards. "The fuck do I even say, I got flash photog space tourettes? Sorry." He obviously, /obviously/, has no idea anything is going on outside his immediate vicinity. Because now he doesn't even have a /soundtrack/ anymore. His life is so incredibly difficult. "There's -- pretty much never a time I /don't/ got sugar on me," Jax explains with a crooked smile, reaching into his pocket for a bar of dark chocolate with candied ginger, "'specially for working, what I do burns glucose like a --" Like a omfggiantant? His eye shoots open wide, and the candy bar falls from his hand to the tunnel floor with a sad thwap. "Ohmygosh," he is lifting that hand towards the ants kind of /defensively/, "I swear I didn't let Ivan bring no fire ants back up here." His other hand rests against the wall, as if to steady himself. Past Hank in the tunnel, there is a blossoming of light; it's faint and faintly glowy. A shimmering ripple of something translucent that glimmers with prismatic colours; it looks ephemeral-delicate, somewhat like a soap bubble spread wide across the tunnel between them and the ants. It /feels/ a /whole/ lot more solid, though, a sturdy-hard /barrier/, warm to the touch and firmer by far than the hard walls around them. "Zum Teufel!!" Kurt all but shouts at the sight of the ants when they come around the corner. His tail sticks straight up as if in shock, and immediately the elf reaches out to grab handfuls of both Hank and Jax's clothing. "I think this is my cue! All aboard the Nightcrawler Express, please to keep all hands and feet inside the ride--" The sound of the BAMF rattles the tunnel as the trio leave, filling that small section with sulfuric smoke. Back on the surface, there's just the slightest change in air pressure to herald the arrival of the three 'missing' teachers. Then there's the muffled-loud sound of air rushing out of the way, a BAMF! as always accompanied by the brimstone and the smoke. Hank, Kurt and Jackson appear in the midst of the smoke as it manifests on the roof of the van, a few inches above the vehicle. Gravity takes over a second later, causing them to fall to the van's roof with a sound of strained shocks, and for his part Nightcrawler /keeps/ falling, his knees having gone out from under him the second his feet hit the 'ground'. Half of him is trying to go limp with exhaustion and the other half is scrabbling, trying not to fall off of the van entirely. The rest of his sentence comes out weak and fragile-sounding. "--at all times..." In the instant before the trio BAMFs out, the three see the giant ant plow right up against Jackson's shield wall. It shakes its head and then /peers/ at the master of light, locking eyes, a terrible, primitive intelligence lurking behind the black, faceted domes - filled with hate. And then - they're out. Outside again, everyone sees the noisy and elaborate appearance of three very earnest professors. In the excitement, Jean seems to have mustered the control to contact Aloke as well, because he shows up in a much softer flash of light. Even Scott seems to know what's going on, because his attention has snapped around to scanning the rubble field, while Aloke and Jean put on their best Everything Is Fine faces. "Ok, kids, everyone back in the van..." "Come back to vans please, yes, right now. On the double please!" Hank scoops up the other member of their blue man group, and grabs the edge of the van. Kurt over his shoulder, he drops off the side, and yanks open the passenger door. It'll close again, but that handle is gonna need some work. And then the need for calm pretense evaporates as another, previously clean section of street crumbles away, and out comes the two enormous ants, looking much bigger than they did down in the tunnels. They're still only 2 meters wide at the body, but with legs all the way out, they're closer to 3 meters high, and the leg width is quite broad. They have popped out right near where Peter and Shane and Sebastian have so helpfully cleared some of the largest pieces that could have conceivably been somewhat inconvenient for the giant insects. Thanks, guys! They rear up at the closest boys, clacking their huge mandibles at them. The saliva that drips from them /sizzles/ when it hits the pavement. There's a moment before the ants emerge where Shane stops; it might be Peter, it might be the way his head cocks and nose twitches slightly. But when those ants come bursting out he's -- -- Still not ready for them ohmygosh how do you be ready for ENORMOUS MONSTER FIRE ANTS that was not on the agenda for this fieldtrip. "Embleer fucking Frith." Shane /hurls/ the chunk of concrete towards the THINGS that are coming up from the tunnels at them, a reflexive throw more than a well-thought-out one, more power than aim to it. "Whatinthefuck oh my fucking --" Also reflexive is his /grab/, reaching out for Bastian and Peter's wrists to try and /yank/ them back away. "WherethefuckisIvan." His words are kind of hitchy, catching unevenly as his gills flutter. Bastian has been peering over at the recently-arrived teachers. For this reason he is /not/ looking towards the hole when the ants appear; his nose twitches, brow creasing at the unfamiliar smell. It's Shane's exclamations and the grab at his wrist that turns his head towards them. He doesn't say anything, no echoes of his brothers startled cursing. Just HUGE wide eyes and tensed muscles, claws lengthening as his sharp teeth bare. Hsss. Less impressive hsss. He is not three meters tall; he's not even /half/ that. Also he is not leaking acid onto the ground. And yet. Still. /hsss/. "Is there an exposed power-line over there?" Peter asks, a /little/ worried, before glancing at Kitty. Did her hand just...? Naw, he's just seeing things. "Sorry, uh," he mentions, face tinting toward violet. "I just, powers interest me? I guess that's creepy I mean I don't mean to uh like--" Peter blinks as he notices the BAMFing, followed by the sudden tenseness of the teachers, and people calling them back to the vans, and--huh? Then, quite suddenly, Peter's whole body /snaps/ rigid, eyes popping open wide. "Ohcrap." DANGER, DANGER. A prickly /explosion/ of spikes in the back of his head. Right before -- rumbling, ANTS -- Peter's already taken two steps back before they're TEARING through the ground, and then his wrist is snatched and he's yanked further away. "Others -- get -- them--" THWP. Peter's free hand fires a silver-greyish cord out toward that pile of rocks, seizing hold of one the size of a watermelon. His entire body /twists/, whipping it off the pile and /snapping/ it toward one of the ant's heads, releasing the cord and letting it fly. Bobby's blanches now at the series of events unfolding before him, mouth hanging open agape. He was suspicious before, but when he catches on to the fact that all the adults seem to know what's up, and then the appearance of these monstrosities, he is not very inclined to cooperate with the intitiative to merely GET IN THE CAR. He gives Jean a squint of daggers like she'd somehow betrayed him, and turns on his boot-heel to thunder forward at the ants. On his next step a large, high jut of ice comes up to lift him into the air like a rocket, his feet running in the air as he gets his hang-time. His hands face forward start to create a slide that is crumbling as much underneath him as it is building, sending him sliding down and forward in a practiced skate. Like a high-speed skater doing a complete loop around an inner tube, or a roller coaster, he careens and tosses focused fields of ice at one of the large legs of the other ant- - but on the slow turn around the back of the creature, it snatches him out of the air with its mandible, his legs flailing. He barely has time to think about doing anything except protecting his precious organs...a layer of ice forming around his middle and quickly growing and being crushed at the same rate as he shouts aloud, legs kicking as he's held aloft. "Whooa! Ohhh!" "Oh, man, I /saw/ this movie --" Kitty's internal censor is apparently turned off by the shock, since that phrase actually comes out of her mouth. She darts for Lucas and Stanton, the two newest arrivals, reaching for each of them with one hand. Given the general chaos, it's reasonably possible to overlook that she's not bothering to scramble /over/ debris between them. Kris was surprised when teachers appeared and kinda collapsed. And then even more surprised when ordered back to the van. But then there's Bobby, being held. By a giant ant. She goes charging at the ant that has Bobby, her frame shaking, throat making choking sounds. Then? Then there's THAT phrase that rips from her mouth,"ALLAHU AKBAR!" A very large, somewhat heavy-looking razor sharp machete appears in her hand. She darts past the first and and stutters to a stop at the ant now shaking Bobby. Several vicious slashes only make loud clanging noises. *CLANG, CLANG, CLANG* That machete is doing... well, nothing at all to the ant's hard exoskeleton. Her vision practically fills with red, though, when she leaves its face alone, and her machete finds the joint of one of its uniced legs. *schluck* And then there's a lot of nonsense she's shouting. Girl is flipping out. --so Kitty is being a rescuing rescuer (not the mouse kind) and that would work /awesome/ except that already-on-edge Perry Stanton is *in the process of freaking out* when she grabs him and Lucas, and the ant is /right there/ in front of them, and Stanton's wondering who's yelling even though it's him, and suddenly it's like 1.21 jiggawatts all up in everything, the kind of thing that gets a splash page with only outlines of people in it and a KRAKA-THOOOOM. And as Lucas is in close proximity to Stanton, well. Bad things will happen. Of course, as Kitty is beginning to phase over to grab him and Stant both. In the meantime, the newest ZAAAAAAAAAAP of electricity is sending Lucas haywire, and he's cursing up a storm in many different ways - mostly involving the word 'fuck' and 'damn.' This is also causing his own powers to go haywire... and as he phases when Kitty touches him, well. His flailing arm is likely to pass through some portion of the ant's anatomy - and that is... well, just because Kitty is using her power doesn't negate Luke's. That ant is likely catching fire where-ever his arm is flailing through it. Jackson is reaching to steady Kurt as they thud down onto the roof, but when Hank takes the fuzzy blue elf, he drops into a crouch and then slides down off the side of the van and back onto the ground. Just in time for that blast of electricity; he is thankfully /not/ close to Stanton, but it still freezes him a moment, jaw clenching with the brief twinge of shock. It leaves his blue hair a frizzy mess afterwards. "Ku --" He glances at the van, and reconsiders, "-- Aloke, y'gotta get those kids out of there they're -- kinda losing it." Around him, the air glows; just a faint well of light as he strides closer to the others. There is that same soapbubble shimmer as his jaw clenches, expression focusing; one around the head and thorax of each of the ants, blocking off those mandibles, that acid, blossoming into place above where Kris's machete strikes and Lucas's arm flails. The shields /push/ back, shoving back at the ants. "-- Peter. Shane. Bastian. Out. Get your friends back to the van. Kris, listen to me. You need to step back." His tone is -- kiiind of strained. But it's even, enough. Kurt almost startles back to full consciousness as the ant comes crawling out of the tunnels. He reacts slowly, struggling a little in Hank's grasp until he can get his feet under him and crawl back onto the roof of the van. "Raus, raus!" He shouts at the children, in German, before realizing they might not really understand what he's trying to say, and the ant has Bobby in its mandibles /anyway/. Time for emergency action. Even as his fur starts to stand on end from Stanton's discharge, Kurt bamfs. He reappears on the head of the ant, clinging desperately while his tail flails back and forth trying to find his balance. "Bobby, Bobby hold on." He reaches out to take a grip in Bobby's shirt with both big hands, and scrunches his eyes shut, pulling himself and Iceman back through the dimensional portal into the brimstone. The soap-bubble Jackson put around that ant's head fills with indigo smoke. When the pair reappear, it becomes clear that Kurt has drug the ant's /head/ with him. They crash to the ground a few yards away from the van, and Nightcrawler gives a little cry of something that's like pain, vanishing a second time and dragging Bobby with him. Poor Iceman. Now they manifest even further down the street, away from the ants and the fight. There's no control in their speed or direction; Kurt is ragdoll limp as he falls out of his own bamfcloud, skidding along the road like a stone on a lake surface. He ends up a tangle of blue limbs, motionless. Jean is frantically running around, dragging students who have not been named in previous poses during this scene. Dragging them back to the van by hand and by telekinesis where needed. Once the students nearest her have been corralled to the van, she moves to put herself between the ants and the van. "Lets go!" she shouts. Aloke is a flash of light, and almost seems to be in two places at once thanks to the afterimages. But he appears next to Kris as she's hacking away the GIANT ANT. "Oh no you don't!" Then he hooks an arm around her shoulders and they flicker away, back into one of the vans. "Get back, GET BACK!" Scott is screaming at the students to get out of his way. Sure the ants are huge, but there's no way he's opening up on these things while the kids are anywhere near. And then Bobby. "Goddamnit Bobby!" Scott is winding up to finally take a shot. Either he does, or a student gets bitten in /half/. Time to swing for the fences. Scott dials his beam about half up, and then Kurt is there and gone with Bobby. Grinning, he turns the dial the rest of the way, focuses on the lower abdomen and then just watches as the headless creature tumbles to the ground near Kitty, Stanton and Lucas. Scott reaches to try and help them up but his hand passes right through. "C'mon! We have to go!" The one in perfect working order on the other hand is charging Peter, Shane and Sebastian when /PWANG/ the enormous chunk of concrete Peter flung at it makes contact, right in the head. Then Jax's bubble pops into being and it tries to shake get free of that too. The thing stumbles, dazed and shaking its head more, when it shivers - floating off the ground a little, legs all willy-nilly, clacking against each other as they waggle, and scrabble at the ground. "~NO~" it screams in frustration, the terrible noise reverberating inside the bubble like a deep sea helmet. Glancing back will reveal a fiercely focused Jean Gray. "GET. IN. THE VANS." No more asking nice, apparently. Her voice can be heard with ears and brains and doesn't come off as particularly ambiguous. Time to go! Scowling at anyone dawdling, Hank sprints the distance to Kurt and Bobby, alternating between all fours and two legs, like a cross between a wolf and an ape. He skids to a halt by the two, slings one over each shoulder, and trundles back to the vans, barely slowed down. "Start the engines!" "{Thinkit'stimetogo,}" Shane's rush of Vietnamese is quick and frantic and he is still /dragging/ at Peter and Sebastian. TUG. Tugtug. "Kitty make the NewGuys come the fuck /on/." He has apparently not quite bothered yet to learn Lucas and Stanton's names. He only pauses a brief moment to look at them before continuing his campaign of TUG. Tugtugtug it is GO TIME. "Come on." Look, there's Bastian's helpful English translation, in case the tugging was not translation enough for Peter. He's good with fleeing from crazy monsterants. ZOOM. He will flee like the freaking wind. Bobby's got to be uncomfortable to hold. He is basically half-ice-guy right now, freezing to the touch, a shiny white-grey-blue with a hint of red bubbling out and staining the ice around his middle. Poor jobbin' kiddo. Peter does not need to be told 'Time To Go' more than once. Actually, he does not need to be told 'go' /even/ once. The instant there are shields around the heads of those ants, he is /charging/ forward. With Shane and Sebastian. Actually, if the two of them aren't able to keep up with Peter, Peter will promptly heave /them/ up and /carry/ them like little bite-sized shark packages, just booking it fast and low. "GO GO GO GO!" he's hollering at Stanton, Lucas, and Kitty. And if they aren't going -- well, Peter's just going to /throw/ the sharks ahead of him and move to sweep the three of /them/ up. It probably won't be pretty, but. Peter's /strong/. ... given the strangled noise Kitty made at that zap of Stanton's, it's a pretty good bet that hurt. She hasn't let go, though. Breathe in, out, in, be sure lungs are still /functioning/, and then she's tightening her hold on the two boys. "Come on! Move! /This/ way! -- don't freak out." Because that last part will help, right? But she's pushing them to turn, to get them moving *toward* the vans -- not in whatever random direction they may have been facing, especially not if that direction involves a /burning ant corpse/ at the moment. And keeping them intangible means that they're not actually slowed down by the irregular surface, the piles of rubble, the /new/ piles of rubble... thataway. Yes. As Peter said, go go go, and Kitty only voluntarily lets go of the other two when it's time for them to need to get *into* a van. ... of course, that's when she finds out her hand still swipes through the door. Problematic. But not quite insuperable; she manages to flail her way up into the van and shove herself toward a seat. That someone else is /in/ that seat, uh, actually kinda helps. Everything about Luke's hair is standing starkly on end at this point once they phase back into existance by the van. He's slightly toasty, to say the least - from the electrical charge. Coughing and spurting as he moves to open the door and clammer in, he pretty much falls in and just lays on the floor. "My everything hurts," he coughs out, groaning a little bit. "God... damn it... Perry." Lucas has probably sworn more in the first two days in New York and New Jersey than he probably //ever did// back home. Kris is not the most coherent she's ever been when someone flickers in and then teleports her back to the van. She re-materializes thrashing and shouting incoherently for a moment... Then she suddenly jerks her limbs, drops her machete, sticks her head out of the van, and proceeds to lose her lunch. Adrenaline does funny things. Then she's rolling back up, and reaching for her weapon as it transfigures into some sort of rifle... She stops just sort of grabbing it, and leaves it on the floor. At least the safety is on. After a brief moment of consideration she reaches down to grab it and hold it out to the nearest adult,"Hold on to this for me? My hands are shaking. I shouldn't have it right now." Then she just sort of goes all boneless in her seat. "Is everyone okay?" Ohgodohgodohgod yeah so Kitty pulling him and Lucas along is the best thing ever for Stanton; at the moment he has no freaking idea what the hell is going on, but there is a hand in his that is pulling him along, and he's not stumbling over anything, and this is all /extremely confusing/ and /uncomfortable/ and he's dizzy and tired and his head hurts and there's all this /noise/ and-- --and even as Kitty's hurling him toward the van door and letting go, Perry Stanton is wishing he hadn't fried his phone, because if he could /sample/ this stuff? It would be stratospherically cool. He's just holding his head as he falls back into a van seat, squished close to bleeding cool Bobby, and he mumbles, "Why was it smart." Jackson waits long enough for the children to finish making their hectic way back to the van. He's kind of /paler/ than he was when they started, and around him the air still glows as he -- does quick headcount, calls out to van #2: "Everybody's in!" and gets in /himself/. Just in time to be faced with rifle. "Uh --" is his very eloquent response to rifle. He takes it kind of gingerly, pointing it downwards towards the floor and -- immediately passing it off to Aloke. Here, Aloke, HAVE A RIFLE. "Don't point this at anyone," is his sage advice. Because /he/ is /driving this van/ the heck away from horrorants, and that is harder to do while wielding a rifle. At least, /definitely/ harder to do if you don't want to get pulled over by cops. One last glance to make sure the other van is /also/ closed up. Behind them, the shield vanishes from the burning ant that still /has/ its head. The van starts. Jax is still pretty glowy as he starts to drive them away.