Hearing the screams which was quickly followed by throngs of fleeing people Cordelia cautiously & carefully headed in that direction.

The TSA agents who would normally mind the gates are completely absent, allowing Jubilee to run right though. She ends up spotting a crowd around one of the baggage areas, but can't see through all the people gathered around-- the security trying to respond and various people trying to record the event on their cell phone rather than helping or running, a rather novel reaction since 2010.

Monet's rush to get to the scene sends a gust of wind that knocks plenty of other people fleeing off their feet as they find themselves running directly into a very sudden gust of wind by something flying above their heads. It is enough to rattle the store and outer windows, but since the outer windows are hurricane proof and the inner ones not that much weaker, none of them even crack at the blast of window. The main chaos caused is by the people falling and sliding across the halls only to trip up others who are also trying to make their way out. The commotion is plenty enough to cause lots of shouting and screaming.

Jubilee herself would get hit by the brunt of the wind upon landing and trying to become aware of what is going on.

From the air, it is Monet who gets a good look at what has happened. The boy they were searching for has been attacked-- and from initial appearance, it would seem that they are probably too late to save him.

Although he remains on his feet, a slightly taller dark gray creature garbed in black with beady glowing red eyes stands next to him. The creature had a large respirator over its mouth, giving it a bit of an "elephant" appearance due to the hose snaking down into a tank at its side. It had skin that appeared stone-like, hair that appeared to be made of bladed quills and a pair of rather nasty looking sharp claws where it should have hands. And one of those claws was buried in the chest of the boy they were sent to meet, piercing through his turtle neck and deep inside where the boy's heart and lungs would be. Even worse, what could only be described as "flames" were wisping up out of the wound as though the creature had set the boy's inner chest ablaze.

Most disturbingly, the creature's aura seemed somehow 'familiar' even though she had surely never encountered something so alien looking in her life.

Cordelia found her path to the gates somewhat eased by Monet's actions, though she still had to step around or over a lot of fallen people to make her way to the gates-- there were far fewer running directly towards her and pushing her away. Perhaps the other two would be able to deal with the problem before she even arrived.

Jubilee was buffeted by the winds. Luckily time around Miss Storm made that a tolerable affair. She looked at the creature and focused. "Ok I got an idea. I can guarantee it'll work and uhh could be super fu..reaking dangerous. So monet I need you to fly out the window  near that son of a biscuit the second you hear the boom to pull any fire or toxic smoke out in the draft. she focused. The professor had told her once she had the potential to be as refined as causing an aneurysm or as extreme as a nuke. So detonating inside the tube connecting it to the tank would be child's play... That could release toxic gas if it was toxic gas or blow up like a bomb if it was plain old oxygen.

Monet made a note that flying fast was bad near normies. But then it seemed she hadn't flown fast enough. Her temptation to charge and punch was tempered by the realisation that there was a claw actually inside the boy. So... high levels of kinetic energy aimed at the creature were out.

However there was an obvious thing to do. Not slowing down she moved past the 'creature'... easier to think of it as a thing than a person ... and pulled on the hose. She was pretty sure her kinetic energy would be enough to either snap the hose or pull it free, and that distraction was certainly going to be safer for the kid. Assuming he could survive such a horrific wound.

"Sure" she shouted to Jubilation not sure the girl would hear her given the distances involved
This message was last edited by the player at 22:16, Wed 04 Jan 2023.

With the creature distracted, not only on his attack on the paralyzed boy, but by the various security officers trying to find a way in to attack without further harming the boy, it was easy for Monet to fly up and yank the mask off the creature's face.

Although rather than pulling the hose free, it had the effect of pulling the creature away from the boy. As the creature's claw was yanked from within the chest of the boy, a large spurt of blinding fiery light exploded out before the boy fell to his back, fire continuing to spurt out from the open wound on his chest.

Monet herself suddenly felt a large drain on her power after getting close to the creature, a drain that she'd only experienced previously around three particular people. The mask of at the end of the hose snapped off in her hand as the hose slipped free, falling to the ground and letting out a hiss of escaping gas.

The creature fell to its knees gasping and gagging, not only seemingly in need of the air, but possibly also feeling the same nauseating weakness that she herself was experiencing. Its face was obscured by that razor sharp gray hair.

The TSA agents began moving in quickly, one moving over to try to attend to the boy whose chest appeared to be on fire and three others moving in to try to restrain the creature and hold it to the ground.

A few others nearby continued to record the events taking place with their cameras.

Jubilee could continue her plan of attack, but if that tank exploded as she was expecting, there would possibly be six others in the radius of the blast.

Cordelia was able to arrive without any resistance as all of the attention of security was on the incident at hand. She could perhaps get the TSA agents and video recorders to back off if she used her powers, but perhaps she'd rather see how this plays out before intervening.

Monet gave a quiet prayer that the boy might survive. She'd tried, and failed, to cause problems to the creature without causing more damage, but at least she'd tried...

The weakness:  that was scarily familiar. She suspected she knew what it was, but that had only happened with her sisters. Still it meant she couldn't do what she wanted to do: the creature was grounded so it needed to be pounded... She had little faith that the TSA agents were going to more than get themselves killed if she didn't help. But how?

Looking around she snapped off a large part of banister and flew above the held down creature, pressing the end against him: holding him to the ground.

OOC
Can I smell what chemical was in the tank?

In reply to Cerebro (msg # 30):

With one hand Cordelia covered her mouth as she grasped her stomach with the other as she nearly hurled at the horrendus sight before her. Turning away from such a violent sight, she wondered why she chose to disregard the mass exodus of the norms.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:22, Sun 15 Jan 2023.

Jubilee had tried detonating the tube not wanting to get to close but before even a spark formed monet was ripping the mask off rendering that plan moot so she made blinding fireworks pop right in front of the things eyes.

The blinding light in the eyes of the creature caused it to howl in pain, lashing out wildly around it to push back against the hands trying to restrain it. With the metal bar that had been part of the banister, Monet was able to ward off the agents so that while got a couple nasty looking cuts that might need stitches, their lives were spared.

The gas escaping the hose on the tank was both colorless and odorless. Given that the creature was breathing it, it was probably that it was simply an oxygen tank. Although no one had gotten a good look at the creature's face, looking it over would be enough to reveal that the creature's discolored dark gray skin was covered with horrible scars that might bely damage that was more than just external. Though one could only wonder what could have scarred up a creature with diamond-like skin like this.

The wound on the chest of the boy on the ground belched out a sudden burst of 'fire', or whatever that fiery like energy was, as the agent came close causing her to leap back before she could attempt CPR. Somehow without continued damage was spreading and as the cloth on the chest of the boy opened up revealing the damage, it was clear that he was dead-- it seemed he had no internal organs, only a flaming skeleton for a torso.

Dark mist began to coalesce behind Monet, perhaps the prelude to more creatures like this one invading.

"Ahh crap is this that Ghost Rider guy? Don't look into his eyes." she called out looking at the flaming skeleton guy then she saw the mist. "Black smoke behind you Monet zoom away from it!" she called out.

Jubilation's alert prompted Cordelia to glance in her direction. Things are going from bad to worse she thought as she moved behind a concrete pillar. Peeking out to check her comrades were moving away from the dark Mass.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:27, Sun 15 Jan 2023.

Monet was feeling quite weak. It was all she could do to fly. She was very glad of the pole: she really didn't want to get closer to the creature.

The dead kid... pained her. It was a horrible way to go. She'd heard of Ghost Rider. This guy didn't look that much like him: where was the flaming skull and the chains? But it wouldn't hurt to follow Jubilation's advice at all.

She noticed the mists: but there wasn't that much she could do. If something came, it came and she'd deal with it. Until then she was keeping this thing on the ground so the others could incapacitate and imprison in

Out of the mist emerge two figures, one of them a girl who looks to have the same strange stone-like skin condition of the dark gray boy, but her skin and hair are all bright red. She has large eyes, blue but without any whites or pupils, and her body is wrapped in black bandages. She has a collar around her neck. While she had a very youthful appearance, that had to be overshadowed by hair hands and wild hair being made entirely of diamond-sharp blades.

Without a word she dashes towards Monet, aiming to tackle her to the ground-- but with every part of this girl's body being as sharp as a razor, even this sort of intervention could hardly be more dangerous.

The other figure that emerges seems to have also suffered truly horrific injuries, his body so covered with mummy-like bandages that barely any of his flesh can be seen under them. While his head is all wrapped up with no exposed mouth, he does have a large grotesque mouth on his chest with big sharp teeth. Although it was tough to say for sure, something about his short height and awkward build suggested that this creature had been a boy no older than the girls before whatever happened to have done this to him. Perhaps this is the end result of whatever the creature had intended for the boy they were sent to meet had he not been interupted.

Unlike the girl who seems to know her task right away, this second person pauses before the creature shouts and order.

"Drag the boy back!" gasps the creature between painful, haggard breaths. Although his voice was heavily distorted through the choking, it almost sounded as though he had a very similar Algerian accent to Monet. Although she had yet to get a good look at his face nor him hers.

The mummy-looking boy obeyed and started moving forward to grab ahold of the fallen boy with the fiery chest to drag his body back towards the mist.

Jubilee skated over and pointed a hand at Mr. Mummy and detonate a particularly flammable fireworks in his his bandages while scooping up Jack Skellington even as her skin burned she didn't know if skeletons were light or it was adrenaline but she skated away from the zombie party gripping onto the burny man and thinking profanity that'd make wolvie proud especially about the incompetence of their teacher.

Cordelia peeked out from behind the column. Taking in the scene then ducking back.

The mummy boy was driven back, at least initially, by the blast from Jubilee-- but it seemed that the bandages wrapping him were not dry and flammable enough to catch fire with just a short blast like that.

Upon grabbing ahold of the boy, she would find that this apparent fire, while warm to the touch, was nowhere near hot enough to singe skin nor did it spread on its own. In fact, as much as it resembled normal fire, it wasn't giving off enough heat to even keep someone warm on a winter's day.

Enough of the boy's body was missing that, while larger and at first glance one would think heavier than herself, he actually proved to be relatively light. Furthermore, as she grasped ahold of him the sound of pained groaning could be heard in her head. She'd had more than enough experience with psychics to know the sensation of her mind connecting with a telepathic message.

The mummy reeled back after a moment and moved as though to assault again before suddenly freezing in place and then just dropping to the ground with a thud, eyes open, still alive, but somehow just completely out of it as if it had just suddenly gone to sleep. This too was very reminiscent of what tended to happen to people when Jean Grey or Psylocke unleashed on them.

"Useless idiot..." growled the crouched creature as its minion was so easily taken out.

"Huh wonder if the Snowmomhas showed up." she mused as she skated back towards the car and either handing off the boy in her arms to Teach or, if he felt sonic screams were more useful than fireworks she'd get the boy into their vehicle and buckle him up climbing in beside him If Teach took the boy she'd skate back into the fray. It all depended on one simple interaction. Did banshee move past her or did he hold out his arms to take the boy. No words needed. And even though she wanted to go back to defend the team protecting their new student was as important as a brawl.

Monet in the meantime was in an aerial melee with the diamond skin, diamond clawed crazy thing that had emerged from the cloudy space. It was clear from the first moment that this was going to be difficult. Without her invulnerability Monet would have been torn to shreds. As it was her clothes were getting ripped into pieces while she tried to split her attention between keeping the mutant with the respirator trapped and fending off the crazy attacks, doing neither very well

Seeing Lee skating away with the body Cordelia peeked around the Concrete Column, she was behind, to see what Saint C was upto. The scene she observed was quite hectic.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 00:35, Mon 30 Jan 2023.

Jubilee's plan may have been a good one, but one that required nothing to interrupt her for a good 300 meters through a gate and a panicked crowd. And even where she was, there were still a dozen young people gathered around recording the whole event on their smartphones despite the clear and obvious danger. As Jubilee began dragging the boy, back her plans were interrupted before she even for more than a few yards. First by the woman TSA agent who approached her.

"Honey, be careful with him!" she reached out to try to pull Jubilee away from the flaming body. But, as she did, her gaze flicked down to the face of the boy's face and she went pale spitting out, "Oh my god!!"

The reason for her fear soon became clear as the totally, definitely dead body of the boy with the giant flaming hole in his chest somehow began to resist Jubilee and move on its own, trying to climb back to its feet. Surprisingly, despite not weighing much, it was still as strong as a well-built boy a good 8" taller than her would be expected to be.

Of course, it was impossible to know if this was an indication that somehow the boy was still alive or if he had become some sort of zombie and was coming back from the dead as a servant to the main creature.

Monet did not have much trouble swatting the creature back, after all-- while it could leap, it effectively didn't have any leverage once in the air. But doing so caused the grip on the beam holding the dark gray creature down. The red girl landed agily on her feet and moved into position to guard both the gray monster and the mummy while the gray creature scrambled to its feet and turned its gaze up to the sky.

The moment it laid its piercing red eyes upon her flying figure, the creature shouted out with the kind of fury that could only be deeply personal. "MONET!!!!"

Although the creature's face, discolored, scarred and solidified as it was could hardly be recognized anymore, once the creature had spoken up clearly, even through its rasps, hearing it say her name-- it was too familiar. A voice that had once been one of comradery and comfort, but had become one of dread ever since the night of a particular "car accident".

"Listen buddy if you can hear me we were attacked stop struggling if you're still alive and have your own mind and I'll set you down gently. keep struggling I'm going to drop you and kick you in the head assuming you're a zombie. " she looked at the TSA. "Get everyone out of the building N O W and then get yourselves to safety. Like help the civilians first but don't try to play hero and get yourselves killed. if you get everyone else out you are heroes." she told them.

Cordelia rolls her eyes then ducks behind the column. Glancing about she looks aboul for a safe path to get away from these creatures she cant stop before they decide to decide she's a subject they'd like to include in their raid.

That pretty much confirmed it. Crap. Monet now had choices to make, and none of them were good

It came down to basics. Protect people. This 'thing' was a homicidal murderer, and the fact that she knew him made no difference. There was nothing she personally could do here. She wasn't a murderer unlike him, and there was no possibility of capturing him surrounded with so many minions. He would leave once his prey had got away she was fairly sure... not certain... but fairly sure.

With a blur she threw her makeshift banister through a window creating an opening moved over to Jubilation and picked up both the flaming zombie / boy / victim / whatever and Jubilation. "Marines we are leaving" she said as she began to fly them out the broken window

"wait he might be a zom-" Jubilee began but was carried off. .... Ooooooookay. She pulled her self away from his mouth just in case.

The boy being dragged by Jubilee responds, but not in any way a typical human would have found normal. Instead a telepathic message in a deep London accent plays out in her head.

<<Thank you, gel. I'm feelin' better, but yer mate looks outnumbered.>>

The nearby TSA agent looks quite freaked out at this. And backs off further, "How-how are you doing that?!" she demands. Clearly she hadn't been spoken to by telepaths before.

Perhaps it was sensible that the boy could only speak telepathically. Although his chest was missing, there was still no telling how much higher or lower his missing body parts went and, even without a chest, it's not like he could talk without lungs. If he looked this way before the monster got to him, which might be why he was so fully covered from the nose down until the monster stuck its claws into his chest, then perhaps his body has developed telepathy to compensate for this. But he also clearly didn't have enough control over it to be selective about who received his messages.

Emplate was none too happy about his position. His target was being drawn away, and while he might have been able to deal with either the TSA agents or Monet or Jubilee without trouble, one of his minions was down and the boy had already awakened. Instead he coughed heavily before glaring daggers at Monet, but remaining in a defensive position behind the red creature. "Get in my way again and maybe I'll start considering some home-made meals!" He seemed to be as keen as herself to disguise just how they knew each other, but the implication of such a threat would be readily apparent to Monet.

Even as he spoke, smoke began swirling up around him and his two minions suggesting they were escaping. Even as they did, a couple of the TSA agents rushed forward to try to apprehend him. Chances are that unless something stopped them, they would get pulled to wherever this mist brought them and probably die or be turned into monsters themselves.