To Rise, First You Must Burn.

[nohoundsallowed]

((OOC Note: This immediately follows this post and continues it on.))

Consciousness came back slowly to Headmaster Rachel Grey-Ramsey. The pain hit her faster. She groaned softly as her head and shoulder throbbed. She could sense all the chaos happening around the school, but her mind was too muddled to make sense of it. She reached up and pulled books and cracked shelving off her head and shoulders.

She knew she needed to be up and moving to protect the children. She wasn't helped by a cascade of wood and paper into her lap.

Comments

[dark_scion]

"If that is your preference," he accepted, taking the knife back. "Then perhaps it would be advisable for you to stay close to me so as not to incur further damage."

He looked questioningly at her. "Then you wish to leave the campus?"

[iced_cherub]

She nodded, though shook her head at leaving.

"No, we should find one of the adults. I'd rather know what to do next with them telling us than flounder around. Maybe get to the infirmary to at least clean these wounds. I don't want to get them infected too much." She bit her lip at that thought, she likes her limited flight, being grounded full time would suck.

[dark_scion]

"Very well. Can you walk?"

[iced_cherub]

"Yeah, I can." She bit her lip. "And I should be able to shield us if there are more guns. They haven't hit me yet, well at least too vital."

[dark_scion]

"Nevertheless, let's be cautious and proceed," he suggested.

[iced_cherub]

She nodded. "Okay, let's go." She moved to head for the main building figuring that would be where everyone would gather. "You cool with this Fred? I mean with just checking in with the adults."

[dark_scion]

He followed after her, but took smaller steps so as not to outpace her.

"There is logic in what you say. I have no objection."

[iced_cherub]

"Good I was worried I was just sounding like a baby wanting to find the others." She was careful not to bump her wing too much.

She was keeping a look out as well, because she really didn't want to get caught off guard.

[ngm_foes]

While the adults on campus finished getting the invading Prime Sentinels subdued, two ten-foot tall shapes appeared on the lawn. Both armored robots scanned the grounds. Their heads swiveled back and forth as they homed in on power signatures.

[nohoundsallowed]

Rachel raced out of the mansion. Only to skid to a stop upon seeing not one, but two horrors from her future. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment. Which kept her from dropping a few choice explicatives.

[ngm_foes]

The pair of mutant annhilators zeroed in on Rachel.

"Primary target acquired. Initiating elmination sequence," they said in unison. They raised their arms and fired disingrating blasts at the Headmaster.

[nohoundsallowed]

Rachel threw a hand up. Not that the physical motion would do anything against the power coming at her. Though the motion helped with her drawing out power she hardly tapped into on daily basis. A very deep well she could draw from.

She grit her teeth as the twin blasts hit the telekinetic shield.

[ngm_foes]

Both Nimrods poured on the power as they moved closer to Rachel. More power would break through her shield. The ground around where they blasted disappeared under their onslaught.

[nohoundsallowed]

When the blasts stopped, Rachel stood in the center of a crater in front of the mansion. The ground around her was atomized. She didn't drop her shield when the blasts stopped. It would be suicide to drop any defenses.

Emma and Monet, protect the students. There's going to be feedback.

The redhead tried not to use this much power. She had learned refinement and deftness since she first arrived at Xavier's. She was still a sledgehammer compared to Emma Frost's scalpel, but finesse wasn't needed here. A glowing phoenix appeared around her eye as she floated out of the crater.

[dark_scion]

"There is strength in numbers." He sniffed the air, checking for foreign scents and familiar ones.

[ngm_foes]

"To save mankind, Nimrod must destroy mutantkind," both constructs intoned as they changed their blast configuration. They changed their frequency after another scan of the threat in front of them.

"Accept your fate, mutant. We will adapt. Surrender to your fate." Both Nimrod raised their arms to fire again.

[nohoundsallowed]

Rachel raised her chin defiantly and rose higher into the air. She tapped into an ocean of power that had always been her potential. The ground around the crater rippled as a low hum filled the campus. There would be psychic bleed-off from how much power she was drawing from, but she had faith Emma and Monet would keep everyone on the campus from overloading.

Which was all the thought she could give to other's safety. No one else on campus understood the horrors that Nimrod represented more than the redhead crackling with energy. When Rachel spoke, her voice was deeper and coming from a place farther in than her body could provide.

"You can adapt to me no more than you can adapt to the sun imploding." She felt the power she used tug at her. Beg at her for release. She had held up cities with her mind; it wanted to be free. Not tamped down by her will.

Rachel Grey-Ramsey raised her hand with her fingers spread. The visual a guide for her to keep these powers doing what she wanted. It wasn't just with telekinesis she reached out toward the firing Nimrods. She pushed her time displacement powers with the mental energy. Disrupting halves of each Nimrod along a diagonal line by sending that part 2 seconds ahead to the future.

She felt her bullet wound open again as she pushed her telekinesis into the bodies of the constructs. She grit her teeth as a phoenix symbol burned bright over her eye. Both Nimrod's adaptive protocols fought her every inch she gained.

"I am the once and future flame of existence. And you will no longer threaten those at my school." She slashed her arm down, releasing the energy she had pushed inside of both mechanical abominations outward.

[ngm_foes]

The proto-Nimrods tried to fight off the invasion into their systems, but the two seconds of displacement for half their body disrupted their adaptive abilities. They both fired on Rachel, but their new frequency on their energy signatures did not penetrate the shield the redhead had up.

"Imposs-" Both of them exploded into (roughly) a gajillion pieces when Rachel released her power inside of them.

[nohoundsallowed]

It snowed pieces of Nimrod around Rachel as she floated to the edge of the crater. Once her feet touched solid ground, she dismissed the telekinetic shield around her. She glanced around the damaged campus as her bullet wound stopped bleeding and reknit together again.

Somewhere in deep space

[ngm_parents]

Jean felt a ripple, then a tug that meant someone else was tapping into the Phoenix Force. The tug became a sharp pull and the ripple a crashing wave. An enormous flaming raptor involuntarily manifested around her, terrifying the crew of a small Skrull mining vessel harvesting a nearby asteroid. She saw a brief flash of Sentinels in her mind.

"Rachel."

Jean turned around and streaked towards her home planet.

Somewhere, in New Jersey

[summersspawn]

Sara was in the living room of the power station, wading through an especially dry - and thick - Economics text. Why, oh why couldn't it have pirates in it? Or at least come in PDF form that she didn't have to lug around? She sighed, and tried to focus on the unappealing, but required text, when it hit her.

Sara jerked up and backwards, her back arching. Her eyes glowed a firey orange-yellow, and a glowing Phoenix raptor briefly manifested around them. Then she screamed, and collapsed, unconscious, to the floor.

That hated Economics textbook was replaced by a pile of smoking ashes.

Re: Somewhere, in New Jersey

[sonoflongshot]

Aiden had been preparing food to throw in the crockpot for dinner. He was in midchop when a scream came from the living room. He just barely missed chopping off his own finger.

"Sara? Angel?" He went directly toward the living room with his vegetable knife in his hand. Cedric the Scottish Terrier was right on his heels. Possibly because Aiden might have taken some of the meat on the counter with him.

At the door to the living room, Aiden's eyes widened when he saw Sara collapsed. "!"

[talk_to_you]

"Holy..." Doug started, staring out the window. He ran, needing to get outside as quickly as possible.

[iced_cherub]

Bobbi heard the explosion in the direction they were going and didn't even think twice about it as she ran for the area ignoring her wing.

She stumbled to a stop just outside the crater. "Oh my...." Her hands covered her mouth. "Headmistress?" The word was barely a whisper, but she was worried about her adopted mom.

[dark_scion]

Fred followed after Bobbi, before stopping in awe of the crater.

"That..that is most impressive," he said after a moment.