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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[nohoundsallowed]

Rachel tilted her head and looked toward the sky. Or more more accurately beyond it. "Hmm."

She closed her eyes and took a breath. This much power was tempting to hold onto, but it wasn't all rightfully hers. It had been noticed, and Rachel was slowly letting go of it.

Though there were things to do before her powers faded back to regular levels. She looked over at the two people at the other side of the crater from her. She hummed again. "I didn't do that one," she noted in a tone closer to her regular speaking voice.

Rachel waved her hand over the crater. The ground filled in. She didn't reassemble the atomized parts of the grounds. She just shifted dirt from elsewhere on the campus to leave a safe, stable dirt circle in the lawn.

[iced_cherub]

"Mental note.... Don't do something really stupid like they did. Lesson learned." She looked up. "You okay?"

[dark_scion]

"I stand by my previous statement," he said in response to the latest display of power.

[talk_to_you]

Doug came sprinting out of the mansion. God, he really needed to put more time in the gym.

"Ra... Rachel," he managed, once he caught his breath.

[nohoundsallowed]

Rachel looked from Bobbi to Fred. "I'm fine, Bobbi. And those, Mr. McCoy, are why people should leave this school alone."

She glanced at the other bits of destruction visible from this point. She reached out with her senses to find all the others. All the work she had done was marred in some way or another. She gave Doug a slight smile when ran up breathless.

"One more bit to do."

[iced_cherub]

Bobbi stayed near Fred watching Rachel a moment. "What's that? Please don't say call a contractor to fix the place... and sorry about the window on the second story. Couldn't think of another way down that they wouldn't follow..."

[dark_scion]

"Considering the poor conditions already caused by the attackers, I doubt your own contribution to it is much cause for chastisement," Fred offered in his own way of comfort.

[talk_to_you]

Doug was worried. Purifiers and Prime sentinel tech were one thing... Nimrod's were quite another. There was more going on here than met the eye, and it worried him about what it might mean for the challenges that lay before them.

"That's my wife. Kicking all kinds of ass."

[nohoundsallowed]

Rachel took in a deep breath. "No need to call a contractor," she commented as she closed her eyes.

The redhead concentrated. The power she had called on was fading, so she used some of her personal reserves. She floated above the ground and reached out her hands to encompass the campus. Her brow furrowed, eyebrows knitted together.

Inanimate objects around the campus appeared to rise up and mend themselves before going back to where they belonged. Despite the size of the campus, the damage was concentrated where people were. The window of the second story Bobbi was mended along with everything else.

Anything from Purifier weapons lodged in walls, windows, book shelves, and doors were now on settled on the floors, waiting for clean up.

Rachel didn't so much settle back on the ground as plummet for a couple inches. She sagged. "There. As good as this morning..."

[iced_cherub]

Bobbi moved forward, she knew it probably wasn't proper to do, but couldn't help it, she hugged Rachel anyway, wrapping her good wing around Doug to pull him into it since they were now her family.

She amazingly stayed silent because she didn't think they needed to hear her ramble on.

[dark_scion]

Fred stood somewhat awkwardly at the display. This was a very foreign occurrence to him, his mind not really processing it. Since the threat seemed averted he decided to leave them to their moment and turned and headed back to the campus.

[talk_to_you]

Doug helped Rachel back to her feet.

"C'mon. Let's get you back inside and have Doctor Reyes take a look at you. You've had a pretty big day."

[nohoundsallowed]

Rachel carefully put an arm on top of Bobbi's shoulders. The redhead looked tired and sinking fast. She shook her head at Doug's directions.

"There's more important things for Dr. Reyes at the moment," she said once she found her voice. "I just need to rest. I need some things done while I do that. Have Elixir brought to campus immediately from wherever he is at the moment. Have Dani call him and a teleporter bring him in. Kitty and Emma are in charge while I rest." She paused. "Mom's coming. So... let people know."

She licked her lips. "And someone remind Fred McCoy that he will not use his newest toy on anyone on campus."

She wasn't going to take the Purifier weapon away from him. But sardonic superiority often needed small reminders to Rachel's mind.

"Now, let's get inside before that circle of dirt looks even more like a comfy bed."