[Issue] Go West

[Narrator]

The flight in the Blackbird is not as smooth as they might remember. And it's a little disconcerting to see Acala perched on the cockpit controls, nanite tendrils extended and sunk into the various panels while the robot is looking into the rear of the jet. Sure, it shouldn't matter to a machine, but it still seems like it's flying backwards without looking. And outside they are literally getting ahead of the sun as the plane crosses seven timezones in the span of less than two hours and arrive at their destination in the early morning. At least Will's yawning is now appropriate for the time of day.

As the plane slows it's approach and transitions to VTOL for a vertical landing. The compound they're approaching is composed of one building complex that's mostly still standing as well as a large crater of bedrock, speckled with concrete and metal where buildings as well as yellow construction equipment has been destroyed and then flattened into a perfect sphere by the figure still floating in the air above the site. As the jet lowers itself to land they can actually feel the gravitational waves emanating from the figure, tugging at them and the jet, forcing Acala to adjust the engines. Out the window they can actually see the woman who Will might recognize as Madison West, younger perhaps but with dark bags under her eyes and exhaustion spelled out in broad strokes on her face and shaking arms. She must have been at this for presumably the whole night at the very least, using her power to contain something and with enough force that it has crushed rubble and debris into a perfectly smooth surface.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Interesting," Tosh said as he watched out the window, "It appears she's using gravitational waves to stabilize the area, which means the seismic activity is ongoing."

[Will Stanton]

Will began to unbuckle himself from his seat, stowing his textbook underneath it and putting away the schoolwork he had busied himself with on the flight over.

"Which means the situation isn't as calm as we were lead to believe, which is, y'know, fantastic. I suppose surprises are the least of what we should expect out of a West."

[Samantha McManus]

"An earthquake wouldn't last this long," she says as she disembarks.

"She's holding something at bay."

[Will Stanton]

"Welp, let's go see if the X-Grunts can't give her a hand. Zug zug," Will joked, exiting the plane and walking towards Madison.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Don't get to close or you'll get flattened. Granted you, at least, could survive that."

[Will Stanton]

"Don't worry; no flattening on a first date," Will said, joking while also acknowledging Science Boy's sciencing.

[Madison West]

The edge of the gravitational effect is easy enough to see and as the three leave the plane Madison slowly lowers herself to the ground, drifting towards the X-Men as she does. The gravitation bubble slowly let's up with a couple of fits and starts that see the ground int he crater spit up streams of dust in odd spikes. And as Madison sets down in front of them her power shuts off completely, the smooth ground in the crater buckling and cracking, but nothing bursts forth, the ground simply settling from having been compressed.

Madison for her part stumbles and almost goes down before catching herself with one hand on a piece of bent fencing. She looks, for lack of a better term, like shit. Sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, once tan skin seeming ashen and not just from the dusting of rubble. A keen eye might spot the odd red marks on the inside of her arm, injection sites arranged in a triangle, at least four sets of them that are obvious enough.

"Fuck, about time somebody showed up." she still manages to curse though. "S'pose her royal bitchiness my mother is not with you by any chance? Let me slam a bottle of Jack and pass out now instead of having to fill you in first?"

[Will Stanton]

"I'm afraid what you see is what you get, so if it's at all possible to maintain a base level of sobriety while you catch us up to speed?"

[Madison West]

Madison bursts into a tired laugh. "Bit late for that, bucko. But anyway, you're looking at what remains of West Pharmaceutical's mining operation. Why's a drug division need a mine? In the wise words of my mother it's 'None of your business' but they're not hauling up lithium, I can tell you that much. Something went fucky down there about... fuck, I dunno, two days ago? Dear Mother calls me in, thinking somebody infiltrated the place, terrorist attack, industrial espionage gone loud. You know, the usual. Instead people are running from the mine screaming bloody murder and something about a monster. Best I can figure is one of the miners managed to hide the fact they're a mutant or didn't know and went absolutely ham. Like ground buckling levels of ham. Figure you'll see soon enough. But yeah, management decides the best course of action is to collapse the place down before it has a chance to go up, but whatever this is it kept on pushing back."

She pauses briefly and there's a noticeable tremor that rocks the crater. "And it for fucking sure hasn't gotten tired yet..."

[Will Stanton]

"And you've been keeping...whatever it is trapped down there for two days? No attempt to communicate or anything?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"There may not be a way to. It could even be the possible mutant isn't in a condition to speak."

[Madison West]

"They don't call me in to talk. You wanna try to talk, be my fucking guest."

[Narrator]

There's another sudden tremor, this one making everyone stumble as a pillar of bedrock suddenly bursts up from the center of the crater, a good 30 feet of stone that throws aside some crushed pieces of a crane that crash to the ground around the crater. And as the dust settles the pillar cracks, splitting down the side in numerous places as long shards of rock fall away. No, not fall away. They're moving, bending somehow with snapping and splintering movements, the pillar shards turning into arms, 6 or 7 unfold. Rock parts to form mis-matched, grasping fingers of incongruent length and number. The arms bend, some with only one 'elbow', others with two or even three as the arms grasp around for the ground, cracking it and leaving hand-imprints as they try to lift whatever is attached to them from the earth.

[Samantha McManus]

"Looks like we're up," she says, stepping forward and casting her mind out into the crater.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Yeah... this might be a little much for Bruce. But I guess I'll have to make due," Tosh said before he let his shark side take over.

Bruce cracked his mighty knuckles. "It wasn't a rock, it was a rock monster," he talk-sang as he took up a fighting stance. "I should punch it, right?"

[Narrator]

Sam's thoughts reach out, grasping for that busy chatter of another mind but finding nothing. No, not nothing, just... an absence of something. Like a yawning empty pit with her mind at the precipice. It's not... sentient. Not aware in the same way other humans are. There's a vague texture to the emptiness, sensory impressions, stimuli, reactions. Like instincts, but she's familiar with those and they still brim with life. This is less somehow. It certainly isn't human and probably never was, yet something feels familiar about it... Deep in the center of the swirling funnel is something that responds to her. Something she's felt before. A shimmering light suspended in the dark, flickering in impossible shapes and colors, folding in and out of itself.

She's seen this before. Not in detail and it was ephemeral, like a dream of a moment that was undone in time. When she lay dieing and a detonation tore through the Point she saw those lights all around her. And she has a name for them. Or... no, but it comes to mind anyway, like lingering traces of Cailleach. Sparks, she called them...


In the real world, the thing finishes heaving itself from the ground and there's no torso or anything else that climbs from the ground, just more limbs, arms and hands in all kinds of wrong configurations. Like something trying to form hands after having gotten countless conflicting descriptions of what a hand or an arm is. Numerous arms reach out, grasping for the edge of the crater and with each hand that grinds into the ground they can all feel the ground tremble, not from the impact but like some kind of power rippling out, causing tremors.

[Will Stanton]

Will took a few steps forward, placing himself in between Sam, Bruce, and the Thing That Should Not Be.

He extended his arms in a non-threatening posture, carefully observing the thing.

"It's trying to get out, but that's all at the moment. If I had to guess, someone delved too greedily, and too deep."

[Madison West]

"Fucking nerd." says the woman who somehow recognizes the reference herself.

[Narrator]

The stone monstrosity finishes crawling out of the crater and rises itself up by extending it's ring of arms below itself. Underneath it three or four arms intertwine and it let's out an almost ethereal screech before it's twined arms plunge into the ground and this time the tremor almost throws them all to the ground. Behind them the buildings that are still standing produce some not very encouraging sounds vis-a-vis their structural integrity and the quaking does not seem to let up.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Yeah guys, this thing is maaad," Bruce said. "Will, how about we keep it busy while Sam plays Golem Whisperer?"

[Will Stanton]

"Are those buildings evacuated?" Will said, circling around to spread out the potential targets for The Thing From Beyond.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Bruce circled around the other direction, searching for something he could use as a weapon against the monstrosity. Spotting something, he moved to pick up a bent metal beam knocked from the rubble by the thing's emergence. It was warped and smashed almost to the point of uselessness, but it would have to do.

"This ought to do some damage," he said, hefting it like a baseball bat.

[Madison West]

"Yeah, but if I know my mother there's still a handful of poor saps pulling backups."

[Narrator]

Bruce hefts his make-shift bat, the thing not seeming to pay him much mind until he actually swings it, crashing into one of it's 'legs' with all the force of a shark-man. Splinters of rock fly off and he at least manages to leave a mark before another limb lashes out and smacks him away, sending him tumbling. But it does stop making the ground shake as it's attention is drawn elsewhere and as it turns to follow after Bruce he notices that one of the arms not currently being used to walk is dangling a little, a warped chunk drill-head embedded in a wound that's partially 'scabbed over' with rock.

[Samantha McManus]

"It's... it's not..."

"...what is this?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

Bruce eyed the creature, and the drill head, as the scuffed up aqua-hulk staggered to his feet.

"Duuude. This thing hits hard," he said, recovering from a brief daze. He raised the metal beam and charged back in, aiming to break the drill bit free by hitting it really hard with as much voltage as he could generate, for whatever good it might do.

[Will Stanton]

Will, for his part, was working his way in from the other side, now that Bruce had the thing's attention. There was little he could actively do with electricity flowing around, so he was mostly biding his time.

[Narrator]

Arms come down in Tosh's path, slamming into the ground with enough force to crack the ground, only narrowly missing him. The embedded bit is too high up for even the huge shark to reach, but hurling the charged club the crackling electricity almost seems to guide the projectile to it's target. There's the loud clang of metal hitting metal followed by the loud thundercrack of a massive electric discharge. The monster screeches and yanks the attacked arm back as the drill bit along with the rest of the arm tears free and thuds to the ground.

Arms start hammering down in a frenzy, one of them managing to grab Bruce and yank him off his feet and into the air.

The severed arm and attached drill-bit that hit the ground meanwhile is still moving, jerking one direction and rolling over slightly but less from independent movement but rather because it appears to be falling apart in a very particular manner. Rock sloughs off of it almost in beads that then coalesce into little chunks and pebbles, leaving behind a chunk of odd looking stone, iridescent and with strange, almost organic-seeming cloudy inclusions that appears to be fused to the smoking and still slightly sparking drill-head. Why'd that dissolving rock-arm seem so familiar to Will? No time to worry about that right now, Tosh cold probably use some help!

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Little help guys!" Bruce grunted as he rained blows onto the stone hand, finding it increasingly difficult to breathe as it tightened its grip. Inside, Tosh wondered how his dad would get out of this situation. Angry and hurt as he was, he still wished he was half as much of a hero as his dad. And as hard to smash.

[Will Stanton]

Will slid down into the pit area. He didn't immediately go help Bruce -- hey, dude's a tough guy, he could handle things -- and instead went for the drill bit. That's probably what started this whole shebang, anyway...

[Narrator]

The creature is gripping Tosh tight enough that stone is creaking and then he's suddenly whipped through the air and send flying as the hand throws. The building in the back is a good 50 yards away and Tosh still hits it with enough force to shatter the window and go crashing into a desk.

Outside the creature punches the ground again in a serious of blows from 5 or 6 six hands, but instead of the ground trembling pillars of rock burst from the ground around it at seemingly random angles. Will, skidding down the crater is out of reach but Sam is not, a slab of stone bursting out underneath her feet and sending her stumbling right into another one that erupts from an oblique angle, slamming into her shoulder and knocking her to the ground.

Will has little problem reaching the drill bit and the dissolved remains of the arm, the pile of pebbles and rocks still lieing in the vague shape of an arm with the drill at the end and the strange piece of... something stuck to it. It looks almost brittle, like amber, some flaky bits having been chipped off but at the same time the way it's adhered to the drill almost looks more like a huge fossilized amoeba or something.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Bruce groaned as he regained his senses. His x-suit and tough hide had protected him from being cut up by the glass but the impact with the desk had knocked the wind out of him, it hurt to move his left arm, and the golem's crushing grip had quite likely cracked a few ribs.

"Well, that sucked," he said, grunting as he pushed himself to his feet. He moved to the broken window and, without a second thought and like a true superhero, jumped to the ground below and ran back towards the battle. Well, quickly hobbled. That jump might not have been the best idea.

[Will Stanton]

Will has little problem reaching the drill bit and the dissolved remains of the arm, the pile of pebbles and rocks still lieing in the vague shape of an arm with the drill at the end and the strange piece of... something stuck to it. It looks almost brittle, like amber, some flaky bits having been chipped off but at the same time the way it's adhered to the drill almost looks more like a huge fossilized amoeba or something.

Shifting his hand into a non-reactive metal, Will carefully tried to free the drill, investigating the odd, brittle thingamabob.

[Narrator]

It's perhaps easier than anticipated, the chunk of strange material coming away from the drill, although it does leave behind some bits and chunks. It doesn't really break off either, almost producing more of a tearing sensation. And it doesn't eat away at his hand or set it on fire either, so that's good! Holding the roughly fist-sized chunk Will still can't really get a good read on what kind of material this even is. There's a little bit of give to it, up close he can see organic whorls on it's surface but while squeezing does change it's shape accordingly it's still hard on the surface. Nothing about this makes any consistent sense.

And then Will's hand begins to tingle, not unpleasantly. In fact he's suddenly acutely aware of the surface of his fingers to an extent he's not used to in that same odd way that gives him a sense of touch even when he's a supposedly inanimate object. Just on a much finer level. Almost microscopically so, feeling a texture on the surface of the strange rock that his eyes can't even come close to detecting. Through what is still a metal hand. That clearly isn't as non-reactive as he'd hoped! In fact, he can feel something seeping in from the chunk of mystery-substance. And the thought isn't even fully formed yet when his hand turns from some muddled silver-platinum mix to something much purer. He's no metal... science... guy, but he knows the feeling of being various materials and this is something he's never been, whatever it is. It'd feel invasive if he wasn't perfectly in control of it. In fact he's never felt so in control of himself. Pushing changes through his body always had some resistance, complexities that required focus and attention, but now it just feels easy. Like a gear he never even knew was squeaky was suddenly greased and running without any friction or inhibitions. Sonic waves? Pff, simply tune the inner composition to something with the right resonant frequency. Electricity? Shift the right sub-cellular lanes to direct it away from what passes for his nervous system. He feels like he's on top of the world right now! Or at least his hand does.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Bruce picked up speed as he re-entered the crater, bulldozing through a small pillar as it blocked his path before being blocked by another. He shifted into Ennio and the ferret-man launched himself to the top on a jet of water. From there he hopped and scrambled on all fours from one to the next, occasionally using a jet of water for longer jumps as he worked his way back to the monster.

[Samantha McManus]

"Damn it," Sam grunts in pain as she struggles to right herself.

"I was... I was just..."

Her concentration is lost as she gets back to her feet, striding towards the creature.

"Now listen here, beastie..."

[Narrator]

The 'beastie' has stopped punching the ground, leaving the arms it used to do so sunk into the ground. As Sam walks towards it she can feel the ground underneath her feet moving in ways that the ground most certainly should not and a moment later more pillars push from the ground around her. Smaller and rounder and not aimed at her directly. Fingers! And the ground moving beneath her feet is the huge corresponding palm erupting from the ground!

Above her head, Ennio leaps back into the fray, avoiding the arms trying to swipe him out of the air by adjusting his trajectory with controlled bursts of water until he gets close enough to the tangle of stone-arms that he's forced to land on one. It does cut down on the amount of hands that can reach him at the moment at least.

[Toshiro Narumi]

While on the way up the arm Ennio created a swirl of water which he used to gather the copious amount of grit he had gathered in his fur on the way. He made it faster and faster before sending it to saw at a joint in a long, thin stream at high velocity. When you were as tiny as him, you had to fight smart.

[Will Stanton]

It's perhaps easier than anticipated, the chunk of strange material coming away from the drill, although it does leave behind some bits and chunks. It doesn't really break off either, almost producing more of a tearing sensation. And it doesn't eat away at his hand or set it on fire either, so that's good! Holding the roughly fist-sized chunk Will still can't really get a good read on what kind of material this even is. There's a little bit of give to it, up close he can see organic whorls on it's surface but while squeezing does change it's shape accordingly it's still hard on the surface. Nothing about this makes any consistent sense.

And then Will's hand begins to tingle, not unpleasantly. In fact he's suddenly acutely aware of the surface of his fingers to an extent he's not used to in that same odd way that gives him a sense of touch even when he's a supposedly inanimate object. Just on a much finer level. Almost microscopically so, feeling a texture on the surface of the strange rock that his eyes can't even come close to detecting. Through what is still a metal hand. That clearly isn't as non-reactive as he'd hoped! In fact, he can feel something seeping in from the chunk of mystery-substance. And the thought isn't even fully formed yet when his hand turns from some muddled silver-platinum mix to something much purer. He's no metal... science... guy, but he knows the feeling of being various materials and this is something he's never been, whatever it is. It'd feel invasive if he wasn't perfectly in control of it. In fact he's never felt so in control of himself. Pushing changes through his body always had some resistance, complexities that required focus and attention, but now it just feels easy. Like a gear he never even knew was squeaky was suddenly greased and running without any friction or inhibitions. Sonic waves? Pff, simply tune the inner composition to something with the right resonant frequency. Electricity? Shift the right sub-cellular lanes to direct it away from what passes for his nervous system. He feels like he's on top of the world right now! Or at least his hand does.

"What on Earth are you?" he asked, quietly, looking down at his hands, thought of Sam and Tosh far from the front of his mind. "Or rather...not on Earth?"

Carefully, he lifted his hand, letting the changes keep playing out for now, as the chaos reigned behind him.