Issue 1 Downtime

Isabel was sitting in the departure lounge of Indira Gandhi International airport. There was nothing suspicious, nothing sinister about her. Just a young woman, reading a magazine. Then, she got up from her seat and headed to the washroom. On the way there, she gave typhoid to a woman bound for Saudi Arabia, dysentery to a girl traveling to Moscow, gave polio to a janitor, influenza to three young men on their way to Japan. On the way back, she passed bubonic plague to a hippie backpacker on his way to Nepal, and its air borne cousin to a Nepali musician on her way to Australia. She considered passing on the Ebola, but decided to wait until she got to the next airport.

Will strode through the airport, shoving his way through, searching for his target.

He did not look happy.

As the X-Men arrived, people seemed to stop what they were doing, and were clearing out in what was obviously a telepathically induced fashion.

"I'm trying to recall any planes that have left lately and dispatch healers wherever I can. We should be able to manage this as long as she doesn't have time to make things worse."

Sara, already shifted to stone, is following behind him. She looks more worried than angry though about it actually being Izzy who they're looking for.

She won't, Will replied.

Ross winced, glancing around. "Shit, how do you guys get used to that," he muttered as he looked around, able to see just fine despite the mirrored sunglasses.

Kaylee followed in the others. She didn't really seem thrilled either about what was going on. I can heal just about anyone in here if they're infected. It is what I've been working on forever.

Isabel was no where that she could easily be seen. Perhaps she was hiding, perhaps she was on a plane....

"And seriously, they couldn't give us better directions than 'in the airport,'" Ross muttered, looking around. Anyone in a hoody, with a big hat on, maybe in shadows...

"They also didn't sent anyone who's good at looking for things.

No matter...she's not running. And all the planes have been ordered to land. We'll find her, if we have to go gate by gate."

"Or she has an ambush waiting for us," Ross muttered, looking around more.

"I'll take it."

There was a cry of pain, then another, then another, as a crowd of wounded, sickened, hurting people streamed down the corridor towards the X-men.

"Seems like it's time for those healers." Kaylee said as she walked over in the direction of the crowd but made sure to keep out of their way. She flung out her arm, unleashing a wave of microbes into the air in the path the pack of people were running in. As the people ran through, the microbes that were breathed in or made contact with their skin quickly began to probe their bodies for any forms of sickness they could devour.

"Take care of them!" Will said, pushing his way forward, taking to the air over the crowd.

Not really seeing anything he could do other than, well, tackle people who were hurt and panicked, which seemed kind of dumb, Ross hurried forward, skirting the edge of the wall to try not to shove anyone around, but ready to let himself get trampled if it'd get him to the other side of the crowd.

There isn't much Sara could do to avoid the crowd. Not that she's in much danger but the hurt and scared people running into her certainly might so she sinks into the floor and keeps going that way.

She'd get out another wave of healing microbes into the crowd, just to make sure she hit enough people and didn't miss any that might of been sick. She'd tried to avoid as much of the crowd as she could now before a tendril of ooze shot up, pulling her up over the crowd. She'd slowly scale the ceiling after the rest of her team.

As the crowd continued on, Kaylee or Will might notice that there was one person in the center who didn't seem ill or injured or panicked. Instead, she continued on her way calmly, taking a wound or disease from one person, and handing it over to another in the crowd, apparently using them to cover her escape.

"Stop! Hold it, RIGHT there!" Will said, powering his way forward.

"Where?" Sara asks, pushing herself out of the floor. Looking in the direction Will's rushing to she spots Izzy. Disappearing into the ground again she tries to catch up to her.

Huh? Ross turned at the voice, looked up and saw Will and where he was looking, then reversed course, trying to push himself through the crowd, much less successfully than Sara.

Kaylee spotted Isabel as well and waited in her position, still being towards the back to cut Isabel off if she tried to run in her direction.

Isabel, realizing that she was spotted, started trying to get through the crowd more rapidly.

Ross started shoving his way through the crowd after her. "Stop! Dammit..."

Isabel started giving the people around her diseases with disgusting symptoms, broken limbs, anything to slow down the people who were on her tail.

"For god's sake, stop it!" Ross shouted. "Everyone get away from her!" He tried to get close enough to get ahold of her, which these people weren't making easy.

The crowd, already terrified and panicked, started looking around, as they started to realize that someone was responsible for whatever it was that was going on.

Sara tries to make it past Izzy and raise the ground to form a wall to stop her escape.

Kaylee follows Isabel, not hindered by the crowd she begins to catch up easily. A large tendril pulls from the pool she's traveling in, hovering in the air and waiting for a clear shot to shoot down and snag the horseman.

Will took to the air again, planning to swoop down on Izzy from above

As Will flew overhead, he'd see that Sara's wall had trapped a lot of Isabel's victims in with her. And as they realized who it was who was hurting them, who it was who was injuring them, sickening them, her victims turned on her, and began beating her, kicking her, attacking her. Isabel fought back as best she could, but they were too many, and too determined.

Sara moved out of the wall and is trying to pull people off of Izzy though trying to do so without further harming people isn't easy.

Will was less forgiving, and dove in, increasing in mass to try to smash everyone down.

You've gotta be kidding me. She thought, seeing the person they were after get assaulted.

Multiple tendrils started to spawn from the pool of ooze and quickly began to shoot down, one after another wrapping around people at their mid-sections then harmlessly yanking them into the air and away from Sara and Izzy, trying to give Sara some room to actually apprehend Izzy before things get further out of hand.

Will shot out arms longer than himself, wrapping them around Izzy, tightly.

"Hold it, RIGHT there."

Ross, meanwhile, not having the ability to do anything useful, was outside the wall trying to calm the crowd, telling them where to go (where the healers were) and that there were people there to help them, and how it was all going to be all right soon. God, I must be the most useless X-Man ever...

The crowd couldn't get through Will, but inside of him, Isabel was struggling weakly, trying to get loose.

Will constricted his arms, like a boa constrictor.

"Give it up, Horseman. You've got nowhere to go."

"Ross, Kaylee, Sara, get these people OFF of me!"

"Sorta stuck outside a wall, boss," Ross shot back, still trying to herd the rest of the people to safety and away from the chaos.