Zepplins! February 7th

[Narrator]

Shortly after the dragons appeared in Chinatown, the air buckled and twisted and shimmered in Bankside as well. This time, the rift was larger, and a huge dirigible flew through. It was a giant red ship with a skull and crossbones painted black on the side. A moment later, a second airship flew through, this one emblazoned with the Union Jack.

[Meg A Ohm]

At this point in her superheroing career, Meg's flight capabilities were not spectacular. To really get around, she had to focus on flying. Hovering, though, was easy as a result. She was far from the most agile in the air, but she had improved a bit since graduating the Institute.

So, when she heard that one of the invaders had been zeppelins -relatively slow and very explosive zeppleins- she realized that these were more her speed, literally as well as figuratively.

It had been a quick rush to get changed. She still had her training uniform from the Institute (which, she had found to her horror, was a little more snug than she remembered). With that, she threw on a black, Matrix-style duster she often used for clubbing. It wasn't much protection, admittedly, but any little bit helped. While she dressed, she absorbed power through an outlet in her room. Normally, she wanted to dump power, but going into battle, she was decided that it was best to be as fully charged as possible.

The last touch was a pair of welder's goggles that she often used when working on cars. These she sat on the top of her head, ready to be slipped down as needed.

The flight was steady if not speedy, though she knew almost nothing about London's layout. Thus, she flew at a decent height, in the direction that had been indicated during the briefing. They were certainly not small vehicles, and it was not that long before she spotted them moving steadily.

You can do this, girl, she told herself as she inhaled the cold night air to steady her nerves. Just be careful. You've been around long enough to realize things ain't always what they seem. So, let's buzz 'em to find out how they'll react.

With that, she approached them carefully but steadily.

[Will Stanton]

A green raven swooped in behind Meg, doing a sort of corkscrew thing as it, too, headed for zeppelin mania.

[Meg A Ohm]

Since she knew ravens were normally black in color, Meg quickly realized that the bird trailing her was most likely a student shapechanger. At least, she hoped so.

Turning back to the blimps, her eyes widened. "Jesus, those things are huge!" she muttered.

[John Hino]

John climbed out of the team transport he and the other non-fliers came in and gazed up at the airships.

"Yeah... those are big."

[Narrator]

As the X-Men gawked, something finally happened.

Large balls, the size of small cars, made of cast iron fell from the zepplin with the pirate crest on it. Almost in response, similarly made objects with a blockier shape fell off of the Union-Jacked Zepplin. All of them fell and thumped into the pavement below, leaving craters where they impacted.

[Will Stanton]

Will squawked, and started towards the Pirate Blimp

[John Hino]

John moved to a better position to intercept the apparently incoming pirate landing party.

[Meg A Ohm]

"Steampunk wannabes," she said under her breath. Out loud, she asked "Um, so, whose gonna play tactician here?" as she looked around at the group.

[Alyson Gregory]

"I'm gonna go with 'bash the baddies before they bash us' for tactics." Alyson said to Meg "And I think when you have a zepplin, it isn't 'wanna be' steampunk."

[Meg A Ohm]

"Works for me," Meg began drawing up her power, and her eyes began to glow an electric blue.

"Let's dance."

[Rick Ferguson]

Rick flew in alongside Will within a spiraling air current, sticking close to him for now unless the (possible) landing parties looked particularly nasty once they emerged.

[Narrator]

A cannon poked out from the pirate ship, although for the moment it was just tracking Will and Rick.

On the ground the pods popped open, and steampunk cyborgs popped out. The pirates turned and started to fire on their Naval pursuers.

[Meg A Ohm]

"Don't clump together!" Meg called out as she began evasive maneuvers. Like it or not, the training she had from the Institute was coming back.

[Rick Ferguson]

"Don't suppose we can find some way to disable that thing, eh,?" Rick asked Will, nodding in the drection of the cannon. "It looks like it's more interested in us than everyone on the ground anyway."

[Niles Radcliff]

Niles took cover behind a car and started to make a crossbow, it was similar to the one he had used against the sentinels but smaller in scale. Once done he would take a shot at one of the pirate cyborgs.

[Meg A Ohm]

As it seemed that some of the others would tangle with the ground troops, Meg turned her attention toward the blimps. It was then that she noticed that the green avian was charging toward the blimps.

"Well, looks like I get to back up the bird," she said with a shrug. Her hands crackled with electricity as she made to go after the blimps.

((That's it for me. Gotta get some sleep. I'll play catch up tomorrow morning. Good night and good hunting!))

[Will Stanton]

*Squawk!*

[Rick Ferguson]

"Oh. Right. My bad. How about this, we break off in deifferent directions and try to get close and take it out. It can't aim at both of us at once." With that, Rick diverged sharply from the course he had taken beside Will, waiting to see who would draw the cannon's fire.

[Will Stanton]

As Rick went lower, Will went higher, coming in to swoop onto the deck from above.

[Veronica Freud]

Despite the seriousness of the events just outside the transport Veronica couldn't help but grin. It all just looked so cool. She almost felt bad about inevitably breaking these wonderful steam-powered toys.

Almost.

"Ooh, I think I wanna mark them drop-ships return the sender. That ought'a piss off some sky captains." She smiled wider. Already stretching upward she ran into the fray, ignoring the clanking, awesome robots and heading instead toward the pods they'd dropped out of.

[Narrator]

A second cannon appeared, this one aiming at Meg.

The first cannon fired at Rick, for the moment Will was being ignored.

The pirates had been more worried about their pursuers, but when Niles opened fire two of them aimed their ray guns at him and fired, aiming at his chest.

[Will Stanton]

Will swooped around the other side, aiming for a window to crash through, essentially becoming a flying projectile made of metal instead of bird for the purpose.

[Rick Ferguson]

"Come on! Shoot me down!," Rick goaded. He approached the cannons to try and take them out, or at least keep them occupied. But never, ever flew at them directly. He strafed this way and that so that getting a clear shot at him would be difficult.

[Niles Radcliff]

Niles dived behind the car, and quickly reloaded. He then looked for other things he could use for cover that would take him closer to the British Cyborgs.

[Narrator]

The two pirate cyborgs continued to fire at Niles, the rays cutting through the car with ease.

The cannon fired at Rick, a sticky looking red projectile hurtling towards him.

Unfortunately for Will, the window was made of diamond rather than glass. It was unlikely, since he was made of metal that he would be seriously injured but........

[Will Stanton]

*THUNK*

Ow
Alright, plan B... Will said, once he recovered from a bit of a stun and a fall--and it's a good thing they were so high up, as it gave her TIME to fall. She managed to swoop down, skimming over the tops of trees before heading back up, with the goal to get to the edge of one of the cannons--maybe there was a crack, or an opening, or SOMETHING there. I mean, they came out, right?

This...MIGHT make her a target flying up, though. That could be a problem. If it wasn't busy shooting at Rick and stuff.

[Niles Radcliff]

Niles made a running dive around the corner of a nearby building, hoping it would be enough to stop the ray guns, at least for a bit.

[Narrator]

One of the pirates broke off in pursuit of Niles. He rolled several round objects around the corner of the building where Niles was hiding and then ducked behind a car, so that he would be sheltered from the blast.

Will could see a small gap in the gun port, he might, possibly, be able to get through it.

[Rick Ferguson]

Rick arced straight up into the air to gain altitude and evade the projectile. While he was at it, he would continue to rise until he was out the cannons' lines of sight so that he could change dirctions and come at them from another angle.

[Alyson Gregory]

Alyson, meanwhile ran towards the pirates, hoping to grab one of them.

[Will Stanton]

Will's LIFE was about squeezing through the tiniest of cracks.

Wait, lemme rephrase that.

Will was very good at getting through cracks--she landed ON the cannon itself, and shrunk, and flattened, worming her way through the crack.

[Veronica Freud]

Normally Veronica would have shrunk down to run through a skirmish, the gradual increase in size making her more and more a deliberate and accidental target to both pirate and union droids as she ran between them. She didn't have time to avoid their fire, hoping that her speed and thicker skin would be enough to get her through. She tried to make her way to the nearest "pod", still acting on her idea.

[Narrator]

No one was deliberately firing at Ronnie (at least so far), but as she ran past she would be scorched and zapped as the occasional blast struck her.

[Niles Radcliff]

“Oh shit” Niles leaned back against the building and threw up a screen to protect him somewhat, mostly from the shrapnel and the fire, it couldn't completely block the force of the blast, which means this is going to hurt.

[Veronica Freud]

Ronnie winced and tried hard not to call out. Even with the protective suit she wore she still got some pretty painful burns from the stray shots. At 50' in height she bent over and picked up the pod like a baseball. Tossing it in her hand a few times she reached her arm and planted her foot hard, hurling the pod at the Pirate zeppelin.

"Here, ya can have these back!"

[Rick Ferguson]

Rick made a nosedive back into the cannons' field of vision, aiming to strafe more of their shots, though he now had to get the hell out of the way of one of the landing pods rising toward the airship.

[Meg A Ohm]

"Crap!" she swore, as she noticed the canon swinging her way. She would have to back up the bird as soon as she made sure her back was clear. With a snarl of built-up anger at Charles Xavier condition and the interruption to such a touching speech by this Dr. Tomorrow, Meg fired off a bolt of electricity, her eyes flaring even brighter. She aimed for the barrel of the canon, but didn't care where she hit so long as she struck something of the canon...hard.

[John Hino]

The cyborg that had pursued Niles would soon find the fist of a Scary Lizard Man barreling down on him.

[Narrator]

Unfortunately, the zepplin didn't seem to have anything that was affected by electricity, so Meg's blasts didn't seem to have any immediate effect.

On the ground, the projectiles dropped by the Imperial zepplin started to open up, unfolding into great steamwork robots. They stood up and started clanging toward the cyborgs, opening fire without any real care for friendly fire.

The cyborgs that had been chasing down Niles only seemed moderately impressed by the fist of scaley doom. The one John hit staggered and fell backwards. Its companion, however, charged forward with a steam-driven iron fist toward John's face.