It doesn’t take much for panic to start. Fear is one of those quick transmitting viruses that immediately takes root in a man or woman’s head and makes them think the impossible. Thanks to the deluge of information out in the world, people are easily swept up in a torrent of hearsay and misinformation that can easily incite panic in anybody. However, while most of these incidents can be easily explained as figments of the imagination or mass hysteria, those assumptions were not going to fly considering what was happening in Madison Square Park.

It was almost the end of Jorge’s shift when the call came in. He was gathering his things: lunch bag, some paperwork he was planning on bringing home, etc., when there was nothing but commotion in the police precinct. People were running, some shouting something about the end of the world, others merely joining so that they weren’t left out of the loop. Admittedly, curiosity got the best of the detective as he marched along with a small duo of colleagues to check out a nearby television set to the local news.

Impossible. Those were the only words that flashed through his mind. This wasn’t CGI, it wasn’t some exotic lightshow, and it wasn’t a mutant (as far as anyone could tell); it was an actual, factual vortex into…who knows what. Calls began to come in. They started slowly, one or two, and those two quickly bred like rabbits in the backseat of a Camaro. The switchboards lit up. Everyone was in hysterics. Some calling to report what they already knew, some claiming that the CERN supercollider had malfunctioned and created a black hole in New York, and other’s stating that somewhere in the world, Isabel Duskmoor did a good deed and the action ripped the very fabric of reality.

Admittedly, the majority of these theories were false or unfounded, but what did matter is that the whole situation was a powder keg. People wouldn’t stay calm and in their homes for long. Eventually people were going to need help, direction, and order – that was where the police came in.

Jorge had shot a quick text off to Gemma, telling her that he was going to be late and he was unsure how long it was going to be. Once that was handled, he grabbed his leather jacket and was immediately out the front doors, grabbing a ride with one of his fellow officers. As they made their way to the car, Jorge’s other badge began to go off, the one assigned to X-Men; this was going to be literally all hands on deck, it seemed.

---

MADISON SQUARE PARK – GROUND ZERO

Again, impossible. When Jorge had arrived on the scene, slipping on his jacket and making sure that his police badge was clearly visible. The man found himself rooted in spot. He stared at something he had only seen in movies or comic books. The swirling vortex was massive and emitted a bright, blinding light. Truly the man couldn’t even conceive of what he was looking at and he dealt with mutants with all sorts of abilities on a daily basis! And yet, this is what seemed like the most farfetched! Truly there were no words for what he was looking at. Thankfully, a panicked scream from a woman nearby drew his attention. At least he had work to distract him.

Jorge jumped into action. He and his fellow officers did their best rounding up people who were caught in a state of fear-induced torpor. Men, women, children, those who weren’t panicked enough to run were staring in complete awe or fear. The worst, though, was that it wasn’t just people that they were saving, it was quickly descending into a mob mentality. He had to arrest one gun owner who tried to march up to the vortex with a bravado, stating that the extra-dimensional aliens weren’t going to suck out his brain.

As funny as that was, it was only the first salvo in a wave of insanity that would soon be breaking out. First him, then another, and another, and soon a riot seemed to be ready to break out. People chucked items hatefully at the vortex, others dropped to their knees and prayed to it as if it were some gateway onto heaven itself. When the first glass bottle was thrown and smashed into the sidewalk in front of the vortex, Jorge knew that things were only going to get worse.

Jorge walked out of a nearby apartment building, carrying a young girl with a mass of black curls atop her head. He gave her a calming smile, ushering her past the riots that were just starting, and towards her waiting mother who was crying behind a police barricade. She muttered so many thank you’s as Jorge handed off the kid that he lost count. Jorge merely smiled and dipped his head to her.

Turning back around, Jorge shook his head as he surveyed the scene. Things were getting close to explosive and he could only ask…”Where the hell is the back up?”

New York had lost its mind.

A few hours earlier, there had been a rip in the Time-Space Continuum. Yes, that thing. No, it was not some joke from the local comic convention; it was really something that had happened. Smack dab in the middle of the festival happening in Madison Square Park, of all places.

Juliette was already not a fan of the idea that the moon would be covering the sun for a number of hours, prolonging the amount of time that she was without it that day. She had resigned herself to the fact that she could deal with it, though. She would stay inside and teach the class that she was supposed to teach with all of the lights turned on, all the while pretending that it was… just a night class, or something.

Then all the s*** in Manhattan had happened, and the X-Teams were kicked into high gear. She’d gotten her mission, cancelled her class, and changed into her suit. Even before they had left the mansion, she could feel her hands shaking. They had no real idea what they were going to be up against there, but they did know that it was going to be dark and unlike anything that they had seen before. Two things that Juliette did not want to hear.

She took as much energy as she could before leaving, but it was an unfortunate circumstance. Artificial light could charge her, but it would never be quite as good as sunlight, which there was a shortage of. By the time she was ready to leave, she was as charged as she could be, all things considered. All she could do was hope that there would be light sources of some sort on the scene.

She was working with Ghost, who was another X-Woman that she respected a great deal. She was tall, powerful, and thanks to a recent turn of events, a fellow brunette. The one time that she had worked with her had been good, and the majority of the talk about her was good. Other than the rumours about what had happened on her AMA, of course, but those could be looked over. Everyone had their days.

Once the two of them were ready, they took off in the vehicle assigned to them: an orange hummer that was, surprisingly enough, a verified X vehicle. It was a bit flashy, but it did the trick to get them through the traffic that had congested along the streets of Manhattan toward where the incident had occurred.

After stepping out of the hummer, Juliette’s fears only grew. The situation that she was looking at was so, so much worse than anything that she had pictured. A massive thing had taken shape in the street, which she could only assume was the rift. No one knew what had caused it, but already, speculations were flying. All that they really knew was that it was causing disturbances, and it could definitely be used to travel between their world and some other place.

At the bottom of the rift, things looked insane. The festival that had been set up to celebrate the eclipse had turned into some sort of mob, and there was something weird going on with the people there. They weren’t close enough to see exactly what.

The absolute worst part of it all was that it was in almost complete darkness. Most of the streetlights had been blown out by the rift, and although there were a few backup light sources set up by emergency personnel, it was still very lacking. Things would be tough from there on out.

Firefly locked the orange vehicle and stepped away, giving Ghost a weary glance as she did so. Their instructions were to help wherever possible, so the best course of action seemed to be to see what the police still needed doing.

Right off the bat, she could spot an officer that she recognized. ”Jorge?” she greeted, hoping that she remembered the man’s name correctly. It was the man that she had seen in the hospital a few months before. She had seen him around the mansion a few times, but never for long enough to actually say hello. She wasn’t sure what his involvement was with the X-Men, but she was hoping that it would be something that could help them there. ”We’re here from the X-Men to help where the police need.”

She had not known the Hummer was orange when she'd helped approve the purchase. For all intents and purposes, Ghost had been color blind at the time. It was the only excuse she had and somehow the X-man was still disappointed to have to buckle into the passenger seat of a brilliantly attention grabbing vehicle.

The ride was tense as the two women geared up for what was likely to be a rough and physically demanding day... or, night? The sky was dark enough that the automatic street lamps had flicked on with an anemic spill of yellowish light. Juliette, AKA Firefly, had a powerset that made the darkness a liability. She was understandably jumpy as a result, but that was something Ghost couldn't help her with. With the aerial pressure changes and the overall feeling that this was not only big but maybe apocalyptic, Ghost couldn't help but wonder if they'd averted the last apocalypse as only a means of delaying the inevitable.

This only got darker and more end-of-the-world feeling as the got closer to the scene. Broken windows, street lamps askew and broken so the area was only illuminated by the headlights of the jam of cars. The air was weirdly oppressive like they were driving through a tunnel, and so much seemed out of sorts.

They rolled up as far as they could, but traffic was a snarl of honking due to what Ghost assumed was a police barricade ahead. The hummer couldn't exactly fit up on the sidewalk. Both Jules and Maya could transport themselves so it wasn't much of an issue to make it those last few meters. Hopefully they wouldn't need the emergency medical supplies in the vehicle.

Firefly gave her an almost anxious look. Ghost wasn't sure what they were up against either. There were people out of the cars gawking, breaking glass far too near made Ghost jump. That was probably someone taking the chance to loot or... maybe something fell... the initial blast was over, but that had really just destabilized some things.

"There's too many things for me to keep track of. The air feels... it's really wrong." Her sense of the air around them was making her nauseated. There was constant movement, a swap of air toward what Ghost could only assume was the rip or portal or whatever was giving off a halogen-like glow up ahead. Not that the air quality here was great, but whatever was coming through was exceptionally different. Too warm or too sooty or... she couldn't tell exactly without being in it.

Or maybe it was the portal-thing frying the ever-living crud out of whatever passed between. Was it even safe to cross?

> ”Jorge?”

Ghost's attention came back to her immediate surroundings with the sound of Firefly's voice. There really was too much to keep track of. They'd crossed beyond the police line with their uniforms as ID and she'd spaced through the entire event, too absorbed in tracking the massive amounts of air flow.

"Is there a incident commander? I'd like to find where we'll be most—"

A prolonged man scream made Ghost's head snap back toward the light of the tear in the sky. It was a little late in the game to be screaming and that had sounded almost painful.

"Yeah. That might be us." Ghost saluted the officers around the barricade and breathed in all at once to change herself into her incorporeal form. Once she'd changed over,
it was easier to see shapes and movement in ways that her brain could interpret.

"Something's funny right up close to the... thing." That... may have been an understatement.

Jorge just didn’t know how to process most of what he was seeing. From the police barricade, he could see that people were gawking, panicking, praying and fairly close to losing their damn minds. It seemed that no one knew what it was that they were staring at; at least Jorge didn’t feel so alone. He and the police did their best to try to contain the scene, evacuating people closest to the scene and quell the unrest that was sweeping through the area. However, it was clear that it was a damn powder keg, lit by misinformation and fear; the damn sun staying within an eclipse for far longer than it should have certainly wasn’t helping either. They needed answers, but those would come later, right now they just needed to keep the people calm.

The last the people they could find were finally safe, just in time for a massive orange Hummer to roll up to the scene. Jorge arched his eyebrow, ignoring the vehicle as the rest of the officers turned to start trying to usher it back into traffic and send it upon its merry way. People tended to be far too curious of their own good. However, just before he could step away, a rather familiar voice called out from behind.

>> ”Jorge?”

He blinked. Stopping in his tracks, he turned back around to face the atrociously colored hummer and paused. There was a familiar face staring back at him – actually there were two familiar faces staring at him. It took Jorge a second to realize that the one who had called out was a woman whom he had met before; Nurse Lawson. He ran into her briefly when he was still recuperating in the hospital. Afterwards he had run across her a few times at the Xavier Mansion where she taught health.

On the other side of the vehicle and, walking over to join Juliette, was someone he did know very well: Maya, otherwise known as the X-Man Ghost. He eyed the both of them as he approached, signaling to the officers who eyed him that the two were okay. He knew a little of Juliette thanks to Sam, so he knew she was an X-Man, as well as the man’s former girlfriend. They both must have gotten the same signal he had.

”Ladies,” he greeted them with a nod.

>>”We’re here from the X-Men to help where the police need.”

He pulled his own X-badge from the confines of his jacket and revealed it to both Ghost and Juliette. ”I got the same call.” Juliette should have known he was a part-time X-Man himself, especially considering the mess that happened back on Atlantis. But, just in case, he was fine with offering her the reminder. So, after placing his badge back in his jacket, he gestured around him. ”Trust me. We need help everywhere. People are freaking out.”

>> "Is there a incident commander? I'd like to find where we'll be most—"

Jorge had turned to Ghost just as she started ask where the incident commander was. However, before she could finish, a piercing scream filled the air. Jorge turned fast, his hand drifting down to the gun at his hip. He didn’t draw, but rather kept it there for safety reasons. There was a whole lot of unknowns happening and, while he didn’t always like to use a gun, there was some sense of safety in knowing that it was there. However, that scream wasn’t was from a threat, it was someone who needed help. Apparently that was all the X-Men needed to jump into action.

>>"Yeah. That might be us…Something's funny right up close to the... thing."

”Yeah…” he said, looking wide-eyed down to the swirling vortex in the distance. ”…I think you’re right.”

Jorge followed the two vigilantes as they made deeper passed the police barricade. Leaving instructions with his fellow officers to keep the area cleared, he joined the duo, but not until after he snapped his fingers and summoned a trail of water from a broken fire hydrant to follow behind him. As Jorge walked, the water coiled and wrapped around him, but never once tripping him up or splashing his clothing. It was like a loyal, serpentine pet at his beck and call.

Catching up with the two women, the watermancer slowly fell into pace with them, looking over the scene. It was strange to see how little movement there was. This was New York and the city was actually never this quiet. There was always something, noise, people talking, laughing, shouting at one another, the screech of tires and sounds of general urban living. But here, except for a wicked feeling atmosphere in the air, there was nothing. That was probably the most unnerving of all of it.

But there was something not long ago. Someone had screamed, hadn’t they? Jorge tightened his fist, causing the water to swirl tighter around the appendage. As the trio advanced, Jorge kept his eyes open, scanning the scene until, finally he spotted what looked like a man, struggling as he laid upon the ground. He writhing in what could only be described as intense pain. Jorge hastened his step to get there, but stopped before he got too close as the light from the vortex brought his appearance into better view.

”My god…” Jorge muttered.

The man was writhing on the ground, struggling to stand as his body seemed to be undergoing the most grotesque of changes. It wasn’t so much that he was broken or bleeding, but it was difficult to describe. The way that he flailed on the ground, shape his arms face took, he looked like he was struggling just to maintain existence. An effigy of a funhouse mirror brought to life, the elongated, squat, and misshapen entity with a face that only Pablo Picasso could love, foamed at the mouth as he kept trying to stand, but flickered in and out of focus, until his raging eyes immediately fell upon Juliette. With a snap of his broken, sideways jaw, he hobbled towards her, twisted fingers reaching out for her as an unholy shout fell from his mouth.

People really were freaking out everywhere. There didn’t seem to be an area that wasn’t a mess, especially closer to the… thing. Juliette ran a hand through her hair quickly, unsure of what to do next. She was just glad that there were other people that she would be able to listen to for calls, since she was a little out of her depth. She looked between Ghost and Jorge, trying to figure out if one of them would make an executive decision.

There was no need, though. Just as Ghost had asked whether there was an incident commander, there was a scream close to the rift. All three of them had turned to look before realizing the same thing: that scream was meant for them to do something about.

They trudged forward, given access to pass the barricades and approached the thing in the sky. It wasn’t something that Juliette would have chosen to approach on her own time, but as an X-Man, she had a duty to protect the city… or something along those lines. Her mind had gone a little bit blank as she stared forward.

It was clear that whatever they were walking toward wasn’t going to be anything friendly. Firefly’s hands lit up with blasts that could be fired off when necessary. She debating switching forms entirely, but she had a limited supply, and it was looking like there wouldn’t be a lot to charge up with. She made the decision to save that eventuality for then it was needed.

Jorge lost step with them somewhere along the way as he used a fire hydrant to get a little bit of water. The stream followed behind him like an obedient pet as he walked a little quicker to be next to the two women. If Juliette had been in a better state of mind, she might have taken some time to note how cool they looked, walking toward their impending doom while displaying three very different powers.

The closer they got to the centre of the action, the quieter things got. Usually, there was the white noise of the city that could be heard at all hours of the day. In that moment, though, Firefly could hear the sounds of her own boots thumping against the pavement. The eye of the storm.

There didn’t actually seem to be a whole lot going on around the vortex, which seemed off. They spotted someone moving up ahead, so Juliette ran up with Jorge to take a look. The nurse in her made her stand as close to the man as possible, but as her eyes registered what was happening, she took a step back.

The man was no longer a man at all. It looked like something taken straight from a horror movie: the shifting features, the way that his bones clicked into new, disturbing positions. The nurse had never seen anything like it, and she doubted that she ever would.

All her thoughts of wanting to save her energy form for a moment of necessity had been thrown out the window. She shifted instinctively and fell a few steps back, her heart pounding in her chest. Whatever they were looking at was definitely no longer human.

She’d made the wrong decision by switching. The creature cocked its head and raised a finger toward her as it stalked forward over the debris-covered pavement. A sound that belonged only in nightmares erupted from its deformed throat and echoed along the empty street. Its eyes were locked on the light mutant.

Firefly’s heart stopped entirely for a good few seconds as it clambered toward her. Why her? She stepped backward in horror, tripping over a piece of metal. She hit the pavement, still in her light form, and attempted to stand up, but was grabbed by a deformed hand. Another creature had been attracted by the light that she gave off. Not even the fact that she was quickly heating up got the creature to let go of her arm. She screamed and shot off a blast at the thing, trying to get it to release her. The blast seemed to do the trick, sending the thing reeling backward.

She stood up, her heart racing as she looked between her teammates. More creatures were crawling toward them from all around the thing in the sky. As if the dark sky hadn’t been enough to put her off the thought of the mission.

Everything was very distracting. The screaming was horrific, sure, but the rip was even more fascinating with her more defined aerial sense. It was like nothing she'd ever experienced. There was air in front. Air behind. And air inside while still managing to be on a 2 dimensional plane in their universe.

"There is an overlap." As soon as she'd said it, she realized that didn't make much sense to those that were looking at the bright and shiny portal. She certainly hadn't seen it with her eyes, but now... with her power... "There is a space behind the... thing. It's here. It's also... not here." And it was in that space, that small sliver of overlayed double universe, where a group of unfortunate souls were writhing or had already finished writhing and now they were walking toward the small group of X-men.

Ghost drifted forward to get a closer look at one of the people, knowing that the poor souls could not touch her. A twisted humanoid trudged through Ghost's trailing lower body and Ghost was surprised that some parts of her... caught. They were phase shifted, incomplete... the building blocks of her incorporeal body were caught like fish in a net made of their portal-twisted flesh. The humanoid walked forward and, weirdly enough, Ghost was dragged along with it.

Firefly was impossible for Ghost to distinguish which meant the woman had swapped to her energy form, but Maya had a good idea of where Juliette was considering that every creature was shambling zombie-like toward what looked to Ghost like empty space. The air elemental sent out a pulse of air like radar to help her focus and map out the area, here, on this side of the portal.

"Firefly, run to your right!" There was an avenue shielded by vehicles where the shamblers had not yet permeated.

Jorge seemed alright as far as Ghost could tell, but they needed to keep open their lines of communication. "Jorge, I- I think I'm stuck." She struggled back portal-ward and the creature was dragged back by the force of her wind. Well, this one one humanoid that wasn't walking that way. "Stick with Firefly. I'll catch up."

It was like something out of a bad horror movie. Jorge could scarcely understand what was going on when they appeared on the scene. Speculation was running back and forth but with nothing concrete to latch onto, Jorge had no idea what to believe. In situations like this, normally, he fell back to the old staple of only believing what he could see and hear. However, it seemed that those senses were betraying him now as he had absolutely no idea what he was looking at.

The first problem was the swirling vortex of demise hanging in midair like some eccentric piece of modern art in a museum. It boggled the mind to look at this swirling vortex completely defy all the laws of physics that Jorge could understand. It just defied explanation and such mysteries were the kind that Jorge tended to stay as far away from as possible.

The second problem was that they were no longer alone. When the trio arrived on the scene, Jorge and Juliette had been the first to advance. Ghost had mentioned something about everything just feeling wrong. She talked about an overlap, and described something that Jorge just didn’t understand. A space behind nothing? Something that was here and not here? He trusted the X-Man with his life but, right now, he couldn’t make out a damn thing she was saying.

’Ghost, what do you mean by an overlap?” he asked. ”You have any idea what’s going on?”

Jorge didn’t wait for an answer. There was a body – or rather, a victim. As both the detective and the nurse advanced, they were immediately taken back by the odd deformities that seemed to be actively occurring to the man. He writhed in ungodly pain, his body shifting, transforming into something that was both apart and not a part of this world. Shifting and undulating, the man’s flesh was a Rubik’s cube of movement until, finally he set eyes upon Juliette.

The move came fast. Jorge was already backing up, hands outstretched as he forced the water to swirl faster around his arm. He set his eyes upon the advancing man and used his most authoritative voice. ”Sir! SIR! Stand down!” he shouted. ”We’re here to help but if you continue, we will use force!”

The man, if he could still be called that, wasn’t listening. He continued to move, utterly ignoring Jorge all-together. At some point Ghost tried to intervene, slipping close to the creature but Jorge lost track of her as she attempted to pass through him. Instead, what took his attention was the scream that came from the light up Juliette off to the side.

His head snapped in her direction. She had fallen as another creature, just as twisted as the first but in completely different angles and textures, had reached out to grab her.

”Dammit…” he turned, wincing at the burst of light that exploded from Juliette’s hand. The man was knocked away, but the burst of light only seemed to spur on more of these fiends to crawl out of the woodwork.

They were like bugs. Crawling out of pockets in thin air, these beings dressed in the remnants of everyday clothing (jeans, shirts, blouses, robes), all crawled out of nothing as they turned their attention upon Juliette alone. Jorge surmised that he could walk right up to one and it wouldn’t even flinch. But he wouldn’t be testing that right now. Rather, Jorge was swiftly shifting in combat mode. He didn’t know who or what these things were, but they had to be stopped before someone (seemingly Juliette) was harmed.

>> "Firefly, run to your right!"

Ghost uttered a demand. It was safest she since probably couldn’t be hurt by these things. Uncoiling a thick line of water from around his wrist, Jorge whipped his hand forward, lashing at the nearest of the creatures, a woman it seemed. The whip of water struck her hard across the face, making her screech and stumble off to the side. Another swift movement of his arm and another whiplash was flicked at another encroaching beast. Both felled and Jorge began to back up, placing himself closer to the nurse.

>> "Jorge, I- I think I'm stuck…Stick with Firefly. I'll catch up."

He turned to Ghost. He couldn’t see where she was but he was going to have to take her word for it. Nodding his head, he turned back to Juliette and her luminescent for. Wow she was bright. Still, concerned for the woman, and the fact that the creatures were seemingly after her he nodded in the direction that Ghost had referred them to.

”Come on, Firefly,” he said. ”We gotta make sure those things don’t get to the barricade.” Another shriek from an advancing, shambling beast and Jorge turned fast, arms pointed forward as a torrent of water flew from around his arms. The water struck the beast with the force of a firehouse being used on an unruly crowd. The monster hissed and tumbled back, Jorge keeping the pressure on until it floated away. With that, he turned back to Juliette. ”Let’s go!”

>>"Firefly, run to your right!"

Juliette turned her head and squinted to see what Ghost was referring to. A little area shielded by cars that the… creatures hadn’t reached yet. Best of all, it wasn’t anywhere near the barricades, which some part of her realized that they needed to protect. She nodded quickly and ran forward, her legs carrying her toward the area. Behind her, the things followed blindly.

She wasn’t watching as Ghost and a creature took off in the opposite direction, toward the portal. She was more concerned with the fact that the longer the creatures were in that form, the faster they seemed to be getting; the more in control of their bodies. It was frightening enough that she was running at full speed.

Jorge caught up with her and shot off a blast of water to get a shambler off of their tails as he did so. It floated away, but still more fought through the water to take its place. Cut off one head and two more grew back.

She was still in her energy form, despite the obvious fact that the creatures seemed to be attracted to it. It was a difficult trade off - in her energy form, they couldn’t hurt her, but they would sure as hell try. In her human form, she would be just as vulnerable as anyone else and most of her power would be off limits to her.

As they ducked behind a car, she shifted back to her humanoid form, causing the light to disappear. The shamblers behind them stopped their running and looked around, confused. With no light to follow, a few of them began to shamble toward the portal, a few of them to the barricades, and a few of them toward the X-Men. They had limited time and limited options, and it didn’t help that they were sitting in the dark.

Firefly took in a deep, shaky breath and ran her hands through her hair. She glanced at Jorge with wide eyes and thought through their options. If she shifted back, then they would follow her blindly, meaning that they could herd them somewhere. She couldn’t very well let them just make their way toward the barricades and harm people on the other side.

She could already feel her energy depleting, though. She wasn’t sure exactly how long she would have in energy form, and any sort of flight, firefly use, or blasts would only make things worse. Whatever they planned on doing, it would need to be done quickly.

”I think… no, I know that they’re following me,” she told Jorge. ”We need them to do that so we can get them to stay away from the barricades and so we can decide what to do with them. I’m going to shift back, but I’m running low on energy. Can you… find a place to take them and see if you can find any other light sources?”

She spoke quickly and shakily, unsure of whether what she was saying made sense or not. She knew that she shouldn’t have been ordering around a senior member of the team like that, but they had limited time and they needed to act quickly.

Firefly made a break for it, Ghost guessed based on the behavior of the shamblers and Jorge. It really was inconvenient that the woman's energy form was entirely invisible to Ghost's aerial sense. A little more convenient that her energy somehow attracted these poor people. She was the carrot they seemed to want to chase, but... why?

Maya struggled back toward the portal with a wide and strong buffet of wind that she slowly honed down from making papers tumble and cars strain against their own weight, to a concentrated stream of air that pushed only against her particular shambler. The creature that had once been a person slid backward and the new proximity to the portal let Ghost investigate to her heart's content.

She tried to make her best judgements about how big it was and the exact dimensions as well as how far off the ground it appeared to be, all of that while trying to maintain a strict air stream to keep her shambler from moving too much. The portal didn't seem to be moving, but the edges were poorly defined. "Portal" was perhaps the wrong word, Maya realized, since it implied that whatever this was, was somehow intentional.

This seemed like... like a big rip. And the edges of the world had been stretched open with the torn shreds of whatever that was left to flap and pull against one another. Nothing seemed to be actively sucking stuff in. That was good. And on the other side, Maya felt a world that was eerily similar in shape to the one she felt here. Cars were parked differently. Maybe scattered differently from that initial burst. People were standing up and helping one another on the other side just as they had been here.

There were no immediate clues as to what was happening to these people. No immediate clues as to how to close the gap. On the other side, there didn't appear to be anything like what had happened to the changed people from Ghost's world.

All of this, she payed close attention to. What Maya was not paying attention to was the shambler she was holding near the portal until the creature began to wail. It's cry went from human-like to something deep and echoing. If she'd had bones, she might have felt it there, but as air it's cry was enough to bring her attention back to her home turf.

The shambler's flesh seemed to be breaking apart in segments and rolling upward and outward. It was... growing— breaking apart and reorganizing itself until it was taller, wider, stronger. The jet of air Maya had organized to hold it in place was no longer enough. It struggled forward and Maya was dragged step by step away from the tear in the universe. With it's constant breaking and reassembling, Maya's incorporeal air was slowly being chewed down into it's body.

Ghost let her jet of air free and the shambler fell forward onto its hands and knees. From there, it didn't seem to have a destination...

"Firefly? You okay?" She couldn't perceive far enough to detect where her teammate had gone, but if the shamblers weren't shambling...

This was different than most anything that Jorge had ever faced before. Different than the Halloween, than the Age of Sebastian, than even the Christmas Tree attack on New York. This was something that the man had never experienced before and that alone made him scared. However, being a trained officer, he knew better than to let his fears get to him. He needed to do this. He needed to get into the thick of this to try and save as many lives as he could. That alone, his sense of duty, was what drove Jorge forward and to battle whatever fear of the unknown he was currently having.

His training kicked in as Jorge pushed himself onto his feet. Someone was in danger and that someone was his own team mate, Firefly. He didn’t know Juliette as well as he should have but the two of them had met before when he was in the hospital. He respected her for what she did there and for working dedicating herself to the X-Men cause. That alone earned his loyalty to her, and a need to protect her.

When he got the command from Ghost to stay by her side, the man didn’t hesitate. He hopped to his feet, he ran to the woman’s side and shot out a stream of water that knocked one of those things closest to her off of ground and back several feet. Jorge turned to Firefly and nodded that they needed to run and to keep those monsters away from the barricade.

The two ran before taking shelter behind an abandoned car. From there, Juliette dimmed her glow until she returned to her human form. He nodded, impressed by the trick, but figured that now wouldn’t be the best time to comment. Instead he kept his words to himself and tried to listen in, to see where those things were coming from.

However, before Jorge could get a good bead on any of their locations, Firefly spoke up. Jorge turned to face her as she looked upon him with wide, saucer-like eyes.

>> ”I think… no, I know that they’re following me…We need them to do that so we can get them to stay away from the barricades and so we can decide what to do with them. I’m going to shift back, but I’m running low on energy. Can you… find a place to take them and see if you can find any other light sources?”

He didn’t like this plan. He didn’t want one of his fellow X-Men using themselves as bait, however, considering that they had no other options at the moment, Jorge begrudgingly nodded his head. He would do his best to find some place to corral all these things, but, in the meantime, he was more worried about Juliette and her need of light. He wasn’t exactly sure what he could find but, so long as she wasn’t picky, he was certain that he could find something for her.

”Okay.” he said after a second of disapproving silence. ”Okay, we’ll do this your way. But you come into any trouble, you contact us and try and stay where Ghost can see you. They can’t hurt her and she’ll offer you back up.”

His eyes drifting across the area, he saw that there were a few store fronts just across the street: clothing, a liquor store, a laundry mat, and something that looked like…what was that…a fancy restaurant? His eyes lit up. Those kinds of restaurants had to big, walk-in freezers with the heavy metal doors, didn’t they? Grinding his teeth, he nodded. He turned back to his teammate.

”Circle up who you can, stay out of touch.” He nodded to the restaurant across the street. ”When I give the word, lead them in there. Maybe we can pack them on ice.” A took second to breath and nodded to her. ”Go!”

Juliette didn’t like her own plan. The last thing that she wanted to do was act as bait for the… whatever the creatures were. What she wanted to do was take a step back and perhaps step right past the police barricade. However, that was not what she had signed up for. She was a member of the X-Team, and she could do something that her teammates could not, which meant that it was on her. Whether she wanted it to be or not.

Jorge had taken a moment to consider what she was proposing and then gave her the wary go ahead. It wasn’t as if they had many backup plans anyway, considering they hadn’t expected anything like the creatures to accompany the giant thing in the sky. The universe had handed them a whopper of a problem to deal with.

>>”Circle up who you can, stay out of touch. When I give the word, lead them in there. Maybe we can pack them on ice.”

Juliette followed his eyes to the restaurant across the street and nodded after a second. He was right; places like that usually had a large walk-in freezer. Usually, they only held about two or three people at once, but there was a chance that they could get lucky and it would be bigger than usual. If worst came to worst, maybe they could just lock them all in a building and figure things out from there. So far, the creatures didn’t seem to be able to do anything other than looking terrifying. 

”Will do,” she nodded, her voice shaky as she looked down the way at the moving creatures. There was no telling what they would do if they didn’t act quickly.

>>"Firefly? You okay?"

Firefly touched the X-Com that she had in her ear and spoke into it quickly. ”Yes, I’m good for now, but I’m about to go back off your grid. Catch up with Jorge, yeah?” Her mind hadn’t yet considered the reason why Ghost hadn’t come with them initially. She was too focused on other things for the time being.

>>”Go!”

He was right. No more delaying the inevitable. ”I’m gone,” she nodded and stood up. 

As soon as she was back in the sightline of the creatures, she was noticed. One regarded her coolly and then kept walking. They wouldn’t be interested in her unless she shifted, so that was what she did. Her body was back in her light form, and it was only a matter of seconds before they started to shamble back toward her.

”Yeah, that’s right. Follow the pretty light,” Juliette muttered under her breath, lifting herself off the ground and flying away from where Jorge was as quickly as she could manage. She twisted and turned for a while, trying to gather as many of the shamblers as possible within the barricade, using up as much energy as she had available to her. It wasn’t long before she could feel herself needing to shift back. Quickly, she changed course and made her way back to the rift where she had started out. She simply hoped that either they were ready for her or they had managed to find a light source or two.

Flying was not happening anymore. Juliette touched down but remained in her light form, relying on running to get her through. If she was judging correctly, then she had a few minutes left in that form, but all other powers would be off limits if she wanted to keep it that way. The rift was in her sightline. 

”Jorge? What’s the situation with the light sources?” she called into her communicator, glancing back at the numerous followers that she had accumulated.

This was really not cool. Ghost focused on the shifting nature of the person... err could it be called a person anymore? It had grown in size, fallen over on top of another shambler and both were struggling like Ghost was now struggling in order to separate themselves from one another. She was NOT DOING THIS. Ghost had done her time trying to be incorporeal forever and tried hiding in other bodies and she had gotten her own body back to solidity and THIS WAS NOT HAPPENING.

Ribbons of air, razor thin and sharp for the force of them swirled inside her gaseous body and expanded outward. If it were not for the neck ruffling screams, she would have guessed the shambler didn't even care. He didn't even bleed for more than one or two moments of breaking and restructuring himself... himselves?

Ghost hated to, but she tunneled herself out. If it came down to getting swallowed by a prison of flesh that was not her own, or potentially killing someone who posed a threat... well, she'd made her choice.

The noise had attracted a few more of them and the tunneling process was... messy. Where pieces of the large shambler touched others, they too seemed to become stuck. Ghost drilled on until she spun like a tiny tornado above the small grouping.

The noise was terrible, perhaps the worst part. But maybe that was because she couldn't really see that well... Were they... no. She really, REALLY didn't want to see if they were all joining up to be one big Voltron.

Somewhere in that time Firefly had reported that she should catch up with Jorge.

"I'm really sorry." Ghost hesitated with her incorporeal self just above the mass of screams. Should she... put them out of their misery? What was mercy here?

He didn’t want her to go. He didn’t like for any of his teammates to put themselves in a situation where they could lose their lives just so that they could play the bait. Of course that didn’t mean that Jorge wouldn’t have done it in her place, but it wasn’t him that those things were after. It just wasn’t fair as Juliette already seemed to be having some issue with being out here, if anyone should have taken the hit, it should have been him. But, she was their best bet for rounding these things up and figuring out what to do with them when they weren’t trying to harm innocent people.

Begrudgingly he agreed with her plan and spotted a restaurant across the street. There was a risk that they wouldn’t have a very large walk-in freezer, but there was an equal risk that it would. And, if not, at least they could keep them on in on central area and plan a lockdown arrangement afterwards. Hell, maybe they’ll just build a goddamn moat around the whole thing! But, until they needed that alternative plan, Jorge would stick with what they had.

A firm nod of his head and pushed for Firefly to go. With breath held, she immediately dashed out into the open. The shambling things barely paid her any heed, but once she slipped into her body of pure light, she was bigger than Beyonce to them. And like that, she was gone, racing off to gather as many of those things as she could. Part A was done, now they needed Part B…

His hand pressed to his earpiece as he made a mad dash for the restaurant. As his comlink crackled to life, she called out to his other teammate, Ghost.

”Ghost! Meet me at the Sparkling Bubble Bistro down the street.” he said as he moved at a full run.”I think Firefly is going to need to help steering the herd into confinemejnt.”

Pushing through the doors of the restaurant, Jorge was glad to see that the area had been already evacuated. It was too close to the event for anyone to want to stick around. There wasn’t even any looting going on. Rather, the place looked rather creepy with how quiet and empty it was. So he moved swiftly across the room, dodging around tables until he got to the “Employees Only” door and pushed in. The kitchen as large, very large, and judging by the twin metal doors off to the right, it seemed absolutely perfect.

He slipped around the counters, grabbed one and opened it. Thankfully this truly was a walk-in freezer. It couldn’t hold a lot of people, but at least ten, or so, so long as they don’t mind being packed like sardines. He had a feeling these things would mind, but, their comfort was not high on their priority list. This would work, for now, but it was the only plan that they had.

Suddenly his intercom sprang back to life and Jorge cause the voice of Firefly as she contacted him.

>> ”Jorge? What’s the situation with the light sources?”

Sh*t. Leaving the room behind him, Jorge immediately peeked behind the counter. There he found a few emergency lamps, a flashlight, and matches for the candles that were situated at each table. It didn’t seem like enough. However a glance to the window showed a car that was abandoned on the side of the road, driver’s side door wide open. Taking what he had gathered, Jorge moved out of the restaurant, and climbed into the car. He never thought he would have to hotwire a car again but it seemed the life loved to make fools of everyone.

He pressed his hand to his ear. ”Firefly. I found a few emergency lamps and flashlights but not enough,” he sparked the wires beneath the steering wheel, trying to get the car to kick over. ”But I think I have something something better.”

If only he could get it to start!

A little bit ahead. She just needed to stay a little bit ahead at all times. Juliette had gained quite the following while flying in her light form down the street. As she went, more and more of the creatures seemed to appear, all with their ‘arms’ out, trying to grab the light source. It was like something from a zombie movie.

Only, each time they touched, they seemed to connect. She’d noticed it first when a large blob of them had stumbled over from near the rift, and then again when it touched a nearby creature. The mass only seemed to grow, and more were popping up near it. The poor people that had been underneath. Was there anything left of them?

She had done a lap of zigzagging around the sectioned off streets, and the restaurant was in sight. They were getting closer, so all she could do was hope that Jorge, and possibly Ghost, were ready for them. She wasn’t sure if she could keep the creatures still for very long, even if she did get her light energy replenished.

Things would be easier if she could fly rather than run. It was more difficult to try to stay in front of a writhing mass of creatures on foot than it would have been if she could just stay a few feet out of reach whenever they tried to grab upward. If Jorge could come in with the light, then at least that issue would be solved. They would have numerous others, but that would make things easier. 

They had reached the street out in front of the restaurant. They’d gone as far as they could go without doing another lap, and Juliette knew that her powers wouldn’t last that long. She could see into the restaurant through the windows, but she couldn’t see Jorge inside. In fact, he wasn’t anywhere near the place. Where had he gone? Had he come up with something different and failed to let her know? Or was he hiding to not be touched by one of them?

Juliette was about to panic when she saw movement in a car in front of the place. She could see just into the tinted windows, and it looked like he was trying to get it to turn on. Hopefully, he was intending to use the headlights as a power source. That would certainly make things much easier.

As Juliette slowed in front of the building, her powers flickered. She turned to human form briefly before turning back. For a second, she had lost the attention of the creatures and they had gone back to their own business. One had even tried to make a grab for her, showing that they would get violent when they were in the further stages of whatever was causing their condition. 

”Alright, Jorge, any time now,” she called into the com, taking a step back to avoid a hand grabbing for her light form. They were descending upon her like flies, and there weren’t many places that she could go. All she could do was wait for Jorge.

Ghost held an incorporeal hand up, ready to slice down and make the screaming stop. Except... except she couldn't do it, and Jorge's voice provided the perfect excuse to not kill it, whatever it was.

"Sparkling Bubble Bistro. I'll be there.”

She apologized one last time to it and zipped away on a breeze. Ghost started packing herself together and when came into her weight, the X-man landed with both feet on the front hood of a car. It wasn't hard to tell which restaurant was the right one. The shamblers had gathered into a bit of a scrum and the same behavior Ghost had noticed where the ones that touched couldn't seem to un-touch was happening here as well.

And there was Firefly, burning low like the last glowing coal of a fire. About to get touched.

Not on Ghost's watch.

"I'm coming in, Firefly.”

She inhaled herself into incorporeality and pushed her way through the bodies in order to swirl around Firefly. At first, Ghost had thought to just keep the zombie-like people at bay, but the other woman's light form wasn't heavy at all.

"I'm taking you up out of reach. We have a lot grouped here. What's the plan?”

The swirl tightened into a miniature tornado which buoyed Firefly up. She would have a better vantage point, she'd be out of reach, she'd have an unobstructed view of whatever Jorge was working on. Presumably "up" was the best option here.