ic A War-Torn World (IC)

[Electra]

Just then, a flock of battered, oil-stained and somewhat singed cranes came wheeling crazily from the direction of the downed helicopters, the beat of their wings like a thousand pages turning all at once. They piled into one of the remaining Nazis, bowling him over and into his compatriot, who fell down as well. Both of them were quickly covered in a blanket of white wings as the birds ensured they wouldn't be getting up soon. From the door of the bus, Papercut sent Crimson Tiger a quick thumbs-up.

[Gizmo]

Kimber was getting increasingly anxious about whatever the local iteration of Rogue was planning and the lack of success her teammates were having convincing her to alter those plans but had remained silent and invisible throughout. When the alarm sounded, she was off like a shot back through the wall of the complex and out into the winter air, arriving in time to see the first batch of commandos neatly dispatched by Crimson Tiger and Papercut. Biting back on her instinct to shout encouragement, she instead continued forward as a nigh-undetectable, disembodied entity, mentally repeating back the lessons Siobhan had taught her. Drawing upon the great reservoir of cold she was connected to, the poltergeist let loose an obscuring cloud of fog and ice crystals, a freezing bank of glittering white that blanketed the space between the remaining squads of attackers and the base. With Sharl still transferring the refugees over, the priority seemed to be buying time; hopefully her cloud would at least slow the Nazis down for a while.

[Avenger Assembled]

As the icy fog poured across the battlefield, the two remaining Nazi commando teams vanished beneath its chilling embrace. The heroes could hear shouts in German and running feet from within, proof that the fight wasn't over, but from the sound of things the Germans had no idea where they were going. It was only a matter of time before they used some of their heavier weaponry, but for the moment they did indeed have some time."75%!" Citizen was yelling on everyone's commlink, even as the robots around him assumed the combat positions with murderous tension visible in cybernetic limbs.

"The first German in the room is dead," called Rogue to the others, a look of determination on her projected face as she flitted from body to body. "Make sure the others can see it done, so they remember! " came the chant, a mechanical echo on the commlink.

[Fox]

"No." Wraith's reply to Rogue's master plan started in her normal, human, pleasantly-accented voice and ended in that odd Kinigosi hum as her features melted away, the young woman literally flowing out of her clothes and turning into something low and sleek, with a curious crown of long, wicked spines arcing up off her no-longer-human head. "There is no glory or dignity in your massacre."

She was off like a shot, clawed digitigrade legs propelling her into the fog as each arm became long and boneless, one forming an oversized three-fingered claw and the other host to an unusually large hammer head. There was a moment - just a moment - where she paused, three dark eyes sightlessly staring into the icy shroud as the spines that ringed her face twitched and flexed...and then she was on them, an awful silver thing that would appear out of nowhere to slam into a commando and leave them knocked out or dragged off into the mists to be suddenly silenced, unseen.

[Avenger Assembled]

There was an explosion of gunfire and curses in German from Wraith's position, then a dead and eerie silence as the silver sentinel stood alone in victory. A few dozen yards away, the last remaining Nazi commando team went into action. They still couldn't see, but with a shout of "Schnell! Schnell!" they charged the last thing they could see: Kimber's former position! Bullets passed right through the spectral spirit to ricochet off the remains of the Nazi base, harmless to her but a grim portent of the fate of what lay inside if they and the Nazis did indeed clash! "95%!" Sharl was calling through their commlinks. "Almost there, guys!"

[Scuffles]

As the screams of the second German strike team made it clear just how effective the team of Ghost Girl and Wraith could be, Glow rose into the air above the doorway that the Tronikians were intent on guarding. She knew it made her a target, but that was the whole point - gunfire directed at her was far less of a worry than gunfire directed at her friends. Wreathed in light she brought herself to a hover just as the last team of soldiers emerged from the edge of the icy fog.

A moment later a flurry of powerful mental punches descended on the group and dropped all but one of them senseless on the ground. "Five down!" the telekinetic reported into her commlink as she stared down the remaining soldier. "Glad I'm not that guy!"

[Avenger Assembled]

As he cleared the fogbank, a lone Nazi commando realized what had just happened to his crack division. In his body armor and carrying a heavy, magnetically-empowered rifle capable of punching through steel or killing a computer program with a single shot, the gas-masked figure first looked at the assembled teens before him, then behind, the eerie silence from his own men puncturing the night, the scene lit by the burning helicopters that had fallen behind him as a grim reminder of the fate of the rest. "Leutnant?...Hans..." He waved the rifle around, the menacing avatar of National Socialist power looking a little lost. "...Mutti?" And with that, he turned and ran, boots squishing in the mud as he ran for his life from the unstoppable group that had taken his unit apart like a hot knife through butter.

"100%!" came Sharl's final exclamation through the commlink. "We did it! Upload is complete!"

EDIT: Continued in WAR OF THE WORLDS in the Lands Beyond