Quantum Knights, Rise Up!

Posted on Sun Jan 29th, 2023 @ 9:55 by Claire Cavendish & Oliver Bloomfield & Phoebe Hunter & Jonathan Monroe & Reagan D'Angelo & Cameron Johnston & Donald Johnson & Kaylee Ashton BSc
Edited on on Sun Jul 2nd, 2023 @ 17:08

Chapter: Prologue: Dawn of Avalon
Location: Avalon Institute, Exterior
Timeline: Friday, 25th of September, immediately following 'The Sun Rises on Avalon'
2346 words - 4.7 OF Standard Post Measure

After a slight delay claxons began to blare across the institute, interrupted only by a prerecorded message in Claire's most practiced received pronunciation head mistress voice. "Students. Please return to your quarters. This is not a drill. Quantum Knights, report to the hangar. This is not a drill."

With the system working perfectly Claire focused on her memory of the Hangar that held Nessie and with a slight plop she disappeared from the top of the ladder, happy that it was a bit of an overcast day. A moment later she reappeared in a purposely unlit corner of the hangar, she reached inside the locker that was in there and quickly changed into a black, skintight suit. Clearly made for maneuverability and dexterity. "What are we facing, Cam?!" She called into the direction of the open door in the side of the plane, knowing that she wouldn't have beaten the speedster here with the rush he had getting back to the Institute from the station. He wasn't about to slow down on her account.

Tolerance was one of Cameron's core strengths. Patience on the other hand did not always come naturally to the mutant. Already in the throes of his pre-flight checks, the residual input from Bridge's discharge already proven to have fuel enough to keep him going for hours, it was not just the elevated tempo of his movements that defined the man's hyper-vigilance. In this state, his mental processes went into overdrive, compiling scenario projections and contingency plans whilst the portion of his brain left to deal with motor function and procedure maintained a sort of auto-pilot. It took several more attempts at getting his attention for him to slow down enough to look at the head mistress, and even then, the crackle of energy behind his eyes showed his struggle to bring himself back into pace with the world around him.

"Bridge and about 15 of the kids are trapped at the station." Frustration wrestled with concern over dominance of his expression. "We got intercepted by..."

Here, even his agile mind faltered. "Hell, I don't know, Claire. Giant robot armed to the back teeth. Not that it'd have teeth," he fired off, completely superfluous chatter flung from the express service his thought process was currently providing. "The bus is on the way back, I put Baxter in charge." The head boy was a dependable, sensible soul not particularly prone to panic. There wasn't enough time to worry about how the newcomers and younger students on the bus would fare once they reached the school and went immediately into lockdown. Baxter would deal with it. Turning, Cam slipped into the pilot seat and commenced the sequence that would power up the engines. "I told Bridge we'd be right there."

That, more than anything, seemed to be his primary point of fixation. They were counting on him, on him, to make it back in time to turn the tide. Leaving was so far against Cam's nature that it seemed the most inherently cruel aspect of his powers was their part in making him prime candidate for contributions of this nature.

Jonathan was still clipping the front of his cool blue light armour vest together when he jogged into the hangar area. "I think I gained a couple of pounds over the summer..." he grumbled, snapping the connectors closed. Beneath the military-grade painted vest he wore a fairly breathable long-sleeve tee and fingerless gloves in a similar cool blue shade. "Barely even day one and I'm already going to have to play catch up with the semester. What's the crisis?" he asked.

Standing in her classroom, Kaylee was keeping herself busy preparing for her classes when the klaxon began to sound. A little confused at first, everything was cleared up when the repeating announcement came through, “well, that doesn’t sound good” she said to herself before putting down the book she was holding and heading out into the castle. Although she didn’t know who these Quantum Knights were, she could take an educated guess and say they’d be some of the other faculty members who Claire trusted to handle sensitive situations. For now, the best thing she could do would be to make sure the students currently at the institute get to safety.

DJ was walking around the front lawn waiting on the busses when the alert went out, he sprinted to his room to change once the last of the students were indoors.

He arrived minutes later to join the rest of the team. DJ was dressed in a dark navy, carbon fiber jumpsuit, with a gold X across his chest, and a matching gold stripe down his pants. The gold X was actually a special strap to hold his keytar, his mask was a matching blue and gold that covered 3 quarters of his face and made it look like he also had blue hair.
"What's the situation?" he asked as he looked around at the other faculty dressed as their alter-egos.

Phoebe arrived looking calm as a cucumber and leant over to Jonathan and clipped in the final piece of his armour. "You missed one." She said quietly as she strapped her own belt on over her black outfit unlike the others she had no idea of her outfit other than defensive this was her first attempt at being a super hero.

Looking around to make sure everyone had arrived Claire faced the assembled people in front of her. "A military robot attacked the students as they arrived in New Cresthill. Reagan and the kids are stuck in the city's station, trying to stall until we can arrive." She strapped herself into the nearby co-pilot seat and gave Cameron a nod to get the plane off the ground.

"Get us there now Cam," Phoebe instructed as her eyes went black signifying she was using her abilities. She jumped back to reality as the plane started to move. "It is big..."

Both orders were unnecessary, possibly even unheard given the sheer amount of cognitive load Cameron was currently subjecting himself to. Nessie was a complex beast and navigating the ascent up out of the loch, whilst visually impressive should anyone actually have been in a position to view it, required reasonably precise manoeuvring. She rose, however, a majestic pirouette that put them on a direct heading by the time they'd reached optimal clearance. Punching forward, the plane quickly adjusted to the upwards sweep over the top of the castle and levelled out.

[New Cresthill Train Station]

With the Sentinel relentlessly persuing Oliver and Reagan the young guy was frightened in the arms of the teacher. "Why is it calling out my name? Why does it want to capture me?" His big bright eyes looking up at the woman that had used her powers to keep them safe so far. He was wondering how long she could keep it up.

"Known mutant. Not a threat." The Sentinel droned as one of the other students got into its cross hairs. "Scanning for Oliver Bloomfield." The booming voice droned on, with heavy footsteps clearly circling the main station building, trying to locate its target.

Well there was a gut punch just as harsh as the robot itself was likely capable of. Those eyes, scared, confused, watching her for all the answers like kids often did with adults. For the life of her, she didn't know why, but her mind briefly drifted to talk of adopting with Kristen, back when their actual relationship had been more stable, might have had room for kids on that foundation. "I don't know, sweetheart, but I need you to be brave and stay with me, okay? The others are coming to save us and I'll keep you safe until then, I promise."

Much as she'd wanted to just bolt with Oliver, put some distance between the other children and the robot's target, there wasn't too much around the train station worth a damn for hiding spots. She didn't know what this thing was, but it flew and might have some sort of weaponry to boot, if needed. Open field running wasn't an option, so she'd settled for a back room in the station for now, phasing the pair inside to dim light and a locked door. Storage closet perhaps? All she cared about now was moving on, anticipating a wall or the ceiling coming crashing in any second. Her eyes scanned through the dirty window, surveying the yard outside. Could she make the trains? Phase through one entirely if she needed to? And then there was the depot itself, large shelter with doors closed over tracks currently not in use. That'd get some of that distance and be good for hiding in. The robotic droning words were faint but audible, so it was now or never.

The pair phased through the door and Reagan took off again, steam trailing off her skin from rapidly evaporating sweat, and she made a beeline for that train depot.

The large hulking robot continued to scan the insides of the train station until it seemed to realise his quarry was no longer present in the building. It started to scan the direct environment and caught a glimpse of the escaping unknown mutant with the target in tow. "Seize your resistance." It lept over the station building and onto the tracks in between the depot and the station. "Additional force is authorised." It raised a hand and an electrical hum was becoming audible as a focusing lens in its palm started to glow red. Moments later a burst of energy tore across the sky and missed Reagan and Oliver by a hair, blasting a hole in the side of the train depot.

Crapcrapcrap. She hadn't counted on it finding them this quickly, or being so fast for something so large. She could sense the electrical build-up in the thing's hand even before she caught a glimpse in her periphery. That wasn't good. Bullets she could phase through if she knew it was coming. This? It might go through, or it might just scatter her semi-permeable molecules like dust in the wind, or Oliver's. The beam fired, whether a near miss or not, and she had to act quickly to try and avoid it. She veered to one side, turned 90 degrees and ran straight for one of the train cars. Most of her made that turn, but one of her ankles tried to keep going through one step and pain fired up her leg. Her next few steps were glorified hops and hobbles, ankle twisted, but made all the worse by her refusal to stop and get off that foot and instead keep running. Up the tiny stairs with Oliver held close, she pushed inside the empty car and... paused. Did she go out the other end? Go down toward the caboose? Up toward the engine? Cam, Claire, Jon, Phoebe... Anyone. Please. Please.

A huge robotic hand reached down and grabbed the train car cutting off one path by crushing the metal together. It seemed that the mechanised humanoid didn't care too much about collateral damage, but at least was still making sure not to harm any living creatures. The crunch of the metal echoed across the station, with screams from students that had been in the station itself now looking out the windows to keep an eye on their teacher and one of their friends. The robot started to lift the car from the ground and brought it to eye level to be able to look inside. Like a toy the connected cars dangled down on the other end, until they snapped off under the weight. It left Oliver and Reagan trapped inside a metal tube. It started to angle the car and shake, with its hand under the other side, like a kid trying to get the last candy from a tube.

Oliver had been holding on to Reagan for the entire time, but now that the floor under them was starting to angle he couldn't keep a grip any longer. He started to slide down the floor in the direction of the torn off side, where a big purple hand was waiting to catch him if he fell. The metal tube had nothing for him to focus his abilities on, and he was doing his best to try and grab onto anything to keep him from falling completely through and out of the carriage. "Ahh! Help! Miss D'Angelo! Help!!!" His arms flailing to try and stop him falling into the hands of the robot.

She'd messed up. Stopping to think was the worst idea, and now she was paying for it. The car lurched, she lost her footing, and... Oliver! "No! Nonono. Grab on to something, Oli, I'm coming!" Was all she could manage. This wasn't the time for an elaborate plan, so she'd have to wing it. And so she let herself fall on to her back side against the now nearly vertical floor and let herself fall down the aisle toward the boy. She saw the hand, big and cold looking, ready to snatch her charge like a boogeyman in some nightmare. Not today!

Roughly catching herself on the last row of seats, she managed to arrest Oliver's fall with her body and arm gripping at him, no matter how much his weight fell into it and pulled, strained her muscles. Phasing at this height might kill them both, and much as she wanted to shock the robot, if he dropped the car, they were just two squishy meat bags in a crumpled tin can, so that wouldn't work either. Instead, she used all she had to help lift Oliver on to the back of those seats, the effort causing her to slip and only just remain by gripping a dangling seatbelt, her shoes dangling by inches from the open doorway above the hand. "Grab on tight, Oliver, and don't let go, no matter what, okay? They're coming!"