Marvel, Rebirth:

IC:

Software is very, very complex thing. A programmer will likely tell you that it's nothing more than a series of logical statements, values, and conditionals executed in a very precise order, as outlined by its original creator. It can be reduced to a mere psuedo-English outline quite easily, and often such an outline will precede the program itself. A programmer might be a creator, they might have ultimate mastery over their domain.

But technopaths embody that domain.

The Sleeper was a complex mechanoid, a veritable work of engineering art, a credit to its creator, it's software just shy of a masterpiece. Even at the level of access he had accomplished, the technopath could see the code doing its job, could perceive each value and command making up the complex series of instructions that allowed it to merely move a limb, let alone the complex series of assessments that allowed it to perform its function.

But that function was not artful. So much work, so much engineering, but all it was meant to do was destroy. The massive machine instantly identified the technopath as a threat, and began taking measures to neutralize it, shifting its aim from the other mech nearby to the point in the city that it's enemy occupied, seeking to reduce its opposition to cinders in a single instant. The blast was ready, the target locked on, all it had to do was...

What was it it had to do?

The technopath smiled, though its origin had little to do with humor. Computer systems, even more than humans, rely on what they know. Unlike a human, a computer cannot make an inference to fill in the blanks. If it doesn't know, it can't function. It's "mind" was a carefully structured house of cards, and when you took one away, all the others built off of it cannot stand.

And that was just what Alex had done. At his level of access, he could not affect it's primary software function, namely threat assessment, software operation, data intake, or it's most basic operation, but he could affect the functions built on top of them. The peripherals, if you will, such as it's weapon functions. Rather than the long, involved process of modifying its code, he had gone with a much simpler approach; he simply deleted the software files pertaining to it's firing solutions. It literally no longer knew how to fire its Unibeam, and thus, it couldn't complete its shot.

Nevertheless, even as he began plowing deeper into its "mind", slamming into and breaking through firewall after firewall, he shifted his shield around to protect Julia and he, carefully taking a few steps out of the massive machine's view. The Unibeam might have been dealt with, but it would take a while to neutralize the threat the machine pose.

The text in his pocket would have to wait.

OOC Ok Toast, since you haven't checked the topic for several days, I'm gonna fast track us...

IC Tokiomi

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had fully prepared for the trip. Flight suits ready, plane fully calibrated, everything was ready to go. Getting in the pilot's cockpit, Tokiomi took a moment to familiarize himself with the controls.

The plane, to put it simply, was a magnificent piece of qwork. Developed from a combination of the technologies used in Skylon (graciously loaned by the British government), the Lockheed Martin SR-72, and S.W.O.R.D. single-stage-to-orbit stransports, the vehicle that would get them to New York was a hypersonic two-person stealth plane that could travel up to Mach 5, allowing the two agents to get to New York in about half an hour. "The controls should be similar to the re-entry pod I used to return to Earth," Tokiomi mused.

Pressing some buttons on a remote, Tokiomi opened the doors leading to the runway. After performing some final checks, Tokiomi began the takeoff. The plane took off very quickly, getting of the ground in less than five seconds. At first, Tokiomi focused on getting into the air, finally settling at 30 000 feet. Once the plane was high enough in the air, Tokiomi began the course he charted for New York.

But with the time needed to get there, the two of them may be too late...

IC: Julia

"It's looking at us," Julia whispered more to herself than Alex.

The mech's cold eyes, or optical sensors, or whatever those two holes in its face could be called, were fixed on Alex and her. A lump formed in her throat. She hoped her resident Technopath had stopped whatever it had planned on doing and the reason behind its standing stock still was not as eirie and menacing as its stare.

Staff IC:

If the Sleeper had been capable of frustration, it would have been neck deep in it.

***ERROR, UNIBEAM NO LONGER RESPONSIVE, WEAPON SYSTEMS OFFLINE....INITIATING ALTERNATE STRATEGY****

The Sleeper went into what could only be called a sprint, it's legs began carrying it quickly toward the Technopath's last known location. Anything between it and the mutant would simply be plowed through. The cables from Katherine's arrows snapped from the Sleeper's massive legs as it began moving, they simply could not hold back the behemoth. It had every intention of crushing the mutant, regardless of damage to it's metallic body.

There was quite a bit of distance between them, but with every massive step it was that much closer. The Sleeper put all it's power into it's legs, while it fire-walled every program involved with it's current actions. It was slowly learning how the Technopath was doing what he did and was building a resistance too it.

IC:

"Ohhhh, heck,"

Alex said, performing the greatest under statement of the year in only two words. Without missing a beat, he whirled around, tossing a "We should run" to Julia before doing just that, taking off down the street at a sprint. Julia would easily catch up, if there was one universal constant, it would be that she was faster than him by far.

Meanwhile, he set about dealing with this setback. First of all, he cut back on his attack, routing the remaining processes through a router down on the docks, in the opposite direction. With any luck, the machine would register the change in position, and go after it instead. Its AI would likely consider the attack reduction a sign that its defenses were working, leaving him free to enact the second phase of the plan.

The Sleeper had hardened it's defenses around active programs, but it had also weakened the others, even though they were still operating. Such was a simple fact; to deal with one attack, it had to weaken the others. It was the same philosophy behind the DDoS attacks used to rob banks. By keeping up a low scale attack, he drew attention away from his real probe...

Which was slipping in with the sensor data, disguising itself quietly amongst the flow, moving deeper into the Sleeper's software.

IC: "Okay, just tell me if you're skin starts coming off or something," Persephone said. Was she joking? Could that happen? No time for such questions though, as she hooked her armoured limbs under Harken's armpits and hoisted him into the air in her usual shimmering morass of sparks. She sent a cursory message to Agent Quattuor confirming that she and Agent Harken were responding to the situation and on their way as she continued to accelerate, steadily reaching supersonic speeds

IC: "Think she's a Kilgrave?" Magnitude whispered to Scorcher, "She could have the full mind control package if she is."

IC: Julia

Strange thing about the human brain: as the potential lethality of the immediate situation increases and the fight-or-flight kicks in, areas of the cerebellum responsible for things like reason and logic start shutting down. Essentially, the more scared you are, the less you think. At the moment, Julia's thought process went something like RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN!

As such, she barely registered Alex's warning, but she sure was heeding it.

IC:

Over the last year, in order to ensure a steady source of income for when he wasn't going around saving the world, Erin Banner began working at a small coffee shop near Battery Park. It wasn't a Starbucks or anything like that - no, this was a small, family-owned place. Erin was proud to say he'd pretty much been adopted by the family (about the same as he'd been adopted by Bruce), and counted all of them - and the regular customers - great friends.

Well, today was slow. But it wasn't because it was just one of those naturally slow days or anything. No, there was a giant robot outside. A bunch of giant robots, actually. So most everybody except Bruce had left, running away. Meanwhile, he had two cinnamon rolls, a latte, a macchiatto, and a mocha that he didn't know what to do with. Still...it'd probably be a good idea to get moving, and probably, at some point, help out with the issue of the giant robotpocalypse.

So he put lids on all the drinks and put the cinnamon rolls in a bag - he had nothing better - before grabbing his satchel, with his pistol and tablet and other such necessary items, before leaving the building, and starting to run. He rather quickly noticed two other people. One of them, the guy, he thought he'd seen before; the other, the girl, he had no idea.

"Hello," he said, running next to the man, barely breaking a sweat. "Can I interest either of you in some cinnamon rolls? Or maybe some coffee? My name's Erin, by the way. Erin Banner."

After a moment of silence, he spoke up again.

"I'm not fighting the robots until I get rid of these drinks."

OOC: That's Alex and Julia he's talking to.

Staff IC:

The Sleeper continued to charge toward the shore, the attack seemed to lessen as it did so, the remaining attack's source moving to the docks, the sleeper diverted it's course toward's it. It proceeded to smash it's might metallic limbs upon the dock, it would not stop until the signal died out. Once that finally happened the Sleeper scanned for any more signs of interference within it's systems, it found none.

With it's biggest threat seemingly eliminated, it went back to its main task. It walked away from the destroyed docks and into the streets of the city, smashing everything in it's path, buildings big or small, cars or trees, it did not matter. It was going on a rampage, it's only objective seemed to simply be mass destruction.

IC: Triblade

Matt had stopped talking to the girl once he'd feel the earth shaking and heard shouts throughout the mansion. Matt had ran into one of those small little living rooms where the nerd mutant kids liked to sit around and change the channels with their eyes. There he had slid to a stop as the local news continued to play.

"They're calling them Sleepers. These giant robots are wreaking havoc on major cities around the globe." the female reporter said.

"Oh, ****." Matt said. Already he could feel a change in his demeanor. A change that brought back his days as an X-Man. The times he had fought for the lives of innocent people.

But those days were gone. The X-Men were dead. Along with Hank McCoy their forefather and Alaric their captain. That doesn't mean I can't do anything. Matt thought. He turned away and began to run down the hallway. Black and white converse smacking on the wooden floor as he then ducked inside his room. He began to rummage through his closet.

"Come on... where is it..." Matt grumbled. He grasped something black and smooth and then pulled it out. His old X-Suit slid out of the closet and into his hands. The black and white colored material, with the large white X that marked the chest-area of the suit and three red orbs implanted into the material, one for each palm, and his chest. Matt quickly tore off his clothes and then pulled the suit on. It felt familiar to him yet somehow alien since he hadn't worn it in so long.

Matt pulled on the suit and then zipped up the back. He then turned and left his room as he ran down the hallway. He burst into Christine's room then.

"Hey, New York is under attack again, who wants to go represent the X?"

IC: Feral

John stepped back into the room with Nicole and Dallas. "One thing though Cali. New York's under attack by some giant friggen robots. Julia saw them and took off in Matt's car for the city. I'm not saying we should go, nor am I saying we should stay here and throw a party. All I'm saying is that if you think its right for us to go check it out. I'm down. If you think it would be better if I stayed here and ate pizza and sipped some punch Nicole spiked then that's okay too."

IC: Scorcher

"Or maybe she's just purple."

"My father was Kilgrave. I'm just his daughter, and I don't posess his mind control powers or I'd already be controlling you. Unless I actually am." she said with a small wink.

"Oh. I still feel like I have free will, how about you Zac?" suddenly the earth shook. Kane stumbled a bit as a result.

"What the **** was that?"

IC:

"Yes!"

Alex crowed, as the Sleeper completely changed course. Even better, it hadn't noticed his more subtle intrusion. Which meant that, as of now, he had more or less complete access to the giant machine's software functions. He slid to a stop, focusing once more, not yet realizing Erin's presence.

With a thought, he deleted the main software library, which would, no doubt, cripple the entire machine.

"... Oh, hello." He said, noticing Erin's arrival. "Um, coffee?"

Staff IC:

The machine stopped. The reactor inside it still hummed with energy, everything about the machine appeared to be in working order saved the huge gap caused by a certain javelin. But the machine did nothing.

Because it now knew nothing, thanks to Alex the machine was now a useless husk of metal, posed like a statute in the middle of a city block. People who happened to be watching held their breaths, was it finally over?

The Red Skull watched from his control room, quite far from where any of the Sleepers were. His control panel indicated that the New York Sleeper had been immobilized. He just smiled...

...and pushed the biggest, most ominous looking red button the world has ever seen.

Something inside the Sleeper clicked, what happened afterwards could only be described as the biggest freaking light anyone had ever seen as the rigged explosives that covered the inside of the arc reactor went off. The arc reactor itself was a massive conduit of energy, and proceeded to explode with groundbreaking force. The immediate vicinity around the Sleeper was simply wiped off the map, and everything around it in a fairly large radius wouldn't fare much better. The ground shook from the sheer power of the explosion. Anyone unlucky enough to be within the blast range had to find cover, or they were quite screwed.

It wasn't just New York, simultaneously every single Sleeper across the world exploded in a similar manner, whether they were fully functional or not. The kill switch had been set on a completely different system, one that seemed so insignificant and pointless it was easily overlooked, and it's only function had been a trigger.

The Red Skull proceeded to do his evil laugh.

OOC: Ninja'd. Gimme a moment...

IC: Julia

Julia came to a stop ahead of Alex, panting heavily.

"We stopped running," she sputtered between breaths. "Why did we stop running?"

Then the Sleeper exploded.

John Harken- Flying

IC: The agent closed his eyes as they accelerated, concentrating. As the air started to move faster he generated a current that ran the length of his body, pushing anything that hit him out and behind. It was not something he could keep up far and extended period of time, but he should be able to do it long enough to stay alive and ready for a fight when they arived at New York.

IC:

The world blinked out of view for Alex Smith and Julia Phillips for several seconds. One second, the Sleeper was standing in front of them, towering high above like some massive, hellish sentinel. It was a husk of itself thanks to Alex's quick thinking and knack for technopathy. Then it burst at once, in a massive plume of fire and smoke, and it stretched out towards everything in the immediate vicinity - including the two mutants. They turned to run, but never made it a step.

Three minutes and forty one seconds later, they stood in the same spot they had before, only they weren't charred to crisps and dead beyond any hope.

"How'd we live?" Julia asked after a second, looking around. The street around them was practically levelled, with burning wreckage and smoke clinging to some of the lower buildings.

"Trial and error. I think I just became the Jesus of some new alternate timeline."

Dallas Green stood behind of them, grinning, shirt sleeve on fire, hair tousled, with a large horizontal cut from his nose to his ear under his right eye. But he'd saved them, as heroes were wont to do.

"You gonna bless me three times, or what?"

-Tyler

IC Tokiomi

Two minutes into the flight...

"... Ah, sokka? Hai... Hai." Turning off the comm, he sent a message to Rashad, who was sitting in the secondary cockpit. "The mecha self-destructed. Good news: no more giant robot to fight. Bad news: lots of clean up to do." Tokiomi's voice remained perfectly calm the whole time. Turning the communicator back on, he sent a message to HQ. "This is Agent Quattuor and Agent Jericho. We are currently at approximately 200 kilometers east of Denver, Colorado on route to New York City. Orders?"

IC Damian

"Guuh!!!"

Damian had been tailing the Sleeper after it had gone on its seemingly random sprint, but he quickly lost it. Which turned out to be a good thing, since he wasn't in the immediate blast radius when the thing self-destructed. Shielding his eyes from the light, he staggered backwards, wondering aloud to himself what on earth had just happened.

IC: Lynae

"Uuuh... I take it we aren't close?" She said with a half smile, a few strands of blonde hair falling into her face.

IC:

"We're... A bit far away," Kristen replied, staring at Lynae in what could most easily be defined as 'awe'.

IC: Lynae

She smiled at Kristen, a mysterious and playful look in her eyes. "I've never been good at directions.... Guess we are stuck with each other a bit longer."

IC:

Dallas's snark barely registered, the words falling upon deaf ears.

Most of those around him could not see the devastation. They saw their immediate surroundings, but they didn't know the extent. It was an unknown quantity. Not so for him. He could feel, in an instant, every electronic signal for a dozen blocks on any direction go silent, completely obliterated. The evacuation had brought most of the cell phones out of range, but he had felt the remaining phones go dead too, the last record of their existence turned to molten slag, and then not even that alongside their owners.

The street was a scene from a horror movie.

And suddenly, it wasn't the same one.

It was Washington DC, when the Sentinels hit. It was the Institute after Weapon X. It was every single city he'd ever stepped in another dimension, it was every single one of his nightmares brought to life in vivid, helIish detail for all to see. No matter how extensive the evacuation, no matter the scope of the protection, so many people were just...

Gone.

The only signals left their rapidly fading digital signatures.

The last remnant of their earthly existence.

The ghosts of moments past, the ghosts in the shell.

Dead.

Dead.

He'd failed...

Hadn't he?

This wasn't supposed to happen, was it?

Was Julia safe?

Dallas' shirt was in fire, that should be attended to...

What was that noise?! What was that blank, empty sound?! Where was that coming from?

No, that wasn't a sound...

Silence...

Ashes to ashes...

Dust to dust.

Silently, the technopath dropped, knees landing in the ashes of what used to be a city block.

Gone.

All gone.

IC: Julia

Julia chuckled under her breath, just happy to be alive.

"Thank the lord above for Dallas frickin' Green."

She looked down at Alex, and the smile vanished from her face. She was by his side in a fraction of a moment.

"Alex," she gasped. "Alex, are you okay?"

IC:

"I guess..." Kristen said, smiling as she shuffled awkwardly in her seat.

"Tell me... Lynae. Have you ever helped young girls with their... Problems before?"

IC: Lynae

She chuckled and then grinned. "I suppose you could say that in some cases..." Lynae turned her bright blue eyes on Kristen for a second.

"Why?"

IC:

Pull yourself together.

ldiot, pull yourself together. They were evacuating. Fatalities were probably low, you have no way of actually knowing! This is not the Ultimateverse. Look, Julia's fine, Dallas is fine. It's still more people saved than it would have been.

"... I'm fine." He replied, smiling shakily, slowly pushing himself back to his feet. "The light made me a bit dizzy, that's all. I'm fine. Is everyone else okay?"

IC: Shiloh LeBeau

Shiloh's eyes had been glued to the TV since Dallas had left to go help in whatever way he could. She stayed right by her brother's side, she could feel the tension inside of him, not mention hers. She didn't know Dallas but he was obviously important to Rene.

She watched the TV in silence for a good while, she began to wonder if maybe they should go out there and help as well. Though she wasn't all that sure what good she'd be, her powers weren't exactly that useful for fighting a giant robot, she certainly couldn't effect something of that size.

Then the explosion happened, the current camera that was broadcasting cut out shortly after, Shiloh's eyes grew wide as she took in a sharp intake of air, she wondered if Dallas had been in that, then she looked at Rene.

IC:

"I- I've been... I've been having... Feelings about who I- Who I like," Kristen admitted, stuttering as her face turned red, "And I- I think I like other girls, but... But I don't know if I actually do..."

IC: Lynae

"There isn't anything wrong with liking other girls, you know." The vampire said softly as she tucked a stray hair out of Kristen's face.

OOC: A brief change of pace. This is a special event after all.

IC:

She touched me. This woman had picked her up out of nowhere, and even though there was that part with the fangs... It didn't bother me that much. Maybe it was just her charm... But maybe it wasn't that.

Maybe it was something more than that.

I needed to clear my head. Didn't I? Did I just need to get out of the car and take a breather? We had stopped after all...

Something small inside didn't want to. Something inside me wanted me to stay there. Particularly my heart. I could easily feel it pumping in my chest. It was racing. It had been since she touched me. I could only wonder, was this what Dallas felt like when he met a girl he liked?

"I know that... Lynae, could you- Could you help me find out if I do?"

IC: Lynae

The vampire stared at the girl in her passenger seat, slightly taken aback by her proposal. She ruffled her hair a bit and then took a deep breath.

"Alright."

IC: Ashley

While Ashley was waiting for response from Alex, she started getting lots of texts from students all over the school. They were freaking out about a giant robot melting the statue of liberty or something crazy like that. When the heck did anything like that ever happen? I mean really.

"....oh yeah...WASHINGTON D.C!" Ashley burst out, getting unwanted flashbacks. Nervously she turned on the TV, this couldn't be real...there's no way it was real....

She flipped through every single channel she could...they all showed the same thing. A giant scary looking robot melted the nice green lady in New York, and then blew up.

Ashley lost grip on the TV remote, her hands were shaking too much. Why did these things always happen? Why did people build such awful machines, just to kill and destroy? She hoped that everyone had made it out in time...maybe the big dumb robot had been slow and people had all gotten out! Yeah! That had to have happened! If the X-men were still a team they would have kicked it's but-

Ashley paled as she thought of everyone she knew, so many of her friends lived in New York...what if they had been there? Knowing them they would have rushed right into the fight! What if...where was Dallas!?

In a full blown panic Ashley ran out of the dorm, forgetting to close the door behind her. She started to run frantically through the halls, asking anyone she came across if they knew where Dallas was. Every minute that she didn't find him the dreadful feeling in her gut only got worse. Please be okay...please be okay...

It was then she remembered she had a phone...she started to pull it out, but her hands were shaking so much she was having difficulty using it. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she dialed his number. As she waited for him to answer she could feel her chest heaving.

IC: Julia

Julia hugged him again, this time even tighter. They had spent an entire year separated by half a globe and not a single day of that year had gone by without her thinking of him. She was not about to lose him again.

"Don't you die on me now. Not today."

She loosened her hold slightly, only just enough to kiss him for the first time in over three hundred and sixty-five days.

IC:

"I'm fine. Still have all my fingers and toes. Promise." The technopath replied softly, hugging her back just as tightly, the smile quietly spreading across his face. She really was back. Three hundred and sixty five days gone, but now she really was back. To say that it was a relief was the understatement to end all such statements, but it was true nonetheless.

"And I'll have you know that we were this close to being cinders twice already today, so I've no intention of dying. You okay?"

IC: Julia

"Yeah, fine. Nothing permanent."

She surveyed the damage over Alex's shoulder and realized something. She whispered couple expletives filed under the "just-remembered-something-that's-probably-important" section of her personal thesaurus.

"Yeah," she called to Dallas. "They got Matt's car, too."

IC:

"Wait, what? Which Matt--"

Dallas' electric blue eyes widened in mirth when he realized which Matt and he started practically cackling, slapping his knee and taking several deep breaths to calm his laughter. Even as he walked down the street and rounded a city block, his chuckles could still be heard, fading into the empty street. Then there was a honk.

And another honk. And the hydraulic hiss of doors opening. And a thud. And another honk. And tumbling, and cursing, and the sounds of a fight. And then a final honk. Then a loud bang, like bone against metal. Another hiss.

An innocent looking charter bus rounded the corner a minute later, with Dallas Green whistling merrily at the wheel and pulling up to the lovebirds with a dutiful honk.

"Grandpa always did say you couldn't go wrong with public transportation."

-Tyler

IC: Nero sat with his eyes glued to the window as he listened with rapt attention to the goings on in NYC. He could hear the reporter on television trying her best to hold herself together as she reported the ridiculous size of the explosion that had just set off, one of many if other televisions in the house were to be believed.

Not that Nero had needed the televisions to tell him just how crazy things were getting.

Not for the first time, Nero wondered to himself if there was something that could be done to help.

---

Dark clouds bloomed in the air, following an arc of lightning blazing a trail in the sky over the Atlantic Ocean. At the head of this arc, Siegfried Thorson flew, glowing eyes determined and focused.

The time for laying low was over.

IC:

How odd. One moment, Erin had been moving to protect Alex and Julia from the blast, morphing into what he affectionately called his "Hyde" state, hoping that his metal-turned body would be enough to stop the blast from killing them. Then everything blanked out for a moment, and again, each time it did so leaving him with some odd afterimage...

And then he found himself standing by Alex and Julia again, as well as a newcomer. And, surprisingly, he was no longer in his active state, and he still had the coffee and cinnamon rolls. Wibbley-wobbley-timey-wimey-stuff probably just went on, with himself likely caught in the middle of it, probably an accident...hopefully not. Interesting. Well, now he had a macchiato, a mocha, a latte, and two cinnamon rolls...and still nothing to do with them. Ah well; at least he was alive. He watched the short interchange that went on between the group, including seeing the mysterious (to Erin, anyways) new fourth person, and then he had a sudden idea what to do with the coffee. But first...

He turned, looking in the direction of the coffee shop...and finding that it wasn't there. "Oh, no..." he groaned. "Not that little shop, it didn't deserve to be destroyed..." Aware that he was still by three others who likely had no idea who he was, or what he was talking about, he turned quickly, holding the three drinks and cinnamon rolls out to them.

"Well, now that we're all alive, how about a celebratory snack? I don't need anything, I'm currently suffering from a lost job and wondering how to comfort my former friemployers." Friemployers? Friend-employers? That's totally a word. "And, mister mysterious-savior-man-person, thank you for accidentally saving me along with your two friends. I greatly appreciate the gift of life.

"But I'm afraid I can't worship you, nor am I likely to go caroling about you near your birthday."