WELCOME TO NEXUS.

[XxBroadband]

Debris, dust, a cloud of plaster, and the ear-piercing wail of metal, it all coalesced into a cacophony of destruction as Broadband huddled down into the ball of protection the prototype created with its two hands together. He vaguely wanted to know what was going on around them, but he was blind in the darkness with vague strips of light piercing through the space of giant, metallic fingers. Was the sentinel being attacked? Were they freely getting away? What happened if the prototype decided to use the energy beams from its hands? All of Helix would be destroyed! He wished his mind didn't run in all direction when he was under duress, but he couldn't help himself.

Minutes later, the sounds stopped, but the sentinel had yet to release them from their cocoon. All Broadband could hear was a constant roar as if a tornado whirled around them. Trying his best to peer at the other Helix members, he knew it'd be useless to talk over the sound. They looked okay in the darkness, but who truly knew? Swallowing, he didn't even know how much time had passed. Did they escape? Were they captured forever? Was something powering up as the prototype was trapped and they were about to be obliterated? He just wanted to rip into his skull and pluck the questions out forever. Picturing doing as such, it was then he realized he had sensed a familiar tingle of static.

His powers! There--everywhere--lines of communication were siphoning through his body, just like they were before he was captured. Radio signals, television signals, computer signals, they were free! "We're free!" Broadband tried to cry out... unless they weren't? Could it all be a ploy by their capturers to give the illusion of freedom? Either way, Broadband didn't care. He was just excited his powers were back at full strength, until something familiar rumbled in his ears.

"Thrusters malfunctioning. Emergency landing sequence initiated."

Broadband wanted to ask what that meant exactly, but the next thing he knew, his body was being lifted off the bottom hand. It was like he caught in an elevator that was no longer carried by metallic cords and streaking downwards. His back lay flat against the top-most sentinel hand, his lungs threatening for him to scream. He found his body falling back down to the bottom hand, but before he could slam into the metal, he was rising back up. It was if he was a living yo-yo, going up and down without hitting the ground. In truth, the sentinel was falling and using his thrusters to slow his descent in periodic bursts.

Before long, his body slammed into the bottom hand in a crunch of muscle and bone. His breath exploded out from him before he was blinded by rays of light. Their cocoon was lifted and Broadband was thrown from the giant hand, his body twisting and turning in the air before he crumpled into the ground and rolled. He laid, stunned, for several minutes before he began to spit out dirt. He blinked his eyes and stretched his muscles, wincing by the amount of bruises and cuts he suffered. Groaning, he rolled over to his back, gasping for breath. As oxygen returned to his lungs, he looked around and realized they were surrounded by trees.

The large, metallic sentinel was several feet away, lying on its stomach with its face down. Trees were torn from their roots, limbs scattered all around them. The prototype had landed and skidded, creating a near-crater in the center of the woodland. Trying to stand up, Broadband cried out, "Is everyone okay?!"

[~*Penance*~]

Claudette could say that she had a lot of experience in odd situations. Or 'unique', if you will. Maybe not as much as the adults, but it wasn't bad for someone under the age of 12. Something she had not done though, was break out of a facility she'd been held captive in courtesy of a Sentinel. Or a Sentinel progress? She wasn't sure, but the hulking giant didn't seem to be fully functioning and was, by all appearances, working with Broadband's desires. She assumed that it was power-related.

As they got further away and Broadband pondered the possibility of this being some sort of illusion or false 'jail break', Claudette felt her powers returning slowly. Or, at least, her psychic ones. She couldn't really test her portals right now, but she detected an issue. Perhaps she'd been damaged in such a fashion as to hinder access to that power and she'd yet to recover. The dark-eyed child wasn't entirely sure and would require more time to think on it. In the mean time--

"Thrusters malfunctioning. Emergency landing sequence initiated."

That did not sound favorable. She didn't have time to get out of the way before her body hit the top of the hands cupped around them - not a pleasant experience by the way. Claudette would have flown away if she'd had better warning, but she couldn't read Sentinels the way she could people's minds so...surprise! The girl concluded that it might be possible to overcome the wind force holding her to the top of the metal hand using her flight powers. Well, that and considerable effort. Or she could try to crawl her way to the edge and worm through a break between the cupped hands. The latter sounded easier as it was doubtful she could work up and maintain the momentum to either fly out of a gap without hurting herself or hold her place between the hands as opposed to stuck to this top one indefinitely.

Much to Claudette's displeasure, they seemed to be going through some sort of gravitational instability courtesy of the Sentinel's faulty braking system. Or perhaps the descent was just fine for the Sentinel, and not so much for its unusual cargo. She was starting to think this could be used to her advantage, but the girl-teen was mistaken. Abruptly, her body struck the bottom hand hard, knocking the wind out of her and definitely causing some bruising if not a break somewhere. Her sister's physical invulnerability would be quite useful right now. Especially when, as a lovely follow up to smacking into the bottom hand, they were then thrown off completely. Claudette was somewhat expecting something like that in this crash and was able to kind of soften her landing.

Kind of.

She directed her flight in an opposing angle to the one he body had been thrown in, but it wasn't a very long way down at this point and her very slight heads up wasn't enough to completely trump her previously stunned state and lack of ability to properly orient herself. Still, it wasn't a bad attempt for a kid. In the aftermath, Claudette laid on the ground, much as Broadband and the others. Her body was throwing off signals that indicated movement was presently ill-advised. She was still catching her breath, the light was a little much, her head hurt, she felt like there was ringing in her ears, she was sore, and some places felt tender in a way that suggested bruising. What she'd thought was a broken bone or two could possibly more like severe bruising and tenderness according to her assessment. Of course, she wasn't a doctor and had zero medical training. Additionally, as Penance, this hadn't really been a problem.

Blinking slowly, Claudette concluded that traveling in this state would be unpleasant, but manageable. She was fortunate in that her legs were unscathed by the 'descent'. Broadband managed to move a bit, rolling over as he caught his breath. The autistic 'mute' only tried to roll off her injured back. It was a slow process and she discovered that rolling awoke painful sensations in her left arm. Alright, so she'd missed some injuries by refusing to move. Rolling in the other direction revealed that her right arm was in better shape. She laid on her stomach, right arm shifted to keep her face from attaining a partial dirt mask.

Broadband moved again in her peripheral, but Claudette didn't try to follow suit. "Is everyone okay?!"

The chocolate-hued mutant didn't answer, of course, but she assumed he could see her laying her. Then again, with the bits of Sentinel and large forest debris scattered about, maybe he couldn't. ~*...*~ It occurred to Claudette that she, perhaps, should say something like 'Okay' or some other phrasing that would indicate she wasn't dead or dying or anything. That was what Nicole would recommend right? Her sister always made similar inquiries and insisted on more than visual confirmation for some reason. Claudette managed the equivalent of a mental nudge that would indicate her location.

[SuperLuigi64]

There was a happy engineer back in that base, a man who had stared a screwdriver in the eye and looked upon something else afterward. Johnny didn't have long to interrogate him before Broadband was shouting, and Claudette had come running in, and Forge was doing that creepy voice-in-head routine how many of these people can DO THAT and he had to take off. All he knew was that the robots were mutant-hunting machines known as Sentinels, and that the guy he was threatening wasn't sure if they were being created with a specific target in mind or not. Not like they needed thirty-foot death machines to invade the mansion when all the adults were gone, right? They had men with guns, plenty to take on chilluns and detain them for being totally evil and such. Then he couldn't wait any longer.

Then Broadband had shouted that they needed to go, and Johnny dropped the guy and turned, running to the Sentinel and jumping into its hands just before it stood. Having enhanced strength, the mutant was able to brace himself as the robot ripped through layers of military base, but it was still painfully jarring for him, and he started to worry about the others getting hurt through the vibrations--not to mention missing his full powers for the umpteenth time. Plus, the Sentinel's body was only making the sound of their escape louder and more painful for the teenagers, like being pressed up against a bass speaker at a concert. At least once they broke free of the place, the worst of the noises stopped, leaving them stuck in a jet engine. These robots were certainly not built for comfort transport--which Johnny supposed made sense. His body was having hell figuring out up and down, and that was a power he had! Maybe they were designed this way to keep mutants disoriented after capture to interfere with their mutant powers.

Speaking of powers, Johnny felt a sudden surge in his as they left the radius of control where the army dudes apparently had blocked their powers. It was like having weight removed from his legs and a blindfold taken off! Johnny couldn't help but grin as he felt his full strength return to his legs and--"Thrusters malfunctioning. Emergency landing sequence initiated." Oh no. They started to fall from the sky, though Broadband's big robot buddy was doing its best to keep them from reaching terminal velocity. Unlike the others, Johnny didn't shift around too much while they were falling--with his full powers returned, he was able to brace himself and stay in one spot. Not that that helped too much when the hands were jarred open and the acrobat was flung straight at a tree. He managed to flip himself, his Danger Sense awake once more, and smash into the tree feet-first, but the sheer force of the impact was jarring to him despite his body being made for impacts. It stunned him so that he almost didn't land on his feet when gravity reasserted itself. As it was, he did land on his feet before staggering sideways and falling over.

He looked around and blinked. No wonder that had hurt, the Sentinel had dug a trench with its face, treeline be damned. Their forward momentum had been...significant. Maybe he should have let himself get bounced around with the others, it seemed like the machine had thrown them in a way to reduce that momentum so maybe they didn't die? "Is everyone okay?!" Well, there was one. A twitch in his mind confirmed the creepy quiet one was alright too. Johnny stood up, the numbness in his legs wearing off quickly now that his powers were back, and managed to walk over toward the sound of Broadband's voice without his knees buckling. "Normally I'd have something witty to say about us being lost in the woods with a deadly mutant-killing machine, but seeing how that's a step up from where we were, yeah I'm good." He looked at the Sentinel for a moment. Maybe it was because the thing wasn't decked out in purple and pink (the absolute most insulting color scheme for a death machine to wear), but it didn't bring the same feeling of dread that the others did.

Plus it did kinda save them.

"Is it still active? Having a robot on our side cannot possibly hurt."

[Fluffy]

The sentinels other hand made a rough roof over them and Alani felt herself pushed into the bottom of the floor from the G-forces of a sudden acceleration. There was a roar of a jet engine, combined with the terrible sounds of rending metal, and Alani thought she even heard an explosion in the cacophony. The slits through the fingers showed light and soon air blasted through them as if there was a tremendous wind, or more likely that they were flying and fast. The initial burning pains of Alani's electrocution were wearing off into a dull ache that seemed to pervade every muscle in her body. Inside the sentinel's hands were dark but she could make out Broadband and Nicole in the darkness. Nicole still had yet to say anything to Alani's knowledge, as if the shock of recent events had rendered her mute.

"Um... Broadband, where is this thing taking us?" Alani thought the machine was following his orders but she still wasn't positive. The robot spoke before Broadband did but not in answer to her question.

"Thrusters malfunctioning. Emergency landing sequence initiated." The robot did not communicate tone with its tinny metallic voice but it wasn't lost on Alani. She braced herself as best as her sore extremities would allow her. The roar of the thrusters petered out. The sudden abrupt lack of gravity tossed her into the top of their little cage. The weightless feeling of free fall was terrifying a terror that was reinforced by the knowledge that every fall comes to a stop. I don't want to die. They seemed to fall for an eternity when in reality it was only seconds. Alani was slammed into the floor an impact that was far to hard to soften. Then she was tossed upwards again as the jet engine roar started again in staccato bursts. She struggled to slip out between two of the fingers which had opened more during rough descent. The periodic firing of the thrusters made it difficult to get any purchase on anything because of the jerky up and down motions. That was when her powers came back the familiar tingling on her skin but they weren't weakened like they had been in the facility. The pair of fingers she was attempting to slip through disintegrated partially enough to make a crack for her to slip through. The blast of metal powder generated was thrown upwards as the wind blasted by from their controlled crash. The howl of wind made it impossible to hear anything. She looked down braced on the edge of the hands. She could see the ground and it was approaching fast. The area looked forested and Alani used the last few seconds before impact to debate her next choice. She jumped.

The decision was easy to regret because freefalling through the open air felt far less secure then the clasped hands of the sentinel. She also appeared to not fall any slower, even though in her head it seemed like it should work that way. Her leap had been partially lateral and she achieved some distance from the robot which caused her to come crashing down about 30 feet from where it finally landed. Her impact was with a large broad-leafed tree which she fell into the canopy of rapidly disintegrating leaves, bark, and wood until she hit the ground. The effect served to slow her fall adding bruises to her injury in lieu of broken bones. She landed on her back looking up through the dismantled branches of the tree. A pillar of sunlight now shown down through a newly created hole in the foliage on her exact location.

"Is everyone okay?!" Broadband called out. Alani smiled still lying on her back because she was alive.

[XxBroadband]

There was a strange twinge in his mind when he asked if everyone was okay. He glanced around briefly, wondering what it was. Maybe his instincts were going Spidey-Sense on him? Doubtful. He was still new to the whole "telepathy" thing, so unlike the others, he wasn't capable of singling out the twin as the person who responded to his comment. But at least she looked okay... even if she didn't speak. Come to think of it, Broadband never heard her utter a word, not even when they were captured together and fighting. What an... odd... girl.

Ricochet responded into typical Johnny fashion, which meant he was fine, even if he said as such. Eyes roamed the cleared area, saw that most--if not all--the rest of the Helix members were moving about. "I don't know...," Broadband replied to Ricochet, looking over at the giant lying as still as a rock. It'd been through hell and back. A hole in its chest, its hand disintegrated in parts, dents coating its exterior where the thickets of trees slammed into its hull--Broadband wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't active after all of that.

His eyes continued to roam around before they settled on Loa who had yet to move. Pushing himself to his feet while wincing in pain, he hobbled over to her form and looked down, a sigh of relief seeing that she was smiling. "You could have at least said something," he muttered. With everyone seemingly okay, Broadband bit his cheek in thought. They really weren't safe yet, were they? These soldiers had helicopters and there was no missing the giant clearing the Sentinel had created. Glancing to the silver monolith, Broadband let his powers do the work, hobbling over to a silver leg as he put his palm on the metal.

He was detecting a signal--the Sentinel was still online. Tapping into the signal and making sure it wasn't being used as a homing device, he was pleasantly surprised. "He's lost vocal capabilities in the crash," Broadband explained. "He's currently awaiting orders." Broadband had come to label it a he, and found it strange the Sentinel was communicating through the signal Broadband was picking up... or at least knew Broadband could read signals. Twisting his face again, Broadband sat down on the ground, ignoring his pain as he closed his eyes.

"I need to make sure he's not relaying our current position. There's a lot of static." He opened his eyes briefly, looking up into the sky. "And I hope someone knows how to pitch a tent..." It looked to him as if night was beginning to settle. Who knew what kind of wildlife was in this area... He shook his head and focused on his objective. With the amount of damage the Sentinel took, there was a lot of static Broadband had to sift through. "This shouldn't take me long. But I... don't know a thing about camping." Which meant he didn't know what to do from here on out.

[SuperLuigi64]

Broadband managed to drag himself to his feet and stagger over to Alani, before mentioning that she could have said something. Well, at least she was okay. Immediate dangers had passed, but they needed to not be anywhere near here as quickly as possible. Johnny knew the military could track things flying through their airspace, probably more so in the vicinity of places like the one they had been at. They would know where the Sentinel came down, and their search would start right here. And they probably had good searching people in their employ as well, although perhaps if the base was secret enough, it might take them time to get the appropriate people down here? Not a chance the acrobat was willing to bet on. The problem was, the military had, like, heat vision and night vision and probably fifty other kinds of vision he didn't know about. Would this machine be shielded from any of that? They weren't, but he thought if they got far enough away, that might not matter. A thirty-foot machine was going to leave an obvious trail to follow if it tried to leave, and if it tried to fly out, it would just be tracked again.

Ugh, this was a bad situation. Better than the previous one, but not by as much as he would have liked.

"He's lost vocal capabilities in the crash. He's currently awaiting orders." Huh. Well, that was one thing. Of course, the robot looked like it got its can kicked by gravity hardcore. What could they do? Johnny didn't like the idea of leaving their savior behind, prototype Terminator or not, but he just couldn't see how they could escape without leaving it. Maybe if that black kid had come along, he'd be able to figure it out. Or heck, for all he knew someone here was a military expert. At age teenager. Right... "I need to make sure he's not relaying our current position. There's a lot of static. And I hope someone knows how to pitch a tent..." Grasstop was looking at the sky, and Johnny realized he had a good point. Night was coming. Ugh, if things weren't bad enough, they had chosen the absolute worst moment to escape. "This shouldn't take me long. But I... don't know a thing about camping." Johnny walked over to the Sentinel, knelt down by its head, and tapped on it a couple times with his fist. "Not sure about camping, but I don't think we can stay here tonight anyway. Even if the Sentinel isn't relaying our position, the army has radar. They also have eyes, so I bet they know which direction to go to start searching anyway. We're a dead giveaway here, what with the ditch Sparky dug with his face."

But the Sentinel could still help them out. Johnny rapped on its head again, a little harder. "You hear me in there, Sparky? If you can tell us where we are or how far we are from the mansion, that would be great!" He stood up, rubbing the back of his neck. They needed a plan. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of anything simple, and it would have to be something simple, because they didn't have the time or the resources for complicated. And the Sentinel was the worst problem. No way to play out, no way to walk off without leaving a trail, no time to bury it so--...well actually. "Okay, so, we have to get out of here, and we can't leave a trail. They'll follow it, and they won't wait until the morning I'm guessing. The only thing I can think of is we have Alani bury Sparky by using her powers on the ground. Everything's torn up anyway, so it shouldn't be obvious that he's there. We do that, then I can carry you three and make like Tarzan, hopefully they wouldn't be able to follow us. BB, you should ask Sparky and see if he has any better ideas, because this is my only one and I'm having doubts about it." Like if it would work at all, and if he wasn't aware of something that could easily find them.

That would suck more.

[Fluffy]

A mop of green hair and pallid face appeared above her looking down. Broadband appeared worried but on seeing Alani smiling his face took a brief flash of annoyance.

"You could have at least said something," he grumbled.

"We made it!" Alani replied rolling into a sitting position careful to favor her wrist. Her muscles all still ached like she had run 10 miles but the pain was far from incapacitating. Broadband turned back toward the robot and looked deep in thought but Alani didn't notice.

"I don't know what those people planned to do with us but I'm glad were free. Now we can go..." Alani's sentence trailed off as she came to the same conclusion Broadband had already reached, she had no idea where they were. She climbed to her feet and followed after Broadband toward the Sentinel. It was pretty obvious that it had taken the brunt of the crash. It looked terrible but after seeing what the one in workshop could do with only a torso she thought it might still be able to move. She walked around the outside of the hulking machine. She startled when she saw the foot, a purple armored hand was gripping it torn at the wrist the remnants of the robotic legless torso from the workshop. The hand had crushed the foot of the silver sentinel before being torn from its host. The damage it had caused probably damaged the thrusters leading to their subsequent crash. She eyed the gigantic hand almost expecting it to move again and shuddered. Alani wandered back over to where Broadband was standing now joined by Johnny. Broadband had his hand on the machine.

"He's lost vocal capabilities in the crash," Broadband explained. "He's currently awaiting orders." Alani wondered if they could repair it, or maybe it could repair itself... It probably still needed parts to do that. She doubted that trees and twigs could be used to fix a robot. Forge could fix it. Alani knew that he was still trapped back at the facility or maybe dead.

"I need to make sure he's not relaying our current position." Broadband continued. "There's a lot of static." Alani hadn't even thought of that. It was pretty hard to hide a 30 foot tall robot she wondered if someone already knew where they were.

"Can it fly again?" Alani asked Broadband even though the question really should have included the word 'safely'.

Broadband pointed out that he didn't know a thing about camping. Loa was woefully deficient in this area as well. She had been more of a beachgoer then the outdoorsy type. Johnny was not interested in spending the night there and Alani wasn't either. The fear of being followed was a very real one and she agreed that they needed to keep moving.

"Okay, so, we have to get out of here, and we can't leave a trail. They'll follow it, and they won't wait until the morning I'm guessing." Johnny began trying to lay out a plan. "The only thing I can think of is we have Alani bury Sparky by using her powers on the ground. Everything's torn up anyway, so it shouldn't be obvious that he's there. We do that, then I can carry you three and make like Tarzan, hopefully they wouldn't be able to follow us. BB, you should ask Sparky and see if he has any better ideas, because this is my only one and I'm having doubts about it." Alani wasn't a leader, in general she tried to go with the flow and not make waves but she like Johnny had some doubts.

"It would take me a while to bury something this big. Maybe a couple of hours even, and with all the destruction they would probably still be able to find it, I think. Maybe we should have it crawl off in one direction and we go another. If it can still move that is..." She looked at Broadband. Nicole still hadn't spoken a word and Alani wanted to make sure that everyone's opinions were heard.

"Um... What do you think Nicole?"

[XxBroadband]

"The enemy has radar I can sense," Broadband corrected. Though he couldn't dispute them having eyes. Broadband opened his own eye as Ricochet knocked on the Sentinel's head. With a slight smile, he said, "He says stop, you're giving him a headache." The Sentinel really didn't, but sometimes a little bit of nonsensical humor could lighten a heavy situation. Helix just survived a trip to hell. Sure more hell could be coming, but Broadband decided to dismiss that idea for only a second.

As the rest of the Helix members asked questions amongst themselves, Broadband focused on any incoming radio signals. He siphoned through the static the prototype was projecting, but he didn't read anything. The only curious thing he found was... well, nothing yet. "Do you have any ideas to help us?" The Sentinel didn't reply except for an 'error.' Broadband had to rephrase his question considering machines didn't have the ability to come up with "ideas," only logical outputs. "Are there any logical outputs that would help us in this situation. If there are, what are they?"

The Sentinel spoke through the wavelength Broadband had sensed. In response, Broadband opened his eyes, stared at the ground, and tilted his head. "Uh, guys... Okay, stay with me on this, because I think... I think I know why we were captured." Broadband pushed himself to his feet, looking around. "He said he could help us by using a projection as a hologram sort of like how I do it. His optical sensors have a storage unit like how a video cassette records a movie. He's able to play back the movie in different view points by combining all the recorded data into one output. So essentially, since he's seen what this place looked like from above, he can project that same hologram like we were never here. But... it's more than that."

Broadband scratched his head.

"I say it's similar to the way I do it because it is similar. But instead of picking up radio waves from outside sources and projecting them for others to see, he picks up his own signals and projects what he sees... or saw... or something. But watch." Broadband walked the length of the Sentinel to its foot where the broken hand was, limping every few steps. "Go ahead and show them what you told me." With a wave of his head to direct the attention to the severed robotic hand, the purple limb began to disintegrate before their very eyes.

"He has Alani's powers," Broadband said, turning to the rest of Helix. "He has my powers. I wouldn't be surprised if he has all of our powers. Think about it. We were captured and detained in a factory of these things. They harvested our abilities and mimicked them into this Sentinel." Broadband shivered as the implications ran through his mind. Imagine if they had the powers of Magneto, Forge, and Storm's all in one Sentinel. They'd be unstoppable.

"Project the hologram to make this place look undisturbed."

All at once, light poured from the Sentinel's metallic armor, placing trees, leaves, grass, and unturned dirt on the ground. Broadband took several steps back, finding himself in a holographic tree. "It might be enough to keep them away, but if they catch our heat signatures, we're done. He's trying to repair his basic motor functions. We can't just leave him after knowing what he is."

[~*Penance*~]

If Claudette knew how disturbing her behavior was to the others, she'd do nothing. It was outside of her comprehension, her ability to process. Claudette was a very smart child, brilliant, but autistic. If they gave her a book with facial expressions, she could memorize them. She could memorize and perfectly mimic them. The girl could commit the names associated with the expressions, and the definitions of those names, to her mind and retain it like an adamantium bear trap. But that was all she could do. She wouldn't understand the application or when which was appropriate. It'd likely be useful to know the difference between a frown of displeasure or anger or confusion. Her telepathy would give good context clues. But there would still be that disconnect.

There /was/ a disconnect. It wasn't coldness or emotionlessness, or even legitimate indifference; it was autism. However, no one present knew she had autism. Claudette had the benefit of being one of the higher functioning autistic children - though it kind of carried the downfall of not being readily apparent so that people can understand and cope with her behavior accordingly without having it laid out for them. She could carry on by herself without coaching or watch by her caretaker. The chocolate-hued child also had the benefit of her powers. The nature of powers lent themselves quite well to her ability to function independently. Unfortunately, it also meant she had a lovely and dangerous way to lash out. Autistic children, teens, and adults could lash out sometimes. The triggering was unique for all, though there were common points. A large category would fall under them being pushed to do something they didn't want to or some perceived threat or hurt coming.

The autistic human child could push, strike, throw objects, or even flee. The autistic /mutant/ child? Well, Claudette might not be able to lift much or intimidate anyone with her lithe figure, but she could damn sure do serious damage mentally. Oh, and those nasty little portals of hers - be careful there too. Heh.

Anyway, the point was Helix didn't know and she wasn't talking so... She'd just have to be the freakishly aloof one then. Claudette was interested enough in the Sentinel to not start wandering away. To her mystification, she still could not call forward a portal. Everyone else seemed content with their returned powers, not citing any shortcomings yet. ... This was...inconvenient. It was going to take a great deal more effort to get to Nicole without her portalling powers. The probability of facing this particular problem had been damn near negligible when first running through plans. Now she was going to have to backtrack and map out a new array based on her apparent inability to simply open a portal and leave. Claudette knew it was hopeless because, while the others talked, she had gotten to her knees and dug a circle into the dirt beneath her. All the focus in the world hadn't made depthless darkness appear within the circle. No portal.

Claudette was mapping new plans, adding and dismissing influencing factors. There was one that needed better definition. That Sentinel. Broadband was doing...whatever he was doing to it. That was fine, Claudette wouldn't interfere with that. The girl-teen finally got to her feet fully and walked, somewhat unsteadily at first, to the Sentinel. A Sentinel was a machine. Mechanics and technology. Claudette was good at mechanics and technology. She thought of tinkering with it like she did the medbot in the infirmary. However, Nicole wasn't here to take it apart. Then again, that didn't appear strictly necessary. The Sentinel was in bad shape. It hadn't been complete before, and now there was that crash damage to contend with. A barely cursory look said that there was no way to fully repair the Sentinel without additional parts or scrap - which were clearly not available and--

"Um... What do you think Nicole?"

Nicole? Claudette looked around while simultaneously lifting her shields a little to do some searching. ...not here? But the girl said 'Nicole'. Logically, Nicole was a common name. Her sister was not the only person in the world to bear the name. However, given the situation, people involved, and context - Alani had to mean her twin. And yet..visual and mental searching indicated that her twin was not present. Not by a long shot. Claudette puzzled over this, not once turning to Alani or concluding that Alani was addressing her as Nicole, not asking about the more expressive girl-teen. She only concluded, ~*Not here.*~ Alani was mistaken; her sister was not here. She was far away. ~*Safe and far away.*~ She had made sure of it.

Broadband continued what she concluded was a sort of communing with the fallen Sentinel. Hm, if it was still capable of this peculiar form of communication, then perhaps she could do something with the mechanical giant after all. Claudette walked around the Sentinel. Broken as it was, there was still plenty of it. Claudette stared at some exposed wiring for a while, her mind running a mile a minute. If she was taller, and had the appropriate gear, she could reach and-- Oh, well, she could fly. That didn't change the lack of appropriate protective gear to contend with dangerous electrical wiring. Yet another inconvenience that could have been solved with her sister's presence. Nicole had gained physical invulnerability. A little exposed wiring wouldn't hurt her and--- Someone was talking about something that sounded relative to her.

"[...] why we were captured."[i/] Claudette was gracious enough to pay attention this time. [i]"[...]So essentially, since he's seen what this place looked like from above, he can project that same hologram like we were never here. But... it's more than that."

That's not what she had expected to hear about. Though it gave more insight to the nature of Broadband's powers, something she could find out through other, less pleasant and polite means, it was not related to why they'd been captured. Unless he was about to say that this method of projection would also explain why they'd been taken. Though perhaps why, at this point, was also partially irrelevant since it had already been done. They'd been taken, and now they'd escaped. Well, 'they' minus Forge.

"Go ahead and show them what you told me." Peculiar how he spoke to and of the Sentinel as though it was a regular person. Psychological byproduct of his powers? Anyway, to her great interest, the Sentinel's hand disintegrated. ...? Was it destroying itself? Defense mechanism?

"He has Alani's powers." Guess not. "He has my powers. I wouldn't be surprised if he has all of our powers. Think about it. We were captured and detained in a factory of these things. They harvested our abilities and mimicked them into this Sentinel."

Claudette puzzled over how a machine would use her psychic powers. Machine have no minds. They don't think, can't process feelings. Well, she couldn't either, but she could think and could conclude context - positive and negative intents. How did telepathy work for it? Her other psychic powers? She could fathom the portals. This..thing had their powers. Or maybe it didn't really. Perhaps it was more like, it could copy their powers or any power it was exposed to. How would you program that? Code that? Hardwire it? Claudette wondered if perhaps she could 'disable' that ability; that is, in the case of her copy theory. If it just had their powers, and that was a somewhat better scenario than a copy ability, could she disable all of that. Broadband seemed to have control of the machine now, but it could turn on them. What happened if Broadband became incapacitated?

...

Threat. It had to be stopped, destroyed even.

"Project the hologram to make this place look undisturbed."

But not yet. The Sentinel had its uses for now.

"It might be enough to keep them away, but if they catch our heat signatures, we're done. He's trying to repair his basic motor functions. We can't just leave him after knowing what he is."

Claudette had apparently heard all she needed to hear and began to calmly float upright in the air, rising in elevation until she could walk onto the beached Sentinel's armored body. Broadband's means of communicating and directing the Sentinel were ideal, efficient, perfect for the situation. However, she needed to be prepared in the event that he was unable to continue doing so or the Sentinel ceased its deference to the young mutant. She needed to know how this thing worked and processed.

The silent girl-teen needed to know how to destroy it or, even better, trigger its self-destruct. She could start at the head. Or..no, she 'detected' that was unwise. Head and back, those were 'safe' access point, relatively safe.

[Fluffy]

Broadband seemed to be trying to communicate with the sentinel. In a way it was kind of funny because it seemed like he was talking to himself. After a minute though he said something a little bit foreboding.

"Uh, guys... Okay, stay with me on this, because I think... I think I know why we were captured." Broadband proceeded to explain that the sentinel could kind of emulate his powers. Alani didn't really have a firm grasp on exactly what Broadband was capable of something about projecting radio signals. Apparently the sentinel could project anything it had seen.

"...But watch." Broadband continued. The hand from the partially completed torso back at the workshop disintegrated. Alani had seen things like this happen before, it was her mutant power. "He has Alani's powers," Broadband said. "He has my powers. I wouldn't be surprised if he has all of our powers. Think about it. We were captured and detained in a factory of these things. They harvested our abilities and mimicked them into this Sentinel." It was scary to think that something like this was possible. It also didn't seem right or fair. Alani didn't even really want her abilities and she knew there were thousands of mutant abilities out there. They could have copied healing or something that could help people. Alani knew the only thing she was capable of was destroying things but that was the ability they had chosen to mimic.

"Maybe Johnny's right... Maybe we should bury this thing." Perhaps it was a futile action. She doubted the place had really been so completely destroyed by their exit that they couldn't build another sentinel or maybe even hundreds it was a big facility. Broadband managed to finagle the machine into projecting a hologram that made the area around them appear undisturbed. It was a neat trick and it would probably buy them time but how much. The people who had captured them would be looking pretty hard for assets like these.

Throughout all of this Nicole had still not said anything. The other student had simply gotten on her knees and drawn a circle in the dirt. Alani realized that she had been acting this way since the holding cells. She didn't really know Nicole very well, just brief interaction at the mansion but this didn't seem right. Is she in shock? Alani's mind wandered to even worse possibilities. Perhaps at the facility they had done something to the girl, drugged her, or god forbid something more permanent. The dark skinned girl had perked up at the sound of her name but didn't make eye contact with anyone. She merely responded telepathically that Nicole was not here. Something was not adding up and the response served to confuse her.

"Broadband," she attempted to speak quietly to keep her remark private, "do you know what's up with Nicole? She's kind of been acting... differently ever since we were kidnapped."

[SuperLuigi64]

Alani pointed out an obvious flaw--that it would take her far too long to bury it. Well, scrap that then. Johnny liked the robot, it had saved their lives and everything, but in the end, it was just a robot--and a mutant-hunting one at that. Frankly, to Johnny it was preferable to sacrifice the machine rather than thermselves. Although, if there was an option that didn't involve sacrifice, he'd be all over that. Unfortunately, there was no way he could pick that thing up and move it. His legs MIGHT have enough physical strength to drag it, it looked super heavy but maybe it wasn't; but that would leave an obvious trail. "Um... What do you think Nicole?" Nicole? Johnny blinked and looked at her. That was Nicole? He did not think so, something the girl confirmed by stating that Nicole was not here. That was the other twin, the creepy one who acted the exact same way they had when they had attacked the mutant kids in the city. He could tell because he was still uncomfortable around her. Nicole, by virtue of being nice and honest, had managed to get his instincts to back off, but this one--

"Uh, guys... Okay, stay with me on this, because I think... I think I know why we were captured."

Attention captured.

Broadband explained to them that the Sentinel could project images like he could. That was...interesting. Broadband explained that it could use its own recordings to create projections, instead of doing like he did and picking up signals. Well, that was interesting, but Johnny wasn't sure where the little grasstop was heading with this. "Go ahead and show them what you told me." Broadband pointed at the severed hand of the half-Sentinel that had attacked them, and while they watched, it...crumbled away. Like...well, like what Alani did to the concrete wall, actually. A moment later, Broadband said what Johnny just did not want to hear: this machine had their powers. Maybe all of their powers. Definitely his and Alani's. Johnny wondered if it had copied his powers. His strength was redundant for this thing, he doubted reflexes could be improved in a machine, and he didn't even know how his Danger Sense even worked. But at least the thing was on their side for a moment, and the snowy-haired youth had to let out an impressed whistle as the Sentinel visually restored the forest around them.

"Broadband, do you know what's up with Nicole? She's kind of been acting... differently ever since we were kidnapped." Johnny heard her, but only barely. "That's not Nicole. That's her twin, Cl.....um. Clarice? Claudia? Something like that. I don't think she likes communicating with people besides her sister." He would, for the moment, make an effort to be civil and helpful to the girl, even if she was still creeping him out. He strolled over to the other two, still examining the machine like it had a visual cue for whose powers it had somewhere. Sigh...no way around it. He liked keeping his Danger Sense a secret, but it wouldn't do them any good if people got hurt because they didn't know about it. "BB, ask it if it's copied my clairvoyance. It didn't need to copy my leg muscles, it's already stronger than me, and I'm thinking it can't copy reflexes. But I have something I call a Danger Sense. It warns me of anything dangerous, from any direction. Guns, punches, poison, portals, when it's not safe to touch people, you name it. It's how I can fight trained soldiers and win--I can see them throwing punches or shooting before it happens and dodge it. I don't even know how it works, so I have no idea how they could have copied it, but if it does, it can warn us of danger at least soon enough for us to take cover. It might be safe to stay here for the night."