After Rogue's mental breakdown, John stalked off in silence leaving the mutants to themselves. Magneto joined his fellow mutants and asked," Just how bad was that particular memory Jean?"
"Horrible," Jean whispered, her voice husky and cracking with the emotions the memory held, even though it wasn't even her own.
"On a scale of one to ten?" Wolverine asked with his face uncharacteristically vulnerable looking. It killed him to see her in this much emotional pain. The closest thing to it was when she begged him to kill her in the alternate timeline while she destroyed Alcatraz Island.
"I can't put it into words, there was so much pain and sadness, his whole team was down on the surface of the planet. He suppressed the pain though, and he was familiar with what was happening to the planet, like he'd seen it hundreds of times. There were entire continents burning," at this point she started crying quietly, sobbing silently with tears streaming down her face.
Wolverine and Magneto exchanged looks, both their faces frozen in shocked horror of what they just heard being described. It was comparable to their own horrific experiences. Magneto's time in Nazi Germany in the concentration camp. Logan's time in the alternate timeline with the Sentinel's and their genocidal purge of mutants and the mutant X-gene carriers.
Shaking his head trying to clear his mind of painful memories dragged to the surface Logan muttered, "I need a beer" on his way out the medical bay.
Magneto silently, mind elsewhere followed him grim faced and haunted.
Eventually Jean pulled herself together after some time and helped Rogue do the same, whispering reassurances in her ear. Together they left to the conference room following Jean's telepathy as she sought the minds of their fellow X-men.
En route Rogue composed herself, dried her eyes and began to walk on her own just as Jean had done earlier. They entered the conference room and all eyes turned to their arrival. The Spartan stood to his full height, from where he had been bent over a holographic map of New York where strategic markings were made detailing plans and unit movements. His calculating eyes worked them over, assessing their condition and then quickly resumed his work at the map, leaning forward again to work on the battle plan.
"What air support assets will we have available to provide close air support with VTOL capabilities?" He asked in a tone that demanded an answer immediately.
"A squadron of Harriers, Shield's entire fleet of Quin jets, and we have priority access to some Apaches and F-35s that are constantly on station." A holographic lady projecting from the table said as displays of the said aircraft popped up, detailing their armament and capabilities.
"That will have to do. Stark, is it possible for you to grant access to other Iron Man suits to select individuals?"
"Uhmmm, not really, it's not something I feel comfortable with doing." Tony said, his facial expression matching his words.
John turned and stared at the billionaire, as did Cyclopes, Fury and Captain America.
"Stark, this isn't a time to hoard your toys!" Captain Rogers sternly reprimanded.
"This is warfare, if you don't allow others to use those suits, then we might lose the war. There are seven billion lives at stake here." Cortana said, walking closer to Tony.
Iron Man gulped and looked around," alright, I can call in some more suits from California, but it'll take several hours. We can't use them all though, we have to reserve several per person for replacements."
"They'll be here in 3 hours, I picked them up on NSA spy satellites and NORAD radar." Cortana informed the room, as she did so, a countdown clock popped above the map.
"Your armor looked pretty beaten up, would you like me to look at it and repair it if I can?" Stark asked.
The Master Chief looked up and said, "I'll also need weapons. And make sure to take note of the shielding technology and see if you can implement it, Cortana should be able to help you with that."
"Awesome," Tony said with some excitement, it wasn't everyday that he got to examine and work on power armor from the future.
"Quick question, what is our plan of attack?" Captain America asked, speaking up for the first time.
"Our mission is to close the portal and contain the Chitauri. In order to do that we need to set up a perimeter around New York City and the occupied territories. After a perimeter has been established, heavy bombing will begin and soften up a path for the special groups to move forward and engage targets. The Avengers and X-men will be heading towards the Stark tower ruins. Magneto and Dr. Grey will retrieve the scepter and uncover the Tesseract. When those objectives have been completed, we'll close the portal and begin extermination of remaining Chitauri forces."
"Special groups Chief?" Hawkeye asked in clarification.
"The other Iron man suits will be going after secondary objectives, and special forces will be moving into secure civilian hostages, if there are any."
"Who'll be in the suits? I don't want to hand over that technlogy to potential enemies." Stark asked, while Fury noddded in agreement.
"Cortana will only arm vetted members of SHIELD and various Special Operations operatives."
"You said heavy bombing, what type of ordinance are we going to be dropping on the battlefield?"
"Anything up to nuclear payload and even then those are still on the table, even if it's not authorized. We aren't taking any chances of the chitauri taking Earth." declared a crisp British woman's voice from the air lock doors.
"Apologies, My name is irrelevant, but it is unanimous among SHIELD's chiefs that all options are on the table, consequences be damned."
"Challenge word: Caesar" Fury asked glaring at the woman with intense reproach.
"Brutus. Apt symbology wouldn't you say."
"Quiet, Lady Hood. I don't believe we've meet my name is Cortana, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"You're the AI allied with the Spartan is that correct?"
"It is", Master Chief stepped in," For the record, I disagree with fissile based nuclear weaponss, too much radiation. Luckily we have three usion warheads on the Dawn. If worse comes to pass we'll set them off, only if the situation afterwards warrants the use of continued nuclear strikes should you launch your weapons, ma'am."
"An appropriate plan, I agree that conventional nuclear warheads such as the ones we have are pyrrhic at best, suicidal at worst. We don't have many options, if it comes to it, we will fire. Understood?"
"Completely ma'am" All military trained Avengers responded, for the rest the stunned silence signified the gravity of the situation settling in.
"Swell let me introduce further assets that will be joining your endeavours, God speed ladies and gentlemen. Wilson, come in and introduce yourself."
"Sure thing lady boss, who wants a chimichanga?" a man dressed in a red and black whole body suit with various holsters and ammo pouches. None of them were as prominent as the twin katanas sheathed at his back stepped in with a plate of steaming chimichangas.
"Ah hell!" Wolverine growled out as Wade Wilson, known world wide as Deadpool entered the room.