Feb 9 - The End of the World as we Know It.

[Veronica Freud]

Veronica was trying her best not to panic. The onslaught of all the fears and pain on her mind was too much for her given her lack of training. She tried to focus. If she couldn't make the creatures scared of her teammates maybe she could make something else a more tempting target. She tried to focus on The Doctor, hoping to make him appear as the least-powerful threat in the room.

[Calvin Strong]

"Thank god," Cal muttered. "Clear her a path! I'll keep everyone here busy!" Cal called back to Nick, turning and letting a blast of lightning through the shadows surrounding them.

[Byrna Cooper]

Bear decided to provide some distraction for the captain and malaika's, tossing a few pop balls to get the shadow creature's attention.

"I've had just about enough of you, uglies!"

screaming, she grappled up and advanced.

[Gideon Rede]

Gideon heard Cal as well, and moved to the attack hoping to gather more attention to him/herself.

"Bring it on," Gideon said charging the line of attackers nearest to him/her.

[Nick Varkan]

Nick started aggressively blasting the demons, partly as payback for 'burning' him.

[Robert West]

By now, people would be able to notice that each time the shadow creatures reformed, they were a bit smaller. It wasn't as noticeable at first, but now it was starting to be. Such as when Cal's electricity shattered the ones around his little group, driving them back. Or when Bear's bombs blasted back another group of them, or when Nick's shotgun blast telekinesis disrupted them. Ronnie was a special case, as when she focused Gideon's power on them, she'd find that she could actually burn size off of them noticeably as she froze them in place. Gideon wasn't as effective, only having physical means, but the powerful blows he was raining on them still smashed them down to size.

As Janice smashed into the machine, it did, indeed, smash a hole in it. At the same time, it appeared that an intact tower was superimposed over it.. one that was just as solid as the one she'd smashed.

"Ah, did I forget to mention the precautions that were in place?" Dr. Tomorrow laughed. "See... this is like a giant tuning fork. As long as it's broadcasting, anywhere, it'll still work... and this tower is functionally on a half dozen worlds all at once."

[Malaika Gabriel]

"Doc, you've got to stop this." Malaika said as she whirled and sent electricity arcing towards him "It isn't worth it."

[Byrna Cooper]

"A half dozen worlds. All about to wink out of existence? Don't you care, don't you feel anything??"

[Robert West]

"Of course I do!" Dr. Tomorrow laughed, intercepting the electricity as he had Cal's earlier, then unleashing it into the tower. "A half dozen worlds, all in the palm of my hand, about to possibly end to serve my needs, how could I not feel anything? I feel powerful! And if you need more of an example, you'll have one!"

As they spoke, the air around the tower quivered. Another shadow emerged... this one roughly the size of Ronnie when she was fully sized up.

[Janice Gilbertson]

"Well, I can make that one pop too..." Captain Britain muttered, flying forth to give it a thrashing with the Star Scepter.

[Nick Varkan]

"And how will your wife feel about you killing billions?" Nick responded as the shadow emerged.

[Robert West]

"I'm not killing anyone she knows," he said, shrugging. "Well, except Malaika, and she thinks Malaika's a spoiled little snot, too."

[Narrator]

The shadow separated from the tower, and avoided the Star Scepter by slamming an oversized fist down on Janice's back, slamming her into the ground.

It wasn't all that came out of the machine, though. As the giant rift demon slammed Janice away, a tiny ball popped out of the surface of the spire. A second later, five unfamiliar X-Men melted into reality, taking in the situation at a glance. "Well, where have we seen this situation before? Nail' em, X-Men!"

[Byrna Cooper]

"Malaika! Cal! He keeps siphoning your power into the tower, can you pull the energy out of the tower directly?"

Saying this, she flipped away from a shadow, while curving a spread of baseballs at the doc at a very high velocity, encased in her tk field.

[Nick Varkan]

"Rock on. Looks like the cavalry's here," Nick grinned as he dove to strafe the giant with a blast.

[Malaika Gabriel]

"I'll try." Malaika said, pulling as much electricity into herself as she could.

[Janice Gilbertson]

Captain Britain slammed into the ground and rose back up unsteadily, turning around and trying to strike at the arm that had just slammed her.

[Will Stanton]

"X-Men, get the nut with the staff!" Will yelled, tiny again, as he popped out.

[Narrator]

Janice soon found herself surrounded by man, many shadow creatures, while the giant turned to the rest of the team. It took a swipe at Bear, while trying to step on Nick.

"Now these odds don't look very fair!" Starbrand grunted, landing with a flare of energy next to Janice. he didn't have quite the punch that the Star Scepter had, but his blasts seemed to be pretty effective at shattering the rift demons.

The other new arrivals jumped into the fight to help out. The spider-shifter, Arachnos, descended into the fight near Nick and Rick, his spider-legs jabbing the straggling rift demons that were his size. Bluestar, the blue-flaming girl, joined the fight with the giant demon. Bob, the stone-skinned X-man, didn't seem affected by the touch of the rift demons, and started calmly pounding them with impunity. The quiet, long-haired one, Mystic, didn't move. Instead, he looked around, a protective circle appearing around him on the ground as he felt the air. "Interesting," he mused. "The reality storm really is originating here... it's an odd technology, though. Similar to that latverian mission... there seems to be sorcery mixed into the workings of the machine." Idly, he waved a hand an approaching rift demon, blasting it back into the spire. He glanced down at Will. "You seem... smaller."

[Will Stanton]

"I've got a good agent."

[Janice Gilbertson]

"Oh, lovely. Doctor Tomorrow, man of science, cheating with sorcery." She said as she smashed away at the demons swarming her.

[Nick Varkan]

Nick swerved around the foot trying too smash him, and blasted it in the ankle.

[Veronica Freud]

"Wow, I really do make a big target." Veronica smirked, her eyes flaring as she started really trying to utilize Gideon's full potential on the big nasty shadow creature. She always did have a habit of biting off more than she could chew.

[Gideon Rede]

Gideon tried to regain size to combat the towering menace returning to maybe fifteen feet before shaking his/her head.

Not easy at all.

He thought before charging at the large creature not quite a match for it's size, but hoping to even the playing field a little.

[Narrator]

"No," Mystic said, frowning slightly at Will. "You seem... ah, I see. Step inside the circle so I can heal you."

"Well," Dr. Tomorrow called at Janice, "When someone brings a link to the nexus of realities in here, it'd be silly of me to not use it. Magic is just energy, after all, and energy can be manipulated by science."

"And vice versa," Mystic put in. "For example... I like that effect, but it has to be getting old." Blue sparks sprayed into the room from his hand. Gideon and Ronnie would feel disoriented for a moment... then find themselves back in the right bodies.

"So... that just leaves the question of who the nexus is," Starbrand put in. "Mind your back," he added, blasting away a few rift demons behind Janice.

[Will Stanton]

"I hate magic," Will mumbled, heading into the circle.

[Janice Gilbertson]

Janice did a sweeping swing of the Star Scepter around her, spinning about.

"Isn't there supposed to be a Captain Britain on every Earth? That's what I was told when I was given the speech about protecting Otherworld..."

[Narrator]

"Oh, is that what they are?" Starbrand asked. "Ours is a bit... well, okay, he's an asshole, always jumping in sword first and telling us to shut up and do what he says."

"Well, I'll forgive you for that now, and you can go back to hating it when I'm done," Mystic mused to Will. He reached down and touched Will... and there was a sucking sensation as streams of chloroform zipped through the room to his hand, changing as they flew to reincorporate with Will's mass.

[Will Stanton]

Will tried to step forward---and immediately fell flat on his face.

"ffr fccks skk..."

[Veronica Freud]

Veronica rubbed her head, suddenly smiling widely. The thoughts. The horrible, frightening images in her mind. They'd stopped!

"You guys rock!" She beamed, quickly finishing what Gideon had started. Once she was full-sized again she ran forward and swung her fist at the giant shadow creature.

"Why dontcha pick on someone yer own size, sissy?!"

[Janice Gilbertson]

"Well, I didn't pick the sword, but I'm here to keep this from coming crashing down around our ears. Supposedly. I haven't been to Otherworld or met any of the others yet."

[Narrator]

"Heh... Hey, Arachnos! Think we can trade Caps with these guys? I like their Cap better!" Starbrand called, slamming a glowing fist into another rift demon.

The spider-shifter, meanwhile, was climbing up Ronnie's back by his spider legs, breaking into a run along her shoulder on his feet as soon as he made it to the top. "Oh come on, we just met these guys, you can't hate 'em enough to stick 'em with our Cap!" he called back, leaping like a rocket off her shoulder at the giant rift demon's face.

[Byrna Cooper]

Suddenly, Bear went flying, smacked backward by the giant shadow. Screaming from the icy burn, she landed in a heap.

[Veronica Freud]

"Wait... otherworld?" Veronica's brain was abuzz. What had the Doctor said? He was using powers from a dimensional nexus that was already here. But who had such powers?

"SCIENCE!" Veronica screamed rather triumphantly. "I've got it! I friggin' got it! Eu-frickin'-rika! I'm a better mad scientist that Dr. Wheelbarrow!" All of this was said as she wailed on whatever shadow critters she could reach or stomp, a little squicked out by the guy who climbed on her but since it didn't freeze or burn when he touched her she figured it was fine.

"Someone get that staff from that jerk! And his goggles! Cap'n, I've got a possible plan B. If you can't get your mitts on his pimp cane I want ya to use yer voodoo on me."

[Narrator]

The giant rift demon was thrown off balance by Nick's blast, falling toward Dr. Tomorrow, who had to run to the other end of the catwalk to avoid getting it knocked into him. While the new X-Men weren't tipping the scales or anything, they were buying everyone a little breathing room. Bluestar seemed to be covering Bear, while Bob bought them breathing room to keep the rift demons off of her as Mystic headed over to help.

Arachnos dropped back to the ground, landing in an eight-point crouch near Nick and Cal. "Hey, Fonz, do you guys do fastball specials here?" he asked, his eyes fixed on Dr. Tomorrow and the staff in question.

[Will Stanton]

Fuck this Will thought, popping out leaving what looked like a corpse behind, and scrambling to his feet again, using his small size to dart between the feet of some of the shadows.

[Nick Varkan]

"We most certainly do," Nick grinned, lifting Arachnos.

"On your cue."

[Narrator]

"Do it!" he said, grinning, pointed spider-legs ready like lances.

[Gideon Rede]

After momentary disorientation Gideon looked at his hands.

Oh hell yes!

Gideon turned his full attention to the giant monstrosity, and grinned sadistically.

"You're mine now," Gideon said before letting loose with his own powers.

[Nick Varkan]

Nick fired the spider man towards the doc like a rocket.

I like this guy.