Issue 1 Downtime

Team 1 (and whoever joined them) would find themselves in a hallway that was, currently, deserted. There were currently no guards coming this way, but from teh way the security cameras were focused on them, that would quickly change.

"Um...alright, let's NOT split up, what with Skrulls and all. It'll take twice as long, but that's OK at the moment...if we DO get split up, for God's sake, don't trust anyone..."

She turned her skin metal, and started cautiously jogging down the hallway.

"Anyone got a plan?"

Zoe's not quite as graceful as Anita, but she tumbles in a controlled fall, coming to her feet and ending up flush to the wall. "Kay, so far so good. At the party, Ryan started getting wiggy after Stark pulled him off to visit his office, lets start there."

Anita checks the hall for security and seeing it empty, says, "All clear, cept fer cameras." Three shots ring out, and the cameras are gone.

"If someone can cover me, I'll see what I can find." Rachel said, as she headed into the room.

"They'll still know we're here, so let's NOT be here...to the office, quietly, quickly..."

"Oh, wait...OK, new plan, stay here, guarding Rachel..."

A psychic scan of the area, honestly, didn't reveal much.

However, the areas that were blocked were very telling. Down one of the halls ahead of them, a completely psychic-shielded area began.

"Gwion, bodyguard duty. Shiver, give us a heads up on the response teams."

"I'll try to make it quick." she said, closing her eyes, reaching out to see what she could find out about who was in the building. "There is an area down the hall that is totally psi-shielded." Rachel reported, "Lets go there first."

Anita concentrates, sending her touch-sense out. It gets blocked at the Psi-blocking area, but it spreads through the other parts of the house, even through walls and floors, letting her feel whatever is there.

"There's an area they don't want us peaking into? I REALLY, REALLY wanna peak into it. Let's go."

"Great, lets move. Keep the teep safe and rumble!" With Rachel's directions, Zoe leads the charge to the shielded room.

Lora ran in after Team 1, deciding to stick around with Rachel, though it took her a moment or two to catch up.

They were still unopposed as they approached the psi-shielded area. Anita would be able to feel movement on the lower levels, standard for a building where a lot of people worked, but nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. Above them, they could feel the other half of the team getting about their business.

The psi-shielding, though, didn't seem to block out Anita's sense of touch, as she could feel that there was thing waiting on the other side of the doors into area they were headed to... though what exactly it was was unclear.

"What are we looking at, gang?" Will whispered quietly.

"Somethin' on the other side of that door, it's fuzzy, 'cause of the shieldin'. Not small."

Zoe checks for obvious locks on the door, "We may need a way to break through this, yeah?"

They didn't have to look for a way. The door burst open and several huge tentacles lashed out, seeking out the X-Men.

Despite her training, Zoe lets out a small yelp of surprise at the tentacle monster. Her skin and suit goes totally slick as a first line of defense against the thrashing limbs.

Will's arms morphed into machetes even as she flung herself up against the side, hacking at the one closest to him, trying to sever it ouright--this ain't natural.

Anita pulls back her senses and fires four shots right through the door, aimed at the thing's center of mass.

Rachel backed off so that she was out of reach of the tentacles, and sent her mind out after who or whatever was controlling it.

Lora did her best to dive out of the way, though a tentacle did manage to strike her arm pretty hard. Regardless, she rolled with it and turned to face the mass of apendages, flinging multiple jets of painful acid at them.

Anita's bullets struck home, causing ichor that turned green when it struck the walls to splatter from the wounds. THey seemed to only be fleshwounds, though, nothing that hampered the creature. Likewise, Will's hacks couldn't seem to get deep enough to do any damage.

The tentacles tried to get ahold of Zoe, but finding that they couldn't get ahold of her, moved on, seeking out the others. They recoiled in pain from the acid that Lora spewed at them, then decided that she was the largest threat, along with the one trying to affect the alien nervous system behind them, and surged forward, wrapping around Rachel and Lora.

Once the alien's attention is elsewhere, Zoe darts in and wraps her hands around one of the tentacles. She pours her power out along it's surface with desperate effort, coating as much of it as she can in a frictionless effect.

"Great..." Will muttered, shifting into more clay to squeeze through the beast's grip.

"Zoe! Keep that thing from grabbing us!" she called out, reforming, as she moved to try to free Rachel before making any more movements forward.

Lora shrieked, at first desperately pulling at the tentacle, before she began to release her acid in vapor form from her palms onto the writhing arm, figuring that may be more useful to her in the long run.

Anita rolls away, holstering her guns, and pulls a long knife. She moves in toward the beast, weaving out of the way of its tentacles, and then trying to slash along one, hoping to cut it enough to ruin it, or maybe even cut it off.

Rachel continued her assault on the creature's mind, trying to shut it down.

The assault on the tentacles seemed to aggravate the creature, but it didn't seem to be slowing it down. THe tips of two tentacles lashed at Rachel and Lora's heads, even as the groping tentacles drew them back into the room.

"Shit," Will muttered, dashing down towards the end of the hallway.

"Stay LOW!" she cried, grabbing on to one end of each edges of the hall, stretching herself back across the lobby as far back as she could...

And hurtling a 500 pound cannonball at the creature's center of mass, hopefully at least pushing it BACK a step...

"Let! Go! Of! Me! Now!" Lora screamed at the foul creature, her palms literally oozing noxious, purple-red acid all over the tentacle, even as she was smacked across the face by the very end of it.

At Will's cry she drops to the ground, fingers splayed against the floor for balance.

Anita dives toward Lora, moving out of Will's path and hacking at the tentacle that's holding her with quick, precise slashes.

Will slammed into a solid mass on the other side of the door, hard enough to elicit an alien shriel of pain. The tentacles dropped Rachel and Lora, now focusing on the one who had managed to hurt it.

The walls had crumbled some under the assualt, revealing the skrull to them.

Rachel didn't pause in her telepathic attack trying to go after the parts of the skrull's mind that allowed it to move.

Zoe kips up and grabs the nearest object at hand, some sort of antique vase. It gets hurled at the wounded monster, along with some choice obscenities, "And your mother smelled of elderberries!"

Good news: The Skrull had dropped the people he was trying to save! Yayyy!

Bad news: She was now the big target. Booooo!

"O...OK, hi there...." Will muttered, shifting her body into a more athletic and metal frame, applying a very, VERY hard kick to the thing's face before trying to scurry back to regroup...

Lora was glad when she tumbled to the ground, though she backed away once she saw what they were dealing with. Finding the presence of mind to quickly hop back onto her feet, she aimed both palms at the creature, as twin of acidic mist sprayed out from her hands and drifted in the direction of the Skrull, sizzling the surface of the floor and walls wherever it diffused along the way.

Anita throws her knife, on a direct course for the thing's eye, unless it moves unpredictably. Then she rolls to the side, staying mobile so she can dodge more easily.