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

[Nick Varkan]

Nick took a couple of monsters into his telekinetic grip and tossed them hard into the others, flicking a finger on each hand as he did.

[Veronica Freud]

Veronica grabbed the two trying to latch onto her, slamming their bodies into each other with her larger more powerful hands.

[Byrna Cooper]

"Closer, blow me up!" Will shouted, slamming his body--and the three crawling over him---into a wall, pinning them.

Bear nodded, seeing where Will was going with this.

"Incoming, Gwion!" She shouted, as a TK protected explosive seemed to impact inside his form.

[Will Stanton]

...or, it almost did, a gap appearing in Will's back as the ball passed through to the other side.

End result? Grey-jacks, surrounded by a steel barricade, with an explosive going boom, the rest of the team protected by the thick steel will...err, wall.

[Rick Ferguson]

Rick, meanwhile, went tornado again and got up close to the humanoids after Nick's first attack, trying to keep on beating them and keep them from getting back up.

[Narrator]

The creatures Ronnie smashed together made a rather spectacular squelching noise as they pulped. Similarly, Will would find himself covered in... well, it was probably better for the sanity not to contemplate what was what.

Nick's two and the ones he threw them into hit the ground, dazed, before being swept up by Rick along with the others. Stunned as they were, they had even less defense against Gideon's power than the other two whose brains he fried. As soon as Janice's borrowed cannon turned the final two into a greasy smear on the wall, the hall fell silent.

[Byrna Cooper]

"Keep going!" Bear shouted, heading further down the hall.

"If we stay still, we'll be swarmed again!"

[Will Stanton]

"That's my line..." Will said, looking down in some disgust. "We're on a schedule, no time for sight seeing, let's haul ass!"

[Gideon Rede]

Gideon was grinning at the aftermath, and then exhaled slowly to clear his head before following after the others.

[Rick Ferguson]

"You won't get any complaints from me. I think I could live without ever seeing any more of those things," Rick said to Will, not bothering to power down as he followed the group along, floating a few inches above the ground.

[Calvin Strong]

Cal fell in after them, shooting a glance at Janice as they hurried on. "You okay?"

[Janice Gilbertson]

"Yeah, I just..."

"Well, Doctor Tomorrow is a jerk," she said as they hurried along.

[Will Stanton]

"He's attempting to end reality. I think we knew that," Will said, with a joke in his voice if not on his face.

[Calvin Strong]

"Could be worse, he could've done something that hurt," Cal said, smirking a little.

[Veronica Freud]

"Bleck." Veronica wrinkled her nose as she tried to shake the goo off of her hands.

"That was gross." She mumbled, slipping down a few sizes and hurrying through the halls with the rest of her team.

[Robert West]

"Very good!" Dr. Tomorrow laughed over the speakers again. "I hope you aren't thinking things are too easy. You see... I can't make this too fast. Your world's about to end, and it's so... empty to not give you the illusion of hope. I'm amazed that you're still trying this though, when there are so many other options open to you. With all the holes in space opening, has anyone even tried evacuating to another reality? It's worth a try, are you sure you want to keep coming?"

[Janice Gilbertson]

Something Braddock had told her came to Janice's mind.

"I don't care if I can't use the amulet right now. I'm the guardian of a multiversal nexus. I'm not going to stop just because some tosser in a labcoat says it's over."

[Calvin Strong]

"We're X-Men," Cal added. "We don't quit regardless."

[Nick Varkan]

"In other words, fuck the apocalypse," Nick added.

[Will Stanton]

"Well said.


And I don't think the one destroying universes is the guy to go to for judgment of actions."

[Calvin Strong]

"From what I hear, you would," Cal quipped, directing the team down a different hall.

[Veronica Freud]

"I'm not in the mood to lose to someone named Doctor Tomato. Also I wanna see yer Ph.D."

[Gideon Rede]

"I'm rather attached to this universe, so I think I'll pass on giving up," Gideon said.

[Will Stanton]

"Plus, all my stuff is here."

[Narrator]

That was when the building turned upside down.

Literally in midstep, all of them would find themselves falling toward the... well, the former ceiling. while disorienting, it also forced them to have to wade through the ceiling tiles and the sprinkler pipes and such that were above (beneath?) them. From the way the tiles 'rose' back into place, They seemed to be the only things with their gravity reversed.

[Will Stanton]

Will landed fairly hard, but bounced.

"Clever!" Will chuckled, walking forward, helping along anyone who needed it, elongating his legs to step over debris.

[Nick Varkan]

Nick had caught himself and floated to his feet.

"God I hate this guy..."

[Calvin Strong]

"Ow," Cal muttered, picking himself up from the midst of the broken ceiling tiles. "Part of me hates this guy, part of me wants to beg him for some of his cool toys."

[Gideon Rede]

"Don't think hate is a strong enough word," Gideon said getting to his feet.

[Veronica Freud]

Veronica pulled herself up from her tumble. She didn't waste any time dwindling down to a smaller size, running along the steel gridwork which held the tiles "up". She had to run, her little legs didn't cover as much distance per step as everyone else's and she wasn't going to let anything the doctor threw at her stand in her way.

[Narrator]

As they moved farther down the hallway, they ran into a very slight problem. Ronnie, being under the ceiling tiles, would notice it before anyone else, and with luck would be able to warn them before it became a real problem.

Hidden under the ceiling tiles, there were holes in the ceiling, revealing drops into open sky, with nothing between them and hitting (eventually) outer space.

[Veronica Freud]

"Stop!" Veronica cried out, her body cracking a ceiling tile and causing it to fall onto the floor above. Her voice would be a bit louder at a larger size.

"There's holes in the ceilin'. If we fall outside who knows if we'll be able to get back in."

[Byrna Cooper]

"Oh, come on!"

Bear grimaced, her foot sinking through one of the tiles as she righted herself to balance on the support work.

"This is going to be tricky.."

[Nick Varkan]

"Great. Just... great. At least I can catch anyone who does fall."

[Will Stanton]

"Right. It's mountain climbing," Will said, stopping in front of the group, and then stretching an arm longer and longer back.

"Loop this around your waist---the rest of us should be able to catch someone if they fall."

[Calvin Strong]

Cal looped it around him... or at least he started to before the ceiling beneath him popped open. He fell out the hole... and to his shock, kept falling, only stopping about eight feet out because he grabbed onto the cable connecting him to the big-ass cannon which was too big to fall through the hole crosswise. "Oh holy... PULL ME BACK IN!" he shouted, trying (not quite successfully) to not panic at the sight of empty space below his feet. "This is fucking impossib- COME ON! PULL ME BACK IN!"

[Janice Gilbertson]

"Come on, everybody pull!" Janice said, bracing herself and pulling on her end of the cable.

[Nick Varkan]

"Or..."

Nick floated Cal up.

"There ya go."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, fine. Be that way," Will said, shaking his head, the arm reaching up to help Cal get righted.

[Janice Gilbertson]

Janice flushed with embarrassment.

"...or that. That works."