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

[Janice Gilbertson]

"Well, a shot in the dark would be about the usual for today..."

She settled back on the first wall she'd looked at, and walked up to it, probing it with her hands, occasionally kicking at spots, and focusing her powers on it as she did so.

[Will Stanton]

Will swore.

"Nice trick. Wonder how you like mine," he said.

[Veronica Freud]

Veronica glared at Dr. Tomorrow as the after-dinner activities began. She stood up and began swelling larger, and larger, and larger. She didn't swat at him or otherwise attack him, just looming taller and taller as he focused on the other team members.

[Byrna Cooper]

Will swore.

"Nice trick. Wonder how you like mine," he said.

With that, Bear picked out a tazer ball, throwing hard at the remains of Will left behind by her errant sticky mess. Remains that now, on closer inspection, seemed to resemble the potent plastic explosive she was fond of stuffing into ball casings...

[Will Stanton]

The chair bounced into the air on the ricochet, the perfectly-aimed ball sending it flying upward as it ignited the remaints of Will--now a powerful plastic explosive, which would explode juuuust as the chair reached Dr. Tommorrow.

[Gideon Rede]

Gideon dived out of the way of the blast ending up on one knee.

Shit.

Gideon tried using the slickness of Dr. Tomorrow's shield against him by barbing the tendrils of his attacks.

[Robert West]

Janice's couldn't physically feel anything different about any part of the wall. As she probed, though, her power seemed to hook into something. At the same time that Dr. Tomorrow blocked another blast from Cal, the flat metal wall turned into a rough granite slab, then into a fancy, ornate Victorian living room wall, complete with a fireplace, but lacking any windows or doorways.

The thorns on Gideon's attacks didn't seem to help him hold on. If anything, it just seemed to divert the attack even harder at his comerades... in the case of his first attempt, at Bear.

Dr. Tomorrow pointed the staff at Cal, then swung it hard toward a wall. Cal was yanked off his feet by a magnetic grasp on his arm, slammed into the wall, then hurled by another swing through the air, slamming into the chair so that both careened into the wall behind Dr. Tomorrow. The ensuing explosion threw him through the air, causing him to land hard on his side, but he didn't lose hold of his staff.

[Janice Gilbertson]

"Well, it's something..."

She pushed harder now that her power had its hooks into the wall mechanism.

[Will Stanton]

Will staggered back behind Ronnie--he could hardly MOVE, much less attack.

He focused on his shifting--if it came back at any point in the fight, he'd be back in, but for now, he was out.

[Byrna Cooper]

Bear screamed low and fell to a knee near Janice, After experiencing Gid's redirected attack.

[Janice Gilbertson]

Janice helped Bear up, trying to keep her hold on whatever in the wall she was disrupting.

"Can... can you make any sense of this? I think I've locked onto a stabilizer or something."

[Gideon Rede]

Gideon growled and drew back the moment he realized what had happened trying to limit the damage he'd done.

Plan C then.

Gideon ran towards Dr. Tomorrow while trying the softest telepathic touch he could this time to see if that was the way through the shielding.

[Veronica Freud]

Veronica looked down, feeling something bump into her leg. Seeing Will's predicament gave her an idea. She bent over and picked up the team leader, holding him in her right hand, facing her.

"For Queen and Country!" She cried out, brandishing Will as a makeshift dagger while slashing at Dr. Tomorrow.

[Will Stanton]

"Mmph!"

[Byrna Cooper]

Janice helped Bear up, trying to keep her hold on whatever in the wall she was disrupting.

"Can... can you make any sense of this? I think I've locked onto a stabilizer or something."

"I.. I'll take a look."

Bear looked around the area Janice indicated with her X-Ray vision, searching for what her whammy power had hooked on.

[Narrator]

All Bear could see was a wall, made of wood, brick, and plaster, with a stone fireplace in the center of it.

[Byrna Cooper]

"Hmm.. step back.. I think we have a window."

Taking a bang ball out, she impacted it inside the wood and stone structural work at such a position to collapse it inward.

[Janice Gilbertson]

Janice stepped back as Bear worked her magic, but tried to keep her powers focused on the wall to help Bear's chances.

[Narrator]

Bear's powers, though, seemed to be extremely effective on their own. The high-speed ball, hitting right on a support, literally blew apart the fireplace, leaving an opening to the other side.

[Byrna Cooper]

"Let's go."

Bear entered the passage, looking for the far exit.

[Janice Gilbertson]

"Right," Janice said.

"I bet you're thinking what I'm thinking..." She mentioned as they dashed through the hole.

[Rick Ferguson]

Rick, meanwhile, powered up as fast as he possibly could, pale blue-white energy and wind roaring about him, as he hurled himself toward Dr. Tomorrow, shouting out a battle cry louder then even he thought possible.

[Narrator]

Janice and Bear would find, on the other side of the wall, the great spire of a machine that Dr. Tomorrow had constructed his building around. Energy thrummed through the room, and reality itself seemed to warp along itself around them.

Meanwhile, Dr. Tomorrow seemed genuinely amused by Ronnie's attacks, fending off Will with is staff as if he were fencing with a giant sword. He spun the staff in his hand, pointing it at Rick, and the air in front of the staff shimmered. The force field Rick hit sent him careening away, colliding solidly with Ronnie's chest.

[Will Stanton]

Will winced as his back smashed against the staff repeatedly, as Ronnie made a surprisingly deft thrust, aiming him for the leg.

He felt a very small---a VERY small--tingle...

[Janice Gilbertson]

"Okay, so the girl he's using to power this is down lower, right?"

[Byrna Cooper]

"Yes.. down about there," She replied, pointing to Malaika's position.

[Janice Gilbertson]

"Then let's stop that clock..." She said, circling around and looking for a stairway or ladder down.

[Calvin Strong]

Cal groaned slightly as he peeled himself from the ground. Minerva, sitrep.

Code: Select all

System check:
Internal systems: OK
Arm control protocols: OK
Arm mobility functions: OK
Hard-light interface: ERROR
Hard-light systems not responding
Bodyslide functions: ERROR
Jamming prevents analysis of bodyslide capability
Visual systems: OK
Support systems: OK

Still a little dazed, Cal looked down at his palm to see that the hard light cell, which he'd managed to activate to use as an impromptu shield, was a smoking chunk of melted circuitry. Swearing quietly, he stood up, drawing his pistols as his head cleared.

[Rick Ferguson]

Rick had no idea what he had just crashed into for a few seconds, just feeling his way around. Whatever it was, it was fairly soft...

...and that's when he looked up and could tell that he had landed against Ronnie. Between her breasts, in fact.

"Oh for the love of God," Rick said to himself, extricating himself from her and landing back on the ground. He'd awkwardly apologize later.

[Byrna Cooper]

"No time.. hang on."

Bear grabbed and held onto her as she threw a grapple ball, lowering them down.

[Gideon Rede]

Gideon stopped his headlong charge as he watched Rick get tossed through the air.

"On second thought," Gideon muttered taking up a more defensive posture.

Gideon formed a cage using his powers, and then slowly began closing it around Dr. Tomorrow. He was now trying a slow, but steady approach.

[Narrator]

Bear would find that lowering themselves down was not as simple as it looked. The closer she got to the spire, the more reality warped around them. At one point, she found herself passing right by where they started. At another, she found herself passing by a very familiar-looking door. At no point did she start to run out of rope, though.

Dr. Tomorrow looked at the three-point surrounding he had going on from Ronnie/Will, Rick, and Cal. "Let's see what you've learned today," he said, floating up into the air again. Cackling madly, he twirled the staff, green energy trailing from it and lashing out at all of them.

As Gideon brought his power in around Dr. Tomorrow, he'd find that again, the maddening shields bounced his power off every which way. The shields, far advanced from any that the X-Men had seen before, seemed to react to deliberate use of psychic powers, so that while Gideon's powers could passively register Dr. Tomorrow's mind with ridiculous ease, actively turning his power toward their enemy brought the shields up.

[Will Stanton]

Will was used, unthinkingly, to try to get between the way of the blast and the bolt, and the swing would bring him back towards Doc Tomorrow, considering how tall Ronnie was at the moment.

Hidden in Ronnie's meaty hands, Will felt a tingle, and smiled.

[Rick Ferguson]

Rick opted to take the brunt of the blast, spinning like a turbine so that at least if it pushed him back, he would take far less damage from the blast.

[Gideon Rede]

Gideon though about just letting go and letting his powers go out of control, but that would just put everyone one the team in danger. He growled in frustration at what seemed to be a nearly hopeless situation from his point of view.

Maybe if they were out of the way or if I got really close.

Gideon began stalking towards the general melée going on in front of him hoping for an opening.

[Narrator]

Bear and Janice continued to descend, and this close to the spire, it was rather... confusing. They could see the wrinkles in reality, even as they came upon and passed through them. The spire, the world, everything appeared radically different for a moment as they would pass through a distortion. They'd see, at one point, what appeared to be an ancient city around them, then the building as usual, then an arctic wasteland, then a city of living technology, then the building again. At one point, Janice would swear that she saw a row of people all attached to the machine, one green skinned, one a busty blonde, one a balding man in black, along with a few others, but as they passed through the reality ripple, she'd see that it was, in fact, just Malaika hooked into the machine, coming up fast upon them.

The blast slammed into Ronnie, knocking her back and forcing her to drop Will. Dr. Tomorrow spun the staff faster, and balls of energy began flying out, each seeking out an X-Man like a remote-controlled drone, and each firing off bursts of its composite energy as they chased the heroes.

[Will Stanton]

Will landed in an unfortunate angle, and was unable to scramble to his feet as the energy hit him.

[Gideon Rede]

Gideon scrambled to get out of the way of his pursuer. He knew that he'd get hit by it eventually, but maybe if he dodged for long enough the force of the impact would be lessened as it spat pieces of it at him.

[Nick Varkan]

Nick, flying ahead of his attacker, fired back a chaotic blast in hope of disrupting the energy ball.

[Byrna Cooper]

Bear was disoriented from the reality shifts, unsteady on her feet as she touched down next to what she hoped was Malaika.

"Woooa... that was.. trippy?"