Issue 1 Downtime

Ionic energy shot out of his hand, frying the cable instantly.

Nash pulls on the cable, aiming what ever is going to come out of it at the wall.

The cable spews what looks like liquid electricity which is drawn into the whipping wind and against the mechanical tentacles. Scores of them are overloaded and reduced to smoking slag. Soon, nothing worth worrying about remains between the X-Men and the passage deeper into the facility.

Stan took a breath, looking around the remains and the rubble.

"Is everyone all right?"

"Doing good," Theresa said, although she was looking somewhat tired. "What is that stuff? It feels like lightning, but..."

".. it had mass, like a liquid. Very, very odd, and not common.."

"I suppose we can worry about that later. We've got an evil doctor to catch."

"Evil is such a petty, relative term. Clung to by the uninspired," an eerily raspy Karpov says over a speaker in the wall.

"I have no problem slamming my fist in your face over petty reasons!" Sara shouts back.

"So is 'asshole', but I think it suits you just perfectly," Theresa said calmly before forcing a lightning bolt into the speaker.

Karpov begins to respond but his words are lost as the speaker explodes in a shower of sparks. The corridor lights begin a guiding sequence.

"Anybody else feel like we're walking into the most obvious of traps right now?"

The stone and metal corridor takes them to a four-way intersection with all lights leading down the left-hand passage. The right-hand passage is blocked by a thicket of metal spines. There are signs, but they're in Cyrillic.

Nash looks at the Cyrillic writing, while he doesn't know any Cyrillic languages he has looked over enough Soviet equipment to know some Russian words like 'caution', 'danger', and 'warning', that are sometimes printed on equipment.

"OK, there's some weird shit going on here," Will said, jogging from another hallway. "Let's clear this up and get out of here."

Stan nodded, looking down the third corridor.

"So, we follow wher Karpov wants us to, or we disappoint him."

Stan ran some RvR stats in his head, before shrugging and grunting.

"Unless we want to spend two days trying to work our way through that," she gestures at the right-hand side, "I suppose we continue on into whatever he has prepared."

A yellowish smoke floats into view from the direction Will came in, a sulfurous smell preceding it.

"Time to go," Theresa said, moving down the lighted hallway.

"Uhm... Is there anything back there we should be worried about?" she asks Will.

"Yes. Many many things--though I'm not sure what THAT is--I didn't knock over any of the chemicals..."

"Let's not find out then." she says and runs after Theresa.

The lights lead the team past a few blocked passages and into an unlit chamber, its size lost in darkness. The way in vanishes as the lights shut off.

"Shit," Will swore, stretching his arms out to feel his way forward.

Besides the metal & stone floor, nothing seems to be directly ahead. Nothing but the dark.

Suddenly, a spotlight is on them. Far across the chamber an observation deck lights up. The figure inside is hard to make out from this distance.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Children of all ages! Boy do we have a show for you tonight!" a flamboyant male voice with a German accent announces, "Five of this nation's finest against our master's finest creations of flesh and steel! Can they succeed where others have failed or will they give us another fine offering of blood upon the arena floor?" An audience cheers all around then. The sound is hollow and forced.

"Oh, bloody hell," Will said, looking around for the source of the voice.

"This is quite enough!" Sara shouts back, making up for some of the lack of a PA system with anger. "I've had it with this freakshow!"

Stomping forward she grows increasingly bigger as each step pulls some of the stone floor into her frame.

"Sorry, I don't perform for an audience any more."

Stan said it grimly, crossing his arms.

The arena lights up to reveal a brainwashed civilian audience in the stands. The team's opponents are also revealed.

"Some people just don't appreciate showmanship," laments the German, an attractive but pale, thin man in a black suit. His long blonde hair sways in the nonexistent breeze.

"You do talk too much," the giant of a man in heavy red armor behind him says in a thick Russian accent. He is leaning on a huge cleaver of a sword.

"Philistine," the German retorts.

A dark-haired woman in a low cut yellow jumpsuit rolls her eyes. "Now now boys, not in front of our guests," she chides. She sounds French.

The fourth is instantly familiar. Detective Tereshchenko, clad in a white and silver jumpsuit, stands with the others. He gazes blankly at the heroes.

"So, each one of you is specifically designed to counter one of us, most likely in an ironic fashion, I'd wager?"

Stan's arms were still crossed. He'd given this foolishness up years ago, dammit!

Theresa's eyes had returned to normal at this point and she just stared, "And could you look any more... what's the word I'm looking for... garish... you know what, how about we just settle on stupid?"

"You wouldn't know fashion if it bit you girlie," the German retorts. A sore spot?

"As for your theory Doctor Bowen, the master is many things but he is not precognitive," the Frenchwoman corrects.

Will skipped the quips and dashed for the big guy in armor, aiming to punch him in the face!

Also looking for cracks, but first--face punching.

"Obviously not or he'd know that we'd kick your ass." Sara says as she charges at the German in the suit.

Stan sighed.

"One more time. Very well."

Theresa crossed her arms and waited for an opening, her eyes flaring back to life.

Nash stays back to see what the other two are going to do before attacking.

Will Stanton wrote:Will skipped the quips and dashed for the big guy in armor, aiming to punch him in the face!

Also looking for cracks, but first--face punching.

Red is faster than he looks, swinging his giant sword width-wise in an effort to smack the leaping polymorph aside before he can get a good look.

Sara Stanton wrote:"Obviously not or he'd know that we'd kick your ass." Sara says as she charges at the German in the suit.

Mayor Blauvelt stands waiting with a bored look on his face until Sara gets close, then his long hair comes to life and speeds in to attempt to wrap around Sara.

Theresa McMasters wrote:Theresa crossed her arms and waited for an opening, her eyes flaring back to life.

Yellow casually struts towards Theresa. She smirks playfully. "You may be the weather young lady, but I am the Sun," she says, raising a brightly glowing hand to fire a bolt of intense heat.

Stan Bowen wrote:Stan sighed.

"One more time. Very well."

Nash Riley wrote:Nash stays back to see what the other two are going to do before attacking.

The detective starts quickly heading for Nash and Stan with the same hollow but determined expression as the townsfolk.

Narrator wrote:Mayor Blauvelt stands waiting with a bored look on his face until Sara gets close, then his long hair comes to life and speeds in to attempt to wrap around Sara.

Sara pulls her arm back and whips it forward, letting go of some of the stone she's absorbed in the form of a chunk of rock twice the size of Blauvelt's head that she flings at him and his hair, hoping he'll focus on stopping that instead of grabbing her.

"Catch!"

The air in front of Theresa rapidly cools, blunting the heat of the blast without eliminating it entirely. Theresa manages to dodge to the side, still getting singed in the bolt's passing. She grabs a hold of the instability caused by the heated bolt passing through the cooled air and rips it into a miniature tornado like one would start a chainsaw. "The weather always knows how to use the sun," she said, launching the spinning whirlwind towards Yellow.