Day: April 16, 2016

Defenders (2): Doctor Strange, Hulk, Silver Surfer, Namor, Valkyrie

Renegades (7): Pete Stanchek, Faith, Torque, Flamingo, Kris Hathaway

Pete Stanchek looks around, the rest of his team standing there with him. Even under the dark influence surrounding them, his fragile mind cannot accept the bizarre reality of the situation and his mind has betrayed him before. “What happened? We just fought those other guys and…” he grabs Kris, give a big, unwanted hug. He grabs Faith, and inspects Torque, then stares out at Flamingo. “We’re back, we’re all back.” he pats himself down. “No, this is just another trick, WHERE ARE YOU HARADA!?” Pete envelopes himself in an amber psychic aura and blasts into the air. He’s trapped in the crackling purple electric plasma encasing the arena and starts punching at it. “I’LL GET TO YOU! MARK MY WORDS, I WON’T LET YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS!”

“Maybe someone should go, I dunno, try to talk to him or something?” Flamingo suggests. Without needing to, the whole team looks to Faith Herbert.”

“Yeah, I know, I’ll go.” She takes off after him.

Before the other three members turn back around, they’re met by an enthusiastic “HULK SMASH!” Seeing Torque is the largest of the three, he punches him first. The shot smashes him into the ground so hard the his hard light projection instantly shatters and the body underneath blacks out as it flies across the field.

Valkyrie charges in immediately behind and grabs Flamingo. “You hath great power within you warrior, I witnessed it in your first battle in this realm.”

“You bet your skinny ass I am.” She pushes out her fire, fully engulfing her aggressor.

“I’m sorry young one, but you’ll find that I do not burn so easily.” Valkyrie pulls her sword back and stabs Charlene Dupree. The fire licks around and dissolves.

Kris Hathaway stands in the middle of her fallen friends clutching her head in horror and confusion, “WHAT THE $&*^ IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?!”

Doctor Strange strides up to her smiles. He places his hand on her cheek. A small rune emanates from his fingertips, circling around her face. She drops asleep in his arms. He catches her falling body and lays her gently on the ground. He looks up at Valkyrie and Hulk. “Not everything has to be so brutish.” Valkyrie scoffs and Hulk roars as he stands looking around for someone else to punch.

Namor saunters up the group and looks up, I suppose these two are for myself and the Surfer.” He asks with raised brow.

“The ambient Powers Cosmic are weak in this realm, but my reserves in them are full. I saw that man in his previous encounter, and I believe that I may aid him. To me my board.” Silver Surfer hops onto his cosmic board and takes to the skies

“And you need me to hurt the cheerful one. Cowards, the lot of you.” Namor flies after the former herald of Galactus.

“Hey buddy, how’s it going up here?” Faith gingerly probes at her friend.

“Why? Why does this keep happening? What sick game is this?” I’ve seen you all hurt, maimed, and killed too many times. I know that I have a problem, I know that none of this is real, and I KNOW that my mind is strong enough to get out of this!”

“Pete, I need you to listen to me, listen to my voice. I need you to understand what’s happening here. Our friends got beat real bad last time, and you saved us, and we’re here to fight again. Until we can get out of here, we have to keep fighting, teh half of the teams that lost are gone, they’re just GONE Peter.”

“So what? So we can fight again, and again, and then what? We fight each other? I know this scenario. This is my nightmare. It’s always been my nightmare, because ultimately, I’m always the one that hurts you, no matter how much I think I’m not.”

“Pete. Pete, you can’t think that way, you…”

Namor grabs her ankle and yanks her down. “I take no pride in this, but what must be done, must be done.” She smashes into the ground, her flight field probably saving her life. She starts to get up, but the diving body of Namor has other plans as he barrels into the fallen target.

High above, Silver Surfer reaches out with his cosmic senses into the damaged mind trying to soothe him. “Rest easy young one.” A white light crawls from the Surfer’s fingertips and weaves around through Peter’s forehead.

“I… I… I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why we’re here…” He begins to cry.

“Most of us in this life, and most in others, do not either.” The Silver Surfer calmly states. “I am sorry that things have to be this way, but they must.” He unleashes an awesome explosion of cosmic energy, Stancheck collapses, and the Surfer glides down to regroup with his team, carrying his victim. “I do not care for these tactics either, Doctor Strange, but this is the unfortunate grouping you’ve assembled, and when there’s a fight that needs to be won, it is the Defenders job to do so.”

WINNER: Defenders

CSA (3): Owlman, Ultraman, Superwoman, Power Ring, Johnny Quick

Planetary (13): Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner, the Drummer, Ambrose Chase

Ultraman’s eyes glow red. “They fought a bunch a bunch of gun-toting idiots last time, doubt they’re really ready for us.”

“Oh no, they most certainly have not.” Superwoman grins and cracks her knuckles.

Across the arena Elijah snow sighs heavy. “There’s always more, aren’t there?”

“Sorry old friend, it seems to be our lot in life.” Ambrose Chase places him hand on Elijah’s shoulder. “If there’s one thing we’ve learned studying the impossible, it’s that everything we do is just some ridiculous game in someone else’s story. There’s no reason to try and fight it anymore.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t be pissed off. What’ve you got Drums?”

There’s no answer Snow look around and the rest of the team start searching too.

“Drums?” Jakita calls out, where’d you go buddy?” They finally see him at the other end of the stadium, roped up, being held by Owlman and Johnny Quick.

“Looking for this one? Don’t know how he turned off that one guy’s powers last time, but I wasn’t going to wait for him to do it to one of us!” Owlman triumphs. He turns back to the speedster, “Now grab the woman, I don’t know what she does, and I don’t want to find out.

Johnny Quick streaks out in a flash and grabs Jakita Wagner, he tugs to bring her to his teammates and gets jerked by her refusal to budge.

“I’m a little harder to move.” She snatches his arm to prevent him from getting away.

“No problem sweet cheeks, I can phase through.” Johnny smiles begins vibrating his molecules.

“Not if I can slow you down.” Elijah snow reaches out and freezes the villain. Jakita still holding his brittle arm crushes it in two, small pieces exploding out around her fist. She smiles as Quick looks on in horror, the ice extending over his face. Jakita wastes no time finishing what she started.

“Clearly these guys aren’t the heroes some of these other teams are.” Owlman observes, “We’re still up one though,” noting the four remaining members to the Planetary three.

“She looks tough.” Superwoman says joking, “She’s mine!” She jolts forward, almost as fast as Johnny Quick, and punches out towards Jakita. Wagner, prepared, grabs the wrist as she dodges the punch, and strikes back. Superwoman lands on her back.

“Fiesty!” Hyperion shouts. Guess I better help! He takes flight, soaring high, and fires down his heat vision. The beams catch Wagner on her chest at first. She lifts her arms to block them.

“Ugh, I’m not the ONLY one on this team, you know!” Jakita leaps into the air after Hyperion, catching him around the waste. She climbs up and punches him in the face. He’s knocked back just enough that Jakita loses her ride and plummets to the ground.

Ambrose Chase folds the gravity under her, allowing her to land gently on her feet. “We can do teamwork too.” He smiles, reassuringly. Hyperion dives down to attack the team, smashing into the ground between the three members, the ground beneath them scattering, throwing them in opposite directions. He pops up and makes a grab for Ambrose Chase. Chase channels his physics distortion field onto Hyperion. He increases the friction, the gravity, even the time. He tries to pull Hyperion back by altering the strong nuclear force of the ground behind him. It slows Hyperion to a crawl, but he continues pushing through.

Ambrose, putting everything he has into deflecting Hyperion grunts. He thinks about complaining about teamwork, when he see Jakita raise to her feet and run in to grab Hyperion. She an inch away when Chase feels a sharp pain in his back. He looks down and notices the tip of a glowing green sword sticking out of his chest. It fades away and he drops to his knees. He pushes his last efforts into locking Hyperion down while Jakita pounds him into the ground relentlessly. She looks up to see if he’s going to get up, with Ambrose Chase longer holding him down. He isn’t.

Superwoman flies in laughing. “That overconfident idiot.”

Jakita whirls around and grabs her. “Not today lady.” She spins around and tosses her into Power Ring, snickering at the Death of his foe. Superwoman bowls him over but recovers quickly. Power Ring rolls on the ground. Jakita leaps into the air screaming, “You first!” and lands on Power Ring before he can adjust. She turns and addresses Superwoman, “You second.” and two begin to tussle.

Elijah Snow sees Owlman and unleashes his powers on their entire environment. “I know Jakita can take it, I know I sure as $%# can, probably you’re trollop there too, doubt you can.” The frozen snow extending to Owlman’s feet, continues to fill the battlefield. From the outside, the entire fight looks like a violent snow globe.

Owlman steps into the snow and states plainly, “I’ve spent twenty years training for this fight you think I’ve never found a hero with cold powers? If you’re going to kill me, then you’re going to have to do it with your bare hands!”

Snow snarls and draws two pistols. He immediately begins to fire at Owlman. He evades the bullets and pulls two owlarangs, they catch Snow in the chest, and Owlman rushes in, knocking Snow down.

“If you want to win, you’re going to have to kill me.” Snow spits blood in Owlman’s face.

“With pleasure.” Owlman smiles as he drives the owl shaped shuriken into deeper into Snow’s chest.

Owlman stands up next to his fallen target and see Jakita still tangled with Superwoman. He launches a few gadgets out at her, but they all seem to have little effect. Electric shocks, concussive explosives, acids, all do nothing. He takes a moment to analyse Jakita’s strength and try to figure out a weakness. He hears Superwoman cough loudly. He looks up, refocused to see her standing over Jakita’s body.

“Thanks for the assist, your little annoyances gave me just the edge I needed.” She blows a kiss. Owlman smiles wickedly.

 WINNER: Crime Syndicate of America

Sinister Six (12): Doctor Octopus, Kraven, Vulture, Mysterio, Sandman, Electro

Nextwave (13): Monica Rambeau, Machine Man, Tabitha Smith, Elsa Bloodstone, The Captain

This situation is deteriorating rapidly, thought Dr. Otto Octavius as he surveyed the arena. First, that idiot calling himself the Captain had shot into the sky and chased down the Vulture, grounding him within 30 seconds and ripping his wing-suit apart, all while Tooms pleaded for mercy. Mysterio had succeeded in distracting the trench-coated imbecile for a time with his illusions, until the Rambeau woman from the old Avengers had used her electromagnetic powers to disperse his lightshow and free her dim-witted heavy-hitter, who had quickly shattered Beck’s ridiculous helmet and subdued him.

Why must I be saddled with these fools every time, especially now? This team, they don’t pull their punches like Parker…

Now he found himself facing off against the Machine Man, another holdover from a bygone era of the damned Avengers, who seemed to think his extendable arms could be the equal of Octavius’ prosthetics. The nerve of this… this soulless tinkertoy!

“Hey lookit! I can stretch my metal arm thingies longer than you can stretch your metal back thingies!” exclaimed the aggravating robot. Abel Stack was a gifted fool, Octavius thought as he swiped at the robot’s head with his tentacles and was continuously parried and deflected by its willowy, responsive appendages. Almost as graceful as Richards’ rubbery form, blast them both! But my arms are stronger…

Octavius felt the robot’s own arms snaking around his neck and waist, but he concentrated on his neural link with his adamantium arms and slowly, surely, the robot came apart at the midsection with a satisfying wrenching sound, even as his soulless red eyes betrayed not a trace of pain and emotion.

“Hey, no fair! I wasn’t gonna do that to you probably!” it squawked, and Octavius’ fleeting feelings of victory evaporated as he realized the robot was still grasping him! Machine Man’s legs had only laid still long enough for him to turn around, and now while his arms were busy entangled in Otto’s tentacles, the robot’s detached feet shot up, kicked him in the face, and then snaked around his neck, again and again, until consciousness faded.

“Little help?” Aaron shouted to no one in particular as he tried to gather up all his robo-insides and hand-walked over to his lower half. As he reconnected himself, he watched the rest of his team take on the remaining bad guys. On the other end of the arena, the Captain and Boom Boom were having a tough time with the Sandman, since it’s hard to punch or blow up a guy who can’t be hurt when you scatter all his particles. Closer to Aaron and the fallen Doc Ock, Monica was facing off against Electro.

I don’t want any of that, thought Aaron. Guy could shut me down in a second.

It was at that moment that Monica noticed he was still moving around and shouted “Aaron, you ☠☠☠☠! Help me out with this guy!”

Dammit!

Electro turned, recognized Aaron from his red eyes and metal parts, and grinned.

Aw, ☠☠☠☠. A familiar wave of bright blue-white light flooded his optical sensors as Aaron resigned himself to a hard reset.

Now that he’s distracted with that ☠☠☠☠ robot I can redirect all that electricity as microwaves and cook this turkey! Monica thought as Electro turned away from her.

“Ha ha! Thought you’d get help from your little metal friend? Not likely!” Electro turned back to her. “That’s what you get when you mess with the Sinister Six! Now you’ll– aaaaaargh!” he screamed as Monica’s microwaves set his costume on fire. A swift kick to the jaw and he was down, smoldering and unconscious.

“Two,” she said, mostly to herself, but she couldn’t resist the joke. “Sinister Two.”

Across the Arena, Elsa Bloodstone and Kraven the Hunter circled each other warily. Kraven uttered a pitch-perfect replica of a lion’s roar, perfected over the decades. Elsa rummaged in her belt pouch for her ammunition.

“Do you have ample shot to bring down a whole pride of lions, Bloodstone? Is that absurd rifle sufficient to bring down a bull elephant? You may stalk the night and slay feckless vampires and mindless werewolves, but do you have the strength to defeat he who stands at the top of the natural order? The ultimate hunter?” He growled again as Elsa loaded her rifle and took aim.

“Let’s find out together,” she said, and took aim. Immediately Kraven rushed towards her, crouched so far down he was practically running on all fours, and seized the barrel of the rifle in both hands. In that same instant, with his heightened senses, Kraven noticed that Elsa’s finger wasn’t even on the trigger. They locked eyes in that moment, and she smiled as she used the rifle to redirect Kraven’s momentum, lifting the rifle over her head while he was still holding it and delivering a stunning piledriver to the Ultimate Hunter. Dazed, Kraven leapt up off his back and pounced at Elsa again, who spun the rifle around to wield it butt-first and met Kraven’s pounce with a satisfying thwack to the face, knocking him out.

“I hunt monsters, darling,” she said, not unsympathetically. “Lions aren’t much of a stretch. And fur’s become rather gauche, by the way.”

“Monica, help!” yelled the Captain, engulfed in… Sandman? It didn’t seem right to refer to it as just sand when it was part of… a dude. “Punching the sand isn’t working!”

Tabitha a.k.a. Boom-Boom was having similar problems. “He’s too granular! I can’t rig each individual grain of him to explode, it’d take all day!” She kept dutifully sticking her hands into his sand (ick) and detonating it, but the explosions were too small and didn’t seem to be having any effect on Flint Marko, who seemed content to whirl around them in a semi-human sandstorm, encircling the two heroes (?) and raking them with searing sand/bits of himself.

Monica Rambeau rolled her eyes and plunged into the eye of the storm. “I have to do everything,” she muttered, again mostly to herself. She set about the biggest patches of sand that whipped towards each of her teammates, heating him up until he consisted of several sheets of black glass. “Nice!” Boom-Boom exclaimed. “Now I can– Captain! Stop punching the glass! The less pieces there are, the less time it takes to blow up!” The glass began to twitch as Marko, parts of him still protruding from the non-living sand of the Arena, tried to re-assert control. But it was too late– Tabitha rigged every slab of glass she could find on a 5-second timer, and as she and Monica and Elsa ran away from the blasts and the Captain carried away Aaron’s still-rebooting body, the explosions were followed by the voice of the Beyonder saying “WELL DONE!”

WINNER: Nextwave