ic Quirkombat (IC)

[Supercape]

Gamma Buzz

 

"Hey, I'm evolved! I'm Gamma Buzz, baby!" said Baz, puffing his chest. 

 

The Caramel-skinned woman looked pretty hot in her unitard. Baz could feel his antennae swelling. 

 

"And its pretty uncool to impose your will on human's. They have a mind of their own, ya know?"

 

His mouth was yabbering, but he was on the alert. It felt awfully like they were all about to get clobbered. Or, with a bit of luck, they would get clobbered back. 

 

"Keep em talking!" he said to the others. "Then may be we can surprise sucker punch them with a surprise blow that catches them by suprise. Wait, did I say that out aloud?"

 

He started glowing green. Just in case...

[Poncho]

Michael was still burning red with rage when the door got forced open. He had only sort of registered that Parker wasn't actually dead when the Spaceman helped him and Puma open the door, and he had entered the room like a wildfire and had just about flown directly at Lady Liberty with the intent to punch her straight in the face when he managed to catch himself, hanging in the air near the door and not making any aggressive moves. He looked at the clock, then back at Lady Liberty. He had to think about this logically. There was no way he could fight Lady Liberty by himself, and there were three other opponents here. He probably needed to help with those instead of flying off half-cocked. But for now, he needed to wait and calm down. Deep breath.

 

Lady Liberty. The Lady Liberty. The Spirit of America. A childhood hero! He was talking to a childhood hero! The weird reality-warper had let him talk to one of his childhood heroes...except she was fake and also a weird nano-machine person now. Did that even count as talking to her? Probably not, honestly. Unless this was the real Lady Liberty and the weird reality-warper had turned her into this for the game. Then it would count. But he wouldn't know that that was the case if it was the case. Also was that Neko over there? That was weird. Were the other two people also Claremont Students he hadn't met?

 

Golden Star breathed out slowly. He had calmed down now; he had distracted his own thoughts and calmed down his rage by letting his mind wander, so he was able to observe the scene closer and ask questions.

 

"What happens when the countdown goes off?" He asked Lady Liberty now that he'd slowed down a bit. "Some kind of Nanobmb or something?"

Edited December 21, 2023 by Poncho

[RocketLord]

Spaceman

 

Parker doesn't recognize the blue person that stands before him. Maybe he should, but who knows, if this is all the creation of some kind of reality warper? He is barely listening to what they are telling him, focusing on everything around him. Is is there. It is not just illusions. He can feel the distance to everything and everyone around him, and yet, the way he just started falling when he broke the sequence. It is like a giant video game. A poorly programmed one that doesn't like when you do sequence breaking.

 

"No more creativity, no more free will, no more individuality. Is that what you want?" he asks, his voice calm. He stands with his arms to the side, hands held open, making no move to appear threatening.

[Avenger Assembled]

"What's the matter?" the silvery illusion of Neko taunted Carmen. "Cat got your tongue?" 

 

"Did the fascist thug tell you that?" asked the blue person, who rose into the air on a cloud of blue silver-shot smoke, a loose, open vest forming around its midsection like a djinn from the Arabian Nights. "Please. She's the one who forced us to do this!" bellowed the Genie, pointing at the Patriot. 

 

"Do you really want some all-American conformity?" demanded Buzz's counter, who as she spoke seemed to assume various geometric forms, stretching and moving from square to circle to triangle. "Do you think you'll be safe if they squish you down into shape?" added the Geometer. 

 

"Come on, Michael," Lady Liberty said, reaching down a hand for him, her fingers silvering with the nanotechnology of the Communion, as if she was extending it to them as an offering. "You know what they did to the others! This is our last chance for freedom." 

 

"Shut the hell up you commie-," said the Patriot, firing again, her shot cutting off an angry word! 

 

[MoonSimply]

La Puma Negra

 

Carmen's teeth were gritted. She knew that this was some sort of fake reality created by Quirk to test them or for his own twisted amusement, but she wasn't going to just not defend herself here, especially when the facsimile of her mentor had just taken a pot shot at Lady Liberty. Although could she even call this twisted version of Lady Liberty or any of these facsimile's real? Carmen wasn't sure about her own mentors politics let alone her own, so everything already felt off from the start, leaving her to just playing along as her shined in the light, coming out as she got ready to fight.

 

"I hope your fans don't mind me cutting into your image," Carmen spoke as her body positioned itself on reflex like it was ready to move, and fast as well, eyes trained right at Neko. She was sorry she had to do it regardless. For all her feline dislike of Neko, she didn't want to fight her, regardless of the reason, "Because if you don't surrender right now your followers better get used to it when I'm done."

Edited January 3 by MoonSimply

[MoonSimply]

La Puma Negra

 

With a speed that was utterly unable to be replicated by a normal being, Puma had rushed towards Neko like her namesake would. Maybe Quirk could be useful, letting her go wild on someone that at she believed wasn't real, a fake version that allowed her to go all out a bit more, not that she was changing too much up from her usual tactics, but she didn't have to hold herself back as much. Memory served that Neko's power was illusionary based, but could be all too real, so getting directly in her face with attacks would be the correct thing to do at least in her opinion as she jumped up at the last second of her movement, footwork that looked almost dancer like before coming down with a slashing claw strike.

[Avenger Assembled]

The blows hit - and tore deep gouges in the illusory Neko's flesh. But as La Puma watches, the slashes healed up again almost immediately, flesh and blood knitting back together like they were being stitched together by silvery cords. As if whispering a confidence, Neko crouched low, her tail wagging behind her like a happy dog - or a very angry cat. "You see? You can't even do this right! Pathetic!" 

 

Lady Liberty and the Patriot were trading blows now; the former firing blasts of light from her hands, the latter from her dual-wielded pistols. Neither seemed to be hitting the other but they were certainly introducing the students to wide varieties of profanity. It was easy to notice, however, that they seemed to be repeating the same phrases over and over again, as if on a short loop of 'tape'. 

[RocketLord]

Spaceman

 

"Can't we please talk about it?" Parker asks, as he continues to hold his hands out to the side. "We don't have to fight." 

 

Of course they have to fight, that's the reality warper's game here. Play along, right? So, what would he normally do? Try to end this without fighting, without harming the blue person he is fighting.

 

Focus, then. Catch them in a trap. Extend the distance all around them, make sure they can't move, make it impossible for them to go anywhere. Paralyze them with the infinite distance to everything around them.

[Supercape]

Gamma Buzz

 

Baltazar only half understood what was going on. "Half" would have been generous. But he did know he was a puppet on a string, and it made him furious. 

 

Unless the puppeteer is making me furious?

 

In which case, he better not be furious. Out of spite. 

 

Wait... unless the puppeteer has made me chose not be furious because I am a puppet and that makes me furious. 

 

He blinked, wondered whether the puppeteer had made him blink, and decided to put the whole philosophical mess in the bucket of "uh?". Relieved, he allowed himself to be furious again. 

 

His hands glowed green. In a second, a glowing green ball of gas formed between his hands. Supercharged radioactive air. Baz leant back and hurled it like a basketball towards what he guessed where the antagonists of the story (although he was fully expecting some switcharoo). In a furious puff, the ball exploded into a glowing green cloud. Little droplets of sparkling green light fell slowly to the floor like feathers. 

[Avenger Assembled]

What happened next to Gamma Buzz made no sense in retrospect but at the time seemed to make all the sense in the world. As his greenish cloud of radiation seemed to fill the room, setting enemies to coughing and choking (though only disabling a few), his antagonist concentrated on him - narrowing round eyes in his direction that turned suddenly from circles to slits. It wasn't just a question of eyelids moving either, but rather as if the very shape of the nanite-infused creature's face had changed. And that change was making its own change, right in Gamma Buzz's brain! He could feel as things inside his head, his very thoughts, were being shifted and squeezed out of shape, as if a hand composed of mind itself had reached into his skull and sought to quite literally reshape his brain! 

 

Meanwhile, Golden Star could see that some of his teammates (like Spaceman) were faring well against their opponents; with the former having seemingly trapped his magical opponent in a spatial snare, others like La Puma Negra and Gamma Buzz were struggling. There was definitely something hinky happening here, but with the Patriot and Lady Liberty noisily battling in front of him, it was hard to think what that was. 

[Poncho]

Michael looked at the extended hand of Lady Liberty, and he definitely thought about taking it. It was a cool idea...but was it part of the game? He wasn't really sure. But one thing he was sure. He didn't want to see his friends get hurt. And that weird shape-shifting person did...something. To Buzz. And it clearly hurt him. And he didn't like that one bit at all!

 

"HEY! You leave him alone!"

Michael yelled as he slammed down between Buzz and the weird person, and hit the person that hurt Baz right in the face with a hook. After making sure they knew he was there, he threw his cape out, swinging it in a ripple of gold and red as he interspaced himself between Bazz and the one attacking him.

 

"You want to mess with someone, mess with me." he snarled at them. Then he looked back at Neko. "...Is..is she even real?" he looked at the other three students but also keeps his focus in case someone tried to hit him again. "Am I having a brain issue?"

[MoonSimply]

La Puma Negra

 

Puma was finding that more and more things were off about all this by the second, and seeing how this was just some fake reality made by a Quirk, she was going to just have to deal with it. This didn't mean she wasn't going to not continue to fight as she still kept her claws out and her eyes trained right at this version of Neko she wasn't rather liking. Whatever grudge she had for the real Neko, perceived or otherwise, she was going to let it out a bit as she began to pounce forward, ready to strike this imaginary Neko.

 

"Where's the real you Neko or is this just one of Quirks?!" Puma slashes at Neko once more.

[Avenger Assembled]

Neko caught the slash and spoke in a male voice - no, something deeper and multi-dimensional that echoed across the room into everyone's ears. It was Quirk's voice but it wasn't, an impossible five-dimensional tone that said "You're finally paying attention - but you're still just playing the game. The Raven's brat won't be here to save you every time!" 

 

Then there was what could only be called a discontinuity, as if the world around them was coming apart image by image, stripped down until it was just the group of Claremont students who had first entered. 

 

And then things rewound again and they were with the Patriot and her tactical support squad, confronting the nanotech-infused heroes that were about to assimilate the world into one technological hive-mind. 

 

And then things rewound again and they were with the Patriot and her armed goons, confronting the last defenders of human freedom as they undertook one last gamble to try and save the human race from the forces of tyranny. 

 

And then they were back in the trophy room at the end of the hallway, surrounded by mock mementos of a real hero's life, caught up in what looked for all the world like the end of all things... 

 

 

[RocketLord]

Spaceman

 

Everything is moving too much. Changing too fast. Everything rewinding, everything around them changing. It happens too fast. Parker is almost always aware of everything around him, and now it is being ripped back and forth, like a child's silly putty, changed to suit Quirk's whims. 

 

Too much, too fast.

 

He needs to catch his breath.

 

"Has everything stopped changing?" 

 

Something familiar about it. He can't put his finger on it. He's not sure what it is. It doesn't matter. The rules have been changed, again.

[Poncho]

"I'm gonna hurl..." Michael complained as the room spins around far too fast for his liking, and he covered his eyes momentarily as the room spun around them. He fell down on the ground when it finished, breathing out slowly. He didn't like that feeling at all! He also didn't feel safe enough to turn off his battery at this point; he was going to keep burning until they were safe or it ran out, one of the two. Still, he groaned as he rubbed his forehead and stood back up, a little unsteady on his feet but looking around for where they were supposed to go next.

"That sucked." He almost whined, but he just looked annoyed more than anything. But he forced himself back up to look at Baz, concern on his face. "Baz, are you okay? That weird person did something bad to you, didn't they?" he struggled to say it but his concern was far more for Baz, who had been so rudely attacked, then their continuing predicament. But he was going to put on a brave face anyway.

 

"We just have to go a little further."

Edited February 11 by Poncho

[Supercape]

Gamma Buzz

 

"Ugh.... I don't know...." said Baz, wobbling on his feet and then sitting down - hard - on his backside. HIs red eyes swam in opposite directions. 

 

"Something hit my head. Like a rock wrapped in velvet, pounding it."

 

It felt like the most abominable intrusion into his very self. 

 

"Am I ok? You best tell me... I don't feel myself... did anything change?"

 

He counted his fingers. Still there. He palpated his antannae. Still there. 

 

"I'm still me. I think. But would I know if I wasn't?"

 

He gave a frantic glance to his team mates. 

 

"You best keep an eye on me. I really don't know what happened...."

[MoonSimply]

La Puma Negra

 

La Puma Negra had cut apart the illusionary version of Neko before suddenly and before she could prepare for it, they were yanked back through time, thrust to where they started in the other room. With little room to prepare herself for such a transition, her senses momentarily overloaded, causing her to stumble right off her feet and on to her hands and knees. This wasn't like the subtle transitions she had gone through before. Instead, this was more like being tossed across a pool and slamming hard into the water in a disorienting mess. Such a shock it was that her nose was bleeding, small droplets coming down upon the floor before she wiped her nose, stumbling back up.

 

"¿Qué tipo de juego es este?" she slurred out, slowly getting back up on to her feet.

[Avenger Assembled]

The moment dragged on and on, seemingly forever - 

 

And then they were back outside of the Claremont gym. 

 

And there, hovering in the air, was not Quirk - but a spectral image of their classmate Lawrence. Quirk's voice gave them one final warning: "I won't be there to save you. So don't. wreck. my. toys."