Mind Games (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

"Goggles!" Archer's voice barked in the darkness, as his men hastily tried to balance combat against the Blank and against the monster they'd all been trained to fear and hate. "Take down Singularity first, then the others! She's the real danger!" And with that, newly-equipped with their darkness-piercing devices, the machine gun crew opened up on Wander, their bullets whizzing past her head as they just missed her! That started screaming from the goons: "Fall back! Fall back! Get ready to drop the doors!"

[Electra]

Erin still had little idea what was going on, but even with a freakishly odd costume, she recognized Trevor's voice as he stepped into the mist-cleared area below her. Mark and Trevor, and apparently on her side... they'd been there in the dream, it seemed to make sense. "Let's get the hell out of..." she started to agree, then flattened herself to the cage as a hail of bullets passed just over her head. There was the enemy. Trusting her ears to take her where her eyes could not, she launched herself from the roof of the cage, straight at the one who had called for the volley. She landed on him and bowled him over, then laid into the goons with her bare hands. It was hard to remember to pull her punches with the images of death and zombies crowding into her head, but she'd been very, very well trained over the past year and a half.

As she finished off the last of the goons and sent him tumbling to the floor, she came face to face on the edge of the miasma with the man who had done that training. Or at least, a reasonable facsimile of him. "Archer," she grated.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Clever girl," said Archer, almost admiration in his voice as he took a step back. "How long have you been listening?"

"Holy-!" Edge trusted Wander to be able to take care of herself, but it was still surprising when she vaulted off into the darkness. He heard blows, curses, and screams, but of course none of the last two were hers. He peered into the mist cloud surrounding them all and said, "I think it's time we let a little light in the dark, Midnight!" He still couldn't see a damn thing, so he changed strategies. "Going to need a fast way out of they lock the doors!" He looked up, imagining the ceiling overhead, and willed it away! Black dots shot from his fingers, bursting up into the mist overhead, and a circular hole began to appear in the ceiling overhead. It wasn't a large one, but it was there to be opened wider if needed.

[Electra]

"I've wanted to do this a long time," Erin said, and from the way his eyes widened, he was surprised to even hear her talk. "And now I finally actually have a reason." She launched herself at him, but at the last moment veered aside, leaping up to the suspended equipment hanging from the ceiling. She flipped around it and redirected all that energy, diving down at him fists-first before he could even think to move. He was unconscious before they even hit the ground. "Guys?" she called into the darkness, hoping to hear from her teammates.

[Gizmo]

"Here," Trevor called as the remaining midnight mist lifted slowly through the opening Mark had created in the roof, thinning perceptibly before dissipating entirely. A flick of his wrist retracted the stiletto blade back into his sleeve, sticking slightly due to it's sanguine coating. Feeling about his head as he walked over to Erin, the lanky teen grimaced. "Don't think this mask comes off." He regarded Wander's crumpled handiwork on the floor with admiration before meeting her eyes through his ruby lenses. "Sorry it took so long."

[Electra]

Erin studied him for a minute, reassuring herself that despite the mask, despite the circumstances, it was really Trevor behind that blank expanse of white. The voice, the words, the attitude... it was definitely him. She crossed the last distance between them and hugged him hard enough that it was just shy of painful for Trevor. "God, what kind of world is this?" she muttered into his shoulder, closing her eyes against the sight of the cage behind them. "What are we doing here?"

[Lone Star]

Blake floated next to Warren. "Weird stuff, dude. Do you hear something? I keep getting these whispers in my head. I don't think I'm stable here." He clutched his forehead again, as the whispers filled his mind with terrible secrets. "Uhh, guys? How do we get the hell out of here?"

[Gizmo]

Trevor wrapped his arms around Erin, returning her hug with all the intensity his own all too human strength would allow. "I got you," he murmured, a trace of softness carried with it even through the filter built into his borrowed mask. Relief rolled off of the usually reserved youth in palpable waves as he took a moment appreciate the sureness of her presence, a sense of composure and control reasserting itself atop a simmering core of outrage. "Anti-Earth or some approximate variant," he answered more loudly. "Dropped into our counterparts' places. Assuming a malevolent version of Mark's father... it fits. If it's a contest, there's a win condition."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I'm sorry about this," said Mark suddenly, his eyes on the hole in the ceiling he was slowly widening. His father's face flashed before his eyes, an unwelcome and unpleasant feeling...and the guilt _that_ brought was the worst of all. "So sorry. Look..." He licked his lips and said, "I can't...I can't do any dimensional altering stuff, I've never tried to do that. I can just change things around." When the hole was open, he stared up at the greyish-brown sky overhead, watching as it was criss-crossed with contrails. "Maybe if we grab a counterpart of one of the dimension-hoppers we know?"

From across the room, a familiar-yet-not voice yelled "Hah! I knew it!" Where others had run or gotten beaten into unconsciousness, Daisy Gibbons had hid, concealing herself in the corridor when the fight went on, and only now emerged. She pointed at Hex, pulling back her over-sized jacket to expose the battered, exploited body within. "I knew you weren't the real Mark, when you didn't..." She trailed off, taking in the others, giving Erin a frankly terrified look, before exclaiming, "Where are you people from?!?"

[Electra]

Erin startled at the appearance of a new potential threat, then sized Daisy up and obviously dismissed her. They were hardly in a position to be threatened with social ostracism at this point. "So you're saying," she murmured to Trevor, "that we dropped into our counterparts' lives? That some version of me was in that box, lives in that box, and they have the equipment set up so they can just- just show her those images anytime she doesn't do what they want?" Her face revealed the gradually dawning horror that came with that thought. Gently extricating herself from Trevor, she went back to the box and, starting with the equipment outside it, began methodically destroying the little slice of hell it represented. "You wanna give me a hand?" she asked her teammates.

[Gizmo]

"We're the good guys," Midnight answered Daisy flatly as he moved to follow Erin, passing by the forlorn probability controller on his way. "Mark. Not remotely your fault. Now make the girl a pair of pants." The masked youth lowered his tone as he stalked by Warren. "Blake's unstable here. Watch him." Nonchalantly pulling a legitimately frightening amount of plastic explosives from his belt, Trevor began shaping them around the variety of delicate looking sensory instruments and projection equipment opposite from the bank the recently liberated young woman was dispatching.

[Avenger Assembled]

Edge gave Midnight a grateful look, patting his standoffish friend on the arm as he went to dress Daisy. She flinched at his approach, but at his reassurances she held still as he formed up a blue and white jumpsuit on her that matched his usual costume. Wild surmise crossed her face at Trevor's words as she said suddenly, "You're from the other dimension, aren't you? That sissy dimension Hex has been trying to visit! I knew he wasn't as smart as he thought he was!" she exulted, folding her arms over her chest in self-protection even know that she was dressed.

"We're...we're going to get you out of here," Mark spontaneously promised as he saw the real joy on the battered girl's face. Churning at the back of his mind were the fantasies he'd always had about Daisy, about how she'd be really hot if she'd just shut up and did whatever he said. His double had acted on those fantasies, and the result left him wanting to puke. But if he could make things better for her, for one person in this awful place, maybe it would be all right. "I don't know where, but we'll figure it out!"

[Darksider42]

"I think you Counterpart might have been looking at that Necronomicon you talk about for a bit too long." Warren summarized to Blake. It was somewhat logical for evil anyway, he just wished it didn't have to happen to him. Once more his mind began to work on their predicament and the fact they were in a building filled with students that would no doubt be baying for blood. He ignored Daisy's comments about being from a "sissy-Dimension" as he started to float in the air. "We can get through the hole in the ceiling. I can get anyone up there if they can't reach it. We better get away from here as soon as possible and find out what this "Win" condition is." IF they had swapped places with their evil versions...The thought about what they would do terrified them.

Especially if Freedom City thought it was them.

[Electra]

Erin finished destroying all the equipment on one side of the cube, and trusted that Trevor's cache of explosives would take care of the rest. She went back to the weakened exit point she'd made and began peeling back strips of impervium, effort evident in her face. She liked the effort, it made it easier to focus on the now, rather than on what life had to be like for the Erin who lived in this box. "He said something about cleverness and courage, proving ourselves more worthy or something," she recalled. "Maybe we need to fight our way out."

[Avenger Assembled]

At Erin's words, a green mist began pouring from the walls, an acrid scent coming from it like Satan's pool. "Oh crap, that's chlorine!" said Edge, automatically pulling Daisy close as he concentrated on the air around him. A diaphanous, shimmering ball of clear air formed around him as the poison gas filled the room, a space big enough to encapsulate all the others if they stood carefully. "That must be the backup plan to bring us down!" He looked at the others and exclaimed "If any of you know a way out of here, now's the time!"

[Gizmo]

"Pfft, call that a chemical attack," Trevor snorted derisively as he calmly placed the last of his shaped charges. "My double wears a gas mask that doesn't come off. Idiots." Taking a step back, he thumbed the button on his belt that usually would have summoned the remotely driven Night Cycle. He wasn't sure what kind of vehicle 'The Blank' rode, but every little bit had to help at this point. A hint of a pleased smirk began to spread on his hidden face as the distinctive thrum of rotor blades cut through the din outside and a nearly blinding spot light shone in through the hole Mark had created in the ceiling, followed by an unfurling rope ladder. "...well okay then. Move, people."

A gleaming helicopter of pristine white and stainless steel hovered above the remains of the holding facility, powerful gusts blowing back the encroaching chlorine gas as the autopilot held the transport steady. Trevor waited until the others, including Daisy despite his misgivings, was on their way up before hooking his foot into the bottom of the ladder and instructing the chopper to begin rising into the skies above the Academy. He watched as, forgoing the ladder altogether, Erin tossed the unconscious guards, including Archer, out of harm's way before boarding the helicopter with a single prodigious leap.

When they'd achieved sufficient height, the white clad young man produced a slender rectangle of metal from hit jacket pocket, and flipped open its hinged top to expose a red button. Pressing it, he dropped the remote down the hole in the roof as it rapidly shrunk with distance. A moment later the ruined lab below exploded in a massive fireball, a roiling wave of heat washing across the escaping teens' faces. Without comment, Trevor turned away and completed his climb up the ladder.

[Darksider42]

Gas...Should learn to create Bass frequencies to push stuff like this back another time. Thought the Genius Guitarist as the chemicals started to fill the air. He held his breath while started to ascend. He didn't need to hog the ladder when he could fly after all. All in all, he was impressed by the massive fireball that destroyed Erins former prison. He had to restrain himself from playing something appropriate for the situation (Though in all honesty, he couldn't think of anything)

"So then-" He started to say as he went into the helicopter. "Where to before any anti-air defenses start trying to blow us up?" He inquired.

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark took the pilot's seat when Trevor realized that his double was evidently better-trained than he was behind the stick. Mark had to exaggerate his own training a bit to get there, but luckily he took to the controls of the Blankcopter like a champion! He headed straight for open water, figuring it was the safest direction to go. "We'd better drop down fast," he said worriedly, shooting a glance at the school behind them. "I bet you anything Evil Megastar flies a lot faster than this thing. No offense. Trevor, if you were evil, where would you put a landing pad?"

[Electra]

When everyone was safely aboard, Erin sat in one of the jump seats next to Trevor and took a moment to put her face in her hands and do her breathing exercises. It was important to stay calm and controlled, she reminded herself. It was vital. They were in combat and on hostile territory, and she couldn't afford to let herself fall apart, no matter what dirty tricks the enemy tried to pull on her. It was hard to banish the images back to the dark corners of her mind, but she managed it one more time. "We don't know how much time we have before they figure out what happened. Their surveillance is probably pretty good, and they likely know exactly who we are. We need to get to ground for awhile, find someplace safe to regroup and get some intel of our own."

[Gizmo]

"Agreed," Trevor nodded, brow furrowing beneath his mask, the urgency of their peril preventing him from doing more than giving Erin a reassuring bump of the shoulder. The blood splattered teen placed two fingers on each of his temples and considered. "If I were... hrn." He looked back up suddenly, unbuckling his seat's webbing and moving to the cockpit. "Wouldn't use a pad."

Scanning the bank of controls, he quickly found what he was looking for. "Edge, head toward the Fens. Kid, wings out, then set the tail rotor on fire. Rift, you're carrying Daisy." He gave the telempath in the copilot seat a narrow eyed look through unreadable red lenses. "Try anything and I will make sure he drops you." His expression softened subtly as he turned back to Erin. As much as he wanted to give her time to recover, he'd just have to hope that keeping busy would suffice. "Need you to carry Mark and me. Going to give us some cloud cover, but it's got to be fast. Not sure what kind of timer my double would have set."

[Avenger Assembled]

The teens made a mad dive for the building from the air, a moment before the helicopter behind them suddenly exploded in a flash of eerily quiet light as the security systems the Blank had installed against sabotage (the ones necessitating a certain code word and his hand on the rudder) activated. Rift, Wander, Edge, and their passenger Daisy, the only people on the chopper, went spiralling downward towards the Fens below, the grimmest neighborhood in the city looking not too different at night from the air.

[Gizmo]

Timing the burst precisely, Trevor obscured the group's decent in acrid midnight mist, making them look like just another chunk of burning debris as the helicopter exploded in a spectacular display. As he'd expected, the bulk of the wreckage fell in the opposite direction, hopefully leading their pursuers from the Academy away from them.

A bit of quick scouting brought them to an abandoned warehouse, away from prying eyes. As the group gathered around one of the burning metal barrels of trash which dotted the nearly post apocalyptic wasteland that was the Fens of Empire City, the lean teenager considered their next move. Now that they had a little breathing room, he was officially done operating blind. Stepping away from the others, he narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists, bringing a shallow bath of midnight mist from his pores, roiling about him like a boiling sea. Before long, his mottled and splattered borrowed costume had been stained a uniform black. "Back soon," he assured the others before fading into the shadows of the night.

[Electra]

"Hey!" Erin called after him in a low but sharply insistent voice. "Where are you going? We can't just split up now, how are we ever going to find each other again if we get separated?" For her part, she'd been creating a more defensible position in the warehouse, tossing heavy crates and barrels around into a sort of fortress wall that would conceal them and offer some protection against at least mundane attack. "We're supposed to be a team!"

[Gizmo]

There was a moment of silence before Trevor reappeared as if out of thin air, considerably closer to the warehouse's doors than when he's slipped away, and stalked back over to Erin. "This is what I do," he told her, pitching his voice so it wouldn't carry far beyond them. "My job. We need information" Spreading his arms, he leaned forward slightly. "Do you have any idea what it's like for me watching you fight opponents that can rip tanks in half? Telling myself over and over that of course you'll be fine, you're you, because I can't--" Stopping his sentence, he placed a gloved hand over his mask, halting the uncontrolled flow of words before he sounded any more foolish. Lowering the hand, he met her eyes, his expression behind the stained mask clouded. "This I can do." With a short, sharp exhalation, he added more wryly, "Besides, nothing on this rock could ever keep me from finding you again."

[Electra]

Erin stayed a few feet away, clasping her hands tightly behind her back as Trevor spoke. She looked weirdly military in her red and black uniform, stained as it was with whatever had been on it before she'd fallen into it. When he was done, she raked one hand through her hair, making strands of it stand on end. "I know you can," she tried to explain. "I can't... it's hard to let you go," she admitted quietly. "Not because I don't think you can do it. This place is so dangerous, and everyone is against us." She rubbed her face, a gesture that nearly mimicked his. "Don't get hurt, okay?" she asked. "And come back soon."