At the Mountains (IC)

[Cyroa]

James threw himself to one side, using one of the Centuritrons as cover. The blast completely passed him by thanks to the tough robots. It was a good thing Rifts managed to get control of them too since the thing could do all manner of harm to him standing this close. He stepped back, looking over to make sure Erin and the others were fine, not that he was worried. His friends had to be some of the toughest people on the planet considering what they went through regularly. He grinned at Chris. "Since when we we every have plans that amount to more than 'get em'? Though, in our defense, that usually works quite well for us," he said with a grin.

He nodded at Alex. "Ok then." He didn't know much about this Zone but it was obviously not something a bunch of supervillains should be playing with. "Let's go have some fun."

[Avenger Assembled]

"All right, people," said Mark with determination. "The Crime League is here, and they're perverting the Sanctum of the Centurion." He looked from one to another of his friends, his face settled and jaw square. "We're going to find them, get them out of here, and make sure they never again rob the Centurion's grave. The only plan we need is to do justice," he said out loud, "and get rid of the bad guys." He started walking towards the exit to the room, and nearly clobbered his face on an impervium wall when the security door abruptly irised shut right in front of him

"MWAHAHA!" Dr. Stratos appeared on the green-matrix screens all around with an evil look on his malevolently goateed face. "You stupid little children think you can defeat ME? The Sultan of Storms? The Lord of Lightning? The Tyrant of Tornadoes? Pfui! My lovely colleague and I will free the prisoner, and there's nothing you can do to stop us!" And with that, the screens abruptly went dark, as did half the lights in the outer room.

"I know who's in there," said Mark suddenly, staring at the sealed door in front of his face with a sick look. "I didn't make the connection until just now. But the worst criminal the Centurion put in the Zone? It was Superior. Der Ubermensch. The Nazi superman. We've got to get there fast. Phalax, Wander, Hellion, do you think you can get this door down? No matter how many they've closed, we've got to break them all down."

[angrydurf]

Phalanx nodded to Edge, "Then we don't have much time." he replied with grim resolve and approached the huge door of reinforced impervium. He traced a hand along the crease where the halves joined and glanced to Erin and James as he worked to get a grip on the door, "I'll get this side." he said as his fingers found purchase and he set his back to heave against the door with all his considerable might.

[Electra]

"Got it," Erin nodded, moving to the other side of the door. She didn't have Mike's phenomenal strength, but she was no slouch in the muscles department. "Find us a lever," she told James, setting her own fingers to the other side of the door and beginning to pull as well. The strain was as evident in her voice as in her taut muscles and set expression. "Something to push with, and something to block the door open..."

[Cyroa]

James gave a wry smile as he grabbed the body of the wrecked bot. "This should do for a wedge I think." He dragged it over to the doors and dropped it. For a wedge, he summoned the Blade and slammed it into the crack and pried. Once there was a gap, he dismissed it and jabbed his own finger in. He didn't use it much but his demonic powers made him pretty strong when he wished to be. He grimaced as he added his own strength to Erin and Mike's.

[Darksider42]

Rifts mind began to turn as he tapped at the keys on the console. Great, a windbag that throws lighting and a man hating magic chick are trying to break out a Nazi super warrior that could wipe the floor with us... "Well, I wasn't that far off." He muttered as he continued re-programming the Centruitrons, his mind was already at work for the coming fight. Ideas ran though his head, searching for a way that could take them down. A plan started to merge from the mess of his mind just in time for the programming to end. "OK guys, let me help you out with that." And witha few more keystrokes, two of the drones hovered over to the Impervium door and dug their hands between the cracks. The rest waited nearby. ready to take on anything that might try to get through.

[Avenger Assembled]

The team found the work easier than they'd expected, the section doors prying open like stuck sliding glass doors rather than the inches-thick impervium. "Maybe the mechanism's just old," Edge suggested, tugging at his cape a little nervously as they headed into the gloom of the tunnels inside the Sanctum. They were alone now, the Centuritrons having needed to stay behind in the main room, and it was hard not to feel a little intimidated. But no, he reminded himself, it wasn't as bad as it looked. They were heroes united, gathered together to defeat the evil villains who'd seized control of the Centurion's Sanctum. What could possibly go wrong?

It was a measure of how distracted Mark was that he committed such an obvious violation of all good sense. As the last set of doors opened, suddenly a deeper darkness flashed through the room, for a moment blotting out even the enhanced senses of various of the empowered teens, and the distinct sound of doors rumbling shut came to everyone's ears. And from down the hall, somewhere in the gloom, came the chuckling laughs of Dr. Sebastian Stratos and the wicked Medea!

[Avenger Assembled]

The doors slammed shut just as Geckoman leapt his way clear, pinning the Green Jester of Justice, the the Genius Guitar God, the Boy of Bronze, and the Iridescent Insightful Intellect in the front of the group, trapping them away from their teammates. As the mystic darkness cleared, a glowing, metallic figure came striding out of the gloom. It looked like the Centurion, but this giant black metal monster wore a face of pure hate! "I am Zeta, the Centuritron of War! I shall punish you and deliver you over to...TALOS! Boo-ha-ha-ha!"

-

Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Wander watched as her classmates suddenly began warping and bending around her, their familiar forms shifting and warping into the red-skinned, menacing visages of the Grue! "Take her now, my brothers!" hissed what had once been Hellion menacingly, "when the last of Young Freedom falls, we shall take this place for our own! Destroy..."

"...destroy," Medea finished, whispering into the spiral-eyed Wander's ear with a malevolent smile on her face. She'd teleported in fast, lashing out with her spell before even the sharp-eyed Wander could react. With an evil smirk, she took a step back to watch her creation at work as Erin gave her classmates an entirely new look.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Oh my God," said Edge out loud, confronted with the reality of Wander advancing on them with what looked like a savage beating on her mind. "Look, this happens all the time," he called reassuringly to his teammates. "One of your teammates gets mind-controlled, looks real scary for a while, but then you chase off the mind control and everything gets better! It'll...it'll be okay! Wander, remember, it's us! We're your friends! You don't need to kill us!"

[Electra]

Erin's eyes were much wider than usual as she stared at her teammates, with whites showing all around and the pupils dilated. She activated her communicator with a brush of her hand even as she opened her bat. "It's the Grue!" she shouted to her trapped teammates. "They're here!" One of the Grue started shouting at her, still using Mark's voice, which was just absolutely infuriating. She went for him first, turning a dizzying series of flips to confuse and distract him, then suddenly slamming her bat as hard as she could into that red alien hide, first one end, then the other, then grabbing it in both hands and ramming the center into his midsection. It wasn't as difficult as she'd expected, honestly. The Grue went flying backwards into the impervium wall with a deafening thud, slid down it, and lay still. Spinning, she hefted her bat to deal with the other two.

[Gizmo]

Like the flick of a switch, Midnight shut out the emotional side of his mind, which railed violently against it's prison bars as the cold analytical aspect of the teenager's personality took control. Stygian gas burst from the seams of his matte black costume, dragging the room into utter darkness in the span of time between heartbeats. A small cylinder capped with a dish all but leapt from his belt into his waiting hand. The concentrated sonic emitter had occurred to him after he'd seen how easily Erin had managed to navigate without relying on her sight, the part of him that wove strategies and counter-strategies like gossamer threads not caring for the distinction between friend and foe. As his wrist snapped upward to direct the device at the mind-controlled girl's image, caught in red relief through his specially treated glasses, however, the young man hesitated for the briefest fraction on an instant, an agonized look passing across his face beneath his featureless mask. Then, silent as smoke on water, he thumbed the mechanism to trigger a lance of high frequency white noise before slipping away into the concealing mist.

[Cyroa]

James swore, eyes widening as he realized what was going on. Erin being mind controlled or tricked into convincing them was a bad thing. Like...hitting a nuclear warhead with a hammer, a lot, level of bad. Before he even could move an inch, Mark was batted aside and was down. Even as Trevor took out her senses, James was moving forward. He summoned his powers, praying this would work the first time. His hands reached out to grab her, even as he tried to summon a portal to push her in. "Erin, snap out of it! We're your friends dang it!" She was stronger but he only needed to hold her still for a second for the portal to envelop her...and possibly him. Unfortunately, even blinded and deaf, she reacted before he could summon the magical portal, clocking him hard.

[Electra]

Erin clapped her hands over her ears as the room filled with thick, greasy smoke and a searingly high-pitched note tore its way into her ears at the same time. Suddenly she couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything. The Grue were there in the dark, and she had no way of knowing where or when they were coming, no way to get away... Her breathing escalated into short sobs of panic that she could not hear as she clutched her bat like a talisman and turned uselessly in place, trying to see into the blackness. "Trevor!" she thought she called, but she couldn't be sure that the words weren't inside her mind only. "James? Mark? Trevor?"

Suddenly the Grue was there, right on top of her, reaching for her throat! She screamed, in terror or defiance, and brought her bat to bear against it, using its weight and momentum against it to slam it to the floor. Or she thought she did, she couldn't hear the impact, and when she leapt after it, it was gone! She turned in place, waving her bat like a blind woman to try and find it before the next attack. Her bat hit something, and she lunged at it, but stumbled over something unseen and unheard and tumbled to the ground. Dropping the bat, she put her hands over her head in a vain attempt to fend off whatever was coming next.

[Gizmo]

At Erin's scream, Midnight's teeth ground against each other as his goggles began to fill with acrid smoke from tear ducts which had long since ceased to function as such. Brutally quashing the voice which tore at his rigid analysis of the situation, demanding that he go to her, the black clad youth swiftly pulled a pair of items from his belt. The first was a passive sensor which monitored a variety of frequencies, from the mundane to the arcane and esoteric, while the second was something he'd pieced together after repeated jaunts using his peer's beacons. Medea might have fled when the midnight mist filled the room, but the fragments of Trevor's psyche agreed that there was nowhere she could go where she would be safe from him. Sliding the modular components together, he thumbed the activator and abruptly disappeared.

He burst into the sorceress's hiding place in a violent burst of roiling gas, expanding outward too quickly for Medea to avoid. "You are old, witch," a cold, grating voice slid through the obscuring darkness like a dagger, "Have seen much." There was a brief pause and suddenly the voice was coming from right behind her, just soft enough that she had to strain ever so slightly to make out the words. "Darkness is eternal. Darkness sees everything." There was a soft breeze of movement as the mist shifted before the voice came again from somewhere indiscernible, its tone carrying the undeniable certainty of the grave. "Release the girl. Now."

[Cyroa]

James winced as she clocked him and send him staggering backwards. Ok, mental note, don't ever try that again. Even as he blinked, she was zipping around the room, getting ready to annihilate anything she came in contact with. He stepped backwards as one heavy swing came towards him. He noted Midnight's disappearance though to where he had no idea. James adjusted his tactics this time. He reached out one hand, lightly tapping her on the shoulder instead of grabbing her. He summoned the portal right around her this time.

As Erin was sucked into the blackness of the Void, James gave a little sigh of relief. He called in, after her, doing his best to calm her down without her beating him senseless this time. "Wander, relax! It's James! There's no Grue. She's messing with your head. Think about it, how many Grue can make pocket realms or open portals to the Void? Help me out here. We need you to finish this."

[Avenger Assembled]

Medea jumped backwards, startled out of her wits at Midnight's appearance. "You want her so bad, you can have her!" she spat. "When you get what's coming to you, you damnable little scoundrel, we'll see who's so scary!" And with that she spat a word in Ionic Greek, disappearing from the room as Midnight's teleport sensor beeped obediently after her. She hadn't gone far, but she hadn't gone back to Hellion, Wander, and the unconscious Edge, either. Meanwhile, inside Hellion's dimensional pocket in an island in the Void, amid terror and deafness, Wander remembered everything.

[Electra]

Even as Erin tried to regain her feet amidst the redoubled black smoke, the Grue was upon her again. This time it didn't even bother to hit her, instead it threw her into space! Off-balance, she fell and landed on gray dirt, on a featureless plain that extended perhaps a hundred yards in every direction, and then dropped off into nothing. All around her was nothing but blackness, punctuated occasionally by electrical discharges. There was no one else anywhere in the world. Even her bat was gone, she realized as she crouched on her heels and looked around.

"Stop, stop, stop it, stop it stop stop stop stop," she muttered, knuckling her eyes and repeating the words until she realized she could hear herself again. The only sound besides her own voice was the slow hissing of air leaking away into the blackness. Suddenly, it was as though a switch flipped inside her mind, and everything she'd done became perfectly clear. They thought she was crazy, she realized. She was crazy. She'd gone insane and killed Mark, and been thrown in here before she hurt anyone else. What was she going to do now? For the moment, she had no answers, so she stayed crouched where she was, fisting her hands in her hair and bouncing lightly on her heels.

[Gizmo]

As soon as the villainess was gone, Midnight was appearing back in the room he'd just left, the displaced air he'd teleported with him blasting the remains of the cloud he'd left behind away like a boulder dropped in a pond. "Medea's dealt with," he informed Hellion brusquely, tossing his ushanka to the floor and hurriedly unfastening his mask, which fell open to hang about his neck. "Where is she?" he demanded, coming as close as James had ever heard to raising his voice, as he scanned the newly cleared room for Erin.

[Cyroa]

James looked around as the mist cleared and Trevor suddenly returned. "Dealt with as in 'unconscious' or dealt with 'she might be back a in a minute to try a new tact'?" He looked around, letting his own magical senses reach outwards for a moment. "Relax. I simply...moved her to keep her safe and from mauling us any more. Hang on, let me go see if she's herself. Take care of Edge," he said. James took a step, vanishing into nothingness.

He appeared on the small plane, only a dozen or so feet from Erin. It didn't really matter where he'd appear; she was fast enough to cover tons of space and still swing at him. He just didn't want to spook her. "Erin," he said, disdaining code names now that there was no one else listening, "you ok? It's James. Sorry about this; best way I could think to stop you from beating the tar out of me," he said with a wry grin and rubbing at his jaw. He stuck his hand out towards her, hoping it wasn't about to be broken.

[Electra]

Erin's gaze flicked up to James immediately, but she didn't respond right away. There was a strange feral quality to her in this moment, crouched in the middle of the featureless plane with tangled hair and desperate eyes, that contrasted oddly with James' polished urban smoothness. For a long moment, it wasn't clear whether she was about to leap to attack him, or if she would respond at all. Finally she asked "Did I kill Mark?"

[Cyroa]

James shook his head, taking a few slow steps toward her. Her talking and not hammering him into the 'ground' was a good sign, though the rest of her wasn't. "No, you didn't. He'll be ok. Trevor's taking care of him right now. He'll just have a bit of a headache I'd wager. It wasn't your fault Erin. Mark, of all people, will understand completely." He was a little worried about her. Mark with his powers, and personal outlook on life, would be fine. Erin, on the other hand, could be surprising fragile at time. "It's ok. It's over."

[Avenger Assembled]

When Trevor bent over him, Mark's eyes snapped open, peering up at him through the shattered goggles on his face. "Midnight! Are you okay?" Looking past Mark, Trevor could see the dent he'd left in the wall behind him: the solid impervium wall. Was that divot shaped like Mark's head? Yes, yes it was. "Was it really the Grue? Or was that Medea just messing with Wander's brain? She's a really evil witch." He sat up, broken safety glass falling out of the goggles to land on the cape tangled up in his lap. "Wow! I got hit pretty hard, huh!" He looked up at Trevor again. "Are you okay?"

[Electra]

Erin let out a breath and stood up slowly, though she took a couple of steps back from James when he tried to approach. There was still way too much adrenaline pumping through her system for her to let anyone too close right now. "I don't understand what happened," she admitted. "One second the door was closing and I was there with all of you, and then suddenly you all seemed like Grue, and then it got dark, and I couldn't hear anything..." She hugged her arms to her chest and looked around. "Where are we?"

[Cyroa]

James stopped moving as she backed up. At least she was talking again. "Medea messed with your head. The darkness and such was Trevor. He knocked your senses out and misted the place up. I put you here. It was the safest and best option to stop you from taking us out. Sorry," he says with a little shrug. "This? It's the Void. The emptiness between realities I suppose you could say. Well, a small island in it anyway." He looked around at the emptiness. "So, ready to come home," he said with a half smile.

[Electra]

"Is she still there?" Erin asked, avoiding James' gaze by looking at anything except him. There wasn't a lot else to look at. "I can't go back if she can mess with my mind again. I didn't even feel her doing it, I didn't even try to fight. I could hurt someone really badly next time. It might be better if I stay here." The thought filled her with horror, but she tried her best not to let it show. It was better than killing a friend, whether or not she meant to.