Mind Games (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

In our world, when his son and his friends rejected the Utopia he'd built, a grief-stricken Rick Lucas recognized the error of his ways and fled into the multiverse in shame. But in a world perilously close to this one, when his son and his allies attempted to overthrow the worldwide dictatorship he'd constructed in order to put the Lucas family in command of the world, a bitter, vengeful Rick Lucas fled into the multiverse to plot revenge on his wastrel son and his callow gang of hooligans at the Syndicate Academy

Two Weeks After the Events of 'A Trip Between Two Worlds'

Duncan Summers listened as a rather battered Psyche told her story, the young telepath recovering far better than most students would have after the experience she'd had. Erin's sudden nighttime assault had nearly killed the sleeping Alex, only Psyche's incredible mental speed letting her reach into Erin's mind and shut down her attacker. It had only taken him a few minutes of evaluation to confirm what Nurse Joy and Ms. Harcourt had already told him: this Erin White, with the blood under her fingernails and haggard face, even in psychically-induced sleep maintained by the best psychics at the school, was not the Erin White of their world. And that particular disease seemed to be catching.

Luckily, the school was prepared for that. Though dopplegangers of Kid Cthulu, Rift, Midnight II, and Edge had all appeared in bursts of magical energy around campus, the new inter-universal security system that Mrs. Harcourt had installed in previous weeks had worked like a charm. Though the dopplegangers had unfortunately escaped from campus, he was completely confident that Young Freedom, the Alterni-Teens, and the Next-Gen would track down the warped, morally inverted doubles of his students.

It's a good thing we're prepared for incursions, thought Summers, bending down to pet the unhappy cat curling his orange tail around the headmaster's cane. If we were oriented towards offense rather than defense, who knows how long they could have kept up the imposture?

--

Mark Lucas rarely had particularly elaborate dreams. Indeed, usually he didn't remember anything about them. Tonight, though, his REM visions were exceptionally unsettling. He was confronted by a vision of his father: not the father he knew, but a grim, furious version of Rick Lucas with a goatee and eyepatch, wearing a black and red leather uniform as he confronted his son.

His 'father' informed him that he and his friends were being tested, tested to see if good really was better than evil, if courage was a stronger talent than cleverness. He wasn't alone, he realized: Erin, Trevor, Blake, and Warren were all there too, each as paralyzed and mute as he was in the dreamscape! Before he could respond, he was suddenly plummeting into a deep black void...

--

Mark woke up in bed, starting awake with a cry, and then nearly fell out of bed entirely when he realized he wasn't alone in his room. Or his bed. "Dreaming about that witch again?" asked Daisy Gibbons. The beautiful blonde prom queen yawned and stretched, giving Mark a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Don't worry, Pathos and Assault aren't going to harsh your buzz today, not unless those Loonies get their heads handed to them ahead of schedule. Are you getting up?"

"Uh...yes?" Mark looked around wildly, staying in control of himself by sheer force of will. Don't panic. Figure out what's going on. Daisy wasn't actually naked, thank God, but she was in a skimpy harem-girl outfit that didn't look like comfortable pajamas. She had scars on her body that looked new, some on her stomach and some on her back, where a large S-brand was clearly visible. A more thoughtful man might have panicked, but Mark was all about rolling with what was going on.

"All right," allowed Daisy, her bare shoulders relaxing as she slid out of the king-sized bed and headed for the kitchen. When the hell did I get a kitchenette!?! thought Mark as Daisy went in, the door she opened showing that Mark and Mike's dorm room had been transformed into a suite as big as a luxury hotel's. "Bacon and eggs as usual, and..." She stuck her head back in the room and gave Mark a stare. "When did you shave off your beard?" she asked him.

"I'm trying something new," Mark improvised as he sat up, trying to figure out where his pants were. Surely all this black leather couldn't be his. "Do you like it?" he asked her, giving her a half-smile.

"I like anything you do," Daisy told him without hesitation, something behind her eyes closing off as she stuck her head back in the kitchen. Something in her eyes even got through to Mark, and he felt a little sick. Oh God, did I actually go to Hell this time? C'mon, none of it was illegal and everyone had fun! When Daisy was gone, Mark started looking for his clothes in a hurry, and his commlink to go with it. Last time he'd gone to Hell, his friends had come to rescue him. If that dream had been a reality...well, he owed them all his life already.

[Electra]

Erin woke to a harsh white light shining down on her face, the voice of Rick Lucas in her dream still ringing in her ears. She put an arm up over her eyes, wondering what the hell Alex was doing now. Some kind of super-halogen desk lamp? She sat up, keeping her head low to avoid hitting it on the upper bunk, only to realize that the upper bunk wasn't there. Her eyes snapped open, regardless of the light, and she slid off the bed into a defensive crouch as she sussed out the situation.

There wasn't a lot to suss out, but all of it was confusing. She appeared to be in a white box of a room, smaller than her dorm room, and almost bare, save for a single twin bed, a dresser, and a small bathroom area so devoid of privacy that even the shower curtain was totally clear. Not that privacy seemed to be an issue, since the room hadn't a single window or even a door, except... She went entirely still as she spotted the cameras, nearly invisible set in next to the brilliant lights. She was not alone as it seemed in here, and there was no way to tell who was on the other side of the cameras. Now that her eyes were better attuned, she could also see variances in the white of the wall, especially the wall opposite the bed. It wasn't even the way the others were, it was covered in irregularly-shaped dents, four or five feet off the ground, and laced over with thin wires. Behind the wires, she thought she could make out the thin seam of some sort of door.

She got up and walked over to the door-wall, carefully reaching out a hand to try and push on the seamed area. As soon as her hand brushed the wires, an arc of current shot into her hand and through her body, tossing her backwards with a yelp of surprise and pain. Whoever had put her in here was not playing around. That jolt would've killed three normal humans, and even she could feel it all through her body still. Was this what Rick had meant? What kind of test was this, and where were the others? She looked up into the cameras, then decided to go for broke. Maybe these cells weren't soundproof, and someone was right next door. "Trevor?" she called, walking to the bathroom wall. If cells were going to be joined anywhere, it would be somewhere that would make plumbing simpler. "Warren? Blake? Mark? Is anybody out there?"

[Darksider42]

Beep...Beep...BEEP!

"Bah-wha?!" Warren jerked up from his desk, his mind fuzzy and dazed. "Dear god. I feel like I was in one hell of a mosh pit." He groaned, as he rubbed his eyes. His vision slowly started to adjust and right away he could tell something was wrong. The usual mess of his dorm was strangely absent. Circuit boards and wiring was neatly placed in carefully sorted rows along with a open laptop. His bed was actually made (though looked strangely unused) and his posters were meticulously placed across his wall instead of just slapped on. What called his attention was his guitar. Instead of the sleek black finish with what was becoming his trademark glass crack patter was one painted in a dulled white. Looked like some psycho went to town on someone and smashed their skull open with it. The thought quite frankly freaked Warren out. It just took a quick look down to show his duster had been replaced with a similar design, along with a black and red uniform.

What the-Where is my jacket? And when did I agree to start wearing tights?! He shook his head and looked at the laptop, the source of the beeping. tapping the pad, the screen changed to that of a large mechanical head with ominous red eyes. Lord Trash, Grand Master of all that is Metal. Production is going according to plan. The Hellbike drones will be ready for any and all possible objectives within a EST of 59 Hours." The metal voice was filled with Dread, like it was expecting to be destroyed for telling him this.

"Uhh...Thats...Good. Keep working and ensure you finish." He said. The Genius Guitarist had no idea what was going on, but thought it was best to play along. The Robot nodded. Very well. We shall continue our service to you." and with that, the screen went back to the various diagrams for various twisted devices.

He rubbed his eyes and tried his best to sort out what in the world was going on. "Blake? You here man?" He started looking around, hoping his room mate was here.

[Gizmo]

Trevor awoke from a fitful sleep with a start and a sudden sense of suffocation, clawing at his face before he regained his senses enough to realize what was going on. Fell asleep with my mask on? Wait. The lean young man's eyes narrowed and his teeth gritted against each other. Lucas. Throwing off crisp white sheets, he took stock of the unfamiliar bedroom. A pile of neatly stacked ornate frames and rolled up paintings sat in one corner, while a workbench covered in unrefined diamonds and gem cutting equipment was set up near the spartan bed.

The entire layout was disturbingly intuitive to his sensibilities, but also exaggeratedly sterile, full of whitewash and stainless steel, devoid of windows but lit to its every cranny by harsh fluorescent lights. One entire wall was covered with a spotless mirror, and Trevor caught a reflection of himself is an immaculate white robe, is face covered by an equally spotless mask, the shade reversed from his outfit as Midnight. Rubbing the bridge of his covered nose, he tried to concentrate. Think. The others. Erin. Tossing the robe violently away, he moved to a wardrobe of pale wood and threw it open. Finding nothing but rack after rack of matching white suits, he quickly dressed, noting the placements of semi-familiar devices concealed about the outfit. Placing the lone white fedora on his head, he moved with purpose, unbolting the multiple locks on the heavy metal door and stepping outside.

Instead of the hallway of the dormitory, he found himself now in a brick passageway, dark aside of intermittent, flickering bulbs hanging from above. Grateful for his enhanced nightvision, Trevor choose a direction at random and hurried down to his right, eventually coming to another sealed door with a keypad. Taking another chance, he tapped in the code he would have used, and the door slid forward and to the side, revealing a warped version of Claremont's library. Stepping into the larger room, he watched as the door closed behind him, leaving a totally unremarkable shelf of books in its place.

The sheer bizarreness of the situation slowly wore away at the stoic youth's carefully controlled demeanor, mixing with his concern for his classmates and amplified by the apparent paranoia of his assumed persona. As he stepped around the stacks to find Shinnosuke Koyama, clad in a crimson and black leather uniform and studiously flipping through a stack of bound tomes, his patience reached an end. Charging forward with startling speed, he ripped the other student from his seat and pinned him against a nearby shelf by his throat. His voice grated forth like an executioner's axe grinding on a whetstone. "Erin White. Where.

[Lone Star]

Blake woke with a start. He had a horrible dream! Strange sigils and whispers filled his head as he groaned. As he looked down at his hands, the whispers reached a climax, practically shouting in his head. "Aaagh! Dammit!" As suddenly as they had started, they stopped. Blake rose out of bed, and saw his roommate, Rift. Or, what appeared to be Rift. Regardless, he was too drowsy to notice. As he rose from the bed, the whispers started screaming in his head, and arcane power surged from his body. He felt his arms become wrapped in a sort of linen, and he looked down to find he was wearing a tattered yellow robe. "Okay...what the hell is going on here? Why do you look evil, Rift? And yellow isn't my color."

[Avenger Assembled]

Eventually Mark did find clothes, though he wondered who but a villain could dress in this obnoxious red and black leather? Of course, looking on the walls of his suite, he could make that leap easily enough. He was familiar with encountering doubles from other universes, after all, he'd just had a very close encounter with one earlier in September. He studied the pictures on the walls carefully, taking note of the warped reflections of his teammates, lingering in particular over the odd-looking copy of Erin, but just had time to grab a book off his desk before he heard Daisy coming back in.

Mark joined Daisy over breakfast, his mind whirling desperately as he tried to figure out what was going on. Why couldn't I be Psyche, or Midnight, or Rift? Someone who could tell what was going on? By a palpable effort, he kept his mouth shut and tried to encourage the usually-voluble Daisy to talk, a task that proved easier once he'd persuaded her to sit down and enjoy breakfast with him. "You made it, you deserve the fruits of your efforts." She gave him a sardonic look at that, and took a sample of eggs, toast, and bacon for herself.

"Aren't we a little past this by now, Hex?" she asked him, something like hope in her voice as she ate. "After all the work I did learning to cook, I'm not going to backslide now and try to poison you, right?" She gave him a smile just shaky at the edges. "See, it's good. I'm not stupid, I'm not going to throw away a good thing now, just when things are getting good."

---

"Gah!" Shinnosuke glared at Trevor, and did something unexpected: he blew him a kiss. "You decide to talk to ME, huh? Must be my lucky day! How do I know where your little combine harvester is?" He was scared, evidently, but he chose to express that in a way very much unlike the shy hacker Trevor was familiar with. In a low whisper, he added with a hiss, "Did you let her _out_?" he asked, suddenly, a smile on his face as if in dawning realization. "Oh, this is too good. I can't wait to see YOU get fifty lashes! I bet you're a groaner. Maybe Beaumont'll let me hold the cat!"

---

Peering out the window, Blake and Warren could see a much-warped Claremont campus outside. The buildings were almost all a collection of blocky, ugly brick cubes that reminded them of pictures of old Soviet-style architecture. The exceptions were what looked like the library, now cast as a grim, Gothic building complete with gargoyles and looming statuary, and an outdoor field that looked more like a military parade ground than a high school's soccer field. Most of the people outside were in black and red uniforms, but some were in more distinctive costumes vaguely recognizable as warped versions of the students they knew from back home.

Others were in shabby, utilitarian clothes of brown and grey. All of those in the slave uniforms were busy doing something: some carrying books, others pushing heavy carts, and some running messages or other errands. As the two teens watched, a hatch opened in the ground, disgorging several adults in uniform and a handful of adult and teenage slaves. A uniformed adult smacked a teenage slave on the side of the head, making him jump and run faster as he carried a pack loaded with equipment into a building marked "Science Department."

---

All was silence in Erin's confinement. It was a decidedly unpleasant sensation. She heard a sliding noise inside the top panel of her bureau, but by the time she got there whatever door had opened had closed. Instead, it seemed that breakfast was served as she looked down at the dish of food there waiting for her. The food looked bland and uninteresting; a bowl of oatmeal with a plastic spoon, a large Styrofoam cup full of water, and a single carefully sliced apple. Before she could take the food, she heard a mechanized, but human, voice say "Can you understand me?"

[Electra]

Erin took in the unappetizing meal, then ignored it for the moment as she stared directly at the cameras. It didn't seem wise to tip her hand more than she had to, but she needed to get some kind of communication going. "Let me out," she told the voice, looking towards the door. She wondered if the styrofoam cup would provide any sort of insulation against the shock, and if so, whether that would help. Maybe she'd have to try a wall further from the door, one that wasn't electrified. "Where is everybody else?"

[Darksider42]

Warren looked outside to the Totalitarian/Communist/slave labor mash up. It screamed wrong in his mind. "Dude. Everyone looks evil here." He muttered as he turned away from the window towards his friend, though that just made him shiver. "OK, We need to think. We woke up in a strange world, everything looks like the soviet union and the Nazi's merged together..." Rifts mind was already going into overdrive. Dots were connecting, but there was still some blanks that made it hard. His mind went to the dream. Trevor, Erin and Mark were there along with Blake. Random stuff about Good or Evil being superior...Hm. Did you have a weird dream involving some guy that looked like a pirate reject?" Not waiting for an answer, Warren stood up from his desk and went to grab the familiar but battered guitar.

Got a hunch, better act on it He though as he slung it over his shoulder.

[Gizmo]

At Shinnosuke's unexpected and overly obnoxious reaction, pieces began to fit together in Trevor's mind. Good versus evil, Lucas said. ...Anti-Earth. It made a twisted sort of sense, which fit the reality warper's modus operandi perfectly. For once, the cold, calculating side of his personality, which realized that he'd been mistaken for his malicious doppelganger, and the keenly emotional side, which railed violently at the implication of Erin being caged, were in perfect agreement. "Koyama, whatever it is you fear in this world," his voice tore roughly through a clenched jaw as streams of midnight mist leaked from between ruby red lenses and the immaculate white mask, stinging the pinned student's eyes, "I guarantee I am something infinitely darker and more terrible." Pressing down on Shinnosuke's throat with one forearm, he flicked his wrist, extending the stiletto blade he'd discovered there as he dressed. "Take me to where she's held, or the last thing you know will be your own wretched screams."

[Lone Star]

Blake held his head as the whispers became louder. "I can't concentrate on anything right now...aaghh." The whispers quieted down long enough for him to think. "Yeah...I vaguely remember some dream like that. I guess we're in some kind of alternate timeline." Blake watched as Warren slung his guitar over his shoulder. "But the real question is...should we act evil? Are we in the place of our evil counterparts?"

[Darksider42]

"Doubt it. Can't really visualize something like this happening in our regular time." Warren quickly adjusted the strap of the guitar and watched Blake, Worried about whatever his counterpart did to himself that would affect his mind this badly. "Dude, I need you to hang on and stay focused. Sooner we get things done here, sooner this is all over." How this will end, he did not know. "We should try and find the others that were in the dream. Think we just go with the flow until everyone is together then work from there. We'll try Marks dorm first, if he's here" With that said, he jerked his head towards the door, opened it and went into the hall. Even though things were looked different, he had a feeling most of everything was bound to be in the same place.

...Sorta.

Well, he hoped so.

[Avenger Assembled]

There was no auditory response to Erin's words, but she could just make out a few mechanical clicks in the walls all around her. As she watched, a screen appeared in the wall in front of her, a screen that actually included much of the doorframe she'd just been able to pick out. The technology was impressive; she'd seen enough super-tech at Claremont to know this was something like the morphic molecules of her costume, but built directly into the solid stuff of the door. A moment later, she wasn't thinking about that because a life-size image of her sister appeared on the screen. "Erin! Save me!" she screamed, a crowd of zombies growling around her, howling as they streamed towards the little girl that frantically clutched a stuffed pony to her chest. "Save me!"

---

Trevor realized something as he pressed the blade to Koyama's throat; there already was a knife scar at the spot he'd picked, as if someone of his exact height and build had put the teenager in a similar grip just a few months earlier. "Fine, fine," hissed Koyoma, giving Trevor a defiant look. "You want spectators, I'll be happy to watch you fall, new powers or not." He led Trevor out the library door, onto a grim, militarized version of Claremont's campus. They were just getting started heading towards the headmaster's office, or where that was on Trevor's world, when he heard a series of short beeps from the sensor built into his mask. He recognized the code from his grandfather's Morse series. ESCAPE. But of who? A moment later, his communicator flicked on in a harsh, military note.

"Blank. Report to the storage facility immediately. There's a problem with Singularity." Koyoma laughed bitterly, but didn't look back.

---

Mark was making his excuses to look around campus, trying to disengage himself from a Daisy Gibbons who was downright frightening in her loyalty to him. It wasn't that she _was_ loyal, though, Mark realized as he saw through the desperation in her eyes. She was trying to _show_ him her loyalty, even if it wasn't something she necessarily felt. He felt sick, and was terribly grateful when the communicator built into his uniform beeped. He answered it automatically, without debating how to use the system.

"Lucas," he said, skipping over a codename that didn't come naturally to his lips.

"Report to the storage facility immediately. There's a problem with Singularity." Mark was one of the few Claremont students who'd be able to immediately recognize the voice of Fletcher Beaumont II: the former Bowman III, even over a commlink. After all, Uncle Fletch had been a friend of the Lucas family for many years. Uncle Fletch didn't sound friendly now.

"On my way," said Mark, getting to his feet as he thought fast, his heart pounding in his chest. He'd seen Singularity's name among the many pictures and placards on his wall, one of which had included a picture. Erin... Were all the friends he'd shared that dream with somewhere on this world? That answered one question...but he had no idea where the facility was. He looked at Daisy, grabbed a leather coat off his chair, and tossed it to her. "You're coming with me. We may need help."

She gave him a blank-faced look and pulled on the jacket, Mark's coat looking bulky on her thin frame. "Okay," she said after some hesitation, evidently not sure of what to make of this idea. She seemed particularly surprised when Mark made sure she didn't just walk out of his suite of rooms in bare feet, instead digging a pair of work boots out of the closet to follow him out the door, a bizarre figure in her harem outfit, Mark's jacket, and heavy work shoes. It was a challenge to get her to lead the way.

As they reached the hallway, he caught sight of Warren and Blake, just as their communicators chimed in. "Prince in Yellow. Thrash. Report to the storage facility immediately. There's a problem with Singularity." Mark met their eyes, though of course that was never easy with Blake, and said "Well. It sounds like we're all going to the same place to see how our little Erin is doing, heh-heh-heh," he added. "I wonder if she had a bad dream."

[Electra]

Erin stood transfixed for a moment, eyes locked at the images on screen. They were like memories, she thought, like she was having the thoughts themselves right at this moment. Megan disappeared from the screen, replaced by Clarissa, being ripped apart in vivid, bloody technicolor. The screams came from hidden speakers, but they seemed to resonate inside Erin's head. Those visions repeated, interspersed with others, zombies bearing down on her, Megan's broken but not dead yet body, flashing quickly enough that she could barely focus on each one, even if she'd wanted to.

"Goddamn you!" she yelled at the cameras, her already pale face going white. "Damn you, damn you to hell!" Unable to stand seeing the visions a second longer, Erin pressed herself against the back of the cage, got a running start, and launched a flying kick at the screen. The whole cube resounded like a gong and the images jittered, but kept playing. She did it again, then again, till the whole enclosure was rocking and the wall was beginning to distend.

[Gizmo]

"Keep moving," Trevor growled at Shinnosuke's back, prodding him on with the tip of the stiletto blade when the smaller youth seemed to slow. Part of the masked teen's gut coiled in disgust at what he could guess of his counterparts' treatment of Koyama in the past, and felt yet further horror at how easily he'd assumed that role. The majority, however, knew that he would do that and far worse to see his people home safe. If 'Singularity' was who he thought it was, that meant that Erin had woken up, alone and disoriented, and inadvertently given herself away. Normally he would have had full confidence in her ability to free herself, but this entire world was profoundly unsettling. He had an uneasy hunch that the normal rules did not apply here, and was willing to take no chances.

Shortly, the unhappy pair came to the front gates of the storage facility to which 'The Blank' had been instructed to report. A brick guard post blocked the way, proclaiming no admittance to the facility. Presumably an exception was to be made, but any security which dealt with masked individuals would have to have some sort of additional measures; a passcode, perhaps. Could he trust Shinnosuke to help? Surely not, even if he had sufficient clearance. Trevor ground his teeth harder as he considered his few and unattractive options.

[Darksider42]

Warren inspected the communicator for a second. Singularity? He didn't know who that was until Mark spoke. He noted that there was a strange way he said dreams. Already it looked like things were starting to work in their favor. Looked like that Hunch was right after all. Warren though has he watched Mark come out of his room with... Daisey Gibbons? He glared at her, remembering how she nearly broke up Eddies band. He had to give himself a mental kick though. This version shouldn't be held responsible for the one he knew. "Pff, Try rooming with him. You get some interesting ones as well." He said, nodded towards Blake and trying to sound like he was all high and mighty. Supervillains were like that all the time right?

"We better hurry up. C'mon prince." He said, following mark to where they were keeping Erin. He really hoped Mark knew the way. Or at least Daisey. Who for some reason was making him think Starscream, despite the fact there was something...Wrong with her now that he got a second look. What is wrong with these people?....

[Avenger Assembled]

Daisy pointedly looked down when Warren looked at her, studying her feet in Mark's boots for a moment before Mark prompted her with a short "Keep moving." Daisy was their only guide to campus, and Mark watched as she led them across the quad. A few sneers were shot her way, but no one said anything with Hex and the others right there. Something very bad had happened to this Daisy Gibbons, something that had her dressed like a starved harem girl and scared to make eye contact with anyone other than Mark as they went. Did I...no, HE, do this? What happened here?

The campus was a horrible parody of itself, the American flag flying overhead by the usual flagpole just made everything worse. Glad to see that Warren and Blake both seemed to have come through intact in the journey to the other world, Mark thought fast. It wasn't hard to guess where they were and what was going on. There were many Claremont students smarter and more knowledgeable than Mark, but few with an incredibly detailed geekery about anything and everything done by Freedom City's superheroes. But if this is really Anti-Earth, why didn't we explode!?

[Lone Star]

Blake punched Warren in the arm. "Shut up, Thrash." He tried to act as macho as possible. He assumed that was how villains did things, but he gave Warren a slight nudge with his foot. As confused as he was, he knew he couldn't blow their cover. As he walked down the hallway with Warren, he noticed he was levitating a few inches off of the ground. The whispers in his head slowly increased their volume. How anyone endures this and isn't evil is beyond me.

[Avenger Assembled]

Trevor and Shinnosuke's brief standoff at the Singularity bunker was interrupted by the arrival of several familiar faces; a scantily-clad Daisy Gibbons in bizarre fetish gear, and just behind her came warped versions of Mark, Warren, and Blake. Mark studied the white-clad figure holding the defiant-looking hacker at knifepoint for a moment, thinking fast. Solid colored outfit...real tough-looking...doesn't like L33T...Ah-hah! It must be Trevor! He gave a nod and a wink to Trevor, not knowing what better signs he could give, then walked right up to the guard post. "We're here as ordered. What's going on with Singularity?" The thing about Mark was that he usually had no idea what was going on; this made it much easier to pretend he understood what he was doing there.

The guard, who luckily wasn't someone Mark recognized from his own world, responded by pressing a button on his walkie-talkie. "Imperials are here for the weapon. Should I send them in?" Fletcher Beaumont's whiskey-soaked voice ordered the man to do so, and soon the teens, sans Daisy and Shinnosuke, were all being escorted inside the heavily-reinforced building. In the middle of the central room was a large white cube, the outside covered in equipment, the cube itself shaking ever so slightly as a dent appeared with a GONG on the outside. Before Mark could do more than react to that, he caught sight of two people: a clearly-recognizable (despite a mechanical hand) Mr. Archer in red and black, barking orders to a team of uniformed goons setting up a light machine gun nest aimed at the growing dent in the side of the cube.

The other was Fletcher Beaumont, looking a strange combination of haggard and fierce. The gentle man Mark had grown up knowing looked more like an old, dangerous wolf than anything else. At the sight of the boys, he growled, "Your pet is getting angry." He pressed a few buttons on the computer screen nearby, popping up a multi-angled image of a frightened, furious Erin White, screaming wordlessly as she attacked the walls of her confinement, whereon horrible images of agonizing blood and death were being displayed. "Knew it was a mistake for Thunderbolt to take Pathos to Farside," he purred. "Now we've got to calm down the wrecking machine in there, or we've got to put her down. I won't lose more men, Lucas. Not without compensation."

His face pale, Mark improvised. "You think I can't handle this? I've dealt with her before," he said, folding his hands behind his back in a gesture he'd unconsciously copied from Duncan Summers. "And I've got my boys here with me," he added, jerking his head back at the others. "We can handle anything. As for compensation, well...would you have spent this much time and effort on her if she wasn't worth it? Turn off those images and let us talk to her, and we'll talk her down."

Beaumont's eyes narrowed. "She knew your name, boy. All of your names. You boys haven't been slipping in and sticking it to her on the sly, have you? Trying to get your own pet death machine for real?" He gave the Blank a speculative look at that one before going on. "You know you don't get to have her till you graduate. Till you're Syndicate, I own _all_ of you."

[Gizmo]

Even through his featureless mask, it became increasingly obvious that Trevor's face was contorting first with impatience and then undiluted rage. This world had word mightily on the stoic teens considerable restraint and self control, but the last shreds of patience were consciously thrown aside as Trevor shoved Shinnosuke to the side and charged forward, snarling with icy grit, "Own this," as midnight mist exploded through his pristine white suit to cloak the room in darkness, his vision blurred with red even before his mutated eyes shifted to a higher spectrum. An angry swipe of his jacket's built in stiletto forced an unprepared Archer out of the way before Midnight moved on to skewer Beaumont through the shoulder with the long, thin blade. Despite having never seen it before today, the chilling precise young man knew it was laser sharpened to a nano-fine edge and forged of a carbon impervium alloy that would be invisible to metal detectors and all but unbreakable. After all, it's how he would have made it.

[Avenger Assembled]

Though never quick on the uptake, Edge was willing to roll with his friend's sudden attack. After all, they had to save their friend from these monsters! The problem was, as usual, Mark couldn't see a damn thing when Trevor was using his mist. Luckily, though, a brilliant idea came to him! The mist around Mark blurred as he concentrated, the gas around him luckily fading early at just the right moment. Exerting himself, he lashed out, concentrating on the dent in the big impervium cage, urging it to give way just as Erin's next blow came ringing in. I've broken impervium with my head before! This isn't so tough! And sure enough, it wasn't, the impervium caving in just as Erin kicked her way out!

[Electra]

Erin was startled for a moment when the wall finally gave way, but she lost no time in escaping the white box full of torment. Where had they gotten those images? How did they know so much about her, and what were they trying to do? This was some sort of test, a test against evil... As she emerged, she saw a room full of black smoke, totally disorienting in its own way, and one clear patch that contained... was it Mark? A second look had Erin unsure. He looked like the Mark she knew, but Erin of all people knew about universal doubles. And he wasn't wearing the right uniform. His uniform was slashes of black and red, and made her uneasy just to look at.

First things first, she reminded herself, overriding the part of herself that wanted to scream and fight, forcing herself to think rationally and tactically. She didn't know what was going on, who was friend or who was foe. She needed a picture of the situation before she could act at all. In one jump, she was on top of the cage in a defensive crouch, hiding in the mists and ready to make anyone who attacked her there very, very sorry. It wasn't a very defensible position, but it was the best she had.

[Avenger Assembled]

Young Freedom's assault against the bad guys, especially the sudden eruption of darkness, produced near-panic among the assembled goons before Archer suddenly shouted "Stand firm! Shoot to kill!" There was a sudden rush of air as Archer was suddenly _everywhere, running back and forth through the roiling cloud of midnight mist in a desperate effort to banish the gas cloud. When Archer failed in that effort, he was soon out the door, reappearing within seconds as he began shouting further orders to his platoon of well-drilled thugs.

[Darksider42]

Rift sighed for a moment. He was hoping they could avoid fighting until they knew what was going on. But that didn't matter right now. Warren unslings his guitar, trying to target the Academy Headmaster. Though it was a bit hard with Trevors midnight mist in the air. Other sense He though as he closed his eyes. With The comotion, it was creating enough sound for Rift to see Beaumont suffering from Trevor's assault. "Here goes nothing." He though as he sent a blast of high charged sound towards him.

[Lone Star]

Kid Cthulhu readied a blast of mystic fire and aimed it carefully at Beaumont. He still had his same old spells, but the fire glowed a golden yellow over his hands. "Cthulhu f'thagn, baby!" KC shouted as the mystic fire shot from his palm. He felt the arcane power surge in him and he poured it out of him. The eldritch fire shot straight towards Beaumont. As he fired, he heard a few more dark secrets inside his head. The whispers were growing louder. If I never come back here, it'll be too soon.

[Gizmo]

As shockwaves of sound and torrents of golden flame danced about, Midnight growled in annoyance. "Back off," he demanded of the others, withdrawing the stiletto roughly through Beaumont's shoulder. "He's mine." A brutal backhand finally knocked the surprisingly resilient drunkard senseless, landing in a head at Trevor's feet. The seething youth spared a moment on a look of utter contempt before sprinting off toward the broken cage and the area Mark had cleared in the mist. He emerged from the obscuring miasma with the blood splattered blade still extended from his sleeve, once pristine white outfit stained sticky red and sooty black. His relief at seeing Erin free only dulled the edge of his red hot anger. "Good to move?"