The Battles
The Punkasses make a stop at the Halo corporate headquarters for communication devices and a few extras and Walter gives Thor a speed boost, since they know they'll be facing super-fast opponents. Then they set up their comms system, return to Area 51, and set out amidst the halls of the now-desolate facility to find their opponents.
"Remember, everyone, just like we talked about," the Black Knight calls from Strider's saddle. "Walter, don't be afraid to cut loose against Spider-Man. I have a feeling you'll need every trick in your book to keep up with him."
"I remember from the first twelve times, Dane."
"Thor, same to you; from what Walter tells me, this Dr. Fate character may even put Loki to shame."
"Put your mind at ease, friend Dane. The sorcerous prowess of such as Loki, the Enchantress, Karnilla, and e'en cold Hela herself have versed me well enow in coping with any sorcerous onslaught this Fate might level at me."
"All right. The rest of you, try to stick together."
"He certainly likes repeating himself, doesn't he?" Ambrose asks Hadrian.
"Hey, Chase, there was a time when you would've followed my orders without question!" the Knight shoots back.
"Oh, really? When was this? I must've missed the memo."
"Come on, it was..." Dane grasps for the memories, but they slip away like water. "I mean, there was that time..." He looks at the puzzled faces of his teammates. "Ah, to hell with it. Whether it's with the knights of the Crusades or the Knights of Wundagore or the Avengers, experience has taught me that teamwork's always the key. Just watch each other's backs."
No sooner has Dane uttered those words than a blast of cosmic energy rips through the wall to the Punkasses' left. As the smoke clears, the glow of Spider-Man's fists lights the visages of the rest of their opponents.
"All right, team. You know what to do," Dane says, charging.
Hadrian vs. Mr. Fantastic
Hadrian's eyes flash and he and Reed Richards vanish. They reappear in an abandoned warehouse in Australia.
"Wha--?" Reed remarks, confused. "Oh. Oh, yes, I see now. You're a teleporter!"
"I apologize, Dr. Richards, but we identified you as the smartest and most capable field leader of your team. It was imperative to cripple their teamwork by removing you from the equation."
"Well, I'm flattered, but in the words of an old friend, 'It's clobberin' time!'" Reed pulls a pair of goggles over his eyes and fires the strange, alien device he holds in his hands.
"I assure you, that will do you no--AAAA100101001100011001RRGH00101!!" Hadrian doubles over in pain as his highly acute optic and audio receptors are bombarded with dazzling lights and ultrasonic waves. He instinctively initiates a reboot of all his sensors and takes to the air, but he finds Reed closing around his torso, pinning his arms. Hadrian's audio receptors recover first, and he hears his opponent's words.
"--were at a loss for information on you, so I decided to use some of the technology at our disposal in Area 51 to build this. I reasoned that no matter who or what our opponents might be, so long as they could see and hear, this device would be effective."
"I--Impressive, Dr. Richards. I see now that the Knight was not exaggerating when he called you the smartest man on your world."
"Well, I'm not one to brag--"
"As well you shouldn't be," Hadrian interrupts as his optics flicker back online. "Remember--I'm not from your world." Superheated plasma pours out of Hadrian's eyes and onto Reed's elongated midsection. Reed cries out as the intense heat of the plasma breaks down his malleable body's molecular bonds, literally vaporizing him. Hadrian teleports the goggles and earpieces off of Reed, then teleports Reed's gun into his own hands. One blast and Reed collapses to the floor, grasping his fluctuating midsection and vomiting from the nausea caused by his own weapon. "It's too bad, Dr. Richards. In another life, I would've loved to have you on Halo's staff." A few super-strong punches later and Reed is unconscious. Hadrian teleports back to the rest of the action.
Black Knight vs. Steel
Black Knight urges Strider on as Steel, unable to dodge in time, raises his hammer to brace for impact. The collide and go tumbling through the hole Spider-Man made in the wall. Strider's hooves clang ineffectively against Steel's armor while Steel pushes his hammer against Strider's neck, trying to keep the Knight's position awkward and shifting on Strider's back so he can't skewer him with his sword.
"All right, Mr. Knight, I've had about enough of this!" Steel summons up the armor's reserves and pushes with all his might, breaking the lock Strider has on him. Horse and rider tumble backwards and the Black Knight is unseated. "My blitz now!" Steel's bootjets switch on and he flies to the opposite wall of the wide, open room he and the Knight ended up in. A large, black mass sits below him, and he thinks that if his eyes aren't playing tricks on him, it's actually hovering. He'd heard the stories of alien spacecraft in Area 51, but he admits to himself that he never thought he'd actually get to see them. "Time enough for that after I take home the win," he reminds himself. With sufficient distance between himself and the Knight, he hurls his hammer. It strikes the Black Knight's shield with a crash so loud it leaves a ringing in both heroes' ears. "Bet you felt that, Knight. The farther my hammer goes, the harder it hits."
"Wow, that must've hit me with a lot of force, then." Dane rises from his crouch and dusts his shield off. "Unfortunately, my shield absorbs everything just the same, no matter how far it's thrown or how hard it hits, so I can't really say how much force. But hey, you're a scientist too, right? Why don't you tell me?" Dane raises his sword and a blast of kinetic energy equal to that of the hammerstrike on his shield rams Steel before he can evade. He slams into the wall behind him and slides to the floor, armor sparking. "Ouch. Looks like it was pretty damn hard. Uh... good for you?"
"I got your 'good for you' right here, smart-ass," John Henry mutters under his faceplate. "Return!" he yells to his hammer. It levitates and zips back towards Steel, hitting Dane in the back along the way. Now it's Dane's turn for his armor to take a beating. He can feel the slight dent the hammer made pushing into his back.
Dane groans as he picks himself up off the floor. "You know, it was in very bad taste to strike a man in the back during the Crusades."
"Well, lucky for us chivalry's dead."
Dane rolls out of the way as Steel brings his hammer crashing down onto the floor. Another hammer blow lands on Dane's shield. He turns it away, throwing Steel off his balance, and fires the energy through his sword as he slices along Steel's chestplate. The fine line his enchanted sword makes widens as the force of the energy blows it into a warped hole, exposing his chest. Blood drips down the armor.
John Henry bites back the pain and shock and resumes control of the situation. "All right, son. Hardball time." Dane thrusts his sword again, but Steel dodges and swats the sword aside with his hammer. His other hand comes up to punch the disoriented Knight in the face, knocking him over.
"Gah!" Dane splutters blood from his mouth. "Feels like my jaw damn near came unhinged through my helmet. I was taking it easy on you, but it seems you're packing a lot more power--and much better moves--than I gave you credit for."
"Don't beat yourself up over it, man. Allow me." Steel swings his hammer again. The Knight performs a low spin and knocks Steel off his feet. He bashes Steel's head into the ground with his shield on the way down.
"You seem to have misunderstood. Your gadgets and brute power aren't going to save you. All I meant was the kiddie gloves are coming off."
"So it seems." Steel rolls over backwards, placing his feet near the Knight's shins, and sets his bootjets to maximum burn. The Knight's armor protects him from the heat, but the force blasts his feet out from under him. Steel uppercuts him on the way down, sending him into an awkward aerial somersault. Dane manages to shift his weight so he touches down on his hand and springs off to what would have been a graceful landing on his feet--if not for Dr. Fate. The Knight's mind feels like it's coming apart as Fate releases a mystical assault on the Punkasses' minds. Dane tries to shrug the mental blast off, but it's too late. Steel's trademark rivet gun pops up from his left gauntlet and fires a couple of rounds at Dane. Dane shakily blocks the projectiles with his shield, but between blocking the rivets with arms that feel like lead and trying to push the pain of Fate's mental assault out of his head, he leaves himself open for Steel's hammer. It slams into his face and knocks him out cold. "Return." The hammer flies back into Steel's hand and he slumps his weight onto it, exhausted from the fight. "Damn... for a guy who looks like he's stuck 700 years in the past, the man's got some spunk."
Flash vs. Cosmic Spider-Man
"Reed!" Spider-Man shouts, preparing to teleport after his teammate. But Walter is on Spider-Man before anyone else can even twitch. A thousand punches in a second, cushioned by a few extra layers of Speed Force aura, and Spider-Man, cosmic or not, is left reeling mere moments into the fight. He's ready for the next barrage, though; he shifts his own speed up a notch and focuses on his spider-sense, allowing himself to feel out where Walter's next attack will come from. When the first punch is thrown, Spider-Man's hand shoots out and catches Walter's fist.
"Hi there, sunshine. Didn't your mom ever tell you that violence never solves any problems? You've gotta talk things OUT!" Spider-Man pushes a pulse of cosmic energy through his fist, blasting Flash through a wall into some sort of laboratory with equipment all around. Walter speeds himself up by stealing Spider-Man's speed and accelerates everything in the room into Spider-Man, vibrating them subtlely to turn them into floating mines. The chain of explosions that the scalpels, test tubes, flasks, computer keyboards, and other instruments create upon hitting Spider-Man is truly devastating. The walls are reduced to a metal imitation of swiss cheese and the ceiling groans under its loss of support. Spider-Man crouches, huddled in a ball after the smoke clears. The explosions took a lot out of him, but not enough.
Walter tries speeding up parts of Spider-Man's brain but Spider-Man counters it with his transmutational abilities. Finally, Walter starts going to extreme measures. Still crippling Spider-Man's speed by stealing it to amplify his own, Walter zips out of Area 51, across the globe, and slams his fist into Spider-Man in an infinite mass punch. He comes around again and hits Spider-Man with another, knocking him off his feet. Walter can see blood darkening the inside of Spider-Man's mask, but he doesn't let up. He hits Spider-Man with another, and another, and another. But finally, Spider-Man manages to catch Walter off guard. As Walter speeds in for another infinite mass punch, Spider-Man focuses on his spider-sense and, at the last possible second, throws his weight away from Walter. Walter swings and misses, throwing his balance off, and Spider-Man snags his legs with some webbing. Tripped up at the speed of light, Walter plows through wall after wall of Area 51, instinctively struggling to amplify his Speed Force aura so that his bones don't shatter from the impact.
When Walter finally comes to a rest, he's a mess. His costume is torn and he can feel the bruises beginning to sting. At least two of his ribs are broken, from the feel of it. After Walter's barrage of light-speed punches, however, Spider-Man doesn't look much better. Still, Spider-Man hobbles to his feet and limps over to the Flash. "N--nnng..." Spider-Man cups his side; it seems Walter's ribs aren't the only ones broken. "Nice try... but not good enough." Spider-Man draws back but the speedster convulses before he throws the punch.
"My head!" Walter yelps. He passes out from the mental pain on top of his physical injuries.
"Hmm," Spider-Man wonders as his body begins recovering from the fight. "I smell a Fate whammy. Speaking of whom..." Spider-Man flies off to find his sorcerous compatriot.
Ambrose Chase vs. Indigo
"Well, well, well," Ambrose says with a confidence born of years experiencing all the strangest his world has to offer. "What have we here?"
"My name is Indigo," the petite young blue woman before him replies.
"I know that much. Trouble is, no one could seem to find much more about you."
"Would you like to trade stats? Like with baseball cards? Shift showed me baseball cards and I found them entertaining!" She smiles so innocently Ambrose almost feels too guilty to do what he's about to do. Almost.
"No, thanks, sweetheart. I think I'll just say, 'goodnight.'" Ambrose whips out two VAD plasma pistols--one of the extras from Halo--and blasts at Indigo's arms and legs. The blasts disappear harmlessly before reaching Indigo. Some kind of force field, Ambrose realizes.
"You attempted to shoot me, yet you aimed for areas that would be nonlethal on a human being. Why?"
"What can I say? I've always been a softy for a pretty face."
Indigo smiles and--to Ambrose's astonishment--actually blushes. "That is sweet of you, but unnecessary. I am fully capable of defending myself." Her eyes glow and Ambrose gets the message. Energy spews forth from her big, doe eyes and Ambrose barely manages to put up a field in time. He slows time before himself so that the blasts creep at a snail's pace and reduces gravity, leaping over the blast and Indigo herself. He lands behind her and tests his theory--that maybe her force fields are line-of-sight--but he is dismayed to find his blasts equally ineffective. "Shooting people in the back is not nice," Indigo says. She flies at him but he speeds himself up enough to dodge in time.
All right, Ambrose thinks, I think a change of strategy is in order. He runs up a wall onto the ceiling, shooting at Indigo as he goes and dodging her return fire. He knows none of his shots will make it through that force field, but this is all just a distraction for the real show. Finally, when he has her in position--floating right in the center of the room--he cranks his plasma pistols up to max and starts shooting through critical points of the ceiling. He bobs and weaves around Indigo's fire, which strikes the ceiling as he dodges--he's making the Outsider inadvertently help him defeat her. The ceiling gives way and he drops down. The entire ceiling crumbles onto Indigo, but she expands her field to protect her from any damage. Meanwhile, Ambrose lands beneath Indigo and uses her force field to shield himself from the debris as well; he focuses intently on his field. Gravity begins to pile up around Indigo. The added weight of the ceiling and the floor above pressing down on Indigo's field and the fact that Indigo has her field stretched over a larger area than normal help, and soon she has the equivalent of Jupiter's gravity pushing in on her from all directions.
"What are you--?" Indigo looks around at her force field worriedly. Her android brain begins to comprehend the scenario and her eyes go wide. "Subtle field... disrupting the laws of physics... Shield at 20% and dropping! Rerouting power..."
Her external monologue continues while blood drips from Ambrose's nose, but he keeps pushing. Soon the pressure is up to the equivalent of three suns' gravity fields. For all of Indigo's power, even she has limits. Cracks begin showing in her force field and Ambrose lets loose with his plasma pistols. Her field shatters and the blasts tear through her android body, leaving gashes filled with sparking wires. Her energy reserves are so depleted from bolstering her force field that her normal auto-repair functions fail to kick in. Ambrose drops the gravity field and slows time around himself. He dives out of the way just as Indigo comes crashing down, followed momentarily by the ceiling and the lion's share of the equipment and computers that were on the floor above.
Ambrose Chase and Hadrian vs. Steel
Ambrose doesn't get a moment's rest, however, because Steel's hammer comes spinning out of the next room to annihilate the floor below him. He's thrown into the air, but he lands gently thanks to a light application of his distortion field. Steel flies through a hole in the wall and lands before Ambrose. "Looks like I'll be batting two hundred today."
"Not if I have anything to say abAAAARGH!" Fate's mental assault hits Ambrose and he falls to his knees. Steel takes the opportunity to recall his hammer to himself, then raises it to knock Ambrose out--more to put him out of his misery than for any malice at this point, in John Henry's mind.
But Hadrian emerges from a bright flash of pink before Steel can deliver the blow and blasts Steel with plasma energy from his eyes. "Damn, two on one?" Steel says ruefully. "Let's see if we can't even those odds, shall we?" He focuses intently on Hadrian, looking at him as if he sees something no one else can. Hadrian's head begins to turn towards Ambrose.
"Ambrose...kkk...I can't...kkk...stop myself!" His eyes pulse and plasma energy flies at Ambrose. Ambrose frantically throws up a field and barely turns the plasma blasts back towards Steel. They hit the Justice Leaguer in the shoulder, damaging his armor.
"Don't... worry, Marlowe," Ambrose says, shaking off the effects of Fate's painful but brief psychic bolt. "I got you." Ambrose turns to Steel. "Overriding his computerized mind? Come on, man, look at your tech and look at his. You know that's not gonna last."
"You're right, he's already wrested control back from me. But I've left his systems so corrupted that he'll be locked up for the next half a minute; plenty of time for me to put you down." He throws his hammer but Chase redirects it right back at him with his field and puts an extra bit of gravity behind it for good measure. Steel manages to move but the hammer strikes his arm, leaving the armor around it irreparably damaged and his arm itself broken. "Return!" The hammer floats back over to his good hand.
"Not too bright charging in when you don't have the slightest clue what I'm capable of, now is it? But I know all about you, courtesy of a friend." Ambrose throws a field up around Steel, slowing time down, then runs up the wall and pushes himself off. Shifting gravity around himself to be lower, he fires a barrage of plasma pulses at Steel. Their extreme heat warps parts of his armor and tears through in some spots.
you couldn't tell me on which page the vopting method will be could you?
