Malice (Sue Storm) (MM)
The Vision (Exiles) (MM)
The Ghost (MR)
Darkchylde (MR)
Deadman (DR)
vs.
Aquaman (DM)
Steel (DM)
Mr. Terrific (DR)
Black Panther (MR)
Multiplex (DR)
=== Overview ===
A few points to consider before I get to the battle itself . . .
The environment is quite harsh, especially if we get higher up in the mountains. Both teams will be dealing with extreme cold and thin atmosphere. But I don't think this will be a huge factor. The Vision as an andriod is immune to such considerations, as is Deadman as a ghost with no physical body. The Ghost's suit should shield him from the elements somewhat (and he can use preptime to make futher adjustments), and Darkchylde's demonic body is probably somewhat less susceptible. Malice can protect herself from the elements using her forcefields. As for Harl, his team can probably protect themselves using their various technological resources.
My team's advantages are stealth and mobility. I have three invisible characters (Malice, Ghost, Deadman), three intangible characters (Vision, Ghost, Deadman), and a teleporter (Darkchylde). Malice can also use her power to make her teammates invisilbe, and Ghost can use portable intangibility units to make his teammates intangible.
I see my team trying to use these advantages to get the drop on their opponents. Probably they'd employ some sort of
hit and run strategy where they attack while invisible, try to take out a couple of Harl's guys, then retreat through a portal and regroup. Harl's team has various ways to counter this strategy: Specifically, his tech guys can use some kind of scanners to try to locate my guys, and Aquaman can use his enhanced senses and telepathy. Invisible Woman might be detectable by sound, although Ghost wouldn't be (he adapted his tech to hide sound after Iron Man found him in that way). Note that Ghost's tech also hides him from high-tech scanners -- if Iron Man has struggled to find ways to detect him with more than a days prep and the resources of Stark Industries at his disposal, Harl's team isn't likely to develop a way to find him after one day working on it in an environment with no tech resources. Deadman should also be totally indectable until he possesses a human body -- I don't think even telepathy will work against him when he's in spirit form, since he doesn't have a brain.
The other thing that makes it hard to find my team is the sheer size of the battlefield, and the fact that they'll be teleporting from place to place looking for Harl's team. Even if Aquaman gets a telepathic fix on them, they could be on the other side of the Himalayas before Harl's team engages them. They'll
know they're dealing with a telepath from the basic descriptions given, and Darkchylde is experienced dealing with telepaths (having trained at Xavier's school, after all).
Now on to the battle itself . . .
=== The Battle -- Part 1 ===
Author's Note: I chose not to split this into separate one-on-one fights, since I think a more realistic scenario involves characters repeatedly trading off opponents as multiple fights are happening side by side. To give a sense of this I itallicized some of the paragraphs, not for emphasis but to indicate that they happen at the same time
as the unitallicized paragraphs that proceed them.
Darkchylde's portal opens without a sound, but the heartbeats of my team are like a drum to one whose hearing was honed in the depths of the ocean. "Here they come!" Aquaman yells, but before Steel can react he feels his air supply cut off as an invisible forcefield blocks his windpipe. He hastily looks around for his attacker, but Malice herself is likewise invisible.
"Such cowardly tactics won't work against me," Aquaman says, as his telepathic mind focusses on Malice and commands all her snyapses to fire at once, triggering a seizure. Instantly she releases her hold of Steel, and her invisiblity drops as well -- revealing her location, and that of her teammate, Darkchylde.
At the same time as Malice attacked, the Ghost had ambushed Black Panther, approaching while invisilbe and firing a concussive energy weapon. Taken off guard, Panther is hit, but the vibranium mesh under his costume manages to absorb the impact. T'Challa strikes back with a flying kick, but Ghost switches from invisible to intangible just in the nick of time. With a spoken command, he detonates a high-powered explosive that he had dropped at his feet while invisible. The explosion passes harmlessly through Ghost, but Panther is blown back by the impact.
Meanwhile, Multiplex's innumerable duploids swarm around the now revealed Darkchylde. They try to grab hold of the mutant, only to find that they pass right through her. She's wearing one of Ghost's portable intangibility circuits, rendering her as untouchable as him. Darkchylde ignores Multiplex and focusses on Aquaman, who has been forced to halt his attack on Malice as he defends himself from Deadman, who's attempting to possess him. Darkchylde shouts a codeword, "quickdrop!", and Deadman leaps out of Aquaman's body just as a portal opens over his head. (This is a maneuver my team planned during prep-time.) A maximum density Vision, who has been in freefall several miles up, comes barreling through the portal at extreme speed and slams down right on top of Aquaman. (This attack was enought to take down Count Nefaria, a better than Thor level brick, so it should easily finish Aquaman.)
Deadman -- a nobler soul than some of his teammates -- looks on in horror at Aquaman's broken body. The Vision had assured him he would only hit hard enough to knock his foe out. But this is the ruthless Vision of the dimension-hopping Weapon-X team, and he has as few qualms about lying as he does about killing. (Harl's team probably also didn't expect such a ruthless attack from the Vision, since Black Panther knows quite a different Vision.)
As Aquaman falls, his telepathic assualt on Malice ceases, but before she can regain enough control of her mind to reestablish her shield, she is dropped by a quick punch combination from Mr. Terrific.
Steel hurls his hammer at the Vision, but reacting with the speed of a computer Vision switches to intangible mode and the hammer flies right through. He charges for Steel, and Steel meets him head on while silently sending an electronic signal to call his hammer back to him. He hopes to preoccupy Vision with their exchange of superstrong blows and catch him by surprise with the hammer's return flight. But instead of punching him, Vision stoops to a new level of ruthlessness, phasing his hand right through Steel's armor and solidifying inside Steel's vulnerable human body.
Before Vision can take pleasure in his victory (if indeed his android mind can feel pleasure as humans do) he finds himself attacked by an unseen assailant. It's Mr. Terrific, whose invisibility to all things technological gives him a huge advantage against the android. As Vision struggles to locate his opponent, one of Mr. Terrific's T-spheres flies towards him and generates a powerful electromagnetic pulse. (Terrific had reconfigured them to do this during prep-time, knowing he'd face tech-heavy foes in Vision and Ghost.) The electrical surge overwhelms Vision's circuitry, and the android falls to the ground.
Having abondoned Aquaman, Deadman now leaps into one of Multiplex's duploids and attempts to assert control. (As Harl told me in the Transactions thread, a single mind controls all of Multiplex's duploids and they coordinate automatically, even to the point of finishing each others sentences. Once Deadman is in one of Multiplex's bodies, he has that body's powers, including the power to extend his mind over all the duploids. And because it's all a single mind, I believe Deadman should be able to control all of them at once. That said, the distributed nature of Multiplex's mind may make him a bit more able to resist the possession than most, which I try to portray in the following.) As the two consciousnesses war for control of the duploid army, roughly half the duploids fall under Deadman's control and the other half under Multiplex's. But the individual duploids keep switching sides, as the ongoing struggle between Deadman's will and Multiplex's plays out simultaneously in each body. These leads to a chaotic free-for-all, with various duploids alternately attacking and aiding each other.
The defeats of Malice and the Vision don't go unnoticed by their teammates. "This is going downhill fast!" Ghost shouts, as he races intangibly through the throng of Multiplex's to Darkchylde's side. "Let's get the hell out of here and regroup!"
"I couldn't agree more," Darkchylde answers, as she opens a portal carrying both of them away. Black Panther and Mr. Terrific try to stop them, but by the time they get past the Multiplex army their opponents are already gone.
With no way to tell which Multiplexes are under whose control at any given time (and with them constantly switching sides anyway), there's nothing Black Panther and Mr. Terrific can do to help their teammate. So they leave the scene, carried on Terrific's T-spheres, and seek out a new position to fortify against the next attack from their remaining opponents.
End Part 1
Casualties: Aquaman, Malice, Steel, Vision
=== The Battle -- Part 2 ===
Having regrouped, my team seeks out their remaining foes. Darkchylde teleports them from site to site but hangs back while the Ghost does reconnaissance. They reason this is the safest plan, as Ghost's invisibility also shields him from nearly all forms of technological detection.
Standing on the edge of a cliff, Ghost spots Black Panther on a ledge below, and signals Darkchylde to teleport him behind the Avenger. Silently he approaches to nearly point blank range, takes aim at the Panther's head, and fires.
The shot passes right through. A trap! The image of the panther fades, having been nothing but a hologram created by Mr. Terriffic. And at the same time, the real Black Panther leaps out from behind the Ghost, slashing through his suit's circuitry with an energy dagger before he even has a chance to phase.
Meanwhile, further up the mountainside, Mr. Teriffic himself has ambushed Darkchylde. She remains unconcerned, knowing she's still wearing one of Ghost's phasing units -- meaning all his attacks will just pass right through. Darkchylde opens a large portal over their heads, the other end of which is located underneath
the cap of snow that covers the mountain. Those tons of snow now come raining down on them, but they too will pass harmlessly through Darkchylde's intangible body.
Except...
at the very same moment as Darkchylde mounts this attack, Mr. Terrific sends forth his T-Spheres, directing them to generate an electrical surge which shorts out Darkchylde's phasing unit. Before the mutant can open a portal to save herself, both her and her foe are swept up in a massive avalanche of snow. An avalanche that continues to build as it rushes down the mountainside towards Black Panther and the Ghost. This is an onslaught which cannot possibly be dodged, and it washes over both those combatants as well (Ghost's phasing circuitry having been damaged by the Panther's attack). When at last the snow settles, all four characters are hoplessly buried and crushed beneath it.
Elsewhere . . .
Multiplex's duploids litter the mountainside, unconscious or too badly injured to continue fighting -- the casualties of his war against himself (or rather, the spirit of Deadman inside him). Only two remain, one under Multiplex's control, one under Deadman's. The two foes float in the air roughly 30 feet apart, staring each other down. Then, without warning, Deadman charges, rushing forward at breakneck speed and raising his arm for a punch. Multiplex stands his ground and braces to block and counterpunch, but instead of throwing his blow, Deadman leaps from the duploid's body at the last possible second. Before Multiplex can stop him, the charging duploid is carried by his own momentum right into the other, their heads crashing together with a sickening thud. Both fall to the ground, out cold.
This leaves only one combatant still standing, albeit invisible to all who might look for him. Deadman.
Deadly Dozen Win
