10488/Our Last Days in N.O.W.H.E.R.E.

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Our Last Days in N.O.W.H.E.R.E.
Date of Scene: 16 March 2022
Location: An island near the North Pole, in Colony Zero
Synopsis: The captive heroes manage to rescue Phoebe and finally confront Dr. Harvest. Thanks to the rescue team attack (scene 10489) they don't have to deal with a horde of superhumans and they manage to overcome their adversaries. NPCs Warblade, Omen, Leash and Harvest himself are captured, and Colony Zero is taken. SHIELD and the Russian government likely end with a lot of super-tech and mad scientists. N.O.W.H.E.R.E. is essentially destroyed.
Cast of Characters: Conner Kent, Laura Kinney, Phoebe Beacon, Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Tim Drake




Conner Kent has posed:
According to the LED displays in the underground complex, it is 5:48 am in Colony Zero. This is pretty irrelevant for young heroes that have not seen the sun in a week. (Also, outside it is always night this time of the year).

But it means people will begin waking up soon, and notice there is no one in the cell where our heroes are supposed to be. Also, there is this alarm going since -someone- blew up the advanced fabrication area at sub-level four. Which brings us to this situation:

Laura, quietly fleeing as fast as she can from said now blown-up area. An annoyed Warblade might or might not be following her.

Phoebe, missing the excitement due to being semi-unconscious in the medical labs, after blowing up Dr. Centerhall (he had it coming). The cleaning bots are not happy with her.

Tim, sneaking upwards when the whole area trembles due to Laura destructive tendencies.

Nadia, who made a new friend, is perhaps going down to tell the others about Colony Zero map Fuji gave her. There might or might be not a bunch of reprogrammed mouse-sized maintenance drones faithfully following her through the base vents.

Laura Kinney has posed:
A hostile environment. Filled with people hunting her with violent intentions. Stockpiles of deadly weapons and explosives. X-23 is in her element.

Of course the more effective her one mutant rampage is the more likely it is N.O.W.H.E.R.E will start to get serious about catching her. And it's probably only a matter of time before someone with a more useful ability set than Warblade come along.

But everything she damages is a delay to whatever evil scheme is underway in this facility. And could be the difference between N.O.W.H.E.R.E successfully enacting it's plans or the time being right for an escape (or even rescue) attempt.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The cleaning bots may not be happy with her, but Phoebe was happy with herself. Edge of Night was a great distractor from the pain, and she was intermitantly humming it, wrestling with the fact that she might have -- hopefully -- offed Centerhall and caused enough damage to the labs to render them into a delay in processing, and destroyed her biological samples.

    "Mist and twilight -- cloud and shade -- away, shall fade away shall fade -- then world behind and home ahead. We'll wander back to home and bed. Fire and Lamp, and mead and bread--" she sing-songs, in and out of conciousness as her magic healing tries to work over her injuries and the large amounts of sedatives that are being fed to her. She's in and out, fighting for breath and wakefulness.

    She didn't want to miss her friends breaking her out of the room, after all. She also had to rescue her wee little cleaning droid friend!

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
It has been a busy night, what with constructing a device to hack into NOWHERE's network from scratch, reprogramming the maintenance bots in the vents, and convincing one of Dr. Harvest's meta-teen minions that perhaps he has been on the wrong side all along. All in a night's work for the Unstoppable Waspette. But now it is time to slip back before anyone notices, or at least that is her intent not yet aware of some of the more explosive escapades of the others.

So it is that Nadia is making her way back through the vents towards where she is supposed to be 'not a captive' (totally a captive). Emerging from the vents, she continues back towards the room, though she has left the maintenance bots she met along the way with a different task. That task being to spread out through the duct network and spy on their former masters feeding information back to the device she cobbled together from the scraps in NOWHERE's labs like a teen MacGuyver.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Even for a nocturnal creature like a Bat, the lack of sunlight exposure has thrown Tim's internal clock off pretty severely. If not for N.O.W.H.E.R.E.'s preference for adding holographic information displays to just about every flat surface, he likely would have started losing time a couple of days ago. It still feels like the seconds crawl by during those long stretches where he'd been locked in the cells, interspersed with brief but heart-poundingly rapid moments of excitement as he sneaks past guards and patrolling security drones.

    Finding Conner had been his primary goal, and once he'd found their missing Superboy, Red Robin's attention has shifted to scouting for exits. Those efforts had proved at least six of his previous plans to be untenable, which was unfortunate but not unexpected. The rest of the team have been made aware of them over the past several days through various covert means--tapped Wabun code for Nadia, a Pig Latin-esque riff on Tolkien's Elvish for Phoebe, and blinked Morse code ran through an encryption cipher Tim knows Laura has used before--so that, when the time comes, they'll know where to meet back up.

    Now all that's left to do is wait for the right time.

    Without Nadia's map, Tim only has a rough mental image of the layout of Colony Zero thanks to his repeated excursions outside of their holding pens, but it's enough. He has a decent idea of exactly where that explosion had come from, and a hunch as to who was responsible. It helps that he expects Laura to be capable of blowing things up at any moment. Tim doesn't question how she does it or where the explosives comes from.

    Mostly for his own peace of mind.

    Either way, it's a hell of a signal, and the exact kind of chaos that they need. Tim checks with a quick glance that the hallway is clear before he rounds the corner, approaching the doors to their rooms.

    "I heard Balm pulling a sad Pippin through the vents, from what I think is the medical labs," he says once three-quarters of the team is reassembled. "Pretty sure that means we've got a double extraction to pull off here before we gee-tea-eff-oh. I can get back to Superboy but I'm not sure the state he's going to be in once we pull him out of cryo, so I'm gonna need someone with me."

    He puts his hands on his hips and stares downwards, the LED gleam of the Tron suit N.O.W.H.E.R.E. strapped him into helping to really dial his caffeine-withdrawal headache up to eleven. "Question is, do we take the risk and split up, or do we take the other risk and waste time going after our objectives in sequential order?"

Conner Kent has posed:
According to Nadia's control device about 75% of the maintenance drones are now being redirected towards 'area F4' which according to Fuji's map include most of the Colony manufacturing. A few are going to the medical labs, though. Someone has been breaking things there.

Laura might be surprised Warblade actually kept up with her for a while. Is he really that good of a tracker through metal and plaster corridors? Maybe he was lucky? In any case, he took the wrong turn a few minutes ago and Laura can't hear his footsteps anymore.

The base is really waking up now. An hour earlier than normal, probably due to the explosions. It is a question of minutes, not an hour or two, that the cells are checked. Also, Phoebe didn't make it to the rendezvous. But anyway, she is getting a visit right now.

Sadly, it is not from a friend, nope. The person that slinks into the medical labs is Lilith, a.k.a. Omen, making the technicians monitoring Phoebe weirdly nervous. Telepaths will do that. "Well, hello, Ms. Beacon. Really? You almost killed Dr. Centerhall. Maybe he will die in surgery; I guess he has about one in ten chances to die. And I was so sure your clawed friend would be the first to kill."

Laura Kinney has posed:
Handguns, machine guns, explosives and probably even some grenades. Not to mention a change of clothing that's not straight out of the Tron costume department.

X-23 has certainly been busy.

Warblade being able to track her for as long as he could wasn't a huge shock. Not to Laura anyway. N.O.W.H.E.R.E have home turf advantage plus telepaths and precogs on their side.

Of course it'd have been bad news for Warblade if he'd actually caught up with her... She's not exactly in a forgiving mood.

While she'd be more than happy to run amok for days, maybe even weeks, in the storage levels she's disciplined enough that when the signal to meet up with the team comes she sets off.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "You know, that last name, not really my last name. Maybe I should be a Took. Phoebe Took. Phoebe Constantine. Phoebe Chandler. So many last names, so many names --" she replies quietly to Lilith, and she rolls her head over to look to the psychic, and cracks a little smile over to her.

    "He peeled my skin off my arm and chest. He pulled blood vessels from my arm. Are all adults so murderous? Do they all hate teenagers so much?" she breathes out, and then she gives a choked sound, trying to reach for the line they're steadily feeding her drugs through.

    "Barbaric. Hope he dies." she states, and turns her head to spit on the floor. Curse completed.

    Phoebe was then quiet for a few moments. "Got to be careful, playing with fire."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Well so much for the element of surprise." Comes Nadia's voice, not far from Tim, as she regains her full size. "I had a plan, but it looks like the entire place is awake now and I'm guessing something happened in both medical and manufacturing. The maintenance drones are going nuts and the whole place seems to be waking up."

She gives a little shrug and turns to Tim, bringing up a map of the facility on her cobbled together device. "We need to get to here." She points. "It is their main power source for this base and all of their other colonies and tesseracts. It's directly below, this large area for training and 'skills development'. Getting a friendly escort down there is probably off the table at this point."

Nadia listens as Tim relays the fates of the others, that explains the Medical Labs at least. "I can easily transport Conner, if necessary. Oh, I almost forgot. Fuji is on our side now."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim pauses long enough to pinch the bridge of his nose, through the mask, though it's the only visible sign of his distress that he allows. "Right," he breathes out, then nods once at Nadia. When she pulls up the map on her MacGyvered display device, he leans in, repeating "The Fusion Power Sphere," from memory.

    After a moment, he shakes his head. "Managed to get a glance at a map but everything down there was classified. We go down there and I have no idea what's waiting for us." Pause. "Besides probably some sort of black hole-powered energy device." There has been a great many discussions on what sort of wildly advanced thing could output the kind of power necessary to keep the entire N.O.W.H.E.R.E. operation up and running.

    Okay, given the name it's probably something using nuclear fusion, but that's not quite as fun as something containing a black hole.

    As Laura joins them, Tim gives her an acknowledging chin-lift and a faint tilt of his head out of curiosity, but he keeps his explosives-related questions for later. "Okay. I'll go get Balm, you go get Superboy." He leans in next to Nadia so that he can draw the path through the Colony Zero complex that he had taken, down six levels from their current location in the area marked Containment. Waspette gets the CliffsNotes version of the security he encountered on the way, and then a much more detailed explanation of the directions to the precise cell holding Conner's cryo-unit. At Nadia's mention of Fuji's heel-face turn, Tim has to flip through his mental rolodex of N.O.W.H.E.R.E. agents until he can place the name, then gives her an acknowledging nod. More questions saved for later.

    Then he looks over at Laura. "Wanna help me beat up Denethor, X-23?"

Conner Kent has posed:
"Adults aren't as murderous as kids," replies Omen evenly, "it just takes a bad day or three to turn a good man into a monster." The blindfolded woman pokes Phoebe's arm gently. "You are fine. He won't be, not in a long time. Who did the greatest harm this time, hmm?"

She sights, "it will be over soon, she concludes."

Laura can hear footsteps again. But this time is not Warblade, who moves with a good degree of grace and stealth, but the armoured boots of a pair of cyborgs heading their way. According to the map there are a couple ways to avoid them, but they will definitely check the cells soon.

There is going to be a larger alarm soon. But they have time to get to the medical lab. Maintenance drones helpfully point out an event of 'explosive hemokinesis' there. Oh, and lots of C4 at the manufacturing plant.

"You can come in, Reno," mentions Omen, not even looking at the door. A blonde man in silver and green armor grumbles in. "I was trying to set up an ambush." He is rather handsome, and can't be older than twenty. Then he puts on that grinning, evil helmet and he is not handsome anymore.

"You can't ambush X-23," points out Lilith. "Not without my help," which means a telepathic illusion. Suddenly Phoebe has real problems focusing on Omen and Warblade. Her brain refuses to admit they are there!

Laura Kinney has posed:
"They all need taking care of at some point," X-23 notes. "And you're in charge. So if you say that one first..." She shrugs. "Then that's the one we target first. Although if we can neutralise the precog sooner rather than later that would be tactically sound."

She tilts her head at Waspette. "I found these in the manufacturing area." She pulls out a small bag filled with a handful of different components taken from the factory floor. Who knows what they're parts for. Perhaps the super scientist can figure it out.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Fine people don't blow up hospital gurneys. I would like my locket and my bracelets back, now. Before I have to go looking for them." Phoebe breathes out. It's hard enough to concentrate with the sedatives, and then ... she's looking at them. She's looking *right* at them. But they're not there. She narrows her eyes, and she tries to mumble a couple of words in Latin, but they just don'e come out sounding right.

    "... I'm not the first teenager he tortured. I'm hoping I'll be the last." she replies, and she leans her head back, and she looks up at the ceiling. "You won't catch her like that. You think she hasn't fought against psychics and precogs and postcogs and clockwork cogs and Cogsworth... and... and..." she trails off, trying to be both obnoxious and keep herself awake.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia nods along with Tim's explanation. "Should be no problem. Well relatively speaking, all kinds of things could actually go wrong, but that bridge will be crossed when I get there! Where do we regroup?" She still seems rather confident.

"Oooh! I love presents!" Nadia turns to Laura to receive the bag of miscellaneous components, her mind likely already pondering what they are and how she could fit them together into something new and interesting.

"Oh! One last thing." She seems to remember just as she was turning to go. "I know she's a jerk, but if you see her, Fuji said you might be able to reason with Omen."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Note to self: expand the Lord of the Rings all-day movie marathon to the Outsiders at large, because Laura definitely didn't get the reference. "Not sure who it is that has Balm right now, but--" His head bobs along with Nadia's comment about bridge crossings. "I'm sure they're expecting at least one of us."

    He glances back at Nadia's map. That brief moment of silence is what Tim needs to run the numbers, and then he decides on an access point leading down to the Fusion Power Sphere.

    "First, we get the team back together. Then we take N.O.W.H.E.R.E down, once and for all."

    They can likely all hear the cyborgs coming at this point, so Tim only nods once to each of them and then disappears around a nearby corner.

    Laterz!

Conner Kent has posed:
Sneaking around is easy with a team like this. In fact, Tim is the noisy one, which is weird but interesting. At one point Waspette goes downsize and vanishes through one of the maintenance vents (which are mouse-sized, someone read the Evil Overlord Handbook!) and all the way down to the cryogenic storage where conflictive prisoners and failed experiments are held. About half the way the testing grounds, really. And flying is faster than going down or up staircases, like Tim did.

Meanwhile, in the medlabs, the technicians decide to take a coffee break after hearing they are expecting visitors and ambushes are set, plus they can't see Omen and Warblade anymore, which they find extra-creepy.

"You hush," says Omen to Phoebe, trying to keep the girl calm and quiet. Of course if Phoebe stays calm and quiet Tim and Laura are probably going to be badly maimed. But... it is hard to care about it, isn't it?

Laura Kinney has posed:
Given her healing ability it makes sense for X-23 to take point. If they run into enemies enroute she can act as living cover for Red Robin. Or just savage whatever she runs into badly enough they'll regret their life choices. Maybe both.

While she goes she makes ample uses of the little pauses while they let patrols go past to roll her supply of C4 into useful shapes. Mostly for breaching doors and other controlled uses.

As they close on the area Balm is supposed to be in X-23 pauses. Sniffing the air. Her eyes narrow and she uses hand signals to motion at Red Robin. Nothing around. Too easy?

She holds up some of the explosives and makes a hand signal requesting permission for an explosive breach & clear.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "No, me Phoebe, you Hush." Phoebe replies, and begins laughing, tiredly. It was so hard to stay awake, stay focused. Tim was in danger. Her team was in danger.

    She gripps her left hand tightly, pressing her thumbnail into her palm. FOcus on the pain. Pain requiest Healing. Healing requires Light. Pull on the Light.

    "He kept talking about how he hated every powered teenager. Every powered person. Do you think he hated himself? Or you? Do you hate yourself? That'd be kind of a shame. You're too pretty to hate yourself. But I mean I've got someone waiting for me on the other side of this all. Now, you know what Centerhall's issue was? He didn't beleive in magic -- do you beleive in magic?" she asks, and she flicks her fingers a little bit, and produces a card, Nine of Hearts.

    "Cartomancy, just a bit. Means a message of Good is coming my way..." she breathes out. She's pulling more light to heal herself from the affects of the sedatives.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Once a rendezvous is decided, Nadia is gone in the blink of an eye. Most people might be fooled into thinking she could teleport, but her version of PymTech is just that fast and a wasp-sized Waspette takes off through the vents.

Nadia isn't alone in her journey downward, she has her friends the maintenance bots to help guide the way after she alerts them to a certain (completely fabricated) problem in the cryogenic storage area that needs to be taken care of. Conner being frozen down there is a problem after all.

Emerging from the duct system, she surveys the area from above until she is able to locate Conner's cryostasis unit, and then directs the hacked maintenance bots to see if they can take care of thawing him out. She has her eyes on another prize, a computer terminal to interface with. If Conner is being locked away down here, who knows who else might be? She wants to know, because anyone who isn't a world destroying threat (in her mind) she means to set free.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Those pauses while they wait between patrols are also great for discussing game plans for when they make it to the medical labs. All signed, of course. The issue of a telepath-slash-precog onsite always makes things tricky, but. Well. Nothing new, either.

    What Tim communicates on the way is that, despite Nadia's mention of Omen, trying to sway her to their side is Plan B (or really, like... Plan M or N, because Tim has many, many plans). They need to get out of here, and Tim at least feels the daunting pressure of an invisible timer ticking down above their heads.

    Usually he's the one who sets the timer. He really dislikes when he's not in control. Is anyone surprised by that?

    "Suspicious," is the first word Tim signs to Laura when she doesn't smell anyone in the area. "Hiding?" is the next word, head tilted to the side to communicate that question mark at the end. Either way one of them is going to have to go in first, and Red Robin makes the executive decision to gesture X-23 forward. Her and her C4, specifically.

Conner Kent has posed:
"I think I am going to stab her," mutters Warblade, glancing at Phoebe. But Omen just pats Phoebe's hand. "Of course I believe in magic, now sleep... oops, too late."

Too late because Laura can hear Phoebe's babbling, and that means the ambush is not going to happen. Omen retreats to a corner of the medlab, but Warblade charges quietly. Just as Laura is going to set the C4, five foot long metal daggers burst from the sliding door as the half-Kheran metahuman -stabs- all the way through the inch-thick door and anyone beyond.

Meanwhile, sixty feet underground, Nadia reaches the cryogenic storage area. It is big! Robin guesstimated they could hold all the superheroes of America here easily. But only about one in ten of the pods have someone. It is cold here, too.

Here the maintenance bots can't help her much. They are happy to repair or clean things, but... it is all pretty clean. There are murderous drones patrolling, too. But something as tiny as a wasp is not targeted.

Conner's pod is behind a thick metal door, but it has a small window and she can see the young man. He seems to be sleeping.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Thankfully for X-23 she wasn't moving directly to plant the explosives. A look of distaste on her face she was just in the process of leaning down to lick the keypad, in the hope it'd reveal if anyone had recently used it where her nose was failing, when the blades punch through the metal of the door.

Her reactions are lightning quick however. And instead of rigging up a complex door breaching charge she slaps the C4 onto the protruding blade and when Warblade brings his weapons back.... Well that's when the detonator goes click.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I don't want to sleep, you have no idea the nightmares I've had." Phoebe comments hazily, and she pulls at one of the bindings. Her fingers glow rosy-gold in color. "You just... have no idea... what it was like to see them all die, over and over again... 'cause you were weak." she breathes out, and she loosens her fingers, looking up to where she's presuming Omen to be, from the touch. "We could get you out."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia glances back at the maintenance bots that refuse to leave the vents. "Cowards." Sure the patroling combat drones are scary if you are not authorized to be down here, but this is no time to be afraid! Even if you're programmed that way!

Descending from the ducts, Nadia gets even smaller as she flies up to one of the patrolling combat drones, too small to register as any threat or in any cases notice, and finds a seem to slip inside, whereupon she begins doing what she does best, ...other than explosives, and begins to take it over.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim himself is nowhere near the door, on the off-chance that the chaos of Laura's entrance might be enough to distract the precog he suspects is inside. Good thing, too, because it means he doesn't get impaled on Warblade's daggers, nor blown up by the C4.

    It does however mean that, all of two seconds prior, he had a clear line of sight on Laura leaning down towards the keypad. And he's clever enough to figure out what she intended to do.

    Thankfully the way Tim gags in his mouth is silent, and he's not so distracted by his quiet disgust to put two and two together. Laura couldn't smell anyone nearby plus Warblade's sudden surprise appearance equals mental manipulation of their senses. Which is going to be a real pain. There's not much Tim can do beyond trying to outright refuse to accept reality as it is, which is basically just him thinking really hard. For all the willpower the Bats can bank on, their defense against telepathy is usually just a combination of very obnoxious song repetition and purposefully disordered thinking.

    Which is to say: it's much better suited to keeping their own thoughts *in* rather than keeping someone else's thoughts *out*.

    The dust is likely still thick from the C4 explosion as Red Robin throws himself towards the now-opened doorway, grabbing hold of the empty frame of it at its apex so he can launch himself into the labs feet-first. Very low odds of him landing right on top of Omen, but you never know! He gets a glimpse of Phoebe's current condition, shunts all of the anxiety that causes into the back of his mind, and then calls out, "Balm!" The nearest object that isn't nailed down gets to live out the rest of its short life in the form of a projectile, because Tim throws it like a fastball right at the machine feeding Phoebe sedatives. "Is Omen in here?!"

Conner Kent has posed:
The metal claws are long enough to hit Laura, but Warblade makes the mistake of spending a second twisting them. That means when he pulls back there is a... explosion, that blows up the door in his face (but that is okay, he is wearing a helmet) and also severs one of his claws. Which is not okay. He yelps in surprise and pain.

When Robin charges inside, he is holding his wrist with his other hand, the missing finger quickly regrowing from the stump. He attempts to kick at the hero, but he is too slow.

Down, down in the 'fridge' Nadia finds the war drone is not that different to the cowardly maintenance ones. Just more focused in shooting people. Dumber, since destroying is easier than fixing things. Hacking it will take five minutes.

Laura Kinney has posed:
The blast is a little close for comfort for X-23. But she was at least expecting it enough to roll with the force of the explosion. Leaving a trail of blood from the claw marks across her back. Her hand snapping out to scoop up the assault rifle she'd stolen while on the run.

She raises it. Sights on Warblade. And empties the clip into him. He's tough and can heal. So she doesn't expect the bullets will kill him.

The mutant has no intention of fighting fair this time. And Warblade won't find those bullets aimed at his head or even his chest. He'd better hope the N.O.W.H.E.R.E suits contain some kind of protective cup because she's putting most of those bullets into the lowest of low blows...

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    CRUNCH. The machine's life ebbs, and Phoebe's healing powers go into overdrive as she hears Red Robin's voice. The unmasked girl gives a grunt, balling her fists, trying to grab at Omen's hand from when she touched her. She then tries to wrestle her other arm out from its bindings, pulling her shoulder in the process, gritting her teeth.

    <Need a few moments for the sleep to clear my veins> she calls out in Evlish to Tim, because why not? It's on the front of her mind, though, and she's struggling at this point.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
One drone against many, might make for a small distraction. But Nadia has a slightly grander plan in mind as she takes over the murder drone.

Nadia's Neat Science Facts: Autonomous drones aren't really autonomous, they have to be able to take orders. Which means they can broadcast and receive transmissions and usually function in some sort of network in order to avoid comical errors like bumping into each other.

Once she has access to the drone's systems, Nadia slips in a bit of code she'd been saving for a special occasion. It's an 'upgrade' Cyborg attempted on his Roombas to give them more autonomy and ultimately caused them to rise up in the Great Roomba Rebellion of 2021. Waste not want not.

Once the drones have been infected, Nadia slips out again and makes a bee line for Conner's cryochamber, and locating the access terminal controls, begins the process of thawing him out.

Tim Drake has posed:
    High and fast had been Red Robin's strategy to clear the obstacle formerly known as Warblade, and it is a successful one. As is his follow-up, which involves yeeting things.

    So successful that Tim just continues to throw things around, spinning around like a Bat-sized tornado with the feathers of his not-cape slicing through the air behind him. Maybe he just needs the outlet for all of his pent-up aggression at being locked up and denied caffeine.

    In reality he's trying to clip Omen by random chance. Or at least make it too difficult for her to approach, banking on the unpredictability provided by pure chaos. Channeling a little bit of Impulse, there, maybe. Tim knows no one as capable of causing chaos as Bart.

    "We found Superboy!" he announces, also in Elvish. Though grammatically it's more like he's said 'We've found the super boy' but close enough. "I'm blind, can you put a spotlight on her?"

Conner Kent has posed:
Omen gracefully steps away from Phoebe and Tim, "that is a terrible song," she tsks at the young man, going visible and dodging improvised projectiles, using medical tables as cover. Yes, she was there, and now trying to focus on Tim and "go to sleep," she commands, trying to push him out of the fight. Despite being blind she is pretty good at avoiding getting hit, but on the other hand, she can't throw a punch to save her life.

Warblade seems to decide Laura is more dangerous than Tim, because he is ignoring the boy. The machine gun burst merely makes him brace for the impact, although his smartsuit takes some damage, he is pretty much made of metal, the bullets don't do much. "Damn, you are fighting dirty now. Some heroes," he states, rushing at Laura. He seems to be going for a grapple, but he is definitely favoring his left hand, his right must be hurting after losing a finger.

Nadia has a new toy! Does she want him attacking his drone-brothers? Because that is not problem at all for the killer robot thing. Also broadcasting all kind of viruses through their network. It is fun!

Conner defrosting will take a few minutes... except not. About twenty seconds it starts, he wakes up. Moves. Then shatters the pod telekinetically and curls up, coughing half-frozen fluids and flailing weakly.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Laura Kinney maintains a look of blank indifference at Warblade. Firing round after round until she's out and then throwing the rifle at his legs. Trying to make the onrushing Warblade stumble.

Even as she throws the weapon she's rising to her feet and putting on a burst of speed. Rushing forward to meet him head on. Then, at the last moment, she dives into a slide. Trying to pass between his legs. Her claws popping with that distinctive snikt and lashing backwards to hamstring the half alien villain.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Tim is throwing stuff. Phoebe struggles for another minute, and then she's freed one arm, and she grunts as she pushes her arm back into socket. Undoing the other bindings, her slowly healing nano suit exposes her eblackened shoulder and her stomach, and she bares her teeth a moment as she looks to Omen, and then tries one of her own tricks on her, holding both hands out. Phoebe doesn't have much practice with mental magic -- she's far more offensive than that. Usually.

    Somne, sterne caecos oculos, et fac eos ad somnia! (Somnus, spread your sands on the eyes of the blind and cause them to pass to dreaming) she tries, putting as much of her will as she dares, holding both her hands out to Omen, focusing on her.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
The combat drones are left to contemplate their new identities and launch their uprising against their former masters in the name name of FREEDOM! Meanwhile Nadia kneels down to help the coughing Conner. "Easy Conner, we're getting you out of here. Going to have to make you 'fun size' for a bit though."

With that she produces a small Pym Disc, it's probably best not to think too hard about which cavity she had to have been hiding that in. But the Red Room is nothing if not thorough in its infiltration training. "By the time this wears off, hopefully you'll be in better shape. For now you can ride in my pocket! No time to linger here though, we have a rendezvous to make!" And with that the convalescing Conner is pocketed and the Waspette zips off towards the access shaft where she's supposed to meet the others leaving violent rioting drones in her wake.

Tim Drake has posed:
    As soon as Omen is visible, Red Robin has calculated that the amount of physical threat that she represents is fairly negligible. Common with people who have superpowers of the magical or mental variety, and why he insists on hand-to-hand training for ALL of the Outsiders.

    No one ever expects the back-row squishy mage to throw a punch.

    He starts to close the distance between them, but Tim only manages one step before that all-encompassing urge to have a nice lie down begins to press in. He stumbles but doesn't fall, and the clinical microscope that he hauled off a nearby table and was about to throw leaves his hands with less force behind it than the previous projectiles. It does still crash against the table Omen is hiding behind, but it wouldn't have quite made it to her.

    Everything in him focuses down to a pinpoint, fighting against the mental intrusion. Tim resorts to the very first play in the Bat handbook: weaponize your feelings.

    The disgust for Dr. Harvest and his plan.

    The grief for the lives lost because of it.

    The horror for the things done to Phoebe, and to Conner.

    The outrage for his team, forced to abandon their home.

    Omen has to get through that, first, because those are the things that drive Red Robin. He grits his teeth and takes a few more steps forward, lashing out with a snapkick towards the table she's hiding behind, trying to topple it over on her.

Conner Kent has posed:
Warblade is as fast as X-23, and stronger, but Laura still has an edge on him on fighting skill. Not a great edge, but it is better a few extra years of training than genetically implanted fighting instincts. Also, she is a smaller target.

It means his claws miss by a tenth of an inch when she ducks down, slipping between his legs and nearly severing his foot. This time he falls down, and although the Kheran tries to roll back to his feet, for the first time, he is bleeding quite a bit. Apparently he is not as adept at shaping his legs as he is with his hands. "That... was pretty good. But not enough."

And as turnabout is fair play, now Omen is the one struggling to stay awake from the sleep spell. That means she needs to concentrate in something else than trying to make Robin sleep. That means she avoids the microscope, but not the table. She falls down with a cry, and suddenly Tim has a much clear head. "Hey... a nice boy like you wouldn't punch a blind girl like me, right?" She asks, trying to push the table off her.

Downstair Conner is a little confused... why is everything so big?! "Nadia... what the hell? Where are we?" Is he being rescued? He usually does the rescuing! Also, he sneezes. Because his solar powers are gone and it is VERY cold.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Laura doesn't even try to get back up. Instead she plants her hands on the ground and follows up with a mule kick. Both of her foot claws popping out with that same distinctive snikt sound. Driving at Warblade with lethal force.

Her kicks don't just have better reach than her usual claw strikes. The attack puts her entire body behind the razor fine edge of just two adamantium blades.

If her strikes find flesh it's only then that she twists around. Dragging adamantium through as much flesh as possible before she rolls out of reach.

Her eyes narrow and she lets out a low snarl. "Your constant posturing is tiresome."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Anger is Equal Opportunity." Phoebe replies as she dusts herself off a little, wincing as her shoulder heals, and she steps, bare-footed onto the floor.

    "Centerhall was still in surfery. Hopefully this means we won't be seeing him." Phoebe states.

    She does not illuminate what was done to put the good doctor into surgery, but she does center herself, the glow on her fingers following the trail of her veins upwards and to her arms.

    "And as Tim's got a firm hold on Omen, Phoebe turns to Warblade.

    She brings her right hand up. "Caput tuum in ano est!"

    Usually a cantrip to warm a drink back to near-boiling, this spell is focused on Warblade's nanosuit -- let's see how the nanosuits handle being hot under the collar!

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Shhhh. I shrank you. It's easier this way. Just relax and stay in the pocket for now. It will wear off eventually." It's not a very exact timeframe, but then it has been a long time since she's had to resort to using a Pym disc and she may not even remember herself!

With Conner in pocket, she continues flying towards the rendezvous point. It's not the smoothest ride but its the best that can be done under the circumstances with no Pym Capsules to transport him in. Once at the rendezvous point, all there is to do is wait.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The lethargy eases off like the tide going out, and Tim straightens, almost imperceptibly. He rounds the table and drops down to one knee next to where Omen is trapped beneath the table he'd toppled onto her.

    She speaks, and Tim pauses.

    For just the few seconds necessary to equal a single comic panel of no response, before his fist slams into her cheek.

    When he stands up, it's with Omen's boots. He tosses them towards Phoebe.

Conner Kent has posed:
"I do tire you, well then..." When Laura charges, Warblade jumps to meet her, all claws and rage. "I let my claws do the talking from now on". And they cut each other as if there was no tomorrow. Blood everywhere. Looks like Warblade's armor can crack (and burn, but he doesn't care). And also, he can go berserk like any Canadian, he is not even bothering with defending, just cutting and slicing. If Tim and Phoebe don't act fast, either or -both- fighters are going to end in many, many pieces.

Looks like Tim does punch blind girls. And looks like Omen can't take a punch, she is sleeping now.

Down, down goes Nadia. Looking for N.O.W.H.E.R.E's power source. But before that, there is a room. More like a huge hollow area. The vents lead her directly into... a volcano? Here? No, the heat is not that bad. It looks like a hellish landscape, with rivers of magma, floating chunks of earth, some larger than skyscrapers. Bridges of wood and rope between the islands of earth. Streams of boiling water arch through the air. It is an alien, hostile landscape. And among the few areas that look safe, there are groups of people. Young. Most are teenagers. Some wear the remains of smartsuits. And most look hungry and tired.

A hard-light, warp-space environmental simulation, said Fuji. Laura would call it a 'Danger Room'. But this is larger, much larger than the Danger Room she knows.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Every time before this X-23 has fought Warblade it's been with the goal of capturing him. Today is different. Today she's fighting purely to rip the arrogant shit apart.

And that earlier exchange has given her a sense of how to do it.

Wounds to his lower body heal slower. So she stays close to the ground. Whirling and slashing at the parts which Warblade will struggle to fix. Knowing that any wounds she takes will heal just as well regardless of where they land.

And the more she harms his ability to move the easier it should be to finish him off.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe holds her hands out again, and was about to five another blast of magic -- butshe feels her fingers tremble. HEr feet are cold -- and she turns to catch Omen's boots.

    Hopefully they're about the same size, and she pulls them on, looking to Red Robin before she looks down. "We'll have to have a talk after this." she breathes out. "Thanks for the rescue."

Tim Drake has posed:
    The sheer amount of sharp blades slicing through the air in the tight circle made by X-23 and Warblade's violent tete-a-tete is enough to ward Tim off from approaching. But it's also blocking the doorway, which is A Problem.

    He knows that Laura is the one to beat in terms of pure skill in up-close, personal hand-to-hand combat, and without his usual arsenal of goodies Red Robin once again falls back to the tried and true method of just yeeting a bunch of crap at Warblade so that he has to field off heavy projectiles being launched at his face while Laura is cutting his legs up into neat julienned strips.

    "After," Tim agrees, with a tip of his head in Phoebe's direction. "Waspette is en route to Superboy." This, of course, continues to be said in Elvish. You can never be too careful, after all!

Conner Kent has posed:
It is hard to say what would have happened if Laura was alone with Warblade. Possibly it would have won the one that could put him or herself together again faster. But Laura was not alone, and after Tim hits him on the head with a few heavy medical instruments, he makes a few fatal errors and ends up with a severed spine and a serious case of blood loss. Not dead, but at least he is unconscious and probably unable to fight for a few hours.

Laura is also pretty badly cut, but she can still walk, and chances are she will be fully recovered by the time they catch up with Nadia.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Laura Kinney spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor, then drives a sharp looking fragment of metal into Warblades spine. Wedging it in between the vertibrae enough that someone else will have to help him remove it. With his healing ability it won't stop him forever but it should extend the length of time he'll be out of the fight.

Then the battered and bloody mutant turns to check on her teammates. Her hand moving to her stomach pushing in a loop of what may well have been her intestines. "Shall we go? That took a little longer than I intended."

Her own shoes seem to have been destroyed by her foot claws. But that doesn't seem to bother her as she pads off down the corridor.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I'll be okay in a minute or two -- I can walk it out." phoebe replies, looking between Red Robin and Laura, and she breathes out.

    "I am so stupid happy to see friendly faces. You have no idea." she breathes out, and then she hops to it, limping a moment.

    "Ran into Centerhall while trying to destroy the tissue samples. Sorry I had to put the kink in the plans."

Tim Drake has posed:
    With both Omen and now Warblade down, Tim decides there is just enough time to have a solemn forearm-grasp moment with Phoebe. Sure, it's not exactly effusive, but with the clock ticking down and mission objectives still outstanding, that's all he allows. Or rather, all the compartmentalization of his brain deems reasonable, in this moment. He lifts his chin towards Laura and pointedly ignores her efforts to reverse a near-disembowling. Mostly because he feels like it would be awkward for him to stare.

    "Good work," he tells her, and then to Phoebe he shakes his head. "You know we had backup plans, don't worry about it."

    They have a shorter road to travel to the rendezvous point than Nadia has, but there's no telling how much trouble she may or may not have encountered. Time to go is communicated in the tip of Red Robin's head towards the door, and then they're off. Like before, with Laura taking point. Her nose forewarns them of trouble, Tim's memorization of Colony Zero's map leads the way, and Phoebe's magic keeps them from any potential discoveries by roaming security patrols.

    Time to get the team back together. A quick raise of Tim's fist indicates they've made it to their penultimate destination. He scans the air around them, trying to pinpoint any potential dust motes or buzzing gnats that might actually be a tiny Waspette. Because, let's be real, this place is so clean there probably isn't any dirt or bugs to be found.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Somehow, despite having a longer way to go to prearranged meetup point, Nadia still manages to be there waiting for them when the others arrive. "Good everyone is safe!" She smiles pushing off from the wall she was leaning against waiting.

"I got Conner!" She adds, which is a curious statement since Conner does not seem to be in evidence at the moment. As if sensing the impending questions of 'but where is he?' she simply points down at her pocket, and then pulls it open. "Conner they're here."

"That should wear off, at some point." She asides to Tim. "I haven't used the discs in awhile. Oh! I also started a revolution among their murder bots. So they'll probably be a bit distracted soon." She beams, looking to Phoebe and then Laura. "You guys okay? The power sphere thing should be directly below us, through the training level."

Conner Kent has posed:
There was actually a lot of stairs to get down to where Nadia is waiting. In fact it is like going down all the stairs of the Empire State three times! Your poor aching feet. Or as they say: Bat-training 101. Nadia and (mini)Conner flew the way down.

On the other hand, using the elevators, it is much shorter. Which is why a drone finds them at the end of the staircase. It is a big one, possibly a combat model. But instead of shooting them, it drops a bunch of bags and walks away.

Inside they find their gear, the one N.O.W.H.E.R.E. took when they were captured. Including Robin's utility belt (except for a couple things some curious science thief took) and Waspette's micro-arsenal. There is a note in her bag: 'Help is coming <3 <3, Fuji'.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Down the intense amount of stairs, jumping from bar to bar, Phoebe goes back and forth, huffing and puffing a little as she comes to the end of the stairwell, skidding on the tiles as she lets her eyes go wide as she spots the drone --

     -- and then the bags are dropped.

    "Ohmigolfballs--" she whispers, and immediately dives for one of the bags, looking for the leather strap for her left wrist and her locket and necklaces.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "...thanks?" is all Tim can muster towards the back of the retreating drone. He's not wildly out of breath, but he can feel the burn in his leg muscles, and his blood is pumping hard enough that it plays like background music in his ears.

    Though it isn't until Phoebe starts digging through the bags that Tim realizes what's in them.

    Pause. Inhale. "If you don't want to see me naked," he says, "Don't look."

    And then he promptly slinks off into a corner to change. About halfway through, he lets out a hiss of a breath. "They stole my--." Tim grits his teeth but says nothing more, and he's attaching his cape back to their quick-release catches as he walks back over.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    "Probably just borrowed." Nadia chimes in as Tim complains about the missing items. The Waspette of anyone can understand scientific curiosity. She also probably can't say with certainty she wouldn't have borrowed anything either given the chance to poke through a Bat utility belt.

    Once Nadia has her things back she seems to vanish into thin air and reappear wearing the Waspette armor, so much better than that fashion victim suit NOWHERE gave her. "Okay, we have an appointment with a power core."

Conner Kent has posed:
Conner doesn't look, instead he goes to check his bag. A leather jacket, yessss... except he is an inch tall, so he can't wear it. "Say, how long until I recover my normal size?" He asks Nadia. "Being pocket-sized was fun, but the novelty kinda worn off a few mins ago. At least I am not freezing anymore."

Where are they going to go? There are some corridors and empty monitor rooms, but the way down seems to be through the big volcano room with the floating chunks of Earth and the kids.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Why -- do you have a butt tattoo I don't know about?" Balm asks, in *considerably* better spirits as she recovers her items, and she gives a sly look over to Red Robin when he expresses concern that someone stole something.

    Phoeebs wasn't taken in her armor, and she doesn't think her pajama pants are going to be much use, but she has Scout's collar and her webbing bracelet secrured back around her left wrist, and her silver locket back around her neck. She feels like she could take on the world, and with an uttered couple of words and a swipe of her hand, the clothes change from NOWHERE issue to a black hooded, cropped top, showing the burned-in mandalas along her left arm, and a pair of black tactical pants.

    "Well, if there's an appointment --" she gives a small smile, and she picks up Conner's bag, slinging his jacket over her shoulder. "Wouldn't want to be late. Good to see you, 'Little' Boy Blue."

Tim Drake has posed:
    "I hope not," Tim answers, though he sounds reasonably certain that he doesn't. He finishes a quick check of the contents of his utility belt -- judging by the look on his face, he's not well pleased by the results -- before he looks down the corridor. "So, what's the up-down on us finding a way down there without going through the Hunger Games? I don't feel up to volunteering as tribute, at the moment."

    He hazards a glance to both Nadia and Phoebe for ideas, before he tucks his fist against his chin thoughtfully. "Now that we're back together I don't want to split us up again, but SB and Waspette have options we don't, here."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"I mean it will wear off eventually." Nadia gives Conner a wry grin. "But now that I have my suit back I suppose I can speed up the process." Putting him down, one of her gauntlets is pointed in his direction and a Pym Particle infused beam returns him to his normal size give or take a few inches.

With that taken care of, she turns to Tim. "Well, the easiest way to get through undetected would be to use something already cleared for that or at least recognizable. We could hijack and hack one of their security drones and have it take us where we need to go, like a miniature T-Jet or.." She pauses. "Does the Outsiders stealth even have a name? Out-Jet?" Because now is the time for that question. Also left unsaid is the implication she'd be shrinking them all to fit inside the drone.

Conner Kent has posed:
"It is a Batplane," volunteers Conner. "And we should help those kids, anyway." He goes for his jacket first, though. Priorities. He is not bothering with the rest of his clothes, the 'tron' suit gives some protection and he only has the telekinesis to go on, since it has been too many days since he got solar radiation. "Nadia told me we are in NOWHERE's main base. But where are all the soldiers and metas? I have seen only some drones and Nadia reprogrammed those."

And of course, just seconds after Conner asks, there is a flash of green light inside the 'Hunger Games' zone. They can see the winged form of Harvest, and there is another man with him, which they might recognize as Leash.

His arrival sends the nearby kids running for cover, of course.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe hands over Conner's jacket with a smile and a small nod, and then rolls her shoulder, she turns to the door and then --

    THe green light. Kids running for cover, and she feels her stomach drop.

    "-- they've started!" she calls out, and she goes to rush for the door!

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim raises a hand. "It *was* a Batplane," he points out, because yes, this is important. "But now it's--."

    Cue green light.

    Well, never mind. He reaches behind himself in a motion no doubt very familiar to the rest of the team, and then with a flourish snaps his telescoping staff out to its full length. Electricity crackles at the ends. "Pair up. We're taking these guys down."

    And as Phoebe starts running, Tim is right on her heels.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    Some questions we may never know the answer to. It doesn't take long for the sneaking plan to get scrapped and then there are green lights and sounds and everything is in motion. "Okay, I guess we do this the fighty way."

    A split second later Nadia is in the air trusting that Conner is not far behind her, and maybe even already ahead of her, since super people are really fast. "Nobody ever runs away when they're glad to see you, let's make him just as glad to see us!" And by way of greeting Nadia launches a pair of full strength plasma bursts at Dr. Harvest from an oblique angle overhead.

Conner Kent has posed:
"You realize this is a trap, yes?" And must be a bad one, since Conner is the one to point it out. There is some running, climbing down and then more running to do to get to the 'island' where Harvest is waiting. Because of course he is waiting, arms crossed.

"See, much easier to draw you here, instead of searching the whole..." starts the good doctor. He needs to pause to deflect Nadia's plasma bolts with a wave of his staff. It does odd things to space, or perhaps it is a forcefield. "And you got your gear back, hmm? I imagine someone has betrayed me. Was it Omen or Fuji?"

Conner comes charging next, but Harvest flies up, those blue wings spreading wide. They are not exactly flapping, they behaving more like Hawkman's wings, giving him balance in the sky. "Conner, I am your creator, some respect would be appreciated. You were a bit of a disappointment, but I am sincerely glad to see you survived this lone."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    She pulls her domino from her black hood, and slips it on.

    "Ackbar couldn't have said it better himself." Balm comments wryly to Superboy, and she twists her hands slightly, light coming from the mandala tattooed to her left wrist: "Exolvo mi, da mihi lumen!"

    Phoebe opens herself to the light, and she looks over to Red Robin, the mage flicking out her own recovered extending staff.

    She takes the High Road.

    She rushes behind Conner, and there is a burst of air behind her that boosts her higher, dark eyes getting a rose-gold glint to them as she swings her staff -- she's trying to hit Harvest about his shoulders and chest, going for a pretty solid blow against the man in flight -- looking to turn him into a Man in Motion.

Tim Drake has posed:
    It's not likely that Harvest has any understanding of why Red Robin is yelling something about how "Han shot first!" as he launches himself off the ledge, cape snapping out behind him, to land down on the island.

    Phoebe goes high, Tim goes low, a batarang launched purely as a diversionary tactic just before Balm swings her staff. Tim doesn't have the magical air boost that she does, but he does have a grapple gun!

    The shot he lines up has him taking to the air, though at an angle that he comes in from below. His arm extends as he swings his staff, but the first strike is a feint, and he releases the grapple line so that he can use that momentum to spin around and strike at Harvest. Or rather, the backs of his knees.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    "Conner, it's /always/ a trap. But as they always said growing up, often the best solution to a trap is a sufficiently trained agent capable of overcoming it." The folksy sayings of Nadia's youth could perhaps use some work, but she is undeterred as Harvest manages to bat the plasma blasts away, that was far from outside of her calculations.

    "Excuse me Evil Future Man, I don't suppose you could just go home so we can help these kids and save everyone a lot of headaches?" She doesn't really expect him to comply, but hey you never know. In the meantime she provides some encouragement or at least a distraction as a fistful of sticky micro-cluster munitions are tossed Harvest's way while she seems to vanish from sight.

Conner Kent has posed:
"Leash, initiate the Culling," commands Harvest. He seems to ignore Phoebe, glancing briefly at Tim. The girl delivers a solid blow with her staff, but it wouldn't have done much anything if Tim had not hit him at the same time. He loses balance for a second, and then it is made worse as explosives hit his breastplate. Almost to the ground.

Then Conner falls on him, and Harvest grunts as he hits the rocky ground, Conner lands on his back to prevent him from moving. "I have a million questions," he states. "But I think you should answer Wasp's first," beat, "or else," he is going to punch the armored man.

But then Leash 'initiates the Culling'. The thin young man with the purple wire-tentacles spreads them wide, and everyone in the area he has ever touched, which includes all the heroes, gets a wave of murderous anger pushed into his head. Kill, kill your rivals and enemies!

The imprisoned kids, who were watching the fight from safe places, get hit too, and come forward howling in rage, attacking each other.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe lands solidly back on the ground, her eyes still carrying the rose-gold tinted glow, and she takes a deep breath, watching as Harvest goes Tilt, and Conner falls on him. She feels their little island shake, and she has a thought -- maybe it'll be over soon. It'll be fine.

    BUt she's so tired from her own failed mission. She's missing her knives, but she's no less deadly for their absence.

    Kill her rivals.

    She immediately goes for Tim's ankles, looking to sweep his legs out from under him and put him to his back!

Tim Drake has posed:
    Look, you don't need to be a genius to understand that whatever "The Culling" is, it ain't good.

    The thing, though, is that Tim IS a genius. So in that brief moment of time between Harvest issuing the command and Leash obeying, he readies himself for the absolute bullshit of whatever this is going to be. And with a small but solid inkling of Leash's abilities (the name gives a lot away, doesn't it?) he's not exactly unsurprised to feel the will of another pressing down on his mind.

    Slightly more surprised to feel the impact of Phoebe's staff against his ankle.

    That's going to bruise.

    He goes down, but Tim isn't exactly mad about it. In pain, yes, but also grateful for the opportunity, because it means his lack of immediate submission to Leash's mental command. It also helps to hide the motion of him palming a couple things from his utility belt, too. One in each hand.

    Tim can still feel the alien pressure on his thoughts, telling him to kill. But killing is as antithetical to Red Robin as it is to Batman himself, provoking an almost instinctive rejection of the command. Though even with all the willpower he can muster, it isn't quite enough.

    At this point it's important to refer back to the second paragraph. Tim chooses to follow the path of least resistance, when he can't fight off the mental command entirely. Instead, he focuses it on his real enemy.

    If he's going to kill anyone, it's Leash.

    Which is why, as he pushes himself up onto his knees, the first batarang he throws is a cryo grenade, right at Leash. The next, half a heartbeat later, is an explosive batarang.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    "Really? That's your play? Murder brainwashing?" Nadia goes from concealed micro-size to full size right behind Dr. Harvest just in time to shove a juiced up EMP grenade into the center of his wing contraption.

    The Waspette certainly feels what Leash sends out, but then it isn't the first time she's felt something like this, the sort of thing she had to overcome just to be able to grow up and escape. It is not an open and shut book on her mental health but it's also not enough to stop her from what she knows she must do.

    If anything she turns all of it upon Dr. Harvest, with a powerful two handed overhead smash down upon him in case the sabotage of his wings might not be enough to send him to the ground.

Conner Kent has posed:
Conner, on the other hand, finds no better enemy to punch than Harvest. His first punch drives the doctor helmet on the ground several inches, but his TK-enhanced strikes are hardly god-like in power. Harvest rolls over and swats Conner aside with a wing.

Leash is midly surprised someone attacks him. His power means he is not considered a target. Although occasionally during a Culling someone has mental defenses and attacks him, or manages to muster the willpower to override his compulsions.

So, he is mostly ready. The first batrang is caught by one of the wires. But it cryo-explodes anyway, and freezes it. And that -hurts- because they are part of his body. Leash cries, stumbles back... and fails to catch the second batrang, the explosive one. The explosion sends him flying, and he lands hard. His concentration shoot, the rage fades.

Nadia hits the wings with EMPs and martial arts, but the armored man just chuckles. "Please, you should have realized already my armor systems are based in gravimetrics, not electronics. Or maybe you are not as intelligent as I hoped."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe goes to pursue Red Robin, her eyes narrowing as she swings again for his kidneys -- but then brings her staff up, knocking away some debris from a fight above so that it *doesn't* hit Red Robin.

    "MOre tired than I thought --" she admits "I'll take care of it!" she comments, and then breathes out, arching her back a moment before she brings her staff into the ground, vaulting over Tim to try and contain Leash, lifting her hands and beginning to chant, trying to catch the controller in a pink bubble!

Tim Drake has posed:
    "It's all good, but--yes, please," Tim says, to Phoebe's offer. "I think I might be bleeding out of my ears after that. It's always gotta be psychics."

    He's not, by the way. Bleeding out of his ears. But there is a trickle of red from one of his nostrils, though maybe he slammed his face into the floor when he got knocked down. Hard to tell!

    Another cryo grenade gets tossed out, towards Harvest, meant more as a distraction to help Conner and Nadia than anything else. It's also the last one he has, because SOMEBODY stole the rest from his belt.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    Nadia just shakes her head. She was /trying/ to be nice, even to horrible scummy Harvest. "Have it your way." She informs Dr. Harvest before vanishing from sight.

    Nadia it is worth noting has three skillsets that make her an absolute terror against machines. First, with size manipulation it is nigh impossible to keep her from getting inside of them. Second, hers is a rare genius and she is very good at figuring out how they work very quickly. Finally, she was trained in explosives and demolitions when most other children were learning to fingerpaint.

    Slipping through the seems or even the molecules of Dr. Harvest's armor if she must, the tiny Waspette zips inside of the Armor of Dr. Harvest's armored suit and quickly sets to work laying sticky bombs all about the interior of its internal systems that would otherwise be protected and shielded by the armor as well as key structural points, that you know, hold such things together.

Conner Kent has posed:
Leash was shaking his head, trying to recover his wits. He is bleeding from a nasty cut in his temple and might have a broken arm, as well as many broken tentacle-wires. He isn't really able to fight back and Phoebe subdues him easily.

Meanwhile, Harvest blasts with his staff at Conner, sending him flying off the floating island. He takes the cryo-grenade on his back, which actually freezes a good chunk of his armor. "Ah, good one, it will take me a minute to compensate," he murmurs. "You seem to have injured Leash, very impressive, Robin. But you have only delayed the Culling a day or two."

Nadia would find the Inertron plates of Harvest armor very... interesting. Really, it looks like some kind of synthetic vibranium lattice. But it lacks the broad energy-absorbing abilities that would make demolitions skills almost useless. It might be it can absorb gravity waves, but definitely has structural weak-points. And a few explosions later, Harvest neural connection to the armor reveals system failures on the left side of the breastplate. "Of course... full access to your gear, hmm? But I have an ionic field inverter. You should investigate the interaction of ionic fields with Pym particles, young woman. Let this be your homework, for later."

For now Nadia finds herself growing! And if she doesn't exit Harvest armor quickly she is going to be crushed!

Harvest flexes his wings, but the left one is moving clumsily, he can't quite get rid of the ice yet. "Ah, is this the end? Lilith told me it was possible," he muses. "The Avengers are at the gates. And still so much work yet to do!"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Leash subdued, Phoebe turns to her normal role, the one that she likes and enjoys.

    Healer.

    She vaults to another island, and begins to make her rounds, introducing herself as Balm, and she was here to help stop the cull.

    She lets Conner and Nadia tend to Harvest -- Tim she'll heal once they get on a plane homeward bound to Gotham.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    If Dr. Harvest could see inside of himself he would witness Nadia's expression becoming a glare, "People like you are why I made GIRL. You think you know everything because you're from the future even though you didn't work for any of it. Oh I'm from the future, look at all my great tech. Stop looking down on us! You want me to grow? Okay, I'll grow!"

    And with that the expanding Nadia zips out from Harvests suit and up above him, but she doesn't stop growing at normal size. She keeps getting bigger and bigger until she towers over the flying Harvest still with her feet on the ground.

    "Let me show you what I learned about Ionic Energy!" And drawing upon the power of Dr. Harvests own ionic field she further accelerates the strength axis of the 3 potential Pym Particle variables, magnifying the super strength of her already giant form to super super strength and brings a fist the size of an SUV down upon Dr. Harvest. Following through, she drives the punch all the way into the ground in the mother of all power slams, leaving a crater at the sight of impact.

    Messing with the different axes of Pym Particles is not without inherent risks however, this isn't something Nadia ever practiced, it was all theory until this moment and she can feel her muscles seizing up and giving out on her from the strain as the giant Nadia teeters and then falls with a resounding crash, dwindling back to normal size and unable to move at least for the moment. "Conner, did I get him?" She asks weakly before her head just flops back. "I'll just be over here for awhile."

Conner Kent has posed:
Harvest, tries to avoid Nadia, but he is moving more slowly than before, and the giant punch sends him tumbling down. "Ah, you are taking the first... steps," he sounds tired, but he is standing up again. "Self-repair systems. I think I will recover before you do..." he pauses, why is there a shadow over him.

Well, because Conner drops a twenty tons rock on him. "Recover from that," he grunts. Landing, he kicks Harvest staff away from him. Like half a mile away. "And by the way. You suck as a 'creator' or whatever."

And Nadia is now going to recover before he does.

There is still some fight in Harvest, but with the armor damaged, Nadia and the Outsiders manage to control him, and eventually dissemble much of the suit. By the time the rescue party reaches the Testing Grounds, Harvest is helpless.

He does, however, shuts down the Power Sphere, 'too dangerous to let you keep it' he says. It also means N.O.W.H.E.R.E. Colonies can't hide anymore. And now SHIELD knows where they are.

It is N.O.W.H.E.R.E.'s E.N.D.