12694/The Swedish Labyrinth

The Swedish Labyrinth
Date of Scene:	06 September 2022
Location:	IKEA
Synopsis:	Several less than stellar heroes manage to get themselves lost in an Ikea. With monsters.
Cast of Characters:	Scott Lang, Tommy Shepherd, Bunny Macleod, Kim Hayes

---

Scott Lang has posed:
"What are we getting Peanut?"

"Elvarli!"

"Yeah we are!" crows Scott Lang as he high-fives his 8 year old daughter on the way into the store. That enthusiasm had dwindled hours ago though, the young girl clinging tight to his side, a shopping cart pushed in front of him filled with pre-packaged food. What had started as a fun shopping trip had gotten twisted somewhere and Scott wasn't sure exactly when, they had rounded a corner together and without noticing the noise of everyone else in the store had vanished. Now they hadn't seen anyone in hours...nor an exit. Backtracking had only led them to more colorful furniture displays and now hours later things had gotten even stranger. Displays starting to repeat, furniture found upside down, lettering on signs showing up backwards. It was like reality was breaking down.

"It's OK Cassie, we'll find a way out yet," Scott assured his daughter with a fatherly pat to the head and a tone of confidence he didn't feel. He'd changed into his Ant-Man suit some time ago but hadn't seen much use for it. Growing huge had only shown him more shelves, more displays, more...infinity, the walls never quite visible in the distance, the ceiling never seeming to get closer.

Now he glances at a display on his wrist. It was almost 9 p.m. when the first noise they'd heard in a long time crackles to life over loudspeakers.

"Attention shoppers, this is Arcade speaking. The store will be closing shortly. Please exit in an orderly manner...or never exit at all," followed by a typical selection of maniacal laughing. Cassie clutches him tighter as Scott bites his tongue to keep from cursing when an idea springs to his head. Picking her up he rushes towards the source of the nearest sound. Wires pulled from his communicator he rips the louderspeaker's housing off and ties his suit into the electronics. Wherever Arcade was had to be outside this weirdness, which meant maybe the signal could get past it too.

The signal was faint and Scott didn't try to encrypt it. Phones, headsets, military comms, heroes or villains, he didn't care who heard it. "This is Scott Lang with my daughter Cassie. We are trapped in an Ikea off route 37 in upstate New York. Send help..." He pulls the cords free and steps back...as the overhead lights begin to flick out in sequence with a 'thump thump thump.'

Tommy Shepherd has posed:
    Tuesday through Thursday is meatball happy hour at IKEA, and fresh off a lucrative delivery job that had his pockets bursting with cash, Tommy couldn't think of a better place to eat a whole bunch of calories at once. Sure, it's not gourmet or anything, but you really can't knock the Swedish meatballs. Or the cinnamon buns. Hell, even the cheap-ass hotdogs they sell near the exit are pretty good.

    Which is to say, Tommy had already planned on sticking around for a while. At least through the 3-5pm happy hour, and then you can't just leave IKEA without doing a walkaround of the showroom. And who knows, maybe he needs a PRUTA food container set of 17 for $7.99 or one of the thirty different kinds of SKUBB storage boxes they make. Either way, Tommy has no idea when he got lost. All he knows is that no amount of running has brought him to the front doors, and he's had to carb-load twice just to sustain his energy levels. Which is why he's got two of those iconic blue IKEA bags, one slung over each shoulder.

    It's not technically theft given the extenuating circumstances, right? His patrol officer will definitely buy that.

    He's moving at a comfortable jog, doing something around 250 mph, when the speaker crackles to life. The evil villain laughter earns a solid roll of his eyes, but Tommy doesn't so much as stumble otherwise. All par for the course in the joke that is his life.

    The speed of sound is faster than he's moving at the moment, though, so when he hears a distinctly human (and non-maniacal) voice from an aisle over, Tommy manages to skid to a stop around the endcap, Tokyo Drift style. His eyes go wide when he sees a guy and his kid. "Hey!" he calls out, pointing towards them, "Are you real?" And then he takes in what Scott's wearing. "Are you, like, a superhero or something?"

Bunny Macleod has posed:
    Ikeas are a dangerous place; they pump extra oxygen into the air, laced with the sweetness of cinnamon sugar to get you hungry for the cinnamon rolls, they try to catch your attention with their quality flat-packed items, but sometimes you just really needed something small and fancy -- like one of those little greenhouse kits that look like a house, and a mister bottle with the fancy push-down button and gooseneck nozzle in order to have the three square feet that is uniquely yours give you life when you live with nine other people in a two bedroom fourth-floor walk-up...

    Behind a stack of RASKOG and KALLAX stacks, Bunny Macleod was trying to place a call on the cheap Macleod Messenger Service (TM) phone, but found it was out of service when not in the New York City area. Huh. Who knew?

    The voices overhead did not make her feel better about the situation she was in, eyes narrowing a moment as she weighed her options of an eternal IKEA visit... when she heard a familiar voice!

    So, the skater, who had her sneakers tied by their laces and over her shoulder, wearing a pair of roller skates that she was using to explore the level, pokes her head up over the boxes and sturdy yet value-driven shelving units and calls out "Mr. Ant-Man type person? Izzat you?"

    The pink-haired teen smoothly comes around the boxes, giving a hand wave.

    "Oh my *GAWD* this place is yooge I can't even find the way back to the ladies room and I was just about to try callin' my dad's line but the phone I got ain't workin' this far from the city and --"

    She pauses. She looks to Tommy, and then to Cassie, and then back up to Scott.

    "... am I interruptin' a family shoppin' trip?"

Kim Hayes has posed:
    ==*== THREE HOURS EARLIER ==*==

    <<Remind me again what your 'friends' are doing in that 'Ikea.'>>

    "I dunno, dude. Like, buying a desk or some shit. It's a thing couples do," Kim replied to the voice in her head as she finished rolling herself a joint, careful to keep her hands below the level of the windows of the van she was sat across the back passenger's seat of in the IKEA parking lot. The radio was tuned to a grunge-heavy nineties station, playing at a moderate volume.

    <<And your friends will be using this desk for the purpose of procreation?>>

    Kim nearly drops the lighter and cigarette in her hand and scowls at her reflection in the window.

    "Gross! Why would you even think that?"

    <<Those 'videos' you observe while you are at your place of work...>>

    As she finishes lighting up, Kim's expression fades with a sigh.

    "Let's keep those between me and me..."

    Taking the first drag, Kim leaned back and stared into the oblivion beyond the van's rear windscreen...

    ==*== PRESENTLY ==*==

    <<HAYES.>>

    "Shit!"

    Kim sits up in the back of the van, the sunlight now gone, a faint cloud and telltale stench still hanging in the air, her joint long since burnt out.

    <<Someone in your radio is asking for assistance.>>

    "Yeah, so what?" Kim groans, pulling back the hood of her gray sweater and rubbing her head.

    zz This is Scott Lang with my daughter Cassie. We are trapped in an Ikea off route 37 in upstate New York. Send help... zz

    <<Is that not the Ikea your friends have yet to emerge from? Perhaps they are also trapped.>>

    "Everybody gets trapped in Ikea, dude. Look, I'll just call..."

    Kim blinks a couple of times as the time comes up on the display of her smartphone.

    "Shit, that place is supposed to be closed, like, anytime now. What the eff, 'Tober?"

    Dusting away flakes of stinking ash, Kim opens the side door and half-slides, half-stumbles into the parking lot, hitting the call button and holding her phone up to her ear as she slams the door behind her. When it goes straight to voicemail, she frowns, hanging up. She looks up at the entrance to the Ikea, drawing in a breath through her nostrils as she gathers herself...

    "...Screw it."

    ...and turns back around toward the van, pulling on the handle.

    The van starts to honk uncontrollably.

    "Uggggh, son of a biiitch," Kim whines, before turning back toward the store and shuffling her way toward the entrance.

    "'Tober?? F-Bomb?!" she calls into the dark.

    <<Perhaps your friends died while you were sleeping.>>

    "Shut UP," Kim mutters to herself as she starts to hustle a little more than she normally would, Vans scuffing the asphalt with each step.

Scott Lang has posed:
"What the...that was the fastest anyone has ever responded to one of my calls for he...GEEZE!" Scott responding positively to Tommy's appearance, missing the speedster's performance with his head down getting his wires back together. Right before Bunny manages to make him jump when she pops up behind, the sound of one of his gauntlets charging humming in the air before he calms down. "OK so less alone than I thought. Yes I'm real, I'm Ant-Man like Pinky there said. Have you two seen anything that might..." Scott pausing as the lights going out finally reach them. The area momentarily plunges into complete darkness before several columns begin to radiate a dim red light from emergency lighting fixtures on their sides. Scott meanwhile turns on flashlights on his helmet, what look much like two headlights as he snaps the helmet into place, his voice a bit more tinny with it on.

"Anything that might help us? Because I think we're in a bit of trouble here if that's actually Arcade," he notes, hoisting up Cassie and holding her on his shoulder as he peers around the now darker and more sinister looking furniture displays. "Usually his traps come with umm," Scott hesitating as even with the helmet he clearly glances aside at his daughter before saying, "Well, usually they're more than just a big box I'll say that," not wanting to scare his daughter any worse.

He gives her a bounce and while it can't be seen through the helmet one can almost hear his forced smile. "Hey cheer up Peanut, we found some folks now, we'll start putting together a plan and..." again he stops as they hear something else in the distance. People. Screaming. Which cuts off rather suddenly. "That's more like Arcade alright," he finishes more softly setting Cassie down in the cartload of food after clearing some space for her, his helmet lights sweeping the darkness again.

Tommy Shepherd has posed:
    Unlike Scott, Tommy doesn't visibly jump when a pink-haired girl's head pops up outta nowhere. Because he processed his shock at superspeed, meaning the only thing anyone saw was a couple of very rapid blinks. He drops his IKEA bags onto the ground and rolls his shoulders, rubbing at where the straps have started to dig into his skin.

    The heavy thunk of both bags as they touch down suggest he's been hauling around a non-insignificant amount of supplies. Or maybe it's all KAFFEREP cookies in there. Who knows.

    And then the lights go out.

    "Aw, sh--," wait no there's a kid here, "Crap. Uh. I passed through the hardware section a while back but they don't sell flashlights." Tommy crouches down to start digging through his bags, aided by the flashlight function on his cell phone. Which is decently close to fully charged, thankfully. "Pretty sure I'm not related to," the dots connect in his head, and Tommy looks up sharply. "Oh, hey, you're the guy who can shrink, right?" That's about all he remembers from Billy's Avengers-related chatting, so predictably the reference to Arcade goes over his head. He does offer up a hammer he's purloined from the FIXA 17-piece tool kit (currently on sale for $12.99). "I've covered a pretty big distance with no exit in sight, so I think at this point running around might not be our best--."

    Cue screaming.

    Tommy hastily picks up his bags and relocates himself closer to the other three, standing with his feet spread, clearly poised to start running. "Yeah I take that back."

Bunny Macleod has posed:
    Bunny gives an embarrassed grin, and from her yellow bag she pulls out the spray bottle she'd come to get with a wince.

    "Unfortunately? Kinda stopped in to grab somethin' for the self care thing --" she begins, and then the lights go out. "I've been skatin' for hours. Wore out a bearing on my wheelies and -- Arcade, huh?" she states, getting a little closer to the cart. There's a rustling, and she digs her own skating helmet out, the one with the wings and unicorn horn on it. She turns on her own flashlight on her cell, and secures it to her helmet with a little harness and velcro strap, so she can go hands free. The horn glitteringly reflect the red light as she takes a deep breath, and she braces herself, adding her yellow bag with the spray bottle and greenhouse to the cart's bottom.

    "... I don't suppose they've suddenly become rabid pinball fans, huh?" she guesses, and cracks her knuckles. Look tough, put on the brave face.

Kim Hayes has posed:
    Kim is confounded by the darkness greeting her as she tries to peer into the storefront, one hand raised to shield subconsciously against an absent sun. She makes for the door - and, surprisingly, finds that it opens at her approach.

    "Okay, this is, like, way weird," Kim mutters to herself and her passenger as she steps through the entrance and into the darkness. She cups her hands over her mouth and calls out plaintively: "Hey, like, is anyone in here? 'Tobes? Faust? You're not like, playing a wicked joke on me, right?"

    She steps further along the designated path through the capitalist furniture fortress, rounding the first bend, before the sound of screaming reaches her.

    "Oh, shit!"

    <<Ah, excitement!>>

    Tactically turning to retrace her steps - <<Why must you always retreat from anything interesting?!>> - the rapidly-sobering brunette finds herself impossibly confronted by a darkened display of desks where the door used to be.

    "Wha...?"

    <<Are these not the 'desks' your friends were searching for? It seems they are not particularly skilled hunters.>>

    "This isn't -right.- Are you doing this to me?" Kim asks, fingers clawing into her hair anxiously.

    <<If anything, I mitigate the strangeness of your mind, Hayes...>>

    "That's a scary freaking thought," Kim says as she starts to stagger deeper into the darkness of the store.

    "Heeey! Hey! Where are you guys?!"

Scott Lang has posed:
"I can do OTHER stuff too! I can talk to ants...which OK there aren't any here, I've checked," Scott admits, that fact only disturbing him more. Ikeas weren't exactly dirty stores but it was almost impossible to have a place with food around and not have ants SOMEWHERE nearby. And yet the several random food displays they'd passed there hadn't been even a trace of a fly, ant, or any other living creature. What was going on here? "Running in the dark doesn't seem like a great idea, these paths aren't exactly straight," Scott reminds, indeed much of the furniture store's arrow laden paths twisting back on one another instead of nice long straight paths like most stores would have. And now even the arrows didn't make sense, sometimes pointing into faux wall deadends covered with clocks, lights, or other accessories.

"We need a plan. Whatever that kook is doing is screwing with, I dunno, time and space is what they usually say. But he's using it to screw with a furniture store. Like there's gotta be a limit or something cause otherwise why the heck isn't he hitting something more important?" Scott reasons. "I just sent out a message, I think. If we can last till morning, we just find a spot and hunker down, take shifts on watch. It's like getting lost in the woods, you don't go wandering around, you wait for help to find you, right?" doing his best to come up with something, anything to sound like he knows what he's doing.

All of which comes crashing down when not terribly far off they hear Kim shouting for her friends. Followed immediately by the sound of crashing and smashing furniture, and an honest to god roar that would make a T-Rex whimper in shame. Something very strong and very, feral from the sounds of it was heading straight for her.

"Or we go help whoever that is, come on!" Scott hollers, thinking of the screams they just heard farther off. He couldn't let that happen to someone else and starts running towards the sounds of destruction approaching Kim, trying to pull Cassie and her cart next to him instead of in front as some way of shielding her, not about to let her out of his sight in the maze. His headlamps bobbing crazily in the dark, trusting the other two to follow.

Tommy Shepherd has posed:
    "Uh huh," is the only answer Tommy has. Both in regards to Scott's other powers and the general talk of plans. He's not particularly helpful, if only because he acknowledges that planning and-or rational thinking is just not one of his strengths. Let the guy with superheroing experience handle it. Maybe the girl with pink hair has something to contribute too. Not the kid in the Richmond Flying Squirrels (they're a minor league team) hat that looks sort of like that one ex-Brotherhood of Mutants member. He's just here to kick ass and eat meatballs, and they're all out of meatballs.

    Okay, maybe not so much ass-kicking, either. Running towards danger was not what Tommy intended to suggest after all. But that's what they're doing, apparently, and he's beside Scott's cart in an instant, for now just keeping pace rather than running ahead with his superspeed. His head turns one way to glance worriedly at Bunny, then the other way to look at Cassie.

    "I, uh, I'm Tommy, by the way," he says. "After all this time we should definitely hit up the nearest kids section, I want one of those really big sharks. I feel like we've earned that much." The wash of light from the light on his phone is mostly steady; Tommy's got a lot of experience holding things while running, after all, though his light doesn't stretch out as far as the ones on Ant-Man's helmet.

Bunny Macleod has posed:
    "An' obviously he's a dad, so highly qualified leader or somethin', right?" Bunny suggests with a stressed smile, her feet going forwards and backwards on her skates as she expends nervous energy, looking to Tommy as she gives a little smile, and she puts a hand out.

    "Bunny. I don't gotta super name yet, it's being workshopped." she gives a smile to Tommy and Cassie. "And heck yeah I love those freakin' shahks! I think I can splurge an' get one. They had Ankylosauruses too an' I thought about getting one and --

    And then there's talk of plans, and she gives a button lip to her statement to halt the oversharing, clearly nervous as she skates, keeping page with the group.

    "I... uh... I have rainbow shields. Can't hardly talk ta people let alone anythin' else!"

Kim Hayes has posed:
    *KRASH*

    *SNAPP*

    As the sound of some unseen creature roaring and crashing its way closer through the darkness reaches the ears of the disheveled and drug-addled brunette, Kim shrinks back into a model kitchen, hips bumping into the corner of a counter - fortunately modern and rounded to avoid causing pain on collision (the counter, not Kim's hips).

    "What the frigg is that?!"

    <<Sounds like a fun time. Can I come out now?>>

    "No!"

    The prefab cabinet doors around Kim rumble as heavy footsteps plod ever closer.

    "...Maybe?!"

    Kim shrinks down to the floor as she starts pulling on the shuddering cabinets to try and find a hiding place, only to find shelves slotted into convenient metal slats. She starts trying to pull them out just as something looms out of the shadows, drawing her grey eyes upward -

    - to the sight of a monstrous, humanoid figure, dressed in the yellow shirt and blue plants of an IKEA employee. Looming at twelve feet tall, the creature's face is a mess of features like melted wax, spikes jutting out from its arms and head. Its own eyes - or what passes for them - fall on Kim.

    "...Yes!" Kim squeals, the fabric of her sweater instantly beginning to flow and darken as it melts into purple and stretches over her skin like liquid taffy as whatever the creature is tromps closer, smashing a spiked limb through a rack of matching pots.

Scott Lang has posed:
It's straight out of a found footage horror movie as Scott rounds a bend of showers and finds the monster, his lights jittering over it. Cassie screams causing his heart to clench, Scott not yet able to see Kim, her darkening form more like a swirling shadow in the unsteady light. He can hear her though, knows the thing is after someone. "Cassie stay here. Tommy, Bunny, keep your distance. Throw stuff, holler, whatever. I don't want you two getting hurt," Scott commands speaking not as a hero but a DAD. It was that tone of voice, the other two after all still being far younger than himself.

Not that Scott wanted to be the one getting close. "Hey ugly!" Scott hollers as he fires a blast from his gauntlets which barely makes the thing flinch, turning his way at least as it looks at him with wild eyes. "Germany's stuff is better-made," he taunts, the creature loosing a roar, a mount that didn't seem to exist before peeling open on its face far wider than it should.

"Oh hell," Scott whispers as he charges forward, loosing a holler of his own before he seems to vanish, and be replaced by just a tiny lightbulb bouncing in the darkness which springs up on the creature, the monster beginning to react like something far larger is hitting it, but not looking the least bit like it's going down either from those blows. Miniaturized Scott keeps moving fast as he can and hitting it, grimacing as he feels like his punches aren't hitting anything vital.

Tommy Shepherd has posed:
    Even though his relationship with his own father is nonexistant, Tommy's instincts drive him to obey the Dad Voice. He's already come to a stop anyway, one hand clutching the cart tight enough that an imprint of the metal bars will be left in his skin when he finally lets go. His bags hit the ground, and he nods mutely at Ant-Man's back before he steps to the side.

    His eyes scan the shelves as the light from his phone casts across them. Throw something, throw something... oh.

    It's a literal lightbulb moment. Because there, right in front of him, is an entire display of SOLHETTA LED lightbulbs (E26 450 lumens, $1.99 / 2 pack, a real steal of a deal). Tommy's heels squeak against the floor as he turns to face the display kitchen. "Hey, if you're not a gross IKEA puddy monster... uhh, dodge!"

    And then thin cardboard boxes begin to hit the floor like spent shells from a machine gun as Tommy unpackages lightbulbs at superspeed and fastballs them at the monster like bullets. Which is stretching the limits of how fast Tommy's arms can move, but he'll run out of things to throw before he tires out. He's running on fear and cinnamon bun energy now.

Bunny Macleod has posed:
    Bunny just sort of draws her eyes open wide as the creature roars, its face PEELING OPEN like some sorta 80's monstrous creature and she drops her jaw.

    "Yeah, that's new." she mutters, and she takes a step back, staying with Cass and the cart before she hears Tommy's warning, and as the spiked limb begins wrecking the HEMLAGAD display and Tommy begins launching the lightbulbs at lightspeed, Bunny grabs onto the cart, skating backwards a bit as she holds up one hand and her prismatic shield lights up around her in its pastel gasoline-swirl patterns!

    "I ain't gonna let nothin' hit you kid, don't worry!"

Kim Hayes has posed:
    In the darkness behind the transmogrified simulacrum of the Swedish store's salesperson, an inky morass begins to rise, the light from Scott's helmet glistening off of slick purple biomass, providing brief glimpses of a faintly feminine silhouette equal in its mockery of the human form to the monster being battered by the shrunken superhero. Nowhere to be seen is the cowering young woman that was previously pursued by the misshapen giant.

    Willowy green tendrils dangle over the face of the alien creature as it grows and shifts, spindly legs stretching to elevate its height to challenge that of the IKEA monster. A billowing cloud of hallucinogenic bile-green gas starts to emanate from the monster, catching the light and casting the creature as a shifting, nightmarish mirage.

    "Mmmmm.... hmmhmm... uh oh."

    As the fingers of the oozing abomination stretch apart, they grow longer, the ends hardening into lengthy talons.

    "Youuu ssstartled the witch," the high-pitched, sibilant speech of the symbiote sing-songs as the head tilts from one side to the other - moments before it swipes its claws viciously at the giant. Glass crashes around the monster, broken shards of lightbulbs becoming embedded in the inky purple mass as the volley is aimed in the direction of the two creatures.

Scott Lang has posed:
If he could grow to giant size safely Scott could probably destroy this thing without any ethical quandaries. But he was afraid in the dark and with the crowded floors he may just wind up hurting those he was trying to protect. Giant-Man always an ungainly form in the best of times. If they could just deliver a hard enough blow. Of course Scott soon has new issues as lightbulbs begin to launch and shatter with far greater speed than he'd ever anticipated, the world around him becoming a hailstorm of jagged glass. "What the hell? Does everyone have powers now?! Am I the only one who uses a suit?!" he complains as he finds himself diving out of the way of Tommy's bombardment, accuracy being somewhat limited in the darkened store and with such speed. As he lands back on the ground he takes a moment to catch his breath, the suit's filters he notices kicking in as an odd haze starts forming in front of him. It's another horror cliche when he turns around slowly and looks up to find the sludge creature now looming over him like a gooey kaiju.

"Oh come on!" he hollers in dismay, instantly assuming it's another creature unleashed by Arcade. Desperate times... "Bunny, hang on the cart and use those shields of yours! Tommy, push em, smash through whatever, get some distance!" his voice amplified by the suit's speakers, figuring Bunny's shields would keep the speedster and his daughter safe if they plowed through any furniture. Sucking in a deep breath then he triggers the other control on his suit and starts to grow, first normal and then up and up, his vision growing fuzzier the bigger he gets until the 12 foot tall Ikea monster is more like a 12 inch tall action figure. At this size his body always felt heavy and cumbersome, no hopping around, no fancy martial arts. Instead Scott kneels down and simply tries to backhand both monsters in a single blow to send them flying deeper into the store and away from everyone else if he can manage it.

Tommy Shepherd has posed:
    If Tommy were the type of superhero to be punny, he'd make a joke revolving around the phrase "let there be light!" right about now. The thing is, though, he isn't even a superhero. So instead he throws about two hundred dollars worth of IKEA lightbulbs at the monster, and then kicks his way through the refuse pile at his feet so that he can rejoin Cassie and Bunny at the cart. His bags join the rest, and then he grabs hold of the handlebar.

    "Speaking from personal experience," he says as he bends down slightly, sneakers squeaking against the concrete floor as he starts to push, "You can really only get these babies moving like, fifty, sixty miles per hour before they start wobbling. You holding on?" It's Bunny he's asking, but then he spares a second to check on Cassie before they begin to build up speed.

    No, he doesn't drive the cart with Ant-Man's daughter sitting in it (and a person of unknown relationship with Ant-Man clinging to the side) at highway speeds. But he does zip them down the aisle, far enough away that even if Scott--er, Giant Man--falls down, they're out of range.

    And then a little bit farther because he has to glide them to a stop. IKEA carts do be drifting, after all.

Bunny Macleod has posed:
    Bunny braces herself, skates in place as she grabs some of the blue handles through the IKEA cat's front, and uses them like a harness to keep her in place as she shakes out her hands.

    "Go go go go!" she calls out, looking back to Tommy and Cassie before she bends down to make herself more aerodynamic, and she braces her elbows.

    MInd you she has never gone this fast on skates before, and as the oozing abomination starts to grow claws she suddenly wants to get as far away from this as possible as she feels her throat dry.

    "Don't be a hero and stay behind for doom Ant-Man!" she calls out as they pass him, using her shields, the rainbows flashing as she pushes things out of the way, knocking over a BILLY built upside-down, three HEMNES TV stands stacked like dominos, and one BOWEI -- which is a display of Ziggy Stardust riding a tiger made of lightning -- and she's screaming the entire time she's doing it.

Kim Hayes has posed:
    The bellowing body-horror monster in the bright yellow and blue uniform lashes back at the billowing mirage monster in retaliation for the raking assault, the two straining as the green-haired goo-ghoul catches a spiked arm and grapples with it, growing a set of matching spikes of its own in response.

    "Look, twinsss," the symbiote taunts the other creature, a flash of a single swirling eye and grinning rows of rotten fangs briefly visible as the green tentacle-hair shifts in the struggle. Haze's single visible eye tilts upward as the suited figure grows behind its rival, then starts to kneel closer.

    "Friiieeennnd?"

    The question is perhaps a moment too late, as the backhand sweeps toward both creatures - and as it does, the more protean of the pair sinks down toward the floor, effectively ducking beneath the attack as it reshapes itself into something like a giant pool of freshly chewed purple-and-green gum around the feet of the IKEA monster - trapping it in place for the attack about to ensue.

    *SMACK*

    All that's left behind as the creature is sent flying into the depths of the store are a pair of oversized shoes in the purple puddle, quickly flung loose as the oily creature reforms at its former height.

    "Unfair. You should have left sssome for usss," the freakish, feminine figure chastises the giant, before looking to and fro, seemingly oblivious to the fate the giant intended it to share in. "Now, where are her friendsss..."