13917/The Great Switcheroo

The Great Switcheroo
Date of Scene:	16 February 2023
Location:	The Dreamscape of Irwin Schwab
Synopsis:	A misguided attempt to help Bruce Banner sleep unleashes the Hulk. In the chaos, a bit of a mix-up happens. As Sam Beckett would say,
Cast of Characters:	Bruce Banner, Michael Hannigan, Jennifer Walters, Greer Grant, Dawn Granger, Divine, Jubilation Lee, Noriko Ashida

---

Bruce Banner has posed:
It is a night like any other. You had retired and were sleeping peacefully in your bed. Your dreams are, just as always, your dreams. Perhaps a dream of something you wish to do, or something you fear. A chance to exorcise the internal demons of your mind, or enjoy a pleasant diversion of wish fulfillment. Either which way, you are deep within the realm of sleep, experiencing what is either your sub-conscious at work or some other entity casting its spell on you. Who really knows?

All that you know is that one minute you are in a dream that feels unquestionably your own, and then...


The fabric of reality shatters, shards of the imagery of your dream falling to the ground. A brief flash of purple goes before your eyes followed by a bestial roar coming from the same direction. And then you feel a tremor along the very ground on which you stand, undefined as the world of the dream vanishes into oblivion. Louder, more forceful. thump thump Thump Thump THUMPTHUMPTHUMP

And then a mammoth creature of emerald fury dashes past you. Before you can even acknowledge what it is that you have seen, a tremendous wind catches you up. The ground of your dream slips away from your feet, as if carried along in a slipstream. You begin to see other figures caught up in the hurricane forces that are carrying you. And up ahead, the one figure in whose wake you are carried.

The Incredible Hulk.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
It is one of those times that Mike is in a dream. His OWN dream. And what does one with the ability to go into other dreams does for his own? Does he battle dragons, traverse through memories of Wonderland, or for some reason become ventriloquist champion of the world?

He's in a park. Sitting on a bench quietly.

For those familiar with Gotham they may even recognize the park, one of the ones that was nice enough a few decades back for parents to take their children to. There is even the sound of play going on off to the far right. But he's not looking that way.

Instead he sits, watching a woman sit next to an extremely familiar looking boy holding a present. The woman is always looking to the boy, never turning her head to look straight.

It's almost picture like.

Peaceful.

THUMPTHUMPTHUMP

That's new...

Turning his head, Mike's eyes widen as A hulking figure blazes past, tearing a hole through his dreamscape, and with the foreign intrusion comes the foreign influence as a wind winds up through the dreamscape, whipping it all away in a tornado of chaos.

Whisked along for the ride, Mike's form shifts, becoming more raven like, wings flapping like crazy to try to right himself.

Jennifer Walters has posed:
    Oh, no. It's //this// dream again. Jennifer is just plain old Jennifer Walters, but she's in her She-Hulk costume, which is at least ten sizes to big for her. She's in the middle of a battle... with AIM this time? She thinks. They all kind of merge together. Sometimes them, sometimes Hydra, sometimes ninjas of some sort or another.

    She's standing there, in the middle of the battlefield with Tony yelling at her, "C'mon, greenie! Get in there!" She can't get in there. She'd be squished! Helplessly, she runs for cover, her arms over her head to keep the flying debris from knocking her out cold.

    Before she can get there, however, there's a purple flash, a shattering of reality, and she's quickly swept off her feet. She recognizes the figure that she's being swept towards. It's her cousin.

    "Bruce?" she asks tentatively. "What's going on?"

Greer Grant has posed:
Tigra's dream is a bit unusual for her, or it would have been in the past. These days, not quite as unusual. The mental imagery having been sparked by thoughts had during a conversation with the Black Widow, she finds herself in an upscale boutique's changing room, looking at her reflection in two mirrors, in one she's herself, in the other, she's the gender flipped version she spent time as, and she considers each as if they were merely outfits to try on.

And then the mirrors shatter and the walls of the changing room fall to pieces and she pivots, dropping into a crouch with claws out at the roar and furious thumping, and then fur ripples as wind snatches her up and she twists in the air to try to stay upright, and then recognizes the Hulk at the head of this train. "Oh hell."

Dawn Granger has posed:
Dawn Granger's dreams are often peaceful, and thoughts throughout the day tend to find their way mixed in. Choreography for a performance she is working on ends up with her dreaming that she's amidst a typical day on the street of some big city. People walk here and there, but with the grace of dancers, some movements more fluid than others, some more of a leap. As is the way in dreams, this is all entirely natural and expected. She doesn't join them in their movement, instead she stands and watches them, looking at everyone around her moving fluidly through the city as if choregraphed.

At least it's fluid until it's not.

People colide with each other, shattering like glass without a sound, as if everyone had forgotten their choreography in the midst of an incoming sound. Even in her dreams, when something goes awry she reflexively becomes Dove. Dove doesn't hear herself utter the word, but she's there and not cracking into glass like the rest of the people around her. Things fly to the side as something, someone to be exact, rips through. She moves as if to follow, but she's swept up without even having to move, the confusion of why The Hulk of all people is stomping and speeding about filling her head.

Divine has posed:
Divine, strictly speaking, doesn't have to sleep. Not really. It never hurts, and her human half surely appreciates it, so she does so, more often than not. She never really remembers her dreams, though.

What does she dream about? Tonight, it's nothing pleasant. She's down in the Antarctic, seeking out a Kryptonian artifact with her, maybe, possibly, new family. It's fitting, then, that what she sees is green, and what she feels is pain. Pain like she has never felt before, like she hopes she never will again.

In her dream, she writhes in the rising water, her blood boiling in her veins when it shatters like glass, blasting apart the terror and pain and leaving only confusion.

"What the hell?"

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation Lee hasn't slept in nearly two years and, quite rightly, hasn't had a dream in that time, either. And yet...

    Jubilee lies back on her beach chair, eyes closed but covered by a pair of dark sunglasses. She doesn't have a single care in the world. It's just her, her bikini, the sand, the surf, and the warm sun kissing her tanned skin. She lazily reaches up with both hands and extends her arms into a nice, long, satisfying stretch. It was a good nap. A long one, too. It felt like it had been /years/...

    "It was a dream..." she concludes, suddenly sitting up. "...It was just a dream!" Jubilee looks left, up, down. She's at the beach! Finally, she looks to the right and discovers a large, hollowed pineapple with a neon pink curly straw flirting its way out of a little hole in the top of the shell. Her mouth curls into a big smile, one filled with bright, totally normal teeth.

    Jubilation sits up and crosses her legs into a criss-cross-apple-sauce position and brings the tropical drink up to her face. "Nori's going to get such a kick out of this dream... She /hates/ vampires," she says with a laugh.

    THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP. That's the sort of thing someone would normally care about if they weren't dreaming. Jubilation brings the curly straw up to her lips and starts to suck.

    THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.

    Jubilation's face sours suddenly. Is it the noise? The green blur coming towards her at such a high speed? Or is it... Her drink? A dark red mist sprays from Jubilee's mouth as she spits out the drink in abject horror. It dribbles down the sides of her mouth, leaving behind crimson trails towards her chin. As the green monster gets closer and closer, Jubilation's skin begins losing its tan. Her hair -- the weird cowlick that she had on the first day she showed up at Xavier's -- grows and grows to be the length it was back on that fateful evening in July of 2021. Four of her teeth form razor sharp points.

    "It's not a dream!" Jubilation screams as she gets caught up in the Incredible Hulk's wake. She's wrong, perhaps, but who could blame her? She hasn't slept in nearly two years.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko's natural rhythm is, well, faster, and given the nature of her body's relationship between electricity and other forms of energy, she just doesn't sleep like most anyone, except for maybe another speedster.  Also, sometimes, especially as of late, she might have bitten off a little more than she could chew.  She's in the middle of giving Pony a bath while in between rounds on a machine in the Xavier's Arcade, when she decides to just take a nap.  Clutching a big soapy peanut shaped sponge clutched in her gauntlet, Noriko is passed out belly down on the back of the partially sudsy, bewildered horse.  Not a drop of liquid has even touched the ground, nor has anything been caught awkwardly on camera AI, unless the internal camera AI is trained to look for barnyard life on the internal cameras.

During this little nap, during a chore, during a quick game of what was the name of it that game she was playing, before the...CONK!

In this dream, somehow, it's already her honeymoon.  The ceremony?!  Done!  The reception?!  Done!  The objections from dead and alive possibly alike?!  SO DONE?!  And no one knows if one side of the aisle snacked on the other side of the aisle, because it's not important because it's SO DONE!...and so very a dream.  In this dream, somehow the pot of gold shaped cereal bowl (contents glowing) she keeps eating from (sans gauntlets! how chic!) is always full and the cereal always crunchy.  Every slip of object permanence seems to refill it, despite her being in her bathing suit, on the beach.  Yes apparently eating neverending cereal bowls is up there right now.  Noriko looks around for what SHOULD BE HERE, WHO SHOULD BE HERE.  It's actually the beach under the silvery serene rays of the moon after all.

Searching the surf, the shoreline, the dunes, Jubes!  Noriko sprints toward the younger looking and more dead looking girl but her feet feel like lead.  She works against the sudden forces of her dream being torn apart, by being swept away from, "Jubes!"

Bruce Banner has posed:
The roaring Hulk seems to be chasing whatever that flash of purple was, and seemingly as you follow in the vortex that is the emerald giant, the distance between the two is shrinking. As it does, you see other dreamscapes flash by, glimpses into the subconsciousness of others.

You see an older man with a tight crewcut haircut and a small rectangular moustache crawling along the side of the Daily Bugle building wearing Spider-man's costume.

You see a mailman trudging along the street, looking up and watching various Avengers do battle with Kang the Conqueror.

You see a man in the Ace o Clubs, a beret on his head and a beer in his hand, look up as he hears a call for help, and he stands up and tears open his shirt, revealing a red "B" against a triangle of yellow.

The scenes flash by, faster and faster, as you feel the wind come up harder against you. You look around and notice others caught up in the fury of the Hulk's chase. Some of whom you recognize as fellow heroes. Some of whom are strangers to you. All brought along on this journey.

Just when it seems as if the purple figure is close enough to come into view, it shifts and moves, revealing itself to be a woman. Her hands move furiously and blasts of purple energy come flying out from her, aimed at the green figure chasing her. The Hulk weaves side to the side, avoiding the blasts, as they come down past him towards the poor souls dragged along on this journey.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
As the raven gains perch (heh) upon the winds and ends up taking a standing position, the wings stay stretched out. But they are no longer flapping, Instead they seem to be mimicking the balancing motions of a surfer.

Surf's up!

As the bird hangs six with the invisible surfboard, Mike takes note of the other figures that end up getting washed along. Jen... Greer... Dove- Noriko? Man they're even getting costars in on this.

Well shit.

Seeing those he have interacted with in some way or another. Mike calls out to them to clarify a matter of great importance, "BEFORE YOU ASK, I DIDN'T DO IT."

Really He didn't!

Jennifer Walters has posed:
    Caught up in the vortex, and without the strength that being She-Hulk gives her, Jennifer tumbles about. She's able to make out a few people that she recognizes, however, and some that she doesn't.

    "Mike! Greer!" she calls out to them. "I don't think this is a dream, anymore!" She tries to shift. Honest to goodness she tries, but she's still being bound by some kind of dream logic and is kinda stuck.

    Amongst all her tumbling she manages to see that there's a woman who's blasting at her cousin. "Can anybody recognize her?" Then she tries a different track "Bruce! Slow down!"

Divine has posed:
It's so rare for the half-Kryptonian to be caught in anyone's wake. She's, more often than not, mighty enough to withstand. Even in her dreamscapes, but she's no match for a Hulk.

Divine tumbles like a weed in the wind, dragged along in the green behemoth's wake. She finally manages to right herself just in time to see the blasts coming. Two things cross her mind. One: How the -hell- is someone that large that fast? Two: If you die in your dreams, do you die for real?

She crosses her arms over her front and braces for impact.

Greer Grant has posed:
This...dream gets weirder and weirder. Tigra's not sure if she's dreaming or not, but that's the thing about dreams, you don't always know they're not real. Brains are funny like that. Not funny is tumbling around, still twisting and turning like a cat trying to land on its feet as she works to stay more or less upright. She sees faces and people joining the ride, familiar ones as well.
    "Jen!" she calls out, reaching out to try to grab Jennifer's hand, the task all but impossible in the buffeting winds. "You better not have!" she yells at Mike, and then eeps and tries to twist away from purple beams. Figures the one guy who can most easily -take- a hit is the one able to dodge them. She'd yell at him over it if he weren't, you now, the Hulk.

Dawn Granger has posed:
"Okay, this *isn't* a dream?" Dove wouldn't be Dove if something weren't off. But how logical is that in dreams? She's dragged along, doing her best to have some sort of sense of control over how she's dragged along. She's at least looking a little bit more graceful in her swim in the strange slipstream. "If this isn't a dream, we're all going to be in for a really rough landing!"

Noriko Ashida has posed:
WHAT THE HELL?!  Noriko still has her pot o- cereal, she's still gauntletless, padding along barefoot and confused looking along with herd of people.  "Jubes?!"  Noriko keeps calling out, hoping part of the last segment of her dream got mixed in with the next or something.  Maybe she can still find, Noriko sighs out, "Jubes," when she sees her.  It hasn't even occurred to Nori to check to see if she has her powers in her dreams yet...because it's a dream.  She'll always have an instinct and it will always be fickle and strange and have its own rules and she won't have her powers, or she will but they will be weird, or x, y, z.  It's a common source of anxiety.

"I thought you were drinking that oth-nevermind," it doesn't matter.  Small changes in dream details don't matter.  Don't fight it.  You got Jubes Nori.  "You coming?"  Noriko offers the crook of her gauntletless elbow to Jubilation as they set off on their stroll through chaos.  "I thought I'd lost you, but then I remembered, we've got time."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "I don't know what /it/ is, but...usually, whoever says he didn't do it is the one who /did/ it!" Jubilation shouts back in Mike's direction. It's mighty tough talk from someone just twirling helplessly in the same vortex as the rest of them. Jubilee rages against the machine on this one, frowning as everyone ahead of her in the swirling chaos seems to know each other. She starts flapping her arms, slow at first, but then picks up speed as nothing seems to happen. "One of these nights I'm going to figure out how to do it," she declares.

    Since she hasn't yet figured out how to transform into a bat like all those other, more capable vampires, Jubilee instead presses both of her arms to her sides to reduce her profile and maybe pick up some speed and catch up to the rest of them. After a moment of that fruitlessness, Jubilee finds herself flying past Noriko Ashida and her offered elbow. She grabs hold and, in doing so, turns her majestic flight through the Hulk-Vortex into something more similar to a state flag pathetically flapping in the wind.

    "Nori! What's going on!?" she cries out, raising her voice to overcome the sound of the air passing by. Jubilation doesn't even wait for an answer before she shouts in the direction of the others. "WHAT'S GOING ON?"

Bruce Banner has posed:
The answers to everyone's questions slowly start to manifest as the purple figure grows closer and closer. To those who have met her, they will recognize Clea, a sorcerer of some repute who has been hanging around the Avengers lately. Except she is something closer to a sign of panic than she is usually in.

The Hulk is gaining on her quickly, and despite her attempts to send whatever energy she has back out at him, he finally catches up to her. There is a shimmer of purple energy just before his fist slams into her, and she veers off sharply to the side.

The Hulk himself pivots with an agility that should be impossible for a being of his size, causing a whiplash effect for those in the vortex. He dives after Clea as she falls through the shattered pane of a dream, and the rest of you are dragged along.

The world is made up of a patchwork of squares surrounded by white borders. In each of the squares is a somewhat madcap looking fellow in a green suit with running yellow accents and yellow antenna.

"What the hell is the Hulk doing here?" proclaims all of the green figures at once. There is a certain excitement to him as all of you land on what appears to now be some sort of two dimensional flat surface. "Crossover!" proclaims the man, who immediately starts disappearing and then reappearing with a POP sound all over the place.

Meanwhile, Clea has landed with a bit of a thump in one of the panels, and the Hulk has landed in another. He bellows out in rage and punches one of the white borders, smashing it as if it were a doorway and then charging through.

Eventually, it becomes clear what you all are looking at. You have all landed in the dream of a man who is dreaming of being a comic book character.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
As the bird surfs along the vortex, the beady eyed bird sets glance upon Jen. "Do you want to get into technicalities right now? Because we still are- just, maybe not ours." The bird hops, landing over upon Jen's shoulder to have an easier time talking to her. Whatever restrictions Jen is dealing with herself doesn't seem to affect him.

The prompt gets Mike to look to the figure fighting Hulk and shakes his head. "-Don't know h-." Wait a minute, "...actually- That looks like Clea. But I'm guessing SHE started this."

An accusing wingtip is pointed to the sorceress. Yes. BLAME HER. Not the phantasm. HER!

When Jubilee protests his initial denial of responsibility he looks over to her. "Hey! I was just sleeping this time!"

Another blast knocks the bird off of Jen, swatting him into the newly opened doorway Hulk was so kind to open.

Jennifer Walters has posed:
    "BRUCE! NO!" yells Jennifer as he takes a swat at Clea. She doesn't recognize the sorceress, but she does know that she's outclassed and could very well be hurt. If being hurt in a dream hurts you in real life, that is.

    She looks at the bird on her shoulder, "If she started this, she can end it before she gets really hurt."

    Then they're tumbling into the comic panels and become two dimensional. "Oh great," she says. "Not again. I've already got a new comic out, and as much as I like being popular, I don't really need a second. I'm not Wolverine, you know." She then goes on to grumble something about the silliness of being in a comic on a MUSH.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko hooks down her Vampilee Poppins to her level, because apparently dream Nori doesn't know how to fly.  "Can you teach me how to do that?"  She doesn't really seem all that concerned about how her dream was VIOLENTLY UPHEAVED.  "Why are you so upset?  I just want you to teach me how to fly like vampires do."

As a speedster, Noriko's got this thing that is kinda akin to that warning on mirrors that warns about objects being different sizes than what they should be?  Or is it appear?  In this slumber land it's a legitimate question, but Nori's kinda got this thing, but it's more like things are way more about to happen than they seem.  Things can stretch out for so long that when she's not concentrating, she'll slip forward way too quickly and suddenly be called out for spacing out, or chatting way too much to herself about something while waiting for someone to finish washing their hands.  So anyways, she's just not paying attention to this weird sorceress lady she assumes is some kind of latest drive through kid's figure or something battling it out and antenna people and Noriko just looks to Jubilation and blinks, "Are we dying?"

Noriko just keeps eating her glowing dream cereal.  "Did I lose it?  Am I old now?"

Divine has posed:
When they seem to catch up, it's absolute insanity. Divine doesn't know any of these people. Well, she's met Noriko and Jubilee, but otherwise she is very unfamiliar. She ducks another blast, just trying to stay upright and in control as she's dragged along.

"What the hell is going on?!" The clone shouts to anyone who will listen. In fact, her ire is high enough that she looks at the green suited guy and lances some heat vision at him. Maybe. Who knows if that shit works here?!

Bruce Banner has posed:
Divine's heat vision slices straight through the Ambush Bug of her ire. He topples over in half, shrugging his shoulders a bit. "Well, that was divisive," he says, before both halves POP out of existence.

Greer Grant has posed:
"What the hell are we doing here?" is Tigra's response to the green suited...person. "I don't think it's going to go well for her if the Hulk gets his hands on her," she says to Mike. "I don't know -what the -hell-- is going on here, but maybe we can keep them separate long enough to try talk them down." She smirks at Jennifer's comment about being popular. Hey, if Tigra were green and as big as...you know what, let's not finish that thought. "Well, as long as I'm not being drawn as Garfield, I guess," she says, before trying to follow in Hulk's wake.

Dawn Granger has posed:
This sort of chaos makes Dove's head dizzy from every angle. "Okay, okay, let's stop breaking walls and stay on the same page," she insists. "... proverbial pages, not literal. I mean..." She throws her hands up. "I don't even know anymore."

Bruce Banner has posed:
Clea starts floating up and away from the Hulk, curiously able to go three dimensional despite everyone else being stuck on the page.

"You come find Hulk, then you run from Hulk. WHY?" Clea shakes her head and continues to float upwards while he rages at her from down below.

The green men all speak in unison, a chorus of Ambush Bugs. "More than a team-up, we're now an EVENT CROSSOVER!"

Excitedly, he runs over to Dove. "Yo, you're looking fine! Where's the Hawk, man?"

One floats up from beneath the panel Jen is standing on. "Uh, can't you go talk to him, or something?" he says, pointing at the Hulk.

Standing behind a cross and wearing a necklace of garlic, one advances on Jubilee. "Shouldn't you be at the mall or something?"

One crawls along the ground towards Greer, purring at her.

Another Ambush Bug sidles up to Noriko wearing a pair of roller skates. "Wanna drag?"

Mike has one show up in black and white. "I've always wondered if other people dream in black and white."

And finally, a dozen Ambush Bugs POP into existence around Divine. "That wasn't nice!" they say, all pointing at her. And each once that she slices in half spawns two new ones after the two halves pop.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
"Eh She'll be fine." The bird's voice echoes out from his respective panel, "She's part of the Strange crowd." There is a bit of emphasis to the word Strange.

As the Ambush Bug doing the worst impression of a mime, the bird grumbles, flapping his wings as he starts to fly forward, working to get out of the panel he fell into. "Clea! You broke this, So you fix this!"

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "No, you're not dying," Jubilation answers Noriko with a strange amount of authority on the subject. "That's not like this..." A moment ago, they were soaring through some kind of dreamscape, pulled along by the wake of a big, green monster. And now?

    "...We're flat," is Jubilee's summation of it all. She looks around at her surroundings. It's hard not to notice how one entire dimension, one she has occupied for her entire life and unlife, has just collapsed on itself. The comic panel they crashed into is a dark cave deep below some rich guy's mansion. Jubes moves towards a large mirror normally used by the rich guy when he's putting on his Bat Eye Shadow. She wants to get a look at herself and see how the artist has drawn her.

    "That's racist!" she cries out in response to what she sees staring back at her in the comic book mirror. She rolls her eyes and turns... just in time to catch the green guy wielding the garlic and lower case T.

    "Come /on/ ... even /here/?" she cries out. Even when she's tumbling through realities, the universe has to send a wannabe Van Helsing. Normally they're not green, though.

Jennifer Walters has posed:
    "Everybody, calm down," Jennifer says, making placating motions with her hands. "I've had this happen to me before. If you just relax and go with the flow you'll be fine." She points to Ambush Bug, "That guy over there is Ambush Bug. He's annoying but mostly harmless. He was doing the fourth wall breaking before John Byrne had the idea for it for me."

    She shakes her head and turns to the green clad man, "You, me, and Deadpool should really start a club sometime, you know?"

    When Divine unleashes her heat vision, Jennifer visibly cringes. "Careful with that! You could start a fire on the pages!"

    "Okay! We need to stop the Hulk from pummeling... Clea was it? Or else we'll be stuck here," she says. "We're in comic books now so comic book logic applies here. Use that to your advantage."

    When Ambush Bug pops up underneath her she nods. "Yeah. Now that he's not running away I think I stand a chance." She then looks around to see where she's at and then walks off panel in the opposite direction of the Hulk, which allows her to walk in to be with her cousin.

    "Bruce, hey!" She calls out to him. "It's me! Jen. C'mon, big guy, focus on me." Despite being just plain-Jane Jennifer Walters, she fearlessly reaches out to him. "I know things are frustrating right now, but just listen to my voice," she says soothingly. She takes a hand that's as large as her head into her own. "It'll be okay. Alright? I wouldn't lead you astray, Bruce. Just calm down and we can get out of here."

Divine has posed:
Joke's on everyone. Divine doesn't read comics. The Ambush Bugs pop in, and she lances a couple, watching them duplicate before she stops entirely.

Then she realizes that she's two dimensional. She grinds her teeth, ascending off the ground and going as high as she can manage in the panel away from the accusatory bugmen.

Why couldn't they be Karate Bugmen? Those guys are cool. And have motorcycles.

(Someone let her watch Japanese TV)

Dawn Granger has posed:
"Uh, thanks," Dove replies, a little confused by the whole concept of Ambush Bug. Well, he certainly did ambush them! "Hawk's not here, but he's probably going to get a kick out of this when I tell him this story..." She peers across to the other comic panels, namely when Jen starts talking. "I can't say I've been in a comic book," she says, then pauses. "That I know of. Is the logic anything like dream logic?"

The potential fire hazard of Divine distracts her very quickly. "She's right, we're theoretically paper and ink here? Be careful with water then, too! We could get smudged..."

Bruce Banner has posed:
The Hulk pauses and turns to regard Jen. For a moment, he is calm. But then Jen notices something different about him.

"That's not Bruce," calls the purple sorceress floating above them. "That's purely..."

"HULK SMASH!" If not for the immediate response by an Ambush Bug POPing up and grabbing Jen only to POP away, she would be Jen pudding.



Off in a far corner panel, Ambush Bug POPs back into existence, dipping Jen as if they were in Saturday Night Fever. "I'll never forget the day she walked into my life," he says, his voice somehow that half-mouthed accent of a film noir detective. And somehow, there is smoke wafting up in the panel.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko just starts to laugh, more at Jubilation's plight of not being satisfied with her comic appearance than the finer points of anything.  "Ooh, I wonder if my gauntlets could be cooler here.  Probably easier than before," for some reason this makes sense to Noriko's brain.  Easier to think in concepts attached to two dimensional brain images.  "Huh?"  First she can't miss her chance to see-Noriko darts to look in the mirror at her own visage alongside Jubilation's.

"Yeah.  Totally racist.  I'm not sure either of these renditions of whatever we're supposed to be even exist-Ooh I bet our fridge is LOADED!"  Noriko's feet make a swirly cloud of white before she takes off past the annoying hunter enemy into another pane where she kicks open the fridge with her foot, totally ditching Jubes.  Jubes can handle it!  And this is important!  Noriko leans over with her spoon dangling from her mouth as she peeks out what she might get.  Then she sees the bug person thing, her eyes widen, "-" she briefly considers stuffing this new Ambush Bug thing into the fridge somehow, "-drag of what?  My hobo drugs?  Did I get something I can smoke?  I can't remember?"  It all just sort of streams out of her like an endlessly unraveling ribbon.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
As Hulk Smash! Phantasm Crash! Or more specifically he ends up falling back into the panel. "OH FOR-" The raven starts to snarl, form starting to elongate and shift. A figure leaps out of the panel, popping back to a more 3 Dimensional Wolf. The leap allows for it to leave the border, only to get sucked into a nearby panel.

Annnnd back to 2D it is.

Bruce Banner has posed:
While the Hulk rages inside the panel that Jen has escaped from, Clea calls down to the assembled heroes from her position floating above the page. "I am sorry that you were dragged into this. Get as close together as you can, and I will get you out of here!"

All of the Ambush Bug's in unison sigh in disappointment. "But you all just GOT here!" he laments. But nonetheless, an Ambush Bug reaches out to each of you and POPs away, until all of you assemble in THE SPLASH PANEL. "Because that's what heroes do." he says, nodding glumly.

Clea starts to weave a spell together with her hands. "Hold on tight everyone," she says, furrowing her brow with concentration. Purple energy begins to flow from her fingers, expanding out. She extends her hands towards the group, ready to discharge her spell.

"GO AWAY PURPLE LADY!" screams the Hulk. Clea's hands move at a more feverish pitch as the Hulk bellows, slamming his hands together just as Clea's fingers spread.

The blast rockets off the page to knock Clea backwards just as she discharges the spell, spinning her off into the distance.

The purple energy strikes each of you and you feel yourself jerked away, as if pulled by that vortex once again. Sad Ambush Bugs wave goodbye to each of you, receding into the distance.

As the Hulk rages, the last thing you hear from Clea is an ominous four letters.

"Uh oh."

Divine has posed:
One moment, Divine is 2D and annoyed. Double annoyed as she gets teleported by an Ambush Bug. In that moment, she truly looks like Power Girl. The next, she's in the Splash Panel and getting rocketed free from the panel with everyone else. She looks at them all, expression surly as hell.

"This really sucks!"

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee is about quip back at the Ambush Bug Van Helsing. Really, truly, she is. And it's going to be a really, really good one, too! But, it seems that fate has other plans, tonight. With one index finger pointed at the Ambush Bug, Jubilee opens her mouth so it can line up with a speech bubble overhead. Instead of it full of her expertly crafted one-liner, the speech bubble only has:

        ...

    Jubilee is sucked out of the comic panel and back into that familiar vortex. She manages to grab the white frame of the panel in a last ditch effort to hold on, but the force of the vortex is too much. The paper tears, sending Jubilee into that swirling chaos once again...

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Uh oh.

Wait.

Uh oh?

Miss thang of Magic just cast magic went uh oh?

"Fu-"

The world may never know what it was that Mike was about to say next as the effects of the spell ripcords him through what could best be described as a Benny Hill chase scene in reverse. All they need is the guy dressed like a -

Oh hey, a policeman.

Carry on!

And then- Blackness.

Oh great.

Must be entering the deep sleep cycle.

Jennifer Walters has posed:
    "Yipe!" Jennifer yelps as Ambush Bug saves her from being puddinged. "Thank you," she breathes, giving him a pat on the head between the antennae. "I owe you one."

    Ah. The Splash Panel. She finds herself reflexively posing despite not being the She-Hulk. She holds the pose long enough for readers to get a good look before getting blown away like she was blown towards the pages. Then... uh oh.

    "Uh oh? What uh oh? Uh ohs are bad!" She clings to Greer and Mike hoping that whatever happens they'll be in it together.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko isn't used to being yoinked around by this or that.  She's used to popping up here or darting there!  Even the 2D yanking around is starting to make her look a little green.  Pop!  "Lady just leave me alon-"  That might have done it, along with the vortex.  Noriko darts back to the panel where Jubilation was before they are swallowed up by the forces.  Noriko, just-just keep it in till you wake up.  Then no throwing up right?

"Jubes!" she chances, putting her dream hand over her dream mouth, but Noriko is swept away just like everyone else is, her colors washing into the purple swirl.

Dawn Granger has posed:
Back into the vortex, Dove is finding the chaos of moving from paper to reality uncomfortably jarring, but the vortex seems as if it's getting them out. Other than those ominous letters. That's nothing to worry about, though, right? RIGHT? "I'm a little nervous about where we're going to end up!" She says, her voice full of concern. Maybe more than a *little* nervous.

Bruce Banner has posed:
The vortex carries you away, and you feel it pulling you away from your impromptu teammates. If quick, you have a moment to wave. Then with a THUMP you suddenly jerk awake.
Except this is not your beautiful house.
This is not your beautiful body.
How did you get here??

Noriko awakens in the body of Jubilee.
Jubilee awakens in the body of Noriko.
Jen Walters awakens in the body of Johnny Storm.
Johnny Storm awakens in the body of Jen Walters.
Dawn Grainger awakens in the body of Divine.
Divine awakens in the body of Kim Hayes.
Kim Hayes awakens in the body of June Connor.
June Connor awakens in the body of Greer Grant.
Greer Grant awakens in the body of Dawn Grainger.
Mike Hannigan awakens in the body of Bruce Banner.
Bruce Banner awakens in the body of Mike Hannigan.

Clea awakens in her own body, but with a Hulk-sized headache.

Divine has posed:
All of this was insane. The Hulk, a wizard, grasshopper teleporting dudes. Being in a comic. Madness. Complete madness. When she feels the terrible whiplash, she starts awake. It's dark. And cold. Her brow furrows. That's not right. ... That didn't feel right either. She sits up, reaching for her phone, but it's not there. The side table doesn't feel right.

Divine leaps out of bed, following the floor plan of her apartment and instead crashes into the wall. She yelps for two reasons. One, it surprised her.

Two, it -hurts-.

She stumbles through the apartment and finds the bathroom, throwing the light on and staring in the mirror, aghast.

Who's face is this!?

Jennifer Walters has posed:
    Jennifer wakes with a start. "Oh, God. What a dream." Wait. Somethings wrong. That voice.... "Hello?" No. It can't be. She quickly scrambles out of bed and heads towards the bathroom. She knows where it is, because she knows the layouts of the suites she woke up in. She had a room here for a while, after all.

    She scrambles over to where the mirror is and flicks on the light and blinks at the face looking back at her. Blond. Handsome, with just a bit of beard stubble. She sighs, wincing at how deep it sounds and knocks her forehead against the mirror. Johnny Storm.

    "Well, it could be worse," she says. He says? Is this how the gender thing work? She, she decides. Still a she. "I could have woken up in a complete stranger's body. Hopefully he's in mine."

    And then a thought occurs to her. Johnny in her body. Johnny in //her// body. She scrambles out of the bedroom in desperate search for Johnny's phone. It takes her a few minutes to work out where he would keep it, and unlocks it using facial recognition. Thank God he doesn't use a PIN code. She dials her number and waits and it goes right to voicemail. That's right. She had it on silent mode so she'd get a good night's sleep. "You better not be feeling me up!" she almost yells into the voicemail. "And whatever you do don't get angry! Or panic! Or... or... or //anything//. Don't do //anything//. I'm coming right over."

    She hands up and sits heavily on the bed. God, what is she going to do. And then she thinks about Johnny in her body again and winces. And then she thinks about her own situation. Okay. She can't help herself. She just has to know. She stands up and opens up the waistband of the boxers she's wearing and stares down. "Hunh."