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The Jungle

Elizabeth and Carolina were at the edge of a clearing, and whatever commotion was coming towards them was coming from the other side of it, as if something big (or at least loud) was heading their way. At first they wouldn't be able to see anything, however, eventually something, more of someone broke through the tree line with 3 jaguars hot on their tail. A girl who didn't look to be much older then they were was carrying a sword in her right hand, though her arm looked badly injured and was covered in blood. She didn't seem to notice the pair at all as she whirled around to look at her attackers, and she was using her other arm to at least try and steady her sword arm.

"Get away from me already," she said towards them, sounding more then a little bit out of breath before one took a flying leap at her and knocked her to the ground but she managed to throw it off and leapt up to her feet, getting just a slash from the creature's claws across her face. Carolina however, would notice something oddly familiar about the girl, who was wearing armor of some sort, but the last time she had seen her was back in the reality warped world that Wanda had created. She looked a lot like the girl who was with the Human Resistance, and later it had been declared that she was Thor's daughter, Klara.

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"Nice job Bethany," Mary said, giving her a bit of a smile when she caused the stampede to more or less disappear as the chaos seemed to dissipate in an instance when they disappeared. Elizabeth managed to at least mostly repair the hole in the wall, before deciding to roll the dice. [color=00723]"Maybe we should take a breather before-"[/color] she started to say, before stopping entirely when Elizabeth rolled the dice, and the result was not a good one. "Okay... Well that one happened... Just great..."

"Soooo... Guessing that result is clearly a bad one? Only way to get them out is to keep playing I guess... But damn that is just bad luck..." Pietro commented, before mentally talking to Guin, I notice how you instantly focus in on what Lance just said about going to Asgard and a little less on what is going on and how chaotic everything is going.

Lance got up a bit as he kept taking a few deep breaths, calming down a little bit but he face palmed when Guin started complaining. "I didn't go there on vacation you know. I was helping Thor out with something and it just so happened to end up leading me there first. Just an accident that happened, not really anything all that important, he said to her, not really wanting to continue the conversation regarding it. "I've been helping him out since not too long after your wedding Guin..."

So sounds like he most definitely does not want to talk about it anymore... Pietro commented mentally to her.

"So... We should keep going, I guess... Who wants to go next?" Mira said, biting back the part of her mind that was going to question how Iris thought a few foot tall wall of fire would help defend against animals ranging from small things to a large elephant. That just made no damn sense in her mind, but leave it to Iris to try to do something when her powers weren't exactly all that under control. This was once again making it obvious why she wanted nothing to do with Iris and was pissed off at being stuck as her partner.

"Well... If we're going off of who all hasn't gone pair wise, Guin and Pietro, Neil and Lance, and Mira and Iris all haven't gone, so someone from one of those pairs feel free to roll the dice, the rest of us have gone, so go for it if you want to."

"I don't care who goes next, as long as we can continue through this game without having to hopefully deal with someone actually dying."

"Not dying definitely is the goal, Neil and I can go if he's fine with it unless he really wants to wait until the last moment to go," Lance added with a bit of a shrug.

Do you want to go next or wait to see if someone else actually really wants to go, I'll let you choose, I don't really care. I also don't get what you were referring to with my powers still, I don't notice anything wrong with them...

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Neil nodded slightly at Annie's suggestion of a first aid kit. That probably would have been a good thing to grab - they could even put it underneath the game, making it easy to cart both of them around. He wondered if the Danger Room could provide one for them. It seemed like the sort of thing that Xavier would have had installed, just in case. But at the same time, he wondered if a first aid kit would even do much good - it would have to be a heavy duty one. They weren't getting paper cuts from this, the injuries were real. Loki was actively trying to kill them.

They really didn't have a chance to catch their breath. "Carolina!" Neil yelped, looking in horror. She had been there one moment and now she was gone, as if she hadn't existed, a flash of light the only thing he could remember. He forced the events to replay over and over again in his head. His best friend was gone. She was trapped inside of the game from what he remembered in the movie. Anger bubbled up inside of him, threatening to spill over. He had been powerless to protect Carolina. They were stuck at the mercy of Loki. They were playing this game, just waiting for it to kill them.

"We need to get her back!" Neil exclaimed. He had never raised his voice this much before. A plan formed in his head. If he used his telekinesis, maybe he could force a roll of 5 or 8 once he took his turn. He didn't trust Banner to role for their duo anyways. He'd probably scream at the dice and eat them or something.

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So? He went to Asgard! Without me! Have you ever heard of something so rude? Guin quipped to Pietro via the mental link. She was stunned that Carolina and Elizabeth had vanished in a flash of light, but based on the events so far, they must have just been trapped inside of the game like Robin Williams' character. And of course, even being shocked wasn't enough to keep her from running her (mental) mouth. It sounds like he was actually doing something kind of important if he was helping Thor out.

"Fine, you get a pass since I was on my honeymoon," Guin told Lance with a bit of a smirk. "But next time you get a trip to Asgard, I want in." She figured whatever Lance was doing to help Thor, she could help out with too. Superhero teams always benefited from having at least one telepath around after all. Of course, as soon as she thought that, she realized that the Avengers tended to not have telepaths on hand. There was an opening there to explore. Eh, let's go! Get it over with! Alright if you say so Guina

Guin scooped up the dice and she rolled a twelve. She peered over at the center of the game with fascination, as the latest riddle swirled into being:


There will be a shadow of movement off to the right, and the sound of some strange laughter nearby. Emerging from the shadows there is an entire pack of hyenas, there had to be at least two dozen of them, perhaps even more. They instantly start charging right at the group. One targets Guin, but luckily Pietro was somewhat fast enough to pull her out of the way, unfortunately he wasn't quick enough to stop a slash from the creature's claws slashing his arm in the process and it started bleeding.

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Carolina blushed slightly at Neil and nodded towards him. "Of course." Carolina said towards her friend as she watched Edus starting to heal everyone else which was good. Turning her attention to Elizabeth as she scooped up the dice and threw them onto the board, rolling an eleven. Seeing the next riddle suddenly appear before them, she wasnt sure what the riddle actually meant looking over at everyone else before there was a sudden bright flash of light. The next thing she knew she and Elizabeth were in a jungle at the edge of a clearing, completely confused at what had actually happened. Before she instantly remembered that one scene in the movie where one of them was trapped inside of the game itself.

Carolina started to panic slightly as she turned towards the treeline as she could hear something, and quickly leaped to the ground searching for something. None of her powers had any kind of combative capabilities really unless she possessed someone, but Carolina wasnt sure what else was lurking here either. She managed to find a rather pointy looking stick that looked like it would do a lot of damage and smiled slightly that would do well for now. "Hey, Liz could you transmute this into a metal or something?" She asked, hopefully it would work and she'd have a sturdy weapon. When she heard some movement in the trees, and saw a girl she instantly remembered from Wanda's House of M world. She wasnt expecting to even see her again, and knew that she was Thor's daughter in that world luckily she managed to fight off the jaguar that tackled her. "Hey, over here!" Carolina waved over towards Kara.

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Bethany looked over at the others as they started to praise her for her quick thinking and smiled towards them, letting Edus heal her wound, her head still felt like it was ringing but it wasnt as bad at the moment. She slowly stood up again cracking her neck slightly and tried to wipe away some of her blood that was on her forehead. "I actually didnt think that would even work at all." Bethany said giving a slight smile, she was actually starting to like it quiet a bit. When Elizabeth took her turn she watched as both Elizabeth and Carolina suddenly disappeared in a flash of light from the rest of them.

"We have to keep playing then if we want to get the two of them out of the game." Bethany said when Guin took her turn she turned to see the next riddle to appear, and then some weird sounding laughing came out of the shadows, and saw some hyenas coming out of nowhere and started to attack the group. Bethany reached out to try and use her ability to toss them around, but couldnt on the first or second try, but she managed to latch onto one of the hyenas and then threw it across the room.

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With his spell finished Ed took a deep breath. He nodded to Neil in recognition of the thanks. He felt bad that he hadn't been able to help Banner at all. Especially since his green was showing. They did not need that added to the chaos mixture that Loki had foisted upon them.

Two people had rolled in the time took him to finish his spell, that meant two things they had to deal with. Carolina and Elizabeth had been taken by the board to who knew where. That was worrisome. He racked his brain at what he remembered of the movie, but he had seen in so long ago he wasn't certain much of it was true. The second roll led to more immediate danger.

Ed didn't technically need his staff to channel a force energy blast, but it made aiming simpler. There were some hyenas that were close for comfort, even with the fire that Iris had conjured. Ed took aim and knocked the hyenas back, four of them to be exact. It wasn't perfect, but it at least gave the group a bit more breathing room, which considering the fire was a good thing.

Normally Ed would care about winning, but right now he just wanted the game to end. That would be as good as a win in his opinion. He looked at the board and took a guess of how many rounds they would be at this from how far along the farthest piece was on the board and the average roll of a pair of d6. The best possible outcome would be six rounds total, but that would also be impossible. Dice didn't roll double box cars every time. That also wouldn't save Carolina and Elizabeth. This was not good.

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"Holy shit Bellflower, have you been holding out on us? That was dope!" Iris said with excitement when Bethany rendered the mass of animals uninvited from their little Danger Room party. Her massive grin faltered, however, when Elizabeth and Carolina evaporated from existence. It took her a moment to process the sudden change, and catch what had happened: the game had sucked them up, and it sounded like the only way to get them out was to keep playing. Iris was about to volunteer herself and Mira to roll next when Guin went instead. Not long after the riddle was read out, cackling laughing sounded throughout the room. At first, Iris half hoped it was the trickster god coming out to play himself so they could beat his ass. Instead, a whole pack of hyenas began to slink towards them.

"Well, on the upside, at least there's someone around now who will laugh at my jokes," she mused with a smirk, hoping to lighten the mood a bit. She watched as a number of the critters came forward with the intent to kill, with Bethany trying to fend them off, but finding herself unable to do so. Iris looked over to her wall of fire, and then to Upsilon, still standing among the rubble of the partially repaired wall. "Alright Upsilon, it's time for a burning ring of fire!" she called out like a demented Pokémon trainer. To her surprise, Upsilon complied, using the pre-existing wall of fire as base, wrapping it around the group of X-Men. In addition, the flames rose up, with the end result being a circleof fire that rose to roughly the height of Iris' neck. It looked like it'd be high enough to offer them some protection, and she hoped that it'd be enough to scare the creatures away without them trying to jump through it. She didn't like the idea of killing animals when it could be avoided. "Shoo! Shoo, before you get yourselves killed!"

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Hopefully they would be able to retrieve a first aid kit. The way this game was working, Antoinette wasn’t sure one would be able to leave the room where the game board was. But it looked like you could be transported into the game itself. Antoinette was smiling at Elizabeth when she shrunk the hole and then rolled the dice. It was an interesting riddle and Antoinette’s eyes widened as her best friend and Elizabeth disappeared. She was in agreement with Neil about them needing to get the girls back. Carolina was Antoinette’s best friend as well and was her rock.
Guin rolled next but it was a twelve and Antoinette’s heart sunk a little. It was a good roll to be sure but it wasn’t the roll they needed to get Carolina and Elizabeth back. They couldn’t be slow about dealing with the outcome of this next riddle. The girls in the game were on a timeline to be sure.
Antoinette turned when she heard a strange cackle laughter and watched the hyenas emerge from thin air and run towards them. Clearly the Danger Room had no effect of keeping anything out. Antoinette took a half step back, turning her body when the animals charged. Ed created a some fire that seemed to scare a few hyenas back, which gave Antoinette an idea. A wall of fire went up next and then Antoinette’s eyes started to sparkle as she tapped into her new power. Colourful sparks shot between her fingertips before fireworks shot out, knocking two more hyenas back and Antoinette breathed a sigh of relief. She was still working on her technique so was glad it actually worked for her.

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The Jungle
Klara glanced over towards Carolina, clearly more then a bit confused by how she was there. "Where did you all come from?" she couldn't help but ask, as her sword twirled around in her hands and she managed to run through one of the jaguars (the one that had initially pounced on her) and yanked her sword back out as the creature dropped to the ground. "I only know how I got here, didn't expect to see anyone else, that's for sure."

The remaining two jaguars seemed to have taken notice of Carolina and Elizabeth, and one had gone to start circling them. "Be careful, their bites tend to hurt, I should know," she added, wincing a little bit at the thought as the jaguar by her pounced, she tried to get out of the way, but turns out her bad arm mixed with carrying a sword around wasn't the best combo and her swinging her sword at it didn't work out too well as she fell to the ground, her sword being knocked away from her and now it was lying on the ground as she was using her hands to hold back the animal. Which was proceeding to slash up her good arm as well as irritating her already badly injured right arm.

The jaguar near the pair instantly pounced, charging straight at Carolina and going up on it's hind legs for a split moment and slashing at her, managing to slash her arm decently well. At least there were only two of them instead of three now right?

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"Neil, we'll get her out of there, don't worry," Mary said calmly towards him, not all too sure what else to say. "We can get her back, and we will before this is over..." she added.

"I'll be honest, she is probably better of then we are at the moment, considering she's effectively in a jungle in the game itself, in the book and movie Alan survived being there for over 20 years, and we aren't going to be playing this game for that long since we aren't going to stop unlike they did which is why he was trapped for 20 years, but that's just how things work. Actually, a few obvious things are different from the book and movie, in the movie it wasn't really stated fully how the whole cheating thing worked, since it only happened to one person. In the book it was explained that the cheater starts to resemble their own game piece, which is why Peter turned into a monkey sort of being, since he was playing with the Jade Monkey figure," Lance said with a bit of a shrug, running his hands through his hair as the hyenas appeared as if out of nowhere. "Okay, that's a new one..."

"Of course we can't ever possible get a break," Mary muttered, about to attack before the next thing she knew, Iris had surrounded the group with fire, and she just completely froze up. People constantly trying to kill her? No problem to deal with. An alternate reality that they had to shift back? Easy. Dealing with fire that was suddenly surrounding her? Nope, that was something that she could not do, and she completely froze up, not moving as she started to completely panic.

Guina, I think Mary is panicking... Pietro said mentally to her.

"Right, fire, definitely a great way to go, you didn't think to, oh I don't know... Throw fire at the hyenas? Seriously Iris, get your head out of the clouds, either attack or potentially get ripped apart, you can't constantly be on the defensive!" Mira yelled out at her, before she let out a very loud screech, managing to knock down three of the hyenas, before she started coughing like crazy, she tried to say something but it was as if her voice was completely gone. Which was definitely odd considering that had never happened to her before in her entire life. She's had severely sore throats before, but nothing that just seemed to cause her voice to not even work at all.

Lance glanced over at the hyenas, before he threw some blasts of lights there way, unfortunately for him, he didn't even seem to phase the creatures at all with his attacks, and that was a little annoying. "Alright, this is getting to be a little bit ridiculous," he muttered, before the hyenas started charging directly at the group, as if the wall of fire was nothing, and one tackled him, knocking him to the ground as he started trying to get the animal off of him as it bit his arm.

One slammed into Ed, tackling him and latching onto his leg, not letting go as it sunk it's teeth into him. Another charged at Annie but seemingly missed her entire and landed on the ground next to her instead, before whirling around as the creature looked at her, grinning. A few of the others charged at Iris and Guin, but missed as they slid around on the ground missing them. Several of the others circled around, not exactly charging, except for one, which leapt right at Mary who was still seemingly frozen in fear from the ring of fire that surrounded them. That is, when that suddenly changed.

She completely snapped.

Her eyes shifted to red and black vines covered in thorns wrapped around her arms and she whirled around as the hyena leaped in the air right at her. The vines shot out and grabbed the creature before she twisted the vines and pulled proceeding to rip the hyena in half. It's blood spurted out and she got sprayed by it as she then tossed the body parts away, before she turned to glare at Iris, her eyes still bright red. "Hey bitch, mind dimming the fire down and actually throwing it at the hyenas? It's killed, or at least severely injure, or potentially get ripped to shreds. Make your choice, and know that if we don't get out of this ring of fire soon I might throw you out of it."

Okay... I think it is safe to say that Mary's fear sort of fueled the psychopath's appearance this is not good.

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"Well Loki decided to send us a board game to the mansion we all live at, and we didnt really have a choice to start playing this game called Jumanji. It was our turn, and well we are here now stuck inside the game itself." Carolina told Klara as she gestured towards Elizabeth as she watched Klara tacking down one of the jaguars. When one of them turned it's attention towards her, and managed to slash at her arm letting out a cry in pain as she stumbled back slightly. She noticed that the second Jaguar had tackled Klara down to the ground and she was struggling to hold it back, she looked at Elizabeth. "Watch my back." She told her as she ran forward.

Carolina ran forward with her pointy sharp stick that she managed to get her hands on and then thrusted it at the Jaguar's head, it stumbled backwards and off of Klara offering a hand to help Klara back up. "How long have you been here, and is anyone else here or is it just the three of us?" Carolina asked as she pointed her weapon at the animals, in case they attacked her or Klara again she really wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

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Bethany turned to look at Iris who called her Bellflower and shook her head slightly, she really didnt like being called that at all really. "Thanks for the compliment, but please dont call me Bellflower." Bethany said, she didnt enjoy flowers or anything that was girly at all either. She watched as Iris started to make the wall of fire start to surround them all, which wasnt a good idea at all really either as she turned to the pack of hyenas as they all started to attack the others. Bethany extended her hands outward as she used the shadows around them, and managed to slam the four hyenas into each other knocking them all out.

Mary seemed to be frozen for a moment until she instantly turned seeing the red color in Mary's eyes now as she saw the black vines wrapping around Mary's arms and instantly ripped the hyena in half and covering Mary in blood. She remembered that something happened when Mesmero came in and attacked everyone, and it was brought up when she was with Mary, Guin and Pietro on Galactus' ship. "How about we try and relax Mary, and not kill each other okay?" Bethany asked her, she was Mary's partner after all as well.

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As they were transported into the Jungle, Elizabeth groaned, seeing they came up short in terms of luck. She didn't want to be in the hot insect ridden dangerscape that this would end up being, but she would deal with it. As she was handed a stick, she looked down at it and squinted. Wood was weird and she honestly didn't know if she would be able to do anything here. "I'll see what I can do, give me a second." She said, before gripping it with both hands, and closing her eyes. The material was porous, and springy, and only one of those things she could change, try to make it hard and strong. Sliding her hands down the stick, it turned to a metal, but still with the texture and look of a stick.

Smiling down at it she remarked, "I'd do some good work as an artist." thinking out loud, before looking back up, and realized that the world didn't stop when she wasn't paying attention. How rude of it. Carolina had been attacked, and her brain went into offense mode. Gripping the stick with her real hand, she charged at the beast, and drove the stick through its eye, before looking at the other one, and firing a blast at it, knocking it back. "Sorry about that, I'll try to pay better attention. Here." She said, pulling the stick back and handing it over to her.

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Ed was going to give his two cents but a hyena tackled him to the ground and chomped on his leg. He could hear that Mary sounded different and was yelling, but he was much more focused on the pain in his leg. He had screamed, he could tell since his throat hurt. Thankfully he still had his staff in his hand. He swung it down on the hyena's head as hard as he could. There was the sound of bone breaking and blissfully the hyena's bite on his leg loosened. Hyena's bite force was powerful. With the loosened bite there was hope that he could blast the hyena off of him.

Ed pointed the end of his staff at the hyena's head and sent a blast of force at it. The hyena was knocked off his leg. He cussed. He was in a lot of pain and he doubted he would be able to pull off his healing spell in this much pain. The part of Ed that wanted to be with his sister again begged him to just lay back and let the blood pour from his leg. He fought against it and sat up. He prepared this time. If any of the hyenas leaped toward him he was ready to hit them with a blast of force. Ed knew his skill level, he wouldn't be able to heal his leg and prepare for another attack.

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It was difficult to see through the flames, but at least they matched his internal fury at having Carolina ripped away from them. She was his best friend and he couldn't imagine X-Mansion without her. He got along well with Annie, and had even started opening up to her, but Carolina had seen his artwork - he had let her catch a glimpse at his soul. And with all of the trauma of the breakup, Neil was maddeningly clinging to Carolina's friendship like a life preserver, turning it into the most important facet of his life.

Mary's words melted the flames of ice in his heart. He could tell that she actually meant it - that they weren't going to just leave Carolina and Elizabeth behind. Some people might have just said that to be nice. A single tear cascaded down his face and he nodded at her, sniffling a bit. "Thanks, Mary - that helps." He didn't say it to be sarcastic, bitter, or cruel. If there was one thing his breakup had done for him that was positive, it made him a lot more aware of his emotions - and a little bit more comfortable expressing them.

Lance, however, annoyed the hell out of Neil. How was being trapped inside of a game for 20 years a positive thing? His hearing was selective - whether it was willful or a result of his hearing aids - and he chose to ignore the parts of Banner's statement that were nice. He instead zeroed in on everything that could annoy him, with Neil making an ugly face at his forced partner. What he wouldn't give to punch Banner in the jaw...

He blinked, doing a double take after Mary committed an unspeakable act of animal cruelty. Hyenas looked too similar to household pets. It might have been from her fear of fire causing it. It reminded him a bit of when she yelled at Allison at Stark Tower. "Uh...." he trailed off, before swallowing. Neil focused on as many of the hyenas as he could, before waving his arm and causing most of them to go flying backwards, hitting the wall as gently as he could.

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Shit. I keep forgetting she's afraid of fire, Guin grimaced. She didn't blame Iris for the situation though. Fire went hand in hand with the life of a superhero, though it usually came in the form of deadly explosions. Mary chose this life, so she would have to work on through her fear - they couldn't ban people from the team with pyrokinesis after all. It would be like forbidding Iris from using weed while at the X-Mansion because of Guin's sobriety. Everyone had to handle their own stuff.

Like right now, they had a bunch of crazy hyenas to deal with. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., do me a favor and enact the Awesome Mix Protocol," Guin requested.

"That's definitely a priority right now, boss," F.R.I.D.A.Y. quipped in response.

"Did I ask for commentary on my life choices? What are you, Pepper?" Guin complained. The A.I. didn't say anything in reply, but the speakers in the Danger Room roared to life as music began to play - one song in particular on loop. Guin tilted her head slightly, before she snickered. "Jokes on you, F.R.I.D.A.Y., I can kick ass to this." She banged her head a little bit to the beat of the music, transported to a simpler time briefly - a world where the biggest problem was whether or not there would be a new episode of Avatar that week. She fired off a rapid round of repulsor blasts, knocking out six of the hyenas. She didn't feel right about firing to kill. Loki or not, animals were better than people and essentially innocents.

Any suggestions on how to deal with someone having a psychotic break? Guin whispered to Pietro. With his sister, he was somewhat of an expert on it.

Having anti-psychotics on hand would probably help, but restraining her would probably cause more problems for us...

Do you happen to have some on you? Like maybe you ran through a hospital today and grabbed some? Just for fun? It was no secret that Pietro was a bit of a kleptomaniac. When he had been hypnotized by Mesmero, he still had brought her a stolen hat from the Pentagon. And early on in their relationship, he had stolen her watch, P.H.I.L.

Uh no, sorry.

"Uh, hey Mare, you wanna break out some sock puppets and talk about our feelings?"

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The situation only grew more intense with the hyenas as they started to attack. Antoinette nearly missed getting attacked by one but Ed was not so lucky as one latched onto him. Antoinette was worried, ready to help him but she had her own to deal with. Neil and Guin were quicker though and between the two of them, they took care of quite a few hyenas, still, there were six that remained conscious. She supposed they were cute things in their own way, even if the way they grinned was maniacal but they were also dangerous and had no problems taking their limbs off. Antoinette wasn’t a killer, at least if she didn’t have to be.
Antoinette’s eyes stopped sparkling but her purple one started to glow as she switched tactics and created a few lions. She was aiming on half a dozen but she did manage to conjure up three full grown lions in hopes to scare the hyenas. Like Mufasa did in the Lion King. Antoinette just hoped it worked so they could get Carolina and Elizabeth out of the game. She didn’t like the idea of them being stuck in there for twenty years like Lance mentioned. Also Mary was acting strangely from the fire and possibly the hyenas had made that worse.

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"Mira, my partner in this crazy game we call life, and more pressingly Jumanji, if you don't like the way I fight, I'd be more than happy to sit on the sidelines eating my pecans, but somehow I think that'd irritate you more." Despite Mira's verbal pokes and prods at Iris' defensive fighting style, Iris was grinning ear to ear. She quite liked their little back-and-forths when they weren't overly aggressive. The observation she'd made in previous such interactions bubbled to the front of her mind; their verbal fighting styles were much like their normal fighting styles. Mira would throw her argumentative jabs at Iris, and Iris would prance from side to side, dodging with her own conversational deflections. Sometimes Mira would manage to hit a nerve, but this was no such time. Iris looked over to Bethany, giving a nod of affirmation at her detestation of the name. "If you insist...what about a different plant? Like Nightshade? It's another pretty flower, but it's a pretty flower that can be, like, super deadly and stuff too."

When Mary started yelling, Iris was aghast. Iris always expected attacks from Mira, but she was friends with Mary. She couldn't keep her smile from falling off her face. Her wide-eyed expression of horror was only cemented in place as blood from the freshly ripped hyena splattered across her face. She was frozen like that for a few moments, before her face morphed into something that looked to be a mix of determination and frustration. She raised her hands in the air, before quickly lowering them, quenching the ring of fire. In those moments when the flame inside brought her blood to a boil, when she was acting on passion that was so often buried under the smoke polluting her mind, she didn't need to ask Upsilon's permission. She was like a conductor and he the orchestra, rather than the usual dynamic of a petulant child and a strict guardian they so often portrayed. But as soon as the fire was out, Iris let out a huff from her nose, the anger inside dimming to annoyance.

"I'm not going to damn these creatures to hellfire for the sin of being hungry," Iris lectured at Mary, though her eyes were staring down at one of the hyenas that had just tried to attack her. Her martial arts were usually meant to be used against other humans, but that wasn't a necessity. She sized up the animal, before imagining it's face as a hand. After a moments more hesitation, she flung the candied pecans into its face and dropped the mug, grabbing it by its throat while it was distracted and flipping it onto its back, where she pressed her knee to its underbelly to keep it pinned. It took her a few seconds, but eventually she choked it to the point of unconsciousness. She repeated the process with another hyena, talking to Mary as she did. "Only the truly awful deserve to burn, and that's not them. I kinda thought you of all people would get that."

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The Jungle

Klara accepted Carolina's help up off of the ground, and held out her left hand, calling her sword back to her hand and she looked like she was more then a bit confused by Carolina's response. "A game?" she asked her, before she turned just in time to see the remaining jaguar leap at them. She shoved Carolina to the side before flipping her sword around and it sliced right into the creature, causing it to fall to the ground.

Turning now as she sheathed her sword at her side, her right arm still hanging somewhat limply and bleeding heavily, she looked at the two of them. "I never caught your name when we last met," she said, pointing at Carolina, before pointing slightly at Elizabeth, "And I don't think I've met you at all. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Klara, daughter of Thor and Lady Sif, Goddess of Love and the Oceans. As for how long I've been here? I have no idea, everything sort of blurs together the longer you're here and you tend to not notice the days go by..."

She started walking in a direction towards the tree line, before glancing back at them again, "My cousin Runa, Baldur's daughter, is here too. After the world shifted back, we ended up back on Asgard, and were actually on our way to Midgard and were at the Bifrost, when we suddenly ended up here. I still have no idea what happened. But based on what you just said, sounds like my uncle was likely involved. If you don't have anywhere to go, you are welcome to follow me to where Runa and I have created a bit of a shelter, but I would definitely not recommend staying in the same area as those animals. Here no matter what you do they don't stay dead for long," she said, before she started heading through the brush away from the clearing. The name Runa would ring a bell too from when they met in the HoM reality.

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"Now is really not the time to be fighting each other," Lance commented before he sent a blast of light once more at the remaining hyenas, and managed to knock them out, as Annie's lions that she had created had helped to distract them enough to allow him to do it, which was lucky though considering before his powers hadn't even wanted to work at all. The fact that it seemed like people were going to start pointing fingers and yelling at each other more. That was something that they most definitely did not have time for. They had to finish the game, get Carolina and Elizabeth out of it, and then go off to deal with Loki himself, fighting each other was not going to help anyone.

"Don't talk to me like I'm six or something," she instantly snapped at Guin, glaring at her for a moment before her attention turned towards Iris, and she smirked, "Well someone seems to have gotten a bit of a backbone or whatever you want to call it, not a bad thing, but before you start insulting people or thinking you know everything about a person, start using your actual brain." With those words, she went right up to Iris kicked her hard, before pinning her arms behind her back to the point where it was starting to hurt her, "You are so lucky since in one instant I could put enough poison into your body to the point where you'd die before you hit the ground, so instead of arguing how about you shut up for once in your life since you like to ramble and talk way too much and think that you are such a better person or whatever."

Guina, this is seriously not good, like it is really really not good.

"How about you both stop getting on each others nerves and calm down," Mira managed to croak out more or less, her voice sounded horrible, as if her voice was completely going out or something. She didn't have her typical water bottle or anything that she usually carried around for when her powers started going out and she strained her voice too much, so now she was stuck.

Pietro stepped in with it and raced over, pulling Mary away from Iris and more or less holding her back from doing something that she probably was going to regret later. "We don't have time for this, okay? We need to keep playing the game, otherwise we could potentially all end up dead, so can you please stop it?"

"Fine, the whole not dying thing sounds appealing, so let me go already," she snapped back at him as she yanked out of his arms, glaring at him for a split second before stepping away and crossing her arms. "Whoever wants to go next go already."

So hopefully that situation remains calmer now, Pietro added quietly to Guin.

"It's either ours or Mira and Iris', so I'll roll I guess," Lance said as he walked over to the board and picked up the dice, getting ready to roll, when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

Neil's eyes widened, seeing that Banner was about to roll. He didn't trust Banner to not mess this up and Carolina's life was on the line. "Stop!" Neil shouted, tackling Lance to the ground. There was a somewhat loud crack as they hit the ground with Lance's head hitting decently hard.

"What the hell Neil?" Lance said to him, his eyes looked a bit odd as one of them was green and that green color was starting to creep up along his skin. It was at that moment where he noticed something else was seriously wrong, namely the fact that the dice were no longer in his hands. "Get off of me, we need to find where the dice went!"

Even though no one could really see the dice, the roll was still valid as their game piece moved 7 spaces along it's path. Lance was staying down on the ground with some blood coming from the back of his head because of the landing, so he couldn't really read the riddle that appeared on the orb.



"The dice still rolled, wherever the hell they are," Mary commented with a shrug, before looking over and seeing giant spiders suddenly appear out of nowhere, coming straight towards them. If everyone thought there had been a lot of hyenas, then they were in for a surprise as dozens upon dozens of spiders started crawling their way.

"...Where the hell did they come from?????" Lance instantly said, having made the mistake of turning his head so he could see what had popped up. He was panicking, and that sort of green color of his skin was definitely getting worse, and if Neil didn't move, and didn't move fast, he was going to get thrown somewhere, but knowing Lance's fear of the arachnids he likely would be thrown at the spiders.

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Guin sucked in air sharply through her teeth as Iris more or less baited Mary with her remarks. They really ought to have put out some sort of memo about Mary's psychotic other personality. It was definitely a safety hazard and a liability, especially as Mary lashed out against Iris. Guin's heart was beating quickly, trying to think of what to do. She raised her hand, about to fire off a repulsor blast at Mary when Pietro sped in and intervened, breaking up the fight. Yikes. This is so fucked up. It looked like Iris was okay though, so she thanked her lucky stars for that. "Kid, you good?" she asked Iris though, just to confirm.

She groaned as Neil tackled Lance for some reason, sending the dice flying and most likely triggering a Hulk-episode. Spiders began to flood the Danger Room. This is why we can't have nice shit, she complained to Pietro. Their team was really doubling down on the dysfunctional that day. Guin quickly fired off a series of lasers at the spiders coming into the room, causing seven of them to explode like overfilled water balloons, spidery guts and gore going all over the place. She barely made a dent in their numbers though, as there were just so many left. The size of them unnerved her, making her extra glad that she had decided to test out the Mark 1 armor earlier that day.

Yeah, clearly, also there are so many things going wrong in this instant right now.

It's like we have a bunch of wild children and without the consolation prize of having wicked sex first, Guin replied.

Wooooooow Guina.

Am I wrong?

Eh not really

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Clearly, Neil's headspace wasn't the greatest. He regretted tackling Banner not too long after he did it, his face red from shame. In the moment, it had seemed like the right call to make. Banner was always messing things up, and he needed to get Carolina out of the game, so Neil wanted to be the one to roll. He had been convinced that if he rolled the dice, things would be okay - but that if Banner rolled, Loki's game from hell would have done something even worse to Carolina. "Sorry, I... I wasn't thinking clearly... I thought you'd mess it up," he mumbled to Lance. The dice had gone flying somewhere and with how large the Danger Room was, it could be a while to find them.

It didn't help that Lance's roll had summoned an army of spiders as well.

Neil actually liked spiders. They were misunderstood but fundamentally needed for things to be in balance. They ate a lot of pesky insects that killed crops. Without spiders, humanity couldn't have made the transition to an agrarian lifestyle. But these spiders? They clearly weren't the ones looking out for corn. They were just created to kill and hurt people. Neil glared at them, moving his hands apart in a tearing motion. Three of them burst apart. He dug his heels into the ground a little more, before repeating the motion again, this time moving his hands back towards him as well. Ten of them burst this time, but there were still so many more.

And right in the middle of a giant heap of spiders were the dice.

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Iris stood from her attack on the second hyena, ready to take on another one, when she was caught off-guard by a not-hyena-like but rather very human-like foot colliding into her back. It hit dead on, sending her forward face-first onto the ground. She was on the floor before she even registered the pain of the blow. She was unsure what was happening as someone pinned her to the ground, until the familiar voice of Mary rang out on top of her. That did not make matters better for the bubbling rage seething inside her. She prepared herself to use her training to flip the woman onto her own back and turn the tables, all while explaining the idiocy of antagonizing a pyrokinetic when you're afraid of fire, but something stopped her: when she turned her head to try to get a look at Mary, she was instead met with the sight of leathery dress shoes, undoubtedly belonging to Upsilon. She could feel the heat he aimed at her soul, agitating the tinder that was already beginning to smolder within. All the thoughts of what Upsilon wanted to do bounced around her head in her voice, and none of them were pleasant. So Iris closed her eyes. She closed her eyes, and she breathed. A few seconds was enough to smother the sparks in her chest, and when she opened her eyes, Upsilon was on the other side of the room. Her snarl gave way to her usual impish grin.

"Oooh, kinky. If I'd known this was all it took to get you hot and bothered, I would've let you have the horny rhino game piece. What are you going to do now? Whip me with a thorny vine?" Iris joked, audibly on the edge of laughter. Then, just as suddenly as Mary was on her, she was off. Iris slowly got to her feet, stretching out her arms, rubbing her sore joints. She saw Pietro holding Mary back, and gave him a grateful nod. When Guin asked if Iris was okay, she gave a lazy thumbs up. "I'm alright. But I think Mary and I should probably figure out a safe word so your hubby doesn't have to step in next time." Turning her head, she looked back over to the constrained plant-wielder. "How about Raisin Brand? No one talks about Raisin Brand, so I thinks it's a pretty good safe word."

Iris jumped when Neil tackled Lance to the ground. Boy did that seem awfully familiar. The sudden influx of infighting concerned Iris. Was it a ploy put in by the trickster god? They hadn't had this intense of an issue with X-Man on X-Man combat in the past. She didn't voice the thought, though, for as soon as Neil got off Lance, the tackled boy had her full attention. She could see the emerald hue spread across and intensify on his skin as he laid there. She quickly paced to him, not bothering to look at the newest riddle, instead putting a tender hand on his shoulder.

"Shhhh, shhh, it's okay, you're okay. Remember, we don't need the green. Deep breaths, Lance. In through the nose, out through the mouth." Her words were hushed and calm, even as enormous spiders began to crawl into the room. She took her own breaths in and out, as if for him to follow suit. But her attempts looked to be unsuccessful, with Lance letting out quick, panicky breaths. She looked up to see where his eyes were looking, and she found that he was staring with horror at the horde of arachnids. Then everything snapped into place. In a split attempt to calm him and protect the group, her gaze shifted to Upsilon. "Upsilon, lets try that wall of fire again, yeah?" she called. He didn't resist, instead raising his hand of melted skin up and causing a wall of fire to spring forth between the group and the spiders. Her attention immediately went back to Lance. "Lance, why don't you do your light teleportation thing to get out of here? Take a breather, calm down, nobody will judge you. We can reconvene at the greenhouse." With that, she stood up from his body, taking up position in front of her, dropping into a stance she'd learned in her tai chi training, ready to deflect any spider that was intent on coming after Lance.

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Carolina looked at Elizabeth as she handed her back the stick, which was now metal and gave her a slight smile happy that the little makeshift weapon would at least last awhile. "Thanks Liz." Carolina said, her powers werent really used to fighting and it left her body vulnerable. Turning her attention towards Klara as she accepted her hand and stood up, and introduced herself and gave her a nod they didnt really talk or get to know one another last time. "It's nice to meet you again, i'm Carolina Reed, and thats Elizabeth Flame, we are from the X-Men. I met your dad recently as well, when Galactus tried to eat our planet and at my friend's wedding to." She said flinching slightly when the jaguar came after her, only to be killed by Klara saving her. "Thank you for the save, I love that sword by the way." She said looking at the dead bodies of the massive big cats.

She decided to follow behind Klara into the treeline, they were there for awhile by the sounds of it which wasnt a good thing at all, and she wanted to get back. To see Neil and Annie again, she remembered the name Runa as well, from Wanda's House of M reality as well. "So, aside from Jaguars what else have you encountered here?" She asked looking down at her arm was bleeding pretty badly still, and it hurt whenever she moved it.

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"Nightlock is better." Bethany said shaking her head slightly, she read the Hunger Games series a few years ago, and loved the name of the deadly berries that were mentioned as well. She winced slightly when Crazy Marry tackled Iris to the ground and threatened her, and then Neil doing the same to Lance. Letting out a slight sigh and shook her head slightly it was like the whole OMEN attacking the Mansion and Stark Tower again with all of the Sentinels. "Such lovely lovely and awesome team work you guys. Bethany said sarcastically as the dice finished rolling across the floor, and the next riddle appeared, seeing dozens of of spiders suddenly appear before all of them.

She decided to try the stampede trick again as she used her powers, but only managed to shadow travel one of them out of the room she shook her head slightly as Bethany tried to find the dice again. And had a feeling that they were at the center of the massive group of large spiders looking at everyone. "The dice are at the center of the spider group." Bethany told everyone.

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What the actual hell was going on? Ed had a strong suspicion suddenly that the groups had been picked specifically to be as dividing as possible. They were at each other's throats. It was chaos. It definitely did not help that there were hundreds of spiders filling the room now. Even Ed who didn't mind spiders was a little wigged out. His leg hurt and he didn't trust himself to put weight on it.

They needed the dice back. Ed sighed and pulled the small shield from his pocket. Spiders were swarming around the dice that Bethany had thankfully pointed out, but no one could get to them because of the spiders. It would take a little adjusting on the shield. He often made it so that things could leave the shield but things couldn't enter it. He needed the shield to work both ways. Not letting things leave it and not letting things enter it.

With that decided he cast the spell and then pulled a mental string on the shield toward himself. That was the hard part. It took a little bit of work and then the dice were within reach. Unfortunately, some of the spiders had hitched a ride too, they seemed completely unfazed by having been dragged through fire. He raised his staff and directed a couple of quick blasts at the spiders blasting them off of the shield, which he dropped and grabbed the dice.

"Iris it seems the fire isn't bothering the spiders. It might be more prudent to not have the fire. Also here's the dice." He held up his hand with the dice sitting on the palm. "I can try to heal Lance again, but I don't know if it will work. I also need to heal my leg. I'm lucky the hyena didn't break it."

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Elizabeth looked with a kind of curiosity at the Goddess of Love and Oceans. She supposed this technically wasn't the first time she met a god, Thor was one after all, but it still felt weird. "Pleased to meet you, Like Carolina said, I'm Elizabeth. Newbie x-woman, and kicker of asses." She said, looking around their surroundings. The Jungle was just bound to be crawling with bugs, and that set her on edge. She was happy that her powers proved useful here though, makeshift weapons would be something she'd be working on in the future, it seemed like the most practical application of her powers in retrospect.

"Yeah, no offense, but your uncle is kind of a dick." She said, not at all liking the fact that they were stuck here, "That being said, I'm sure you're lovely, and we'd very much like to go to your jungle shelter please." She said. Meeting other gods, increasing their number, and having some kind of shelter all sounded wonderful. She had no idea how long they'd be in here, but however long it was, consolidating their resources seemed like the smart play. "Thanks for the assist, by the way, we'd be a lot worse off without your help, I'm sure."

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To say that Antoinette was shocked with Mary would be an understatement. Mary was generally the calm, cool and collected one. The one who valued people's differences and supported people. Thankfully, Pietro seemed able to calm her enough to no longer hurt the people in this room. Iris seemed to be fine, still high spirited and for that Antoinette was grateful for but it was still confusing to her.
Lance and Neil on the other hand, weren’t getting along still. Antoinette gasped as Lance’s head cracked into the ground from Neil jumping him and she flinched. The amount of times people hit their head could not be good. People suffered from all sorts of mental instability with too much head damage. Antoinette’s attention was drawn from Lances’ skin complexion turning shades for the dozens of spiders that started to crowd the room.
Antoinette’s eyes started to sparkle as she tapped into her pyrokinetic power to create fireworks. Unfortunately, all Antoinette could create this time were colourful sparks from the tips of her fingers. Neil was seeming to blow them apart but there were just so many of them. How were they going to get them all killed, especially when they moved so fast.
Antoinette got a brief spout of inspiration and her blue eye started to glow, looking to see what spiders were afraid of. She couldn’t determine anything. It didn’t seem they were afraid of much but they did have a lot of enemies. But other than humans, Antoinette didn’t know any of their other enemies.
”Does anyone know other enemies of spiders? They don’t seem to be afraid of anything but I can see they have enemies, I just can’t see whom,” she said pathetically.