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The Jungle
You guys are on your own for right now, have fun telling Runa more about what's going on, enjoy the not dying before I think about sending something after you again.

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"Ugh shut the hell up otherwise I will shove you directly into the next line of fire where you would then get impaled by something and die, got it?" Mira snapped with her voice back now. "Get the hell away from me you weirdo who needs to learn when you are being stupid, since the only words out of your mouth in the past hour or so have been idiotic even by standards I have specifically set in my mind for you. And the bar of idiocy that I found normal was already pretty damn low and you suddenly decided to go lower. Congrats on that."

Pietro went a little rigid, before looking over at Iris, "...Can you please not call me that?" he asked her, before glancing at Guin. "Okay, at least someone else recognizes her and I'm not going crazy over it at all."

"I mean, I can try, no guarantees though because the shield or whatever is there," Mary commented as she sent out some vines from her hands, and tried to see about wrapping them around Klara, but unfortunately for her, she was unable to get them to be within the shield. Odds are she'd probably be able to have the vines dive downwards and go up through the floor, but she wasn't too sure that would end well. "I mean... From what I remember about her, we should probably be careful and keep her restrained if we can't snap her out of it..."

"Anyone know what she's the goddess of or whatever? She is Asgardian so I'm just sort of assuming here..."

"No idea."

With sword still in hand, Klara after a few moments completely broke free from the shadows that Bethany had wrapped around her, and now she was staring at the shield that surrounded her, as if thinking about something, before her hands seemed to have a slight pink colored glow around them, and she just simply poked the shield, causing it to shatter. "Well that was certainly boring." she commented with a shrug, before the sword in her hand started to glow as well, glowing with a slight black aura. "Now... Who to mess with," she mused with a smirk before she instantly pointed her weapon directly at Ed. There was a bright flash of black that went from her weapon and hit Ed, before there was a slight black aura around him for a moment before it dissipated. Whirling around she then pointed it at Guin, and the exact same thing happened to her.

Mira was getting a bit tired of this somewhat, and given the fact that they were up against an Asgardian who likely had super strength and all, so hand to hand was not going to work (especially when someone had a sharp pointy object) so she used the only weapon she had, which was her screech. Letting out a shriek she sent the sonic attack, which caused Klara to get thrown backwards.

However, it seemed like Klara was prepared for this sort of thing, as suddenly out of nowhere a tidal wave of water appeared and caught her in the air, before she more or less gently slid to the ground.

"Guess that answers the question of what sort of powers she has."

"Yeah, a water goddess or whatever."

"Don't call me that!" Klara snapped as she threw her sword right at Pietro who dodged out of the way, before calling her sword back to her hand, it zipping over and soon it was like it hadn't left her side at all.

The door to the hangar opened up, as Lance came walking in, having shrunk back down and gotten a change of clothes given the fact that his shirt had ripped apart from before. "...What's going on and why is Thor's daughter here?" he asked, thoroughly confused as to what had happened since he had been left by himself with the spiders.

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Guin shook her head slightly as her thoughts cleared. Her eyes narrowed at Pietro. She couldn't believe that she was married to him. She had wasted years with him, letting him walk all over her and treat her like some fragile little bird that needed protecting. Her life had been perfect before he came into the picture - she had a kickass job at S.H.I.E.L.D., she didn't need to worry about reading people's thoughts by accident, and no one was accusing her of being a "bad bisexual" - whatever that meant - for being with a man. She had had the perfect balance of ordinary and extraordinary. She got to live in the city she adored, New York City, and the club bouncers let her in whenever she saw them. The bartenders had even known her drink, not caring that she was underage. "You ruined my life!" she screamed at Pietro, sending off a telepathic attack that he managed to block out. She then fired off the unibeam of her suit at the speedster, trying again to mentally whammy him at the same time.

Pietro's eyes widened before he barely managed to dodge out of the way of her laser attack, and once more mentally blocking out her mental attack. "Guina? What's gotten into you?" he asked her instantly, more then a little bit confused

"Oh, don't Guina me! That's not even my name! It's Guin! Rhymes with Win!" she snapped at him. "I'm sick and tired of being your little play thing! I should be on Mars right now with Mister Fantastic, not here wondering if I bought enough twinkies for my man child of a husband!"

"If you want to be technical your name isn't Guin either. It's Guinevere," he snapped back, still more then a little bit confused as to what exactly was going on and why Guin suddenly shifted that way.

"Don't call me fucking Guinevere! Do I look like I'm about to go bone Lancelot to you? Doth I wear drapes right now instead of my fucking sweet ass bit of armor? Oh, and let's not forget the reason I'm here - you made this happen to me! I was normal and then I met you and then my life turned upside down and now I can't walk into a Target in Alabama without being profiled for being queer and a mutant!"

Pietro was still insanely confused, before it suddenly hit him. Klara had said not to call her a water goddess, which meant that she had another domain, and based on the black aura and what seemed to be happening, it all made sense. "...She's a freaking love goddess, love hate, exact opposites, and the riddle right before that... Which means she just did a whammy thing to both Guina and the magic person... Great, this should be fun..." he muttered under his breath, before looking at Guin. "Guina, this isn't you, okay? Your mind was messed with by the Asgardian."

"There you go again, mansplaining to me what my thoughts and opinions are! Jesus fucking christ, can I Uber a divorce attorney or what?" Guin spat, before she charged straight at Pietro, trying to more or less run him over like a bug.

He was more then ready, waiting for her to charge him, and the perks of super speed came to be obvious, as he managed to grab onto her, rolling around and pinning her to the ground, and managing to knock her helmet off of her and far away too. "This isn't you, I know that Guina, and the fact that you need that explained to you says quite a bit don't you think?"

"My name is not Guina!" she screamed, trying to activate her thrusters in order to escape, but no matter how much she budged, he kept a tight grip on her. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., commandeer Veronica for me!" she ordered, hoping to hear the familiar chime of her A.I. following her orders without question. Veronica, of course, was the failsafe weapon in case the Hulk started to attack civilians.

"Yeah no bad idea really bad idea Guina," he said simply, before he gave her a kiss, and for Guin this would result in her being broken free from Klara's spell.

Guin blinked again, as her mind cleared once more. Unfortunately, she remembered everything she said and did. "Sorry for trying to kill you, babe - and for trying to roast you emotionally," she said sheepishly. "Now can you let go of me and give me back my helmet? The suit looks weird without it."

"Keyword there is try Guina," he said with a shrug, before getting up, going over and picking her helmet up off the ground and handing it to her.

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Neil was incredibly confused as to what was going on with Guin and Pietro - then again, both of them were so annoying that he didn't even try to understand them. They were always either fighting or making out anyways. He frowned a bit though that Guin didn't seem to even acknowledge what Edus had said about it being a mental spell. She was the team's telepath with Xavier gone, it was her job to deal with this - but instead, she was just doing weird things with her husband. It made Neil want to barf and scream simultaneously.

Given that Annie indicated Edus' approach wasn't going to work and the telepath was distracted, Neil tried to take things into his own hands. He wanted to blind Klara. It would make it easier to restrain her and then they could figure out a way to break her free, but his priority was to save Carolina and Elizabeth. He clenched his fists together repeatedly, willing the organic matter in Klara's eyes to implode. Each try, his muscles screamed and ached in agony, wanting to give up rather than go again. He kept on until on the sixth try, he caused an explosion in front of Klara's left eye, blinding her as blood oozed from the wound.

At least now she would have horrible depth perception, something people with swords generally relied upon pretty heavily.

---

"I don't need comfort from you," Runa told Elizabeth a bit harshly. "What I need is for you to explain to me as best as you recall the mechanics of this game. My magic may not be as strong as it once was, but I would dishonor my ancestors and myself if I did not at least try to break the curse."

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Ed didn't love anyone in the group, but he was fond of a few of them. Especially of Neil. He felt the two of them had a connection through magic. Even though Neil couldn't do any there was something nice about having a friend in the Mansion who knew what he meant when he talked about parts of magic, especially when he was talking about stuff that didn't cross over with D&D.

That was unfortunate for Neil, as he was the only person in the Mansion he considered a friend. It was also unfortunate for Neil that Ed had learned how to do actual damage with his magic. He had spent his life learning how to be defensive, not offensive. One fight with the X-Men and he was capable of breaking one of the family laws. Ed reached into his pocket and touched the small shield there.

The same translucent orange shield appeared around Neil. It shrank some starting to close in on Neil. It wasn't enough to start crushing Neil, but if Neil had any claustrophobic tendencies he would not appreciate it. The part of Ed that didn't like what was happening did not win the mental battle. The shield stayed up.

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Carolina turned to look over at Elizabeth asking what she was talking about, not to many people remembered the House of M reality and that was before Elizabeth joined the team. "Pietro's sister Wanda created an alternate reality where mutants were on the top of the food chain pretty much and ruled." Carolina said gesturing towards Runa. "Me, and Runa, and a few others on the team remember it along with some others to." She said as she turned towards Runa, she hadnt played the game itself before but had seen the original movie and the two newer ones as well.

"I've only seen the movies of it, but you roll a six sided die once you have picked your piece that you are going to play as, and then you have to answer a riddle after each turn or something like that. Though Loki has kind of made the game more like it's movie counterpart more than anything really. Since Elizabeth and I are trapped here we cant really move or continue the game until one of the other players let us out. The player has to reach the center of the gameboard and then yell out Jumanji and then the game ends." Carolina said looking over at Runa, as she went and sat down looking at her bandage and started to tighten it slightly as well. She started to worry about the others on the outside and if they were okay, she really wanted to see Neil and Annie again safe and sound.

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Bethany watched as Klara had done something to both Edus and Guin, and then Guin suddenly attacking Pietro and screaming at each him like a married couple. Then Mira snapping at Iris and rolled her eyes slightly everyone seemed to be fighting each other in someway right now which wasnt a good thing at all. "Hey, less fighting and more focusing on the woman with the pointy sword of death." Bethany said turning to glare at Klara as Neil attempted to blind her seeing blood coming out of her one eye.

"Hey Water Nymph why dont you stop doing the whole jedi mind trick thing!" Bethany yelled as she tried to extend her shadow towards Klara, but it didnt move at all, and tried it again which was the same result. But on the third try Bethany managed to get a hold of Klara and knocked her a few feet backwards but she managed to catch herself. Just as she looked over towards the hangar door seeing it opening and Lance coming through. "She's under Loki's spell or whatever and came from inside the gameboard." Bethany answered him.

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Elizab
Elizabeth huffed at Runa, "Well, fine then." She said, a bit icily. She didn't like being snapped at my any means, so she said, "It's like Carolina said, we roll dice, creatures and monsters invade the real world, and we don't get out until they roll either a five or an eight. Game ends when they reach the end of the board, is that enough information for you?" She asked, crossing her arms, and moving away from Runa and closer to Carolina. She got that Runa wanted to get out, but Elizabeth felt like it was better to just not mess with things. Their friends would roll the right number soon, they just had to wait it out in here.

Elizabeth considered what Carolina had told them, surprised that Scarlet Witch had that kind of power, and even more so that she forgot it. She wondered what she was like in that timeline, but also how bad it could have been. Changing things that much felt bad for sure, but would it be that bad? Mutants had been mistreated for a good amount of time, surely if they were in charge, they'd do it right this time. She knew there were assholes like Magneto, but most mutants wouldn't be like him, or at least, that was how she hoped things would be. Perhaps she had a little too much faith in humanity.

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Antoinette watched Klara escape her bonds effortlessly and sighed. She watched Klara curiously as she used her sword to direct some sort of dark energy towards Ed and Guin. It kind of reminded Antoinette of Bethany’s shadows but it wasn’t quite the same. Suddenly Guin started yelling at Pietro and then when Antoinette looked at Ed, he didn’t seem quite right either. He was staring at Neil intently until an orange shield shot up around Neil and started to shrink around him. Antoinette’s eyes widened in an alarm and she turned to face her partner Edus.
”What are you thinking Ed,” she asked kindly, she truly wanted to know what he was thinking and why it was leading him into harming Neil.
All is fair in love and war; In the heat of the jungle a kiss is a bore.
Antoinette ran the riddle over in her head and tried to puzzle it out in hopes of helping Ed. Love and war had something to do with Klara and that black energy she released around Guin. Guin had become enraged with Pietro but she had returned to normal with a kiss. Antoinette could only assume that Edus had drawn onto Neil because he loved him or felt some deep connection to Neil that was like love. But as Neil was trapped, Neil couldn’t kiss Edus.
Antoinette shut her eyes and attempted to conjure a crow into existence. Edus had always liked them and she would show him where she found a nest and sometimes they would just watch the birds. The illusion however didn’t work so Antoinette risked it but touching Ed on his shoulders and shook him. ”Ed, you are going to hurt him, not save him.”

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"Awww, thanks Mir, you always know exactly what to say!" Iris jubilantly responded, wrapping her long arm around the shorter girl and giving her another half-hug, this one tighter than the last. Then her eyes flitted over to Quicksilver, confused for a second, before nodding in understanding. "Right, you're Mr. Stark now. Sorry, I forgot." There wasn't any malice or even any of teasing in her voice. She sounded as though she actually thought that's where she'd gone wrong. She let her arm drop from around Mira's shoulder, though, as a thin veil of darkness surrounded Guin and their resident Hot Older Man™️, causing Guin to start freaking out at her husband.

This seemed perfectly normal for the two of them at first; they seemed to get into their fair share of fights. But when it got physical, that's when it became obvious there was something wrong. Not to mention that only a few feet away, Daddy Ed was crushing their Dungeon Master, which was added to the oddness. Iris stepped forward eyebrows furrowed as she looked from him to the other two, trying to figure out what was going on. But when Pietro kissed Guin and cured her of her hysteria, it all seemed to be making sense. Or, at least, a little bit.

"Can someone please make out with the DILF so our DM doesn't die? I'd volunteer myself in a heartbeat, but I think I'd be more useful elsewhere," she called out to the group as she walked across the battlefield towards Klara. Once she got their, she was surprised to notice that someone had taken out her eye, which was bound to dampen her swordsmanship, good news for Iris. She got into position, knees bent, arms up, ready to dodge out of the way of any attacks thrown at her, and, if she was lucky, make her own strikes on the maniac. "Hello, my name is Iris and I'll be your server today. The special...your ass on a platter!...Sorry, I haven't really mastered the art of trash talk, so if you could please rate that on a scale from one to ten and give any feedback you might have, it would be very helpful to the cause."

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The Jungle
Still on your own, however if you choose to leave the little shelter or whatever let me know and I'll send you stuff to describe the area and where you're going.

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"...Uh might I suggest not standing right in front of her?" Lance said to Iris, trying to warn her a bit about that. Standing in front of an Asgardian who was trying to kill you was not a good idea, and from what he knew, she wasn't exactly someone you wanted to mess with.

"Get away from me you pest," she said, gritting through the pain that was in her left eye from Neil's attack, and despite Iris being prepared for it and Klara being slightly disoriented from her eye injury, she back handed Iris and sent her flying off to the side and it was hard enough to make her slam into the wall. "You are insanely annoying, are all Midgardians this pathetic?" she couldn't help but add.

"I tried to warn you..." Lance muttered as he sent a blast of light at Klara, but a bit of magical energy appeared when she waved her hands, deflecting it easily. "Oh, well Thor is probably going to be glad that she's not dead or something..."

"Iris, keep talking like that and I'll never help you out ever again, and never touch me again," Mira grumbled, before she let loose another sonic screech, knocking Klara backwards, but she rather easily was able to stay on her feet.

"How about you all stop arguing, we can't just sit around arguing or whatever! We have bigger problems to deal with," Mary said trying to remain at least somewhat calm as she pulled a few plant seeds out of her pocket and sent vines right at Klara. "Bethany, it's our turn, try rolling when you get the chance!" she called out to her game partner as she attempted to wrap Klara up with plant life.

Unfortunately, the Asgardian was quick and sliced the vines that came towards her and charged, slamming into her and throwing her into a wall and she threw her sword at her. Luckily Mary wasn't dazed too much and she instantly ducked to the ground and rolled out of the way. Klara held her hand out and her sword flew back to her, and she twirled it around a bit. "Leaning towards seemingly you all are pathetic, this is getting boring, I was hoping for a bit of a challenge," she said, putting her free hand now to her left eye, as her vision in it was completely gone. Turning now, she looked over at Neil, and pointed her sword at him. "You partially blinded me, now isn't that rude?" she said, her one good eye was still black as she glared at him, water was starting to swirl around her as she took a few steps towards him.

"This isn't a good thing," Pietro said, before he charged right at her and managed to land a punch across the face with a loud boom and she went flying off to the sound, and onto the ground. Her eyes flashed with anger as she got up off of the ground, the water still swirling around her. Ed luckily now was able to snap out of it, maybe it had to do with Annie's words? Well, he's going to realize what it is what he's doing.

Mira's mind was thinking about what best to do, considering the fact that they needed to deal with Klara, at least maybe knock her out or something. Problem was that Klara clearly had a lot more experience in fighting, hell she was an Asgardian, she probably had more experience then the entire group combined. "We have to keep going with the game, either that or stop attempting to fight her head on or something like that..." she said, glancing at the others in the group, wonder what they could potentially do regarding the Asgardian that was trying to kill them.

"She's officially recognized as a goddess of water, but from what Thor's said she hates that and would prefer to be recognized as a love goddess, and also from what I know she's considered a minor trickster god, and like a lot of Asgardians is trained in combat. So yeah... We might be able to find a way to trick her... And supposedly she tends to have a temper..." Lance said, figuring that the others having some more info on Klara might help them out a little bit when it came to fighting her.

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Carolina looked at the fire for a moment, and then over towards Elizabeth and rubbed her eyes slightly, the four of them were in this together well three right now since Klara was out and about at the moment. "Elizabeth, you dont have to be rude at all she has been here a lot longer than we have." Carolina said calmly as she stood up grabbing her former wooden pointy metal stick that she had found earlier and looked at the two of them. "I'm going to go and scout out the area a little bit, and maybe find something useful." Carolina said as she started to leave the cave.

Carolina took a moment and took a deep breath as she started to take a few steps away she mostly just saw trees in the area nothing had changed really from earlier really. She gripped her stick tightly as she heard what sounded like some kind of roar in the distance, hoping that Runa and Elizabeth werent to far behind really.

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"I do really agree with Mary we shouldnt be fighting each other right now." Bethany said rolling her eyes slightly at Mira and Iris as the two of them really didnt like working together right now. Bethany quickly made her way towards the dice and picked them up and started to roll them as the dice came to a stop landing on a nine. And then a few seconds later the next riddle appeared on the gameboard itself, Bethany knelt down to get a look at what it was.



When Bethany looked up she noticed several hippos suddenly appearing one of them taking a special interest in her as it suddenly charged forward towards her. Bethany held out her hand and then quickly shadow traveled the beast looking over at Lance and nodded slightly as she redirected it towards Klara. Though she got the distance off and the hippo came out and charged directly at her, giving Klara enough time to get out of the way. "Anyone want to try and kiss her or something, then maybe that will help things?" Bethany said sarcastically.

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"I am sorry for that Neil." Ed apologized as he realized what he had done. He dropped the shield around his friend. "Thank you Antoinette. I appreciate your efforts and words." He gave her a reassuring smile.

Ed wasn't certain if kissing Klara would get them the needed result. He was frustrated with her for invading his mind and controlling it. That had been something he had been trained to prevent for most of his life and that training seemed useless. He did get an odd idea that he wanted to try. But he would still need a hair or bit of blood from her to get it to work.

Getting the hair would be...difficult. He had some skill in hand-to-hand combat but had always been more of a staff fighter. Preferring to keep people at a distance, that was true for more than one aspect of his life. Klara was distracted at least and it took some effort but he was able to pull a hair from her head. He was sure she was pissed at him for that. "Cover me. I'm going to try something. Hope it works." He said ducking behind some of the others keeping them between himself and Klara.

He started the healing spell. Ed was once again frustrated with how slow he was at casting it. He had never learned to use it during combat. That had always been his sister's job. Ed forced that thought away, wished for a cigarette, and focused on the spell. Hoping that healing Klara's mind would do the trick. It was different than brute force trying to break the spell from within her mind, which was what Guin had suggested. This approach was much more his style, and he could apologize for stealing a strand of her hair after the fact. It wouldn't break any of the family laws either, which was much more important to him.

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Guin put her helmet back on. She would have to fix the suit up, since the helmet was designed to be retractable and go down into the suit - not to be ripped off and thrown across the room. The most annoying thing about it all was that it left her with an exposed point at her neck that her crazed Asgardian foe could exploit. Her eyes darted over towards the appearance of a holographic shield as it surrounded Neil, rapidly decreasing in size although it wasn't crushing him. I think Edus Penis is gay for Neil! Guin eagerly whispered telepathically to her beau. "Oi, Mr. Stark is my dad - he's Silver Balls," Guin corrected Iris with a smirk.

Iris was rapidly improving with her jokes and battlefield mannerisms, so much that Guin felt like she could have been her own protégé. Maybe whenever she died, Iris would become the next Iron Star. It would be so cool to have a mantle that was passed down like that. Of course, Pietro probably wouldn't think of it the same way. She was his little conscience, his Jiminy Cricket - without her around, who knew what sort of stupid decisions he would make. So many things were happening though all at once. Klara was batting Iris around, Ed apparently had been snapped out of it, Bethany had brought the hungry hungry hippos to life, and Lance had mentioned that they could trick Klara.

Guin glanced up at the ceiling and blasted the portions around Klara, sending a shower of rubble down on the Asgardian. She then tried to use her telepathy to knock her out, but she couldn't quite get a lock on her - Asgardian minds were nothing like the human and mutant ones she usually messed with - and really, Guin hardly practiced her telepathy.

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Luckily, Neil wasn't claustrophobic. He and his cousin Rebecca used to hide in coffins from their aunties, the game lasting for hours at a time. When he was a kid, he thought his aunties were just very bad at looking for them - it was only last year when they finally confessed they used the time to drink and take a nap. It had almost prepared him enough for the sensation of being caged in, with everything closing in around him. His view was tinted thanks to the color of the shield. "Edus, let me out, this isn't you!" Neil begged. He kicked himself for not knowing how to counteract a curse or how to chant for protection. He should have known magic and been able to stop Klara.

It wasn't too long though before the shield dropped, and Neil stumbled forward, free. The hippos were bewildering, but he knew that Klara's magic was the more dangerous threat. She also seemed incredibly pissed at him over the loss of her eye. So Neil, drawing on the basic lines of defense his aunties had taught him, tried to gouge out Klara's other eye. He tried to make it implode in on itself, but his aim was off. Instead, he ended up completely destroying Klara's already wounded eye, just in time for Stark to send a pile of rubble down on the Asgardian.

He really hoped that the hippos weren't about to sneak up on him.

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Runa's eyes lit up with inspiration as Carolina explained the rules of the game. She had an idea on how they could get out of the Jungle, beyond just waiting for someone to roll the correct number. Spells as intricate as this could also have a backdoor of sorts, a weak point. "If we travel to the center of the Jungle and call out Jumanji, the spell may be lifted. This is too intricate for Loki to have precise control at every point. We may be able to trick his magic into thinking the conditions have been met." She didn't wait another second before leaving the shelter, emerging into an area dense with trees.

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Antoinette sighed with relief and smiled when Edus came too and the shield around Neil dropped. She squeezed her partner's shoulder before he was off. Antoinette turned around to see Bethany roll and then hippos appear. She didn’t even get a good chance to read the riddle before the creatures came to. As Antoinette looked at the hippos, she was reminded of the Christmas song about wanting a hippopotamus for Christmas. It made Antoinette smile a little but hippos were not nice creatures by nature.
Edus came to stand back behind Antoinette, asking for coverage as he held something fine in his hands that Antoinette could not see. She would try her best to cover him and refocused on the hippos. Antoinette thought of a nice jungle scene and calm waters. Kind of like what Disney’s Tarzan’s one looked like before he fell into the water and minus the elephants. It was a beautiful image inside Antoinette’s mind, but unfortunately even with her purple eye glowing, no illusion came to light.
Antoinette sighed but didn’t give up, she switched tactics as her eyes started to sparkle. Perhaps it would be a bit reckless to shoot fireworks at enraged hippos but Antoinette had a shortage of options and she couldn’t think of another illusion to try at the moment. Unfortunately, these too fizzled out. Antoinette frowned, an unusual expression on her normally calm face. ”Edus, you may want to hurry with your task,” she urged him.

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Elizabeth huffed a bit as she was chided by Carolina. She wasn't going to apologize, Runa had snapped first, and she wasn't gonna grovel to her just because she was an Asgardian, or had been here longer. It made her feel even worse then, when Runa had figured something out about this place they'd been trapped in. Crossing her arms, she followed after her, saying, "Well, we'll have to get there then." She knew that three of them traveling together would be much safer than any of them going alone, and her being mad at Runa didn't mean she wanted her to die.

Leaving the cave, Elizabeth called out, "Carlina, Runa has an idea." The ire in her voice clear, as she came upon her, and continued to say, "Apparently we just gotta shout the name of the game in the center of this place, so let's haul it." She said, closing the distance between her and Carolina, clearly not wanting to spend too much time near Runa right now. She had a bit of difficulty in letting it go that Runa was proving herself useful after being rude to her, and yeah, maybe that was on Elizabeth, but she didn't care. The sooner they got out of this jungle, the sooner neither of them had to ever see each other again.

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"Heh, Silver Balls is sooo much better," Iris replied, her voice ringing out amused through her lips, which were pinned up in a crooked grin. Even as she spoke, she kept her eyes on Klara, waiting for an attack to come her way. But when Lance spoke, she couldn't keep herself from glancing over at him and giving him a thumbs up. "Don't worry, I'm goo-" before she could finish her sentence, the awfully rude love goddess struck her across the cheek, causing her to fly through the air, her body slamming into the wall with a grunt. She let out a long, drawn out groan as she laid at the base of the wall for a few seconds, before slowly crawling back onto her feet. With the groan outlasting the time she spent on the ground, it quickly became apparent that the groan was not from the pain.

"You didn't raaaate it! If you don't give me feedback on my combative foreplay, it'll never get any better!" she whined, putting on a pouty face as she looked over to Klara. It didn't take long for the positive girl's smirk to return to her lips. She rolled her shoulder, trying to roll out the soreness that came after being thrown at the wall. She started to bounce back towards Klara, ready for round two, but before she could, Guin let loose a few shots at the ceiling, causing it to crumble down on their opponent. Iris raised her eyebrows.

"As dope as that was, I have a hard time believing she's taken care of. Mir, darling, I think you're right, we should be fighting smarter, not harder," she started, before lowering her voice, so that the crushed goddess, if conscious, wouldn't hear her. "How about this: if she crawls out of there awake and kicking, Beth ports her into one of those Blackbird mini plane things, and then Guin sets its course to take her back to Norway." As she spoke, Iris made her way over to Ed, where she decided to stand guard. He seemed to be doing some sort of magic casting stuff, and protecting him while he finished it seemed like a good idea.

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The Jungle
The rustling that Carolina had heard and whatnot was getting closer, and suddenly she'd see a few creatures that they saw before, except they had been killed by Klara when she last saw them. It was the jaguars, and based on a few scratches that the creatures had they most definitely were the exact same ones as before, and very much alive. One instantly charged at Carolina and pounced, however it missed entirely and hit the ground right next to her. The others in the group just started circling around them all.

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"You are missing the entire point of what the hell I had been saying," Pietro instantly snapped at Iris, getting more then a little annoyed with her. He already didn't like her because of her drug use, and she was just giving him more of a reason not to want to like her as a person at all.

"Don't call me Mir," Mira grumbled to Iris, still getting more then a little bit annoyed with her.

"Less arguing over this sort of thing please, since you know we are still dealing with a game that is trying to kill us, though not sure hippos are the way of going about doing that I don't think."

"Actually you'd be surprise how dangerous hippos can be," Lance couldn't help but comment with a shrug, before there was the sound of rubble shifting as Klara more or less punched her way out of the debris. She stumbled out of the rubble, and her one eye that remained was no longer black, but was a standard hazel color, and she looked a bit confused.

"...Where am I?" she finally said, sounding more then a bit confused when she spoke, putting a hand to her eye socket that was still bleeding a lot.

Before Mary could really answer, a few of the hippos instantly started charging at people. One slammed into Iris, tossing her to the side, another charged at Bethany but it missed and ended up slamming into a wall. Another one managed to ram into Annie and throw her to the side. Despite appearances, the hippos seemed to be enjoying tossing them around and having them get all battered and bruised from the experience. They started to charge at the group again, but it was rather easy to avoid them this time around.

Mary moved her hands around and managed to use her powers to wrap up one of the hippos in vines, preventing it from moving at all now. "To say that things have gotten interesting now is a bit of an understatement," she commented as she did so. Things were definitely not making much sense to her, but whatever Ed had done seemed to have done the trick with Klara. The one thing that Mary was concerned about was whether what he had done was permanent or just temporary. Since Loki's magic if she had to guess was more powerful then his, so whose to say she wouldn't just start trying to kill them again?

"...Why are there rabbits attacking?" Klara asked, still really confused as to the whole situation as one of the hippos then proceeded to charge at her from some strange reason. Holding her hand out, there was a slight pinkish glow which also was in her eyes before the hippo stopped charging when it was within 5 feet of her. Instead of attacking her it... Seemed to be snuggling up to her? "Whose a good little rabbit? You are, you most definitely are a cute little rabbit," she said with a slight smile as she patted the hippo on the head with a slight smile. The creature looked fairly happy too.

"Yup, definitely related to Thor if she's calling just about any animal she meets a rabbit," Lance couldn't help but comment.

"The rabbits aren't so bad, once they are calmed down a bit."

"Well we have to deal with more of the hippos, since that's what they are actually called. Also why aren't you trying to kill us anymore?"

"Huh, I could have sworn that they were rabbits... Also apologies for anything I might have accidentally caused, I was not in control of my actions though... Not exactly sure why things got fixed suddenly, though why did someone blow up my eye? That is my question, I guess I resemble my grandfather now with that one I suppose..."

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Do you think Spellman is going to fess up to having blown up her eye? Guin whispered. She wasn't going to question Klara's sudden change of behavior too much. She didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. She would rather deal with the hippos, try to finish this game, and then they could spend their time psychoanalyzing the alien. Guin chuckled slightly, thinking about how weird her life was. Maybe she should start a TikTok or whatever platform was the most popular thing at the moment. She didn't use social media as much as she had as a teen, where her primary objective had been catfishing John Oliver.

"Oi, everyone plug your ears! Neil, I guess, just chill?" Guin shouted, before trying to fire off a sonic pulse. Her suit gave her an error message, probably not unrelated to her helmet being ripped off and reattached. She made a mental note to go and look at the weapon systems more carefully once this was all over. Maybe it would make more sense to just move on and create the Mark 2, given all of the data F.R.I.D.A.Y. had to be collecting about the performance of the suit during this. She tried to send off the sonic pulse again, but the system crashed and Guin muttered a few choice swear words that would have made even Wolverine blush.

"Okay, third time's the charm - c'mon F.R.I.D.A.Y, show 'em what we got," Guin commanded. This time, there was a loud high pitched whine. A few of the hippos twitched before collapsing, knocked unconscious by the pulse. The tech she used for that particular weapon wasn't that different from the one her father had once developed to cause short term paralysis - which the US Government declared to be illegal.

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Neil turned bright red as the woman he had permanently blinded was no longer their enemy. She even asked about her eye injury and he kept his mouth shut. There was no version of explaining to her what he had done exactly that would end well. He wasn't sure if she wouldn't resume attacking him or something if he fessed up to it. Maybe she would decide to use her sword to remove his eye. He looked slightly to the side, before pretending to be incredibly concerned by the hippos. There was some rope nearby that he figured he might be able to wrangle into tying up the beasts using his telekinesis.

He shot a glare at Guin as she did some sonic pulses. Luckily, his hearing aids were fine. He would have been incredibly angry if her recklessness caused him to not be able to hear for the rest of the day, especially with Carolina still being stuck inside of the Jungle. He tried to shoot a rope off at a hippo, but it fell lamely to the ground. He tried again and it was only on his third try that he managed to ensnare one, binding its legs so and mouth so it couldn't try to trample or eat any member of the X-Men.

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Runa did not notice Elizabeth's dislike of her. She was too focused on making their way to the center of the Jungle, in hopes of breaking Loki's spell. She took up a defensive stance as she heard rustling, her staff in one hand, her fingers outstretched in the other. Jaguars pounced from the clearing, one of them narrowly missing Carolina. "Stay back," she warned her companions. She twirled her staff as it unleashed a bright blast of dark energy, colliding with the jaguars and forcing them all back. "These rabbits are mere babes, hardly able to walk or crawl," she lied, ready to snap with her free hand.

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Carolina jumped when she saw the jaguar suddenly try and pounce at her from out of nowhere, gripping the sharp stick in her hand tightly, turning to look at both Elizabeth and Runa. Hearing the plan, which might work it was certainly far better than nothing and waiting forever for the others to roll the right number. "Sounds like a good plan to me then." Carolina said as she backed up slightly so she was standing next to Elizabeth and Runa. Carolina watched as Runa displayed her bit of power knocking back the jaguars and away from them, she looked at Runa a bit confused.

"These arent rabbits at all." Carolina said, seeing the wounds on the jaguars that they were the same injuries that they had sustained earlier when they encountered Klara. "So, we are dealing with zombie jaguars here or something?" Carolina said looking at Runa for a moment before running forward and managed to thrust the pointy end of the stick directly into its skull. Seeing the jaguar suddenly collapsing to the ground dead. "Lead the way Runa, the sooner the better we can try and get home." Carolina said, hoping that she knew where the center of this jungle actually was. The sooner that they could get out of the jungle the quicker she could get back to Neil and Annie, knowing that they were both probably really worried about her right now.

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Bethany watched as Guin managed to shoot the ceiling as some rubble fell ontop of Klara, and turned to look at her for a moment. "I think the Professor will be mad at you for trying to destroy the hangar." Beth said jokingly as she thought for a moment about Iris' plan she couldnt see Klara at all. "I would need a clear line of sight to try and Nico her somewhere, otherwise i'll probably shadow travel a piece of rubble." Beth said, she did like reading the Percy Jackson series quiet a bit. Then Klara started to come out, and it looked like she wasnt going to attack them anymore which was a good thing Bethany rolled out of the way from the Hippo that tried to charge after her.

She extended her hand out and managed to grab two of the hippos and made them crash into one another, she was about to say that they werent rabbits for whatever reason Klara thought that they were, but managed to calm one of them down. "You dont happen to have seen two people, one is an asian looking girl with a robo arm, and the other a brunette haired are they alright?" Bethany asked, not like that she cared for the two of them, she was just curious if they were alright.

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Ed's healing magic had worked. He was a little shocked. It definitely seemed like it had been his magic that had snapped Klara out of the spell Loki had her under. That was distressing though. Ed wasn't good enough to beat Loki's magic, not really. That had been entirely too easy and it made him uncomfortable. He didn't particularly want to trust Klara just yet. If she went back under Loki's spell he did not want to be next to her.

He plugged his ears quickly as Guin demanded it. A lot had happened while he had been working on is the spell. "Annie are you okay?" He asked after realizing she had been tossed by one of the hippos. Guin had been able to defeat the hippos at least. With those dispatched, and Klara no longer extra stabby (for now) it was timed for the next roll of dice. Ed thought about it and realized it was his and Annie's turn again. "Annie, I'm going to roll." He said and limped over to the board, picking up the dice and rolling them. The pips were two and four on the dice, for a total of six. That wasn't great as Ed and Annie were the last ones to go before Elizabeth and Carolina. Ed didn't know how it would turn out for them. Their turn was next. Was the game doomed now? They'd never be able to finish? Or would it just skip their turn?

He searched his memory of the movie and it came up mostly blank he seemed to remember that they got Robin Williams' character out before it would have been his turn again. He leaned over and looked at the glass half-cabochon on the board and read the riddle.



Ed blinked. He knew this one. He remembered it from the movie very clearly. His hand darted into his pocket and he touched the small shield there. Around him and Annie bubbles of translucent orange snapped. Unfortunately, even with the shields, they were still sinking.

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Antoinette’s eyes widened as she was charged by one of the hippos. She wasn’t nearly fast enough and it hit her, flinging her to the side. Antoinette rolled in the air before she hit the ground, the wind being knocked out of her momentarily. The hippos that remained, turned and got ready to charge again. Antoinette flung a hand out, ready to try her pyrokinetics again when Guin yelled for everyone to cover their ears. She followed suit, curling in and covered her ears while Guin sent out her sonic pulse. The hippos seemed to be dispatched, tied up and otherwise subdued.
Antoinette pushed herself to her knees, seeing that Klara was now acting normally for which Antoinette felt a great relief. ”Yes, I am unharmed,” she answered Edus. She got to her feet and followed him to the board as he rolled. She read the riddle and thought it made much more sense than all the other riddles.
Edus acted quickly and sent a protective shield over them, almost like bubbles but it didn’t prevent them from sinking into the floor. Hopefully, it would allow them to be able to keep breathing though. Antoinette was unsure how they were supposed to get out of a sinking floor situation other than to quickly roll the dice again. However, the pair that was supposed to be next was still missing. Perhaps their turn would just be skipped over until they were retrieved. ”Is there any spell to make the floor solid again?”

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As the jaguars made themselves apparent, and they all started fighting them off, Elizabeth did her part and leveled her arm at one of the remaining ones. She didn't have fantastical magic like Runa, but she did have Stark tech, and that was pretty damn close. Drawing breath, she fired and knocked one away, but didn't manage to do much in the way of actual damage. She felt a bit frustrated at this point, feeling like the thing that made her an X-man wasn't doing much in the way to actually help her. She didn't want to be totally reliant on something anybody could have. She wanted to be special.

Then, she got an idea. Reaching down quickly, she grabbed a clump of dirt, and gripped it, watching the color turn from a dark brown to a bright white, and then start to turn clear. At that point, she pulled the ball out to a point, and hurled it at the jaguar, embedding the glass in the side of the beast. That made her feel cool and uniquely useful, and just generally better. Hopefully, this would scare the beast and get it to leave them alone. It shouldn't be easy to move with that wound in its side, she thought, but she didn't know too much about how these creatures worked.