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The monkey's kept coming. They were swarming them and he tried his best but one of the monkeys sliced open his side. It was bleeding heavily. There was no way he could heal in this condition. He would lose his concentration too easily. However, his ability with Thaumaturgy was much stronger. His hand was still touching the shield so it didn't take any movement on his part. He whispered his words and bubbles appeared each person in their group and then expanded out pushing the monkeys off of them. Everyone was safe.

He only glanced at Annie as she was trying to convince him to sit. "Can't. Can't heal. I have to help Runa. I'm the mage." He spoke in broken sentences, which was very unlike him. He moved, taking his shield and Annie's and Runa's combining them all into a larger bubble, and reached his free hand toward her. "I can try to help. I am glad to see you're not trying to kill us now." He gave a wry smile.

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Did you really just have FRIDAY play Baby by Justin Bieber? Pietro asked mentally as he got up and used his arms to create a bit of a whirlwind and sending some of the monkeys flying into the wall away from them. Like really? Couldn't have picked a different song or something? I hate it please make it stop.

"Well, I did not expect the monkeys to act all crazy like that... Honestly why couldn't it have been goats... I like goats, always wanted a pet one," Klara started sort of rambling a bit as she got up off the ground with her sword in hand, nodding her head towards Bethany, "I thank you for the aid. Hello cousin, it seems we have landed in an interesting place haven't we?" she called towards Runa as water surrounded her and she sent a tidal wave backwards, knocking several of the monkeys away from both her and Bethany.

Swinging her sword around, she sliced several of the monkeys in half, knocking them down and out for the count. "Runa, I can give you some aid with that spell as well, just say the word and I'm there. However it seems like a few others might be in need of aid elsewhere, with those words she jumped up in the air and over a large group of monkeys, instead managed to get through to where Neil was, as he was the closest one to her. "This shouldn't hurt a bit," she commented as water swirled around her hand and she placed it over his injury. However, for some reason the injury didn't heal up completely, it didn't replenish the blood loss, however it did slow the bleeding in his stomach to a trickle. so he wasn't going to bleed out as quickly anymore, but he would start to feel a little bit unsteady because of it. "Huh, that's a bit odd, I expected it to heal the injury completely..." she muttered.

Mira didn't even say anything to Iris at first, but she did look at something behind her, sort of shoved her to the side a screeched, right in the face of a group that had been just about to stab her, sending them flying backwards. "You need to pay attention to your surroundings," was all she said before she turned to let out another screech at another group that was nearby. She really didn't want to have to talk to Iris anymore, since despite what all had happened she had this feeling that Iris wasn't going to leave her alone when she asked, so that was going to be fun to deal with.

Lance had been in his own little bubble of light, so he didn't even really notice the bubble shield that Ed had more or less created too. At the moment, he was just trying to figure out what the hell to do given their problems with the monkeys at the moment. An idea crossed his mind, and he more of just sat in his little bubble of light, thinking nothing of the chaos (or at least trying not to) as he decided he was going to at least attempt to hulk out on purpose, without someone hitting him over the head or a rush of adrenaline triggering it.

Problem is, he had no idea how exactly to do that. It wasn't all too long after the incident with Galactus (when he had first triggered it) that his dad had disappeared, so he couldn't exactly have asked him for help. Not to mention for some reason his aunt Jen (someone that he has been talking to a lot since his father's disappearance) could easily control it and typically stayed in her Hulk form as opposed to shifting back and forth. Yeah in the long run that probably is what makes it easier for her, but that wasn't exactly an option for him, since it seemed like at least for the moment he had a similar problem to his father where it was near impossible to control.

"Alright just think don't worry about the monkeys that are trying to kill you and whatnot, or wait, maybe do think about that sort of thing since that is kind of a freaky thought and that might trigger. Hell I have no idea what I'm doing and could just blast at them with light but for once big fists would probably be somewhat useful," he muttered to himself, taking deep breaths and closing his eyes as he attempted to find a way to trigger it. At the moment he was kind of glad that he was surrounded by light so that no one could see him, since he figured that at the moment he looked like an idiot or something. Of course Guin's clear choice of music wasn't really helping him to focus on trying to turn into a giant green monster, so there was that too.

After a few moments however, he felt his heartrate begin to speed up, as he still sat there on the ground, he was trying to keep his heart rate up and hoping that it would work, but nothing was happening. He was starting to get a bit frustrated and opened up his eyes, letting out a bit of a huffy breath as the sounds of chaos around him started getting incredibly annoying, he raised his hands about ready to send out a shockwave of light, when he noticed that his hands had turned green, causing him to smirk slightly.

Outside of the bubble, the monkeys were clearly trying to punch through the bubble shields that Ed had created that surrounded everyone else, and a few of them managed to get through a few of them. A small group of 3 got through the bubble by Elizabeth and managed to slash at her, two of them missed and the last one only managed to hit her robotic arm, not really causing all too much damage to it. Another group of 3 broke through by Ed, Runa and Annie, a few managed to hit Annie, but only scraping a bit at her ankles and only causing a few minor cuts on her.

Several managed to get through to Mary, but the vines that she had created before were whipping around and knocking them back, though her shirt was covered in a lot of blood due to her chest injury. She wasn't doing all too well but had managed to get up onto her feet. Hearing Bethany call to Ed to heal her, she agreed with Ed, "I'll be fine, just a little bit tired is all, if he can get rid of these things then that is what his time better spent doing!" she called out to her.

She was lying of course, her chest felt like it was on fire and she was fighting to stay conscious, but she wasn't going to admit that. Everyone would be better off if the monkeys disappeared, since then they wouldn't have to deal with fighting them anymore. Instead, she was focusing on distractions to make sure she stayed awake, and knowing perfectly well that she knew exactly whose bright idea it had been to cause the speakers in the room to start playing Justin Bieber, "Guin did you really have your AI start playing freaking Justin Bieber? And especially one of the worst songs in the universe?" The music didn't seem to be doing much of anything to the monkeys, actually their shrieks and all almost sounded like they were singing along with the music. Now that was just plain weird.

Okay Guina, I'll admit it, I am now officially weirded out because the monkeys sound like they are singing along or doing something. I hate these monkeys, and we should not be losing to freaking monkeys, but that is just my opinion about it.

The monkeys were starting to get even more aggressive as they kept trying to break through the shields still, when suddenly there was a loud roar, and the ball of light where Lance was broke apart, and he immediately slammed his fists into the ground, having managed to shift entirely and the ground rumbled when he sent several of the monkeys flying backwards and let out another roar.

"Well that's useful, perfect timing," Mary commented. A few monkeys jumped on Lance's back and their knives actually seemed to cut into him, but he easily threw them off of him. Klara managed to flip over the monkeys head to join her cousin, Ed and Annie.

"Alright cousin, and strange sorcerer who can also heal people, let's do this, since we need to do it quickly before our luck runs out and we end up having to deal with more injuries then we already have to deal with," she said, giving her cousin and Ed a bit of a smile.

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Runa raised a slight eyebrow at the X-Men's attempts to activate her power. It was a simple concept, but one that mortals still appeared to struggle with from time to time. The Mage combined their shields into one large bubble and offered her his hand. "This may hurt a bit," she warned him, taking his hand. With her other hand, she took Klara's. She had put her arm through the open circle of her staff, so that way she could hold it while taking the hand over her fellow magic users. "I banish that which does not serve me," she cast. A dark wind rushed through the room, blowing up against the monkeys. The knives vanished, as did the majority of the creatures, leaving by her count less than forty.

She felt incredibly drained by that, having needed to rely upon Klara and Edus' magical strength in order to complete the spell. She let go of their hands, her head pounding slightly. She gripped her staff properly, using it to steady herself. "The X-Men cannot be harmed here today," she lied. She hoped that one of the mortals would contradict her - if not, she had faith that her cousin would.

Neil was swaying slightly, unsteady on his feet. His wound wasn't losing bloody rapidly anymore, but nothing the Asgardian had done had managed to give him blood back. The precious red liquid was all over the ground around him and his shirt was so stained even Wolverine would've been impressed. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision and concentrate on what was going on. Banner had turned into his Hulk form and Neil couldn't help but feel anxious, worried that Banner would go after all of them once he finished with the monkeys. The knives were gone and the monkeys were down to a pretty low number, their obnoxious screeching was making him a bit tempted to turn off his hearing aids.

It was a bit hard to get a telekinetic grip, the monkeys were still pretty active and Neil's head wasn't quite feeling right. He kept on trying to rip out their throats, figuring it would be the easiest way to kill these things. He really hoped none of the Asgardians present would turn out to be the Goddess of Monkeys, as that would be awkward to say the least. Despite his challenges in focusing and using his powers though, he managed to knock down six of the monkeys in the hoard - and while it wasn't a lot, it was definitely at least a noticeable amount now.

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Guin sighed, seeing that her strategy hadn't worked. The monkeys apparently were vibing with Justin Bieber's music, rather than running away in terror like she had hoped. That did not go at all like how I'd imagined it, she grumbled to Pietro. "F.R.I.D.A.Y, switch it up, will you? My ears are bleeding and it isn't making the chimps run away," she asked her A.I. A moment later, a better song filled the room - Mr. Blue Sky. Guin grinned, nodding her head in time to the music. The tide was finally turning in their favor after the goth chick, apparently the future Mrs. Banner, caused a majority of the monkeys to vanish and got rid of all the knives. She could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Guin shot up into the air, charging up her uni-beam. She went large blasts towards clumps of monkeys, managing to hit and knock out about six of them - the rest of the monkeys were more agile than she had expected, so they jumped out of the way of her blasts. A lot of people were seriously injured and they needed to finish off this latest round of humiliation that Loki had arranged for them. She'd never be able to properly enjoy watching Dwayne the Rock Johnson in the latest Jumanji movies again - and more annoyingly, she'd never be able to sigh contentedly at Karen Gillain's midriff. "Come on, we've almost finished off these assholes! Whoever gets rid of the most monkeys I'll give $10,000 to!"

When lacking in inspiration, bribery was always a good idea.

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Edus didn’t listen to Antoinette, trying to push through it so that he could help the others. He volunteered to help Runa with her spell and Antoinette followed along since Edus joined their bubbles. She wasn’t sure she would be able to lend a hand, unsure if a mutant ability was sort of like a magic ability but it was too late to ask. Klara, Edus and Runa joined hands while Runa spoke a spell. The three of them managed to banish most of the monkeys as well as all of the knives. Antoinette immediately watched Edus for the after effects.
”Perhaps now you will sit,” she said, eying him closely. Antoinette turned her attention to the rest of the monkeys and let her eyes sparkle again. She wasn’t going to get better with this power if she didn’t use it and what better way than to practice it in real combat situations. Even if the enemy was monkeys.
A couple monkeys got through Ed’s barrier, coming towards Antoinette and scratched up her ankles and she got a few more cuts but she ignored them as her power charged. Colourful sparks, like the test fireworks on the Fourth of July shot from Antoinette’s hands and at the monkeys. They screeched and protested but weren’t quite down yet. It took considerable effort but Antoinette managed to knock out the three that entered their bubble shield. Antoinette grinned tiredly and looked back at Edus to see how he was fairing.

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Carolina watched as a bubble shield came around her as the monkeys were quickly pulled off of her, she closed her eyes for a moment letting out a soft sigh glad that the monkeys werent able to get at her again. Though they seemed to try and break down the shield that surrounded her, luckily none of them did at all. She paused when Carolina heard Justin Bieber's Baby started to play over the radio system of the hangar and cringed slightly. "Not at all my taste in music." Carolina said as she watched the monkeys started to somewhat sing along as well which was really weird and creepy as well.

Carolina's attention turned towards Neil as Klara attempted to heal him, but couldnt really as she started to get worried and quickly made her way over towards him. Just as he managed to use his powers to take down some more of the monkeys, Runa's magic seemingly worked as Runa managed to take down a large number of them down to and they werent wielding knives anymore. "Neil, hey focus on me okay?" Carolina said as she quickly got up to him as she tried to apply as much pressure on the stab wound. She cared for Neil and started to worry about the wound as well, hopefully they would be able to get healed after this round. She noticed that Lance managed to Hulkout again and started to attack the monkeys which was actually a really good thing she thought.

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Bethany cringed slightly as she heard Justine Bieber being played over the radio which was a horrible song choice which seemed to backfire on Guin as the monkeys started to sing along. "That is actually the most horrible song choice that you could have ever picked Guin." Bethany said as she shook her head slightly and nodded towards Klara and gave her a thumbs up. "Sure thing." Bethany said as she focused on some of the monkeys as she extended her hands outward and focused on some of the monkeys. She managed to shadow travel three of the monkeys out of the room, dropping them off somewhere outside of the mansion, probably where the stampede of animals had gone to.

Bethany watched Klara, Edus and Runa dealt with the monkeys managing to get rid of them rather quickly as well which was really good and noticed Lance hulkingout and started to attack the remaining monkeys as well. She turned to stare at Runa as she stated, remembering what Klara had mentioned earlier about her powers. "Nope, we are all actually going to end up dying because of these monkeys today!" Bethany yelled out to Runa contradicting here.

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Ed considered for a moment the spell that Runa had cast. He had never gotten into illusion magic much and the monkeys didn't feel like illusions. Runa did a good job of getting most of the monkeys out of there. His shields were starting to be broken by the monkeys. He bleakly nodded at Annie. He felt a little dizzy so he sat down. His wounds hurt a lot where the monkey had stabbed him. The cut in his side had been bleeding quite a bit. He should have done some healing and stopped it from bleeding. Unfortunately, his healing spells took a lot of effort and time.

Ed looked up, from where he sat on the ground. Taking in what was happening. Lance had hulked out. Bethany was sending monkeys away. He wondered where they were going. Did Bethany send the monkeys to some shadow dimension? Or like when she teleported people did the monkeys just go to a different location?

There was a really obnoxious song playing, but Guin asked for it to be changed by her A.I. and now ELO was playing. Ed liked ELO well enough. It also made him want a cigarette. He didn't know why, but he wanted one. It hadn't been that long since his abruptly cut off cigarette, but it certainly felt like it had been a while. Ed didn't smoke inside though, that was rude. "Better song choice." He told Guin.

"Klara I don't have it in me to do more healing. I am sorry. I think Mary needs healing though." So did he, but that could be done later.

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Elizabeth tried to roll with the punches the monkeys threw at her, that was about all she could do at this point. Mostly, she was glad nobody made fun of her for her stupidity, but as they continued a question crossed Elizabeth's mind; harm was nebulous, was it not? She didn't pay attention much in school, but she knew cells died in her body regularly, would this stop that? Were they about to be immune to emotional trauma as well? Could they be made sad after? Reality warping seemed like it should be handled delicately, and this kind of haphazard word play felt akin to dancing madly on the lip of a volcano.

As she waited the results of Runa's reality warping to take effect, she tried to grab for one of the monkeys going at her, and had a terrible idea. Blood was liquidy, and so was water, and she knew she could change things that were like other things into those things so she decided to have an experiment. This was mostly fueled by the idea that, whatever these monkeys are, they probably weren't real in the same way that other creatures were, only products of the game's magic and nothing more. Grabbing one by that arm, she tried to transmute the blood of the monkey, but she didn't see any immediate changes. Disappointed, she crossed her arms in defense, hoping that they'd be invulnerable soon.

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As Iris defended Annie, Ed, and Runa, a literal deity, she was surprised when she felt a hand grasp tightly to her wrist. When she turned to find Mira there, her mouth open and prepared for a scream, she instinctively flinched, her eyes squeezing tightly closed and her face contorting into a fearful grimace. But when she heard the scream without the pain, she cautiously peeled open her eyes, finding Mira facing a number of downed monkeys. When Mira spoke to her without a single insult or her normal malice, it caused Iris to smile. She gave a quick, small nod, not saying anything out of fear that it would hurt the small sliver of healing they'd managed to get between them.

Iris' lips jutted out into a pout when she heard Bethany respond to Runa's lie, though the pout didn't last long. She had hoped to be the one to help Runa complete her fun lying trick, but she'd settle for being the idea girl. Sometimes it was nice to break the illusion that she was the 'dumb' X-Person in some way other than an literary reference...and then immediately reaffirm that illusion as soon as their resident bajillionaire made a bribe.

"OOOOH, I could totally buy the New York Botanical Garden with that kind of money! Then they'd have to let me stay there overnight! Oh, and I could use the leftover money to put up plaques of what I think all the plants' names are!" she excitedly cheered, dancing through the chaos of battle towards one of the Blackbirds. The young hippie had no actual grasp on the value of money, so she had no way to know that $10,000 would not have the buying power to purchase a 250-acre property owned by the city itself. But the thought of it was enough to get her ass in gear, grabbing a hunk of roof rubble as she got to the Blackbird.

"Upsilon, you get the lights, I'll get the sound. And don't hurt any of them!" Iris called out, before beginning to loudly bang on the Blackbird's metal with her hunk of rubble, the rhythm in time with the music blaring through the hangar. A long, almost serpentine string of fire began to form in the air, seemingly dancing along with the music that filled the room. It slithered through the monkey horde, getting just close enough to freak a good number of them out. The direction which it moved guided those monkeys out of the hangar, guiding seven of them to scamper safely out of sight, and therefore out of mind.

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Klara wasn't too surprised by the drain from the spell casting, she was used to that sort of thing, so she didn't even really flinch from the spell. "Now that that is over with and someone decided to contradict my cousin so that I don't have to, off I go to heal people so that they don't die. Unfortunately I can't guarantee that I'd replenish any of the blood that has been lost, so let's hope you all aren't too close to death," she commented as water began to swirl around her arms and she propelled herself over to where Mary was.

Mary wasn't doing all too well at the moment though, and she finally collapsed partially to the ground, to the point where Klara had to throw water around to ensure that there wasn't any monkeys getting anywhere near her. Klara knelt down next to her and water started swirling, resulting in Mary's injury being mostly healed, despite the fact that she wasn't a hundred percent sure if her healing helped to result in her not potentially needing a blood transfusion. Monkeys were still swarming partially, and one actually got over to Klara and chomped down on her arm. Rolling her eyes slightly, Klara sort of just lifted her arm up, looking at the monkey as she shook her arm to get the monkey off of her. "Well isn't this sort of annoying."

"Guina, quick question, why are you bribing people? I thought the whole idea of not being killed by monkeys would be enough to get people to actually fight them... But eh, if that motivates people more then hooray! That would be nice," he said, as he started whirling his arms again and knocked back some more monkeys. Ironically, he managed to knock them back directly into the pathway of Lance, meaning they then got thrown around by the mini Hulk. "Where the hell did the game board go anyway? Maybe we can zoom through this and hope for the best right?"

Lance was throwing around several of the monkeys, throwing them around and just causing chaos in his actions. They were being thrown around and by himself he managed to knock out about half of the remaining ones, which at this point wasn't all too many. He let out a roar as a few tried to tackle him but he simply grabbed one and kept swinging it around as if it was a baseball bat. Surprisingly, this was working out for him amazingly well, though it was getting a little bit to the point where there wasn't much he could take his anger out on or whatever it was that was fueling him at this point, so that was going to be interesting.

Mira rolled her eyes slightly at Iris, who didn't seem to understand the fundamentals for how much something, anything really, cost. That didn't surprise her at all, since Iris didn't seem to understand anything Mira turned towards a small group of monkeys that was heading straight for her, and she let out a loud shriek as they were then thrown backwards and into a wall. There weren't too many left, only about a dozen at this point now, so at least they had that sort of thing going for them now.

Speaking of the monkeys, the 12 that were remaining instantly started attacking once again, and the shields that Ed had created before seemed to disappear entirely, allowing the monkeys to get close to the others now more easily. 2 of them instantly charged at Annie and knocked her to the ground, causing her to get even more banged up and bruised from the landing (at least they don't have sharp pointy objects anymore right?). Another 4 headed straight for Carolina and Neil, punching at them a bit and causing a few more bruises for them too (though Neil would definitely stay hurting for a bit, since one of the monkeys managed to hit him where he had been stabbed and even though it was healed mostly it was definitely still sore). 2 more headed for Iris and managed to knock her down too, but luckily it didn't really hurt her too much. The remaining 4 headed straight for Bethany, and slammed into her, managing to pin her yet again.

Yup, the monkeys were still being a pain. But hey, you can access the board game if someone wants to roll again to keep moving.

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Carolina turned to face the monkeys as they started to charge at both her and Neil, she stumbled back slightly as the monkeys started to throw punches at her and Neil. Groaning loudly in pain as she started to get a few bad bruises from the hits, she gripped her stick tighter and started to take a few swings at them. "Can we ban monkeys for ever coming to the mansion?" Carolina asked looking over towards the others as the monkeys managed to get knocked backwards and away from the two of them.

Carolina watched as Klara quickly went over and started to heal Mary, she just hoped that they would be able to get rid of the monkeys as soon as possible as well to. "Are you okay Neil?" Carolina asked as she went to stand next to him remembering seeing one of the monkeys getting a few good hits on where the monkeys had stabbed Neil.

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Bethany hoped that whatever Runa was going to do, she was going to do it as soon as possible, just as some of the monkeys had charged forward towards her. Feeling the wind getting knocked out of her as she was pushed to the ground and pinned, she did not want to get stabbed or pummeled to death by some monkeys. "Oh no you dont you arent stabbing me again." Bethany said as she closed her eyes and then shadow traveled just herself to the other side of the room stumbling backwards slightly as she watched the monkeys starting to break through Ed's shields that he had brought up for everyone.

Bethany looked around the floor for the gameboard and managed to find it rather easily as she extended her hand forward, but nothing happened. She groaned again as she held out her hand again, as the shadows engulfed the gameboard, and then a few seconds later the gameboard reappeared by her feet. Beth took the dice into her hands wanting to end the game quickly as well, she picked up the two dice and rolled them on the ground as the next riddle appeared.



Bethany watched as vines suddenly sprouted out of the ground, she turned to look at Mary she certainly didnt look like that she was in any real condition to actually control them and quickly figured that the vines were being used by the gameboard.

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Neil nodded numbly, wincing as Carolina put pressure up against his wound. Her image was going in and out of focus. "I'm fine," he mumbled, trying to reassure her. He didn't have any qualms about lying, especially if it meant that Carolina could focus her energy on keeping herself alive instead of worrying about him.

A monkey then sucker punched him in the wound and Neil inhaled sharply, feeling a level of pain similar to a kick to the groin. Malice and anger filled him as he saw red. All he wanted to do was make sure that the monkey felt a similar level of pain. He lashed out, using his telekinesis to twist the neck of the monkey. The creature fell down to the ground, no longer breathing. Neil didn't feel any regret. They had killed so many things so far that day, it would have been odd to feel bad about killing a monkey. "I'm okay," he told Carolina again, sounding a little more convincing this time.

Runa found Bethany's rejection of her lie to be a bit over exaggerated, but it was enough to work. She could feel the ancient magic stirring in her bones, aligning along the energy centers of her body. She imagined a river of light rushing towards her left hand, spilling out her fingers as she snapped them. The sound was supernaturally loud and air rushed through the wound, as the powerful protection spell took effect. The X-Men could not be harmed here today. She had been careful with the words she chose, limiting it to a time and place. Reality warps were best left controlled and small. Unfortunately, the exact phrase she used meant that she and Klara were not included in the protection, but she didn't mind. They were Asgardians, made of stronger stuff.

"In the name of Frey, I command these vines to retreat," Runa invoked, as she mentally prepared for the next spell she could cast.

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Guin was a bit irritated with everyone's comments on the music choice. Of course, she hadn't really explained what she had been trying to do with the horrible song earlier. And she wasn't in the mood to say it again for anyone who hadn't caught her slight explanation. A large part of it was since Edus of all people had to weigh in on it. She knew that he didn't like her and the feeling was mutual. Fortunately, Iris was so loud and extra that Guin was distracted before her mood could become pissy. "Yeah, 10 grand might buy you a few plaques there, but probably not more than that. Rich people love putting their name on shit."

"I'm bribing them because money is one of the great motivators of the world! Sometimes, being able to buy some nice shit is just more of a motivator than surviving the latest round in a seemingly endless series of attacks," she reasoned. Adrenaline could only last so long. People were bound to be feeling tired, if not extremely injured at this point. They had been going round after round with hardly any breaks. Case in point, her armor was clearly feeling like it was time to stop, as all of her weapons systems jammed. It must have been all the magical energy people were shooting off, tech and magic never mixed well. She cursed under her breath, quickly making repairs to her system - namely, turning it off and turning it back on again. The systems were all back online and she unleashed her fury on the monkeys, knocking the rest of them out.

"Heh, looks like I win the 10 grand."

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"Oh my shields are gone." He frowned. His concentration had wanned and he hadn't realized it. He started to reach into his pocket but before he could start casting the monkeys were gone.

Ed gave a wry smile as the monkeys were finally defeated. "You should have played I'm a believer. It's by the Monkees that'd have been funny." He says toward Guin. That was the only Monkeey song he could even think of. He hurt, a lot, and worse he was still pretty dizzy. He looked over at Klara, had she helped Mary?

He saw Bethany roll the dice, and was going to ask her to read the riddle. He liked guessing. But there was no need for her to read it because the consequences of the roll started appearing. As it did he really hopped that Mary was feeling better. "This is something fire might work on Iris. However, that might be better for Mary to try to control before you light it on fire. I cannot imagine flinging tentalces of fire would be a good idea."

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Actually I think if you count before there were a whole lot less Mary technically would beat you in how many she took down by herself, Pietro couldn't help but point out to Guin with a slight laugh in response to her more or less bragging.

"Ow that hurts a lot," Mary muttered, managing to get up off of the ground, though she still looked a little bit pale despite Klara having healed her. Her shirt was covered in blood too and she stumbled slightly before steadying herself.

"You shouldn't be moving, if you give me another few moments I might be able to heal you to the point where you aren't potentially suffering from the effects of blood loss."

"I'm fine at the moment, really, we have other things to worry about, like dealing with whatever came out of the board game, just because we can't be injured due to Runa's help, doesn't mean we can't still have problems caused by the outcomes." she said as she glanced around to see what was coming out of the game this time. It took a moment for it to register that the vines that were moving weren't exactly being caused by her. "Oh the plants, at least we don't have to worry about them eating us anytime soon or poison, they can also poison people, well then this should be fun, maybe..."

Lance had shrunk back down to his normal self, and thanks to having actually been somewhat prepared in his attempts to hulk out on purpose, he had done the smart thing and taken his shirt off before he did it. Meaning it was still sitting on the ground and he walked over and picked it up, pulling it back over his head. However he was a bit dizzy, and he wasn't all too sure why, maybe it had to do with shifting in and out of his Hulk form in the span of less then an hour? He didn't really know (and he couldn't really ask his dad for that answer) but that didn't really seem to matter at the moment.

Everything sort of shrunk back and didn't seem to matter as he focused on the fact that Runa was there.

He walked right over so that he was standing not too far from her, and he shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at her. "Uh... Hey there Runa," he said to her, giving her a small smile.

Mira couldn't help but wonder what exactly was going on, since she had never seen the Jumanji movie ever in her life, so she didn't get what exactly there was to worry about the plants. That is, until the vines shot off and started moving rather quickly. She knew that from what she could tell, Runa's powers had made it so that they couldn't be hurt, at least, not while they were at the mansion. Since knowing how the world worked, there was going to be a loophole or two in just about everything. Actually, when she thought about it, technically it could just mean the hanger, so if they left that room they could potentially get killed.

The plants instantly started wrapping around people, starting with Iris and Elizabeth. The vines wrapped them up entirely and started to swing them into the air like piñatas and started pulling them towards the ceiling. Their arms are pinned to their sides, not letting them move their arms. Mary instantly put her hands up into the air to try and use her powers to stop them, but it was clear she was still hurting from her earlier injury despite Klara at the least stopping the bleeding. She managed to stop the vines from getting the pair all the way up to the ceiling, but it was clearly causing her some strain in order to do it.

Of course, then there was all of the other vines that seemed to have the same idea as the ones that turned those two into piñatas, as vines wrapped around Mira, Bethany, Neil and Annie, lifting all four of them off of the ground. Mary shifted her attention to them, and her powers were taking its toll on her, as she managed to stop them from getting dragged too far away. One thing was clear though, she was majorly unsteady on her feet, and it was seriously causing her problems.

"Alright, let's get people down, and down quickly," Klara commented, before she threw her sword directly at a few of the vines that were wrapped around Annie. The sword sliced right through them, causing Annie to fall towards the ground. Klara was about to go charging to try and catch her, Pietro beat her to the punch and caught Annie in the blink of an eye.

"That likely would have hurt had you hit the ground," he commented as he set her down on the ground.

"How about less talking more cutting people down, since the vines are starting to get a little bit antsy," Mary commented. She wasn't too sure how much longer she could hold the vines off from going any higher, or maybe even dragging them off elsewhere. Of course, she wasn't paying much attention, as vines started wrapping around her ankles.

Lance noticed vines heading towards him and Runa, and he sent a blast of light directly at them, stopping them from getting any closer to the two of them. This was definitely going to be interesting, that is, until he noticed something, and what he noticed was something insanely bad for them and he glanced around the room. "...Um, anyone else know where the game board and dice went?" he asked, as the game was no longer where it had been moments before when Bethany had rolled the dice, meaning that the plants had seemingly targeted the game, and they'd have to go track it down.

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Edus had agreed and was finally sitting down for which Antoinette was grateful for. At least with him sitting she could try and tend to his wounds and bandage them up. She couldn’t heal people with magic but there was something magically about knowing first aid when you were part of a team that was constantly in the heat of battle.
Antoinette wouldn’t get the chance to help though. As Ed’s protection shields dropped, two monkeys came at Antoinette and tackled her to the ground. She tried to grab onto them but it wasn’t working so Antoinette covered her head and face to at least protect those. She didn’t have to struggle long with the monkeys though as Guin took care of all the remaining monkeys.
Antoinette sat up after taking a few deep breaths and surveyed the damage. She was scrapped up, had a few cuts and several more bruises now but at least she was still mobile. Antoinette pushed herself to her feet and noticed that there were giant plants all about them now. She didn’t get much of a time to react as vines shot out and started to wrap people up. They moved so quickly and Antoinette was soon wrapped up, with her arms pinned. She wiggled and struggled to get at least an arm free but then all of her was free and then she was falling. Vaguely, Antoinette thought of a bird and then she hit something hard but found herself cradled. She looked at Pietro who had speeded over and caught her before she could hit the ground.
”Thank you Pietro. I’ve always admired birds and their flight but I have enough respect to know I will never be one,” she said. Once her feet touched the ground, she looked around for the next assault.
Someone shouted out about the board being missing and Antoinette looked around the room. Her and Edus had to roll next. If they could find it in a timely fashion, these vines would disappear but what would be next and how much longer was this game going to be?
”I’ll start looking for it. Ed and I have to roll next anyways,” Antoinette said and started on her search through the shooting vines.

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"Wait, what? I thought ten thousand bucks would be, like...a hundred times what I'd need! Gods, why does everything have to be so expens-" Iris' words and rhythmic banging were interrupted as a pair of monkeys pulled her to the ground. As soon as they were on top of her, she began to wildly swing her hunk of rubble at them, spitting out a number of curses with more positive words like "adorable" and "lovable" sprinkled in as well. But with one bright flash of light, the pair were thrown off of her, allowing her to crawl back to her feet, somewhat wobblily so due to the knife wound in her leg.

"Ey, thanks for the assist Stark. I owe you a plate of cookies when we're done...but you have to share them with everyone," Iris said with a smile, before her attention was snagged away by Ed. She tilted her head to the side when she heard the man mention something about a song written by monkeys, but before she could inquire further, Bethany rolled, and vines crept forth from the ground. Iris looked uncertain when Ed suggested she use her fire, but she gave an reluctant thumbs up.

"Right, yeah, totally...need something torched, Hellfire's ya girl," she awkwardly replied, her enthusiasm wavering. She didn't love being asked to use her powers. She much preferred to be the freeloader of the X-Men, living rent free in a mansion and paying for it with positivity, wisecracking comments, and the occasional world-saving mission. But she clapped her hands together and stepped forward, taking a deep breath. "Alright, I guess it's time to face down my arch nemesis - actual responsibilities. Upsilon-AGH!" before she could give her powered delusion any commands, one of the vines curled around her, yanking her up high in the air. She felt like a beehive hanging from a tree.

"UPSILON, UPSILON, GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!" she screamed out as she hung upside down in the plant's grasp. Perhaps it was her heightened heart rate and intense emotional state, but blue flames began to whirl around her without a second's hesitation. Unfortunately, as the flames wrapped around the plants, they seemed to be less effective than one would've hoped. For perhaps the first time in the history of fire versus plant battles, the plants were winning. Her eyes flicked up to the fire dancing along the green vines, barely scorching them, before dropping her eyes back down to look at Upsilon on the ground. "Seriously dude?! You burnt down half of Oregon, but you can't even take out a vine? Don't tell me you're having performance anxiety!"

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Guin could have chosen to not be petty - she was perfectly capable of just nodding at Edus' comment and accepting that maybe he had some musical knowledge. After all, he had saved Pietro's life a few turns back. "Dear god, I think Edus has been replaced by a skrull who digs music," she quipped. She noticed Lance decide to start flirting with the goth Asgardian chick in the middle of battle and she had to resist the urge to instruct F.R.I.D.A.Y. to record the entire reaction so Guin could make a set of reaction gifs out of it.

The vines were apparently a problem, even with the goth's spell preventing any member of the X-Men from getting hurt. Iris was making flames after flames and while the vines were on fire, they weren't breaking. "Huh, so fire does shit all to them. Lovely." Guin's mind kept bouncing back and forth, wondering if any of the weapons in her Iron Star armor would actually hurt the plants then. She considered her repulsors, uni-beam, and lasers to be different from fire - but these were magic vines, so maybe they wouldn't share her definition. There wasn't much point in wondering though - experimentation was the way to go here, so Guin shrugged slightly and let the vines have everything. She fired off her uni-beam, repulsor blasts, and even used her precision laser!

BAM. Bethany was down. BOOM. Mira was free. ZAP. Neil was out.

"Hey babe, mind catching those people?" Guin called out to her husband.

"Sure thing," he responded as he zipped around catching people and setting them on the ground.

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Vines had ensnared him, like a snake constricting around its prey. Neil really hoped that the Asgardian's spell had worked out, as he didn't want to be killed by plants of all things. His wound at least wasn't bothering him as much anymore - probably since the raw fear and terror pumping through him as the plants lifted him off the ground and into the air was one hell of a distraction. He let out a whimper/scream, kicking his legs as if that would help him somehow. Annie had been freed by one of the Asgardians and Neil's eyes widened as Stark fired off a LASER AT HIM! He shut his eyes instinctively, feeling the grip of the vines vanish and then he was falling. He screamed, only to feel a pair of sturdy, muscular arms catch him - he couldn't help but feel like he had just been caught by a Greek God or something.

When he opened his eyes and realized that Quicksilver had saved him, he threw up slightly in his mouth. He really hoped none of the telepaths had heard that thought of his... At any rate, he focused his energy up at the two people still ensnared by the plants. He used his telekinesis and ripped apart the vines that had caught Elizabeth, before then using his powers to catch her/slow her descent to the ground. He put her down as gently as he could, before turning his attention to Iris. It didn't work at first - maybe the vines being on fire were interfering. But he tried again, hoping to free his teammate. "Iris, can you stop flailing?" Neil asked. He couldn't really pull it off.

"Hello," she said softly to Lance. She gave him a slight smile, although it faded when the vines charged towards them. There was work to do and a more serious nature took over her. Runa knew that they needed to retrieve this game board in order to proceed and end Loki's spell. Fortunately, she was familiar with the magic used to enchant it, as it was the same magic used to trap her inside of it. She began to chant softly under her breath, casting a tracking spell so she could pinpoint where the game had been taken. She divined the location of the game and raised an eyebrow. The game was being dragged towards a giant yellow carnivorous pod. "There," she called out, pointing at it. She conjured orbs of darkness in her hands and then threw them out, tendrils elongating and wrapping around the game as she played tug of war against the vines.

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Carolina turned around to look at Neil as he tried to reassure her that he was okay, she knew that he was hurting pretty badly from his injuries caused by the damn monkeys. Luckily all of the monkeys were finally dealt with, but then Bethany managed to grab the dice and then made her dice roll as a bunch of vines suddenly appeared and then started to wrap around some people of the team. Lifting them up, Neil included, she felt helpless as she couldnt find anything that could help get him down.

Luckily Guin managed to free some of the others as they fell to the ground and caught by Pietro. "I dont think that would have been fun if you fell." Carolina said to Neil and smiled, she was just glad that he was caught in time. She then she noticed a vine starting to sneak up on Mary. "Mary you have a vine near you!" Carolina yelled out to her, as she watched what happened next as Runa used her powers to grab the gameboard from the vines. She wasnt sure what would happen if the game was destroyed or eaten by the plants. Would they end up having to play the game forever or something or was the game immune to getting destroyed.

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Bethany felt something wrapping around her legs, and couldnt help but scream a bit as she was quickly lifted up high into the air, causing her to start dangling off of the ground. "Remind me to kill Loki whenever we see him." Bethany said giving a bit of an annoyed look at Runa and Klara as she was dangling. Luckily Mary stopped the plants from dragging her any higher, and then a few seconds later both Guin and Pietro freed her and landed in his arms.

Bethany turned to Runa who managed to find the gameboard, and used her own shadowy powers on it to try and get it out of the vine's grip as she held out her hand, she hadnt really used the aspect of her powers to much but she managed to solidify them and then formed a whip as it wrapped around the gameboard. Bethany yanked it out rather easily from the plants grip landing into her hand turning to look over at Runa giving her a nod before tossing the gameboard over towards Ed. "Hey it's your guys turn take it so we can end this now."

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"What? I'm cool. I'm hip. I like things like music. Who doesn't like music?" Ed gave Guin a goofy grin. He was obviously making a joke, but he did still sound a little punch drunk from his own blood loss. "I think Guin has a point. The fire really was a bad idea. What are in the tomb of horrors?" He snorted and thought about how broken assassin vines were for their challenge rating.

Ed focused around Iris and reached into his pocket to touch the small shield emblem there. A bubble of orange light appeared around Iris and cut the vines around her. He shifted the shield into a soft bubble of air and when she hit the ground it was like landing on pillows. He was proud of himself for the idea.

Ed picked up the dice from the game board and rolled them. A one and a five came up. He looked into the center of the game board worried. As he watched the small Keratin Rhinocerous that was his and Annie's game piece moved onto the center of the board. His eyes went wide.



"Jumanji." He said with a tone of reverence most people reserve only for church. In the blink of an eye, the group was back in the living room. Still beaten and battered and now missing Runa and Klara. He sank into a couch and closed his eyes. Normally he felt elation at winning a game, for now, he only felt relief. He was concerned about Runa and Klara not being there anymore. They also had now probably lost their immunity Runa had given them.

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Everything sort of occurred in a bit of a whirlwind for Mary at the least, since one moment she was using her powers to more or less stop vines from trying to drag everyone off to who knew where, someone was saying the game board had disappeared, and she had heard someone call out to her about a vine coming towards her. Before she could even think about reacting to all of that, someone starting yelling they had the board, the rolling of dice and suddenly a whirlwind of everything going back to how they had been before, aside from everyone still having any injuries that they had obtained from the game still.

"That was a horrible experience and I don't think I ever want to deal with that sort of thing again... Anyone else just feel like crap or whatever?" she asked as she leaned up against the wall, still looking at least somewhat pale still. That had been a horrible experience that was not one she wanted to repeat any time soon. Of course, there was still the whole problem of their injuries as well as Loki still being out there and being a bit of a problem.

"I don't think anyone wants to deal with that again," Pietro commented, "Though it is going to be a really long time before I can watch that movie again."

"Where did the Asgardians go?" Mira spoke up and asked, noticing that neither Runa nor Klara were in the room with the rest of them. They hadn't exactly been players in the game, so who knew what happened to them. Maybe they got sent home back to Asgard? There was so many possibilities, it didn't really seem to matter all too much at the moment though, given the fact that they still had to deal with the idea of why Loki attacked them in the first place.

"No idea..." Lance commented, though he was a bit concerned that because of Loki's magic they had ended up stuck in the game again since they had been outcomes from the board. He really was hoping that wasn't the case, though he could totally imagine him explaining to Thor that his daughter was stuck in a board game. That would have been entertaining to watch, not so entertaining to be the one doing the talking and explaining to.

The questions as to where the two Asgardians were was swiftly answered, as a portal opened up in the room, and Klara stepped in, dragging Runa along with her. "Hey Runa think I should get an eyepatch like the one grandfather has? I mean otherwise it currently is this big gaping hole in the side of my face, though I'd need to make sure it wasn't so plain and boring if I did get one, maybe something with pink glitter what do you think about that one?" Klara was saying to Runa, clearly rambling a little bit before she looked over at everyone, waving her hand slightly behind her and the portal closed behind the pair.

"We were just starting to wonder where you two were," Lance said, looking at the two of them.

"I mean there are probably a number of different things that could have happened. Anyway don't think I ever properly introduced myself, my name is Klara, daughter of Thor, Goddess of Love and the Oceans. And the quieter one here is my cousin, Runa, Baldur's daughter and the Goddess of Lies. And let me just say thank you for getting us out of there, cause that was just horrible being stuck there for several months. At least we were told it was likely several months based on a few things. I honestly don't know, don't mind me entirely, I tend to ramble a bit. Anyway who wants to help me go deal with our uncle?"

"I think we need to deal with injuries, then I personally think we go to Stark Tower and see if they know where Loki at least is or something." Mary said, standing up somewhat straight, but clearly unsteady.

"Last I checked odds are your dad is there too," Lance added, glancing over at Runa and starting to wonder what was going through her head given the whole endeavor.

"Oh that works, otherwise I was going to do things the long way, yell at Heimdall to alert my father to where I am and then wait for the thunderstorm. I can help with injuries still if anyone still has any or needs some help from them."

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Unlike everyone else, Guin had gotten out of the entire ordeal unscathed. Even Edus had taken a few good hits, a fact that annoyed her - along with the fact that he had been the one to shout out Jumanji and end the game. Her armor had a few dents and scratches on it, but it had done its job - it had kept her sequestered from the actual blows and allowed her to deal a lot more damage than punching and kicking things would have done. Her telepathic abilities didn't come in handy too often. Guin opened up the armor and stepped on out, stretching her limbs. "I think I'd need to be drunk or high to play that again - or I suppose if Loki pulled the same stunt we'd end up having to do it, since I'd hardly call us willing participants," Guin pointed out.

"Uh yeah, but if we're lucky he'll find it too boring to play the same trick twice so we wouldn't have to. Also no being high, ever, that's bad," Pietro responded, adding the last part in when his brain processed fully what she had said.

"I like that being drunk is okay," she joked, cracking a smile.

"That isn't either, but brain focused on the high part first."

Mary looked really beat up - and Guin wasn't sure if Ed had enough strength left in him to play healer. The Viking LARPers appeared a second later though, moving on through a portal, so Guin was hopeful that maybe she could convince them to do some more magic healing. She wasn't against the use of magic, especially when it could get everyone back up to full strength faster than rest and treatment in the med bay could. Guin couldn't even remember if Hank was around at the moment. The chatty one, Klara, volunteered her services in healing not too long afterwards though, meaning that Guin didn't even need to ask her. "Definitely could use help with the healing people. Mary looks like shit, honestly a lot of people here look fucking horrible. Since we beat this game, I'll call ahead and let the Avengers know to expect us - trust me, you do not want to run into Hawkeye when he's just in his boxers, so it'll give them all a chance to look decent."

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Neil was completely exhausted. His brain was aching from all of the use of his telekinesis, his stomach was still hurting from his injuries, and his stamina was definitely at an all time low. He could hardly believe it when they were all transported up to the living room and if it hadn't been for the injuries, it would have been like nothing ever happened. "Thank you," he said softly to Edus, knowing that he had been the one to roll the dice for the last round. Neil knew that it had been a team effort, but he still couldn't help but have gratitude for the person who managed to win the game and get them all to safety.

He looked at Carolina next, worried that she might have somehow become gravely wounded without his noticing. Elizabeth was strangely quiet, but Neil figured that was probably because Iris nearly burned her alive and that would traumatize anyone. "Carolina, are you okay?" he asked, wanting to check in on his best friend. He had been so worried when she was stuck in the jungle. And when the prospect of hunting Loki down was brought up, Neil felt torn. On the one hand, he wanted to march on down and rip out Loki's spine - and on the other hand, he really wanted a nap. His eyes were fluttering with tiredness as Klara prattled on, as if she were a boring professor for an 8 AM lecture.

"You could look lovely with a ruby eye," Runa pointed out to Klara. "Eyepatches aren't quite in style this millennia, although you may become a trendsetter." She adored fashion. It was something she had in common with her older brother - case in point, she used her magic and chanted a few words, changing up her outfit into something more comfortable. She was in desperate need of a bath after being stranded inside of the game, but at least she felt a bit cleaner. She turned her gaze towards Lance for a brief moment, a blush coloring her cheeks. "I can attempt to cast a spell to track Loki, although it will be difficult without anything belonging to him, and he is unfortunately not a biological relation of mine or Klara's."