Random Plots and Places 9: What a crazy, random happenstance!

[Lord Magtok]

Marvel NYC

"Okay, just got to open this panel here, move this piece of garbage aside for a moment, find a port I can work with, aaaand-"

Magtok pops his left hand off, offering it to Fantastic to hold onto for the time being. He then stabs his wrist into the Ultron drone, attempting to plug himself in and begin assimilating the poor robot minion. If Ultron's smart; he'll abandon this one before Magtok's influence can spread to the others. One way or the other, every Ultron drone Magtok can get access to is going to try to lock Ultron himself out, shut down, and then reboot under the nefarious Lord Magtok's control.

[Rebonack]

[Marvel NYC]

Mister Fantastic takes the MagHand and gives is an appraising look as Magtok rams the wrist into the drone's head, to which Reed reacts with, "No! Don't interface with anything Ultron has direct access to! There's no way-"

For a moment Maggy will be able to perceive the sneering presence of Ultron scoffing at the mere notion that anyone would have the audacity to try stealing one of HIS drones, only to have that arrogance morph into surprise and shock when Magtok actually manages to begin co-opting Ultron's will! The evil robot quickly severs his connect to the drone lest Maggy's neural networking totally override his own.

Neat!

Now Magotk has a robot slave all of his own!

Mister Fantastic seems suitably shocked. "Incredible..."

Krystal, meanwhile, punches out the robots robo-kidney power source, causing it to slump over like a puppet with its strings cut. The remaining drone continues to fire wildly, but it shortly finds itself getting mach-punched like its buddy did a few moments prior. The robot's whole chest cavity flat out implodes shortly before it gets imbedded in the armored, reinforced walls of the Baxter Buildings.

Geneva's standing there all dramatically with her fist still extended, though that doesn't last long. "Ooow!" she grumbles, giving her hand a good shake. "C'mon Geneva, pace yourself. That's too much impact absorbing magic too fast."

"You seem to have found some interesting new allies, Spiderman," Reed comments as he stretches out a limb and tries to pull the ruined drone out of the wall.

The thing won't budge.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Marvel New York

Krystal will shove the depowered robot forward, letting it fall to the floor with a thud. As she moves her arms back to a resting position, she winces a bit. She looks down at her right side and sighs a bit when she sees that the punch had torn her denim jacket up a bit.

Man...I like these jackets, but I keep going through them like crazy. She'll move the jacket aside to check the damage. Lots of bruising, some bleeding. But it all shrinks at a steady pace.

Krystal looks around and, upon seeing what Geneva did, gives an appreciative whistle. Wow. Remind me not to arm wrestle you.

She glances around the lab a bit. Well, that was fun. any more coming? Or anywhere we need to go help?

[Lord Magtok]

Marvel NYC

"DOUBT NOT THE MIGHT OF PURPLE DIMENSION DOOM, RICHARDS!" Magtok exclaims triumphantly, as his new pet rises up under his control. Silly Ultron, thinking he could best Magtok. Nobody runs a hivemind like our Nexusian cyborg does; even one who's missing out on four whole years of software updates.

"All joking aside though, I'd like my hand back. And to maybe keep another one or two of Ultron's dummies as souvenirs," Magtok nervously takes a step back from Richards, hoping he's not too peeved by that joke-declaration at his expense.

[Rebonack]

[Marvel NYC]

"Hmm?" Geneva grunts as she continues rubbing her hand. "Oh, umm... I don't have super strength or anything like that. I think I might have maintained my normal strength in this shape for... reasons... But to hit really hard like that I have to accelerate all of me. I can't just throw a really fast punch, I have to ram things. So I wouldn't be any more proficient at arm wrestling than any other hippogriff would be."

So as proficient as an eight hundred pound apex predator.

Gotcha.

Reed quirks an eyebrow at Magtok and returns his hand to him. "There's no time to talk. We need to finish off the rest of the Ultron drones here and provide assistance at the Avengers Tower. They're being over-run."

Wow.

Over-running the Avengers? That would take a ton of Ultron drones. And/or Ultron himself.

"Mis Pressurefront? Spiderman? Help Jonathan clear the airspace outside," Richards says, pointing out the hole in the wall.

Geneva gives a nod and snaps her flight goggles on, only to pause. "Wait, who?"

"He'll be the guy who's on fire," Spiderman says as he leaps out through the breach. "But on fire in a good way."

Geneva shrugs and dives through along with him.

"Magtok, Krystal? You're with me. We're going to clean out the rest of the tower. Ben and Susan have their hands full and need backup."

[KerfuffleMach2]

Marvel New York

Krystal smirks. Geneva, I've seen you as a hippogriff. You would still kick my butt at arm wrestling.

Then comes the call to arms!

Krystal gives Mr. fantastic a small salute and goes to follow him. She turns to Magtok as she does. Guess he's okay with you using them for now. At least, the ones that'll still work.

[Lord Magtok]

[Marvel NYC]

"Magtok, Krystal? You're with me. We're going to clean out the rest of the tower. Ben and Susan have their hands full and need backup."

"Up, up, and away!" Magtok exclaims, reattaching his hand whilst astride the Ultron drone as if it were some sort of flying horse or something. This is almost certain to make him a prime target for Ultron, if Hank Pym programmed any capacity for shame and humiliation in the automaton, but our cyborg doesn't seem to mind all that much. How could he worry about junk like that, when he's too busy riding a mother****ing Ultron drone into battle?

[Rebonack]

[Marvel NYC]

Reed Richards does an incredible job of ignoring Magtok's absurd antics. If Maggy keeps this up he might even manage to get out of here with that absurdly huge laser cannon. As our hero (and one giant jerkface and Magtok) run down the stairs the building continues to shudder near constantly from explosions and impacts. Shortly there after some resounding thunderclaps begin adding to the cacophony.

But these three right here?

They're headed for the rec room.

And you know who's making a wreck of the rec room?

The Invisible Woman, the Thing, and a whole mob of Ultron Drones, that's who! Ivisogal is tossing up her force fields to plug holes in the walls the drones are pouring in through, but given that they have the good sense to smash in through routes other than the wrecked rec room walls it's growing increasingly difficult to contain them all. And the Thing? Well. His style is refreshingly straight forward. He's clobbering stuff. Occasionally he also rips stuff in half, but mostly Uncle Ben just makes with the clobbering. He's got a good thing, him and the clobbering. Why deviate from something that works?

There have to be at least a dozen of the robots in here, aside from the one Magtok is riding. As soon as our buddies show their faces three robots break off and begin opening fire to keep them pinned down in the stair well. Pew pew pew!

Meanwhile, outside!

Okay.

Let us review.

There are a bunch of killer robots with rocket boots flying around and shooting at the tower. They aren't shooting so much at the Human Torch, though. Rebo is a little pressed to believe that plasma/laser weapons would do much to a guy who's already on fire. Instead they're trying to mob him and just general beat the pie out of the fellow. Sure he might be able to melt some of them, but there are an awful lot of robots and kicking his powers into nova-mode might endanger people who are nearby.

As such, it helps quite a bit when one of the mobbing drones gets webbed and flung into the wall. "Hey Jonny! Thought you could use a few hands that aren't trying to grope you to death."

"Hey Spidy, the hands are appreciated. Who's the chick with the wings?" the Torch replies whilst melting some robot's face off.

Geneva dives down to ground level and thwacks the top off a fire hydrant before pulling into a tight spiral and leading the water skyward. She gives the mass of glittering water droplets a swat with one of her wings, hurling the still forming rainbow clear and splattering the impossibly prismatic liquid all over several approaching drones. They react more or less as one might expect them to if slathered in a super-conducting fluid and begin shorting out. With a bit of fancy wingwork Geneva fashions a rather large, angry looking cloud and gives it a kick, filling the air with a reverberating clap of thunder whilst sending a lance of lightning arcing through several more robots.

"Oh, her? Just some tourist I picked up earlier," Spiderman replies dismissively.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Marvel New York

Ah! Plasma blasts!

Krystal ducks back behind the wall to keep from getting hit by the blasts. She safely assumes that getting hit would hurt a lot.

When there's a break in the shooting, she pop out into the open long enough to throw several crystals at the drones. Her aim is pretty good, so she should be able to hit them.

[Lord Magtok]

Marvel NYC

Krystal's attack is joined by the Ultron drone's lasers, spewed out at its brethren. Showing a reckless disregard for his own puppet, Magtok stops riding the thing and uses it as cover instead, so he can fire a ray gun that looks suspiciously like one of Mr. Fantastic's at the drones from a position of relative safety.

[Rebonack]

[Marvel NYC]

Laser channeled plasma blasts, for what it's worth. Sort of like an electro-laser, except with more lobbing of hot, soupy matter and less discharging of an electric current. Magtok might be aware that firing this kind of a weapon a whole lot in the same general area will heat the air up (that's kind of hard to miss) and become increasingly inaccurate as discrete ionization channels get all warped and smeared together with neighboring ionization trails.

It really makes one wonder why Ultron thought outfitting a bunch of robots with this sort of directed energy weapon would be useful against a guy who's invulnerable, a gal who can shield it, and another guy who can just absorb it. They would probably work fine against Mister Fantastic, but he's all stretchy and stuff for the dodgings.

Anywho!

Krystal nails one of the drones clean in the face, ruining its eyes and leaving it blinded. Magtok will quickly discover that the Ultron drones' particle weapons aren't terrifically effective against each other, no doubt to reduce the impact of friendly fire. That ray gun he totally didn't steal from Mister Fantastic's lab seems to be doing the trick, though. And his mobile cover is eating up a ton of plasma blasts that would otherwise be intended for him. Reed seems to have gotten more or less the same idea and is moving along with Maggy, pew pewing at the robots with a ray gun that he didn't steal since he actually built the thing himself.

The drones don't seem to be able to grasp the concept of taking cover (no doubt cover is for weak, frail organics) and are getting cut down pretty effectively. Especially when The Thing leaps into the middle of the crowd and begins to dispense with the clobbering.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Marvel New York

Ah, the clobbering. Truly, a glorious thing to witness.

Given the amount of probably painful laser-plasma blasts flying around, Krystal decides to stick to throwing her crystals for now. Sure, she could take a single drone quick through melee, but that also makes it easier for the other drones to get her.

Which would hurt.

A lot.

[Fenric]

Limo - Texting



"There, excellent. Now, how far are we from our destination?"

Tamamo replies outside of a quote box, cause I'm on my phone

> You've got a decent chunk of a hundred miles before the turn-off. Then another twenty or so to the barricaded road. The difficult winding part isn't quite three miles long.

[Lost_Deep]

Limo - Texting

"Then at this speed we should be there in a bit over an hour." Woo, flying!

Gilded Caravan doesn't seem to care that to the other two she seems to be talking to herself.

[Lord Magtok]

Marvel NYC

"Magtron 1, cease fire. Advance up the staircase, a quarter your standard walking speed." Aha! Now they can climb the staircase and remain in cover! Take that, Ultron! Also, to further your humiliation, it seems Magtok has already found a name for his new minion! A name that seems to imply more trouble for you ahead, if I judge his intentions correctly.

[Fenric]

[Limo - Travel Montage]

Because travel scenes are boring enough without having already been described...

Down to the turn-off, down the smaller highway, then off the road. Around the barricade, up the winding path, hop over the collapsed bridge, and now they're in front of the very convincing looking rock-slide.

[Rebonack]

[Marvel NYC]

Another explosion rocks the building, followed by an even bigger explosion that may end up knocking everyone off their feet.

"The Fantastic Rocket just exploded!" Mister Fantastic yells with a completely straight face. Rebo has no idea how he managed it. "We need to evacuate at once!"

Well then!

Good thing Maggy is already in the stair well, isn't it?

A sizable portion of the Baxter Building is now filled with burning rocket fuel. It might be a good idea to get the hell out of dodge in short order. Sure there are fire suppression systems and stuff, but being in a building filled with blazing fuel is just an awful idea in general. Almost as awful as keeping a friggin' rocket in your sky scraper.

By this point the number of Ultron drones is thinning out a bit, they just can't stand up against the combined might of Maggy, Crystal, and three out of four Fantastics.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Marvel New York

The second explosion knocks Krystal down. As she scrambles back up, she gets grazed by one of the plasma-laser blasts.

Like she thought, it hurt like hell.

She gives a short yell and grabs the shoulder that was hit, gritting her teeth. When Mr. Fantastic gives the call to retreat, she glances around to assess the situation. The drones were thinning out, so she didn't have to fire at them as they got out. Which was good.

Now, the question was, which way? Was the fire above them? Or below? If it was above, they could get down the stairs easy enough. If it was below, they'd have to fly out. Which meant somebody would have to carry Krystal.

[Lost_Deep]

Limo - Travel Montage

Blacktop will land, drive up slowly, and then just try to... tap the rockslide ever-so-slightly with his front bumper. Just to be careful.

[Fenric]

[Limo]

The bumper goes into the rockslide with no resistance whatsoever: it is a very well done illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.

[Lord Magtok]

Marvel NYC

"Son of a...MAGTRON ONE! WEAPONS BACK ON, MAKE US AN EXIT AND WAIT FOR ME OUTSIDE!" Magtok shouts, before heading back down the staircase to help Krystal. He might not be terribly fond of her right now, but what kind of person would he be if he just left her to die? He'd be Mr. Fantastic, that's who he'd be, and Purple Dr. Doom Magtok is no Mr. Fantastic!

"JUST FOR THE RECORD, THIS ISN'T ALTRUISM! THIS IS ME BEING NICE, NOT GOOD! I'LL EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE LATER!" he screams over the turmoil and chaos. There's no time for figuring out if the rocket was above or below; the fastest way out is through a freshly blasted hole in the wall. Let's just hope Magtron did as asked, so that Magtok doesn't look like a complete tool when he tries to grab Krystal's good arm, and help her out his improvised doorway before the Baxter building can scorch them both.

[Rebonack]

[Marvel NYC]

Thankfully for Magtok, his new robot slave will have managed to blast a hole through the exterior wall of the tower by the time he gets back with Krystal. The Invisible Woman will be busy creating a nice force-floor thing for our heroes to pile onto since most of them can't fly. It sure does help when you have one of the most broken TK users in the Marvel universe on your side, isn't it?

Outside the Baxter Building one will get a good picture of just how much damage there is. The whole of one flank is completely devastated and blazing with rocket fuel. The surrounding area is likewise pretty well pulverized from the battle with all those Ultron drones. Spidy, Torch, and Geneva have been doing quite a number on them between the webbing, the fire, and Geneva kicking lightning bolts back down the ionization channels used by the robot's own plasma weapons.

There are still enough drones to take some pot shots at those leaving the tower, though.

Thankfully they still have the most broken TK user in the Marvel universe on their side to block the plasma blasts with her force fields.

"Who's the bald guy and how did he manage to steal one of Ultron's robots?" the Thing asks as the Invisible Woman steers our heroes toward Avenger Tower whilst the more vertically mobile folks are laying down cover fire.

"You would have to ask him," Reed replies. "I honestly couldn't even offer a tentative hypothesis."

[KerfuffleMach2]

Marvel New York

Krystal is very much glad everybody else was able to think quick and get out in time. And that Magtok thought to drag her along.

Thanks, Magtok. She won't go into it more for now. She didn't want to be distracted from the task at hand.

Probably goes without saying, but don't let those lasers hit you. They freaking hurt. A lot. Coming from a girl that repeatedly punctures her skin with her own bones, that's saying something.

We headed to Avengers Tower now?

[Lord Magtok]

Marvel New York

"The name is-" Magtok stops, and thinks. He can't rightly go about calling himself Purple Dr. Doom every time; that joke's going to wear thin after a while. The name Magtok is kinda already spoken for, too. When he gets back to the Nexus, he'll need some sort of other identity if he's going to avoid endless confusion and accidental run-ins with Modern Magtok's adversaries, who could make for great potential allies.

"-Malice. Lord Malice, evil genius. Your Ultron is but a amateur compared to my technological prowess; hacking one of the drones was child's play. Don't worry about it, we're not from your dimension, so I'm staying out of trouble until we get home. It seems you've got more than enough as is." There we go. Swapping the name 'Magtok' with the 'M' in 'AMEN' works well enough, and the symbolic change of text color (he still sounds the same, though) can be accompanied by a change in robe color, once he can afford to get a new costume. Soon, nobody will ever confuse him with that yellow, pathetic little sunflower from HALO that dares call itself a Magtok.

[Rebonack]

[Marvel NYC]

"Yes, the Avengers are under heavy attack by the Ultron Drones," the Invisible Woman explains. "The assault on the Baxter Building was likely just an attempt to prevent us from reinforcing them."

The Avengers have some pretty powerful folks on their team.

Do they really need reinforcements?

Regardless!

The Thing eyes Magtok with a critical eye. "Alright, I'm takin' your word for it. But no funny business or it'll be clobberin' time."

Maggy doesn't want to be on the business end of clobbering time.

It's pretty awful.

As our heroes approach the towers they'll be met by the sight of holy crap that's a giant Ultron!

The Avengers are doing battle with a giant Ultron that's easily two hundred feet tall! And spitting out little Ultron drones all over the place!

[KerfuffleMach2]

Marvel New York

Krystal raises an eyebrow at Magtok, but doesn't comment. There are more important issues at the moment.

Like the giant Ultron!

Krystal rubs her shoulder a bit. Other then a large hole burnt through her jacket, she seems perfectly fine now. Krystal actually decides to ditch the jacket now. It was kind ruined.

Think you can take that one over, Magtok? She seems to be completely ignoring his new name.

[Lord Magtok]

Marvel NYC

"Malice as of right now," he insists, before gazing up at the enormous kaiju-sized Ultron menacing the Avengers. That robot dwarfs Draken, and the ol' frost-lizard wasn't exactly on the small side of things, either.

"It being giant doesn't change much; if someone can get me inside him, yeah, I can do it. The adamantium hide's not going to be as cooperative, though. Should I tell him to throw himself into the sun or Mars or some other third place?" Malice forgets; are there Martians in Marvel? People who would complain and get all huffy if he launched a robot the size of Godzilla at their hapless cities?

[Rebonack]

[Marvel NYC]

Apparently Mars is inhabited by a race of beings calling themselves The Masters of the Universe.

They aren't capable of interplanetary travel and they're also a bunch of jerks. No one would really be upset if a giant robot got dumped there. Or at least no one that matters.

"I believe telling it to fly into the Sun would be the simplest means of disposal," Reed replies.

That's assuming Malice doesn't want a giant robot slave.

And... getting inside might be hard.

The Avengers are really wholloping on that thing and it isn't even budging! It just took a lightning bolt to the face from Thor and then swatted him out of the sky! "But I'm not sure how we'll be able to breach Ultron's outer shell! It appears to be made of primary adamantium rather than secondary. Breaking through it is effectively impossible."

"Well, you have magic here, right?" Geneva asks as she flies in closer. "Why not just transmute a chunk of it into some other material?"

Reed stares at her as if he can't decide whether she's stupid or brilliant.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Marvel New York

Something tells me he wouldn't actually follow that request. I mean, you could try, if you want.

Krystal looks over at Geneva and shrugs. I know nothing about magic. Think you can do it? I mean, we might as well try, right? Unless anybody has a better idea?

[Lord Magtok]

Marvel New York

A giant robot slave would be...difficult. A collection of drones would be fine, but the big guy might be kinda challenging to sneak through a portal. Even Magtok Malice knows there are limits.

"Sounds like the best plan we've got, yeah."