Week 3: Pastures New

In the palatial home of Politburo Chief Zaputsky, our team (who aren’t actually a team yet) recommence negotiations. Some of the items agree upon for the base include:

Full bio and physics laboratories
Factory facility
Nuclear generator
Barracks
Plush living quarters underground for all henchmen
Armoury – stocked with rifles etc.
Supplies and storage
Fence 10’ wire – electrified if needed
4 guard towers at the corners of the compound
2 SAM’s
Detection facility including – IR, CCTV, Sound and X-Ray
10 top line troops (actually grunts that they’re glad to get rid of)
20 psychotic killers
Harem (with no women atm)
250 million (- cost of the construction etc. = 150 million. Which hasn’t arrived)
Loan of an aircraft to fly the construction materials etc. in.



Khatanga is located in the northern wastes of Siberia. An abandoned military base on a large (sometimes frozen) river, there’s not much to see or do no matter how much snow Sabretooth throws at Iceman. Mystique fails to contact BO Bert, the guy that is holding the Dreadnoughts and is sent to America to track him down. She is a little concerned about the Sentinel attacks, but rather bored in Siberia and takes a flight to NY. She uses contacts in the underworld to get the story on the fate of the DN’s. The Fantastic Four, recovering from a monumental beating at the hands of Doom’s cronies tracked down the trucks and utterly destroyed them. Mystique reports in and jets off to a tropical beach to await the construction in more comfort.
Months pass. Several work crew are killed as a motivator by Doom, and several more by the mercenaries who are totally wired on barbiturates. Doom and Hank research the production of Doombots and Inter-Dimensional Portals. A force rifle is crafted for Mystique.
When the site is finished, a plane arrives to retrieve the workers. As it takes off it is struck by a SAM and destroyed. Doom.
A tingling sensation sweeps through Doom. All the henchmen feel the stirring in the air. Iceman gazes across the land as Sabe checks the monitors. Nothing going on out there. Doom checks the internal cameras and sees a glowing field of energy emanating from the prototype portal. Hank is busy at the controls. He rushes down to berate Beast and shut off the power. A bolt of energy strikes his metallic form rooting him to the floor. Pain floods his body as he sees Beast arch his back in agony. The glow spreads quickly through the building. Sabe reachs for the cutout button but his hand freezes poised over the controls. Everything fades to black.

Doom and Ice awaken. Doc is in the basement where all is quiet. The portal is shut down. In fact everything is shut down. With his enhanced sight, Doom sees the prone form of Beast stir. Iceman is outside in the compound when he comes around. Heat washes over his body and strange sounds assault his senses. He looks around and is startled to see giant trees surrounding the base. Ferns and brush creep right up to the perimeter fence. He freezes the lower half of his body and feels reassured. A little. When his temperature abates along with a small dose of shock, he ices a column beneath his feet and rockets into the air. As far as he can see the jungle stretches. Mountains dominate the horizon in one direction, but other than that, steamy jungle abounds. Sabe awakes in the control room and checks the monitors. Nada. Power levels are maxed out at zero. In fact no lights and no power. Mysty revives in her palatial accommodation and moves up the stairs to find out what the hell just happened. Doom picks Beast up and calmly asks wtf he did. Beast explains in complex mathematical lingo (which Doom easily understands) that he was running a series of tests on the portal to fix the position of Mephisto’s realm. Neither can understand why it surged as it did. Doom impresses upon Beast the need to restore power. And leaves to join all in the compound. Several guards have not survived the transition and gore carpets several walls of the base. Half of the crappy troops (5) made it, together with half of the mercs (10).
Sabretooth roars with approval and launches himself through the gate (nicely opening it first) and into the jungle in search of something to hunt. Knew smells and sounds assault his senses as he plummets through the wild undergrowth. A curious barking noise and strange smell come from his left. He steers that way. The barking stops. He leaps up into a tree, clinging to the bark and surveying the jungle. Which explodes in a shower of hide, teeth and claws. A shrieking raptor clings to the bole below him, snapping ineffectually at his heels. With a grin, our ball of fur plummets into its head feet first driving the creature the ground, landing atop. He snatches at the raptors head with a thought to swinging it into the nearest tree trunk, but his aim is off. The raptor rakes it back legs but they are hampered by Sabes own body. He snatches again, And again his huge hands fail to gain purchase. The raptor has wriggled it’s powerful legs under Sabe and with a mighty swipe, a 6 inch claw tears through Sabes belly. A roar pierces the air of the jungle as Sabretooths guts spill out onto the shrieking dino.
The gang look to the jungle. Iceman and Mystique sprint into action. Barks resound through the jungle and they swerve unerringly to where a victorious raptor stands over his fallen comrade. The speed of the raptor is incredible as it launches itself straight into the Iceman rending his armour and knocking him to the floor. His ice covering is badly torn bu has not penetrated to his body. Mystique blasts at the creature with her new force rifle but misses. The distraction worked tho, as it springs toward her.

Doom gathers 5 mercs and rushes into the jungle. As they acclimatize to the dense foliage a 400lb projectile hammers into one of the mercs with a frenzy of tearing claws and teeth. He doesn’t quite make it. The other troops open up on full auto with AK’s, blood spurts from the creature as it shrieks in agony. Doom misses the rap with a force bolt which fells a distant tree. The badly injured dino leaps upon another hapless soldier, tearing his head clean off. Doom rises from the jungle floor and hovers over the battle. As more bullets rip into the raptor it turns tail and plummets into the undergrowth trailing blood on the green leaves. Doom espies movement in the jungle coming inexorably toward them. He orders the remaining troops to run back to the base. Streaks of brown fly through the jungle after the now frantic troopers. Doom scatters them with a bolt but more enemies converge from all sides.

Mystique beats off the raptors attack but suffers a nasty tear from a swiping claw. Iceman raises his hand (from his prone position) and freezes the raptors legs to the jungle floor. It shrieks in rage. Mysty shifts form and now stands 6’ tall on powerful hind legs ending in vicious curved claws. Her lips pull back from glistening teeth as the power of a raptor form fills her with glee. She tears into her enemy knocking it to the floor and rapidly reducing the creature to torn flaps of skin and rivers of blood.
Iceman rushes over to Sabretooth and freezes the wound with super cold frost. He picks up his friend who is slowly regaining conciousness. The two stagger into the brush toward the base. Mystique tries to shift to a bird like form as barks erupt from the jungle behind her. She fails and weakness strikes her body. She runs. Rustling and crunching sounds precede the hunters as they bear down on her.

Doom flies back to the compound as screams rise from the dense jungle below. He lands by the gate and promptly locks it as an inquisitive raptor head pokes from the jungle down the line. A guard pelts frantically from the bush heading for the gate screaming for help. His face turns to horror as his hands close on the gate struts and pull. The face crashes into the fence in a shower of blood as a raptor slams into him. The creature begins feasting as the troopers cries fade into a gurgle.
Doom crosses his arms.

Mystique starts shifting to a cheetah form but the new shape is taking a little too long to materialize and she is hit from behind by a frenzy of claws. She swings to protect herself but goes down with a scream and an explosion of blood. Ice stops and asks if Sabe can make it on his own, he grunts affirmative. Strength is returning as his prodigious regeneration kicks into full flow. He leaps over the fence and trots over to Doom. Ice pelts back through the forest and is presented by deja-vu as a raptor stands above another of his friends. He blasts the raptor as it jumps at this new morsel. Again, his armour is torn. Rage takes over and Iceman uses the most devastating power in his repertoire to freeze the blood inside the shrieking creature. It collapses to the ground. More sounds from the jungle forces Iceman to work quickly. He freezes Mystiques wounds and forms an ice slide, zipping back through the trees, ducking and swerving to avoid the massive trunks. He flashes over the fence and takes Myst straight to Hank (expert in Bio/Medical matters), before returning to join Doom and Sabe.
Sabretooth notices a gap in the fence a short way to the north of their position. With dawning horror, they realize that this is where the dock stood before. It didn’t come with them but the gap is exists. Quickly, Iceman freezes a wall to fill the gap and Sabe rushes to gather sheets of corrugated iron from the storage huts. He crimps the sheets together with a vicelike grip and slaps it to the ice where it handily freezes.
A lone scream penetrates the air. “Helllllp.” One merc is still out there. Doom looks unconcerned but Iceman flashes over the fence leaving another crazy trail of ice steaming in the air. He uses the tree tops to secure his slide and finally reaches a small clearing where the cries emanate from a prone trooper. His legs are severely torn. A shrieking fills the air behind Iceman as he stands upon his slide, 30’ above the jungle floor. He spins just in time to see a blur of brown… fall into the jungle below, deep scratches in the ice alluding to the failed attempt to sneak up on it’s prey. Iceman freezes its head and the rap stumbles around in the growth. He also freezes the troopers head, stopping his cries and mercifully his conciousness.
He surveys the area, but sees no more trouble. He conjures up a ladder and slides down. Dropping to the ground he scoops up the fallen soldier.
A raptor slams into him from the surrounding jungle. His armour protects himself from the claws but the soldier splashes blood all over his crystalline body. He freezes the raptors head and rushes for the ladder as shrieks come from nearby.
Halfway up and the jungle erupts as a raptor leaps 15’ into the air to land on Ice’s back, claws gaining purchase in his shell of ice. Claws tear into his armour. Iceman attempts to freeze it’s blood, but with no sight of the creature it proves too difficult. The raptor claws tear deep into the armour and blood spurts from our hero.
Barks rise from the ground as Iceman frantically clings to the ladder. He floods his body with super waves of cold and the raptor is completely encased in ice, attached to Iceman. This proves a little too much to bear and Iceman loses his grip on the ladder, plunging to the ground below and the shrieking pack of raptors. They waste no time in pouncing on the ice and tearing chunks out of it. With a mighty surge of concentration Iceman extends the block to encompass 20’ in all directions (Red result!). All raptors cease movement. Iceman is now lying in a giant block of Ice with 4 raptors in various poses throughout. With a chuckle he opens a tunnel in the ice and steps outside to admire his handiwork, refreezing his wounds. He returns to the compound.

Some very nice work there, but things to bear in mind too. We haven’t really come across edged attacks before and it shows. (Previous fights pretty much involved punching peoples faces in). A fighting roll is made. Green and yellow are pretty much just hit, take damage. But a red is a Kill result. This is what the raptor got on Sabretooth. An endurance test is made, on everything but white, the kill result is resisted. Sabe was unlucky. Endurance loss continues until medical attention. With him it doesn’t matter so much as his regeneration would have kept him alive, well, upto the point where the raptors ate him that is. Mystique went past 0 hits and suffered the same endurance loss. She was saved by the quick actions of Iceman, but will be rather tender for some time.