Training Session (Open to ALL, Rotating)

[forge]

(ooc: This thread is open to anyone who wants to play, though I'm really encouraging the trainees to play in here. Feel free to hop in and out at your discretion, though note that if you plan on not posting regularly, try not to interact with the other people in a way that would require their attention. Also, we've been given permission to keep Danger Room threads as Rotating, meaning they happen at "Some other time" and don't affect when and where your character is "at the moment". You can play both here, and anywhere else on the board. The difference is that your character should at least BE at the mansion. If you're in prison, or another country right about this time, sorry. =( )


Logan had told Forge to create a simulation to better train all the X-Men, from the brand spankin' new trainee's to the veterans like himself. Such a program of modulating difficulty would be a bit challenging, but thankfully for the technopath, he could literally plug into the Danger Room and control everything with his power. This would let him modulate the difficulty of the foes based off of the opponent they faced. Also he could create challenges on the fly for X-Men with powers that could easily overcome the obstacles it started with.

This should be very interesting.

The simulation had started pretty simply. The X-Men and trainees were shot out of the air in the X-Jet, they landed in a surreal location in the Antarctic called the "Savage Land." For some reason, this patch of tropical jungle was shielded from the blistering cold by a barrier. Within it's confines, the background seemed to be that of somewhere in the Cambodian jungle rather than the frozen wastes.

The Savage Land was immense, sprawling over a hundred miles in all directions. They knew that Forge had been blown out of the pilot's seat by one of the bizarre energy blasts that had knocked them out of the air. He was either dead or lost somewhere in the Jungle. They needed to find him.

Unfortunately many hostiles lay in the Jungle, along with perilous terrain and traps of a nearly futuristic technology. Their opponents seemed to be mutants, only they were uniform. The majority of them were lizard-like in appearance, scaley skin and incredibly agile. These opponents wielded spears and clubs, but were particularly clever. They had normal human damage durability. The other kind of opponents were large men with stone bodies, with strengths and damage resistences about twice that of the average body-builder.

Probably the largest danger to the X-Men would come from the dinosaurs that lived in the Savage Land. Raptors and T-Rexes could pose quite the obstacle, particularly when used by the enemy savages as attack animals. Some of the stone-men rode on Triceritops.

Various other mutant savages would pop up periodically, based on which X-Man was fighting where.

Forge sat in the control room, observing the entire room with his eyes closed as the X-Men began to split up into groups or solo runs through the jungle, trying to find "him" - and trying to survive.

[Maggott]

((OOC: Just a question: There's no actual Savage Land in this world, right? It's just something Forge dreamt up?))

Maggott landed, Eany and Meany in his hands, alone in the jungle. He had been in jungles before, but nothing this thick or dark.

The girls sprung from his hands and jumped about, munching eagerly on plants and bugs. Maggott was very unsure how this entire thing worked - he doubted they would get any energy from whatever they were eating though. Then again, if they could get hurt in here...There must be something actually physical...This is all very axed up,Maggott thought.

He was extremely thrown off his balance by their entrance into the room. From where he stood, it looked like he was in an immense jungle, though he had seen the room before, and it was nowhere near as large as it now seemed. Bizarre.

Just then, a low rustle from behind him caused Maggott to whirl around.

A Deinonychus popped its head from the foliage and looked up at Maggott. He took a step back and glanced at the girls, who had also noticed the new arrival. Not that the young mutant actually knew what kind of dinosaur he was facing - he had never been to a school other than this one - but he knew there was probably very few friendly creatures in this room.

Besides not knowing what dinosaur he faced, Maggott was also unaware that Deinonychi hunt in packs (Forge had done his research), and that Maggott and his slugs were now surrounded by seven other such predators, each eager to dig their digital talons into his hide.

[Maggott]

The Deinonychi from either side burst forward, screeching loudly. Maggott had seen Jurassic Park several times, and images flashed through his mind like a flipbook.

"Aw flip!" he shouted. He rolled to one side, coming to a stop by Eany and Meany. The Deinonychi landed by his side, their claws digging into the dirt. The dinosaurs immediately swooped their necks down to bite Maggott with their serrated teeth, but his slugs had even worse sets of jaws.

Eany and Meany plowed into the snouts of a dinosaur each, removing a huge chunk from each creature's upper muzzle. The two Deinonychi collapsed into the loam as Maggott got to his feet and crouched, ready to move again.

Meany slithered towards another dinosaur and attempted to bite its ankle, but the Deinonychus slashed down at her and knocked her aside.

Eany had better luck, jumping up and ripping out the belly of one of the pack, who screamed and fell backwards, its legs kicking wildly. It caught Eany's carapace with one of its talons and flung her head over tail.

Maggott sprung from his crouch and caught his slug in midair, rolling her into a large ball in his hands.

"Fpppwt?" Eany asked.

"That's right, doll, cricket." He launched Eany in a overhand pitch at the knee of the closest Deinonychus. The slug's maw tore through the creature's leg like butter, sending it smashing back into the bush it came from.

Meany slithered up Maggott's leg and onto his waist, where he plucked her up and held her.

"Snoek or biltong?"

"Krrrpt?"

"Biltong, I bet!" Maggott shouted as he performed the same move with Meany, this time colliding her with a Deinonychus's neck.

Maggott smiled at the tactic, just as a talon tore through his suit's back and sent him to his knees. One of the dinosaurs had fled back into the jungle and come around behind him, stealthily moving up until it could strike.

Maggott looked over his shoulder at his attacker.

"Clever girl..."

[Domino]

To be honest, Neena was getting a little bored. (Domino, she reminded herself. Pretend it's the workshop at home. In here, you're Domino...)

Domino, then, was getting a little bored. When fights weren't perfectly direct, it was what tended to happen. One enemy obviously couldn't luckily pick another opponent, but when she was in an environment like this one - fight for your life Or Else! - everything cut around her in a cone beginning twenty to thirty feet in front, even when the raptors and lizard things and big stone people that were really computer programs and shouldn't really be able to discriminate based on her luck. Then again, the program itself relied at least a little on random generation - and there was her trouble. Random generation would almost always land outside her little cone.

In case of something somehow breaking through, though, Neena had a gun. A big one, her favorite, a Sig Sauer, shoved in a waist holster. (She'd never become acclimated to the shoulder kind, because, unlike others, shooting from the waist worked for her as well as in all the old Westerns.) She also had a hunting knife strapped to her thigh and a katana sheathed across her back, the handle on her left shoulder for easy access.

Why did she have a sword when she had a gun? Well, for one thing it was cool. For another, it was really, really cool. Especially since she knew how to use it. And because sometimes guns ran out of ammunition, and because she still had nightmares about the force fields from Dune.

She also had Nothin' Bout Me by Sting stuck in her head.

The combination was much less fun even than it sounded.

She hacked her way, humming, through a difficult path she'd chosen at random that she knew, more or less, would lead her either straight for Forge or for whatever was at the end of the proverbial rainbow, possibly the source of the "mysterious energy blasts" that had knocked them out of the sky. Either way, she'd find it sooner or later - probably sooner.

Ho hum. Sometimes it sucked to be preternaturally good at everything. Most of the time, actually. Got old.

At least she got to wear one of the Bond Girl suits. She felt very Ursula Anders - or, she supposed, Eva Green these days.

They were going to kill the Bond movies, she just knew it.

"In cold weather," she sang quietly as she whacked easily through a large, scary snake, spattering blood and tiny internal organs, "A hand is a glove..."

Times like this, a lonely man like me needs love...

Then came the rustling. To her left - ten o'clock. There was rustling at ten o'clock.

Domino hated it when things rustled.

[forge]

Here's a riddle for you, Forge my man. Forge thought to himself as he monitored the trainees and X-Men in the Danger Room, spawning enemies where they needed spawning and controlling others for added difficulty where needed. What's hotter than a demolitions expert in a leather bodysuit with a bangin' body and a sexy exotic mutant look? Gee, I dunno Forge, what is hotter than a demolitions expert in a leather bodysuit with a bangin' body and a sexy exotic mutant look? Glad you asked. One that has a big fuckin' gun and a G-D katana strapped to her back!

Forge grinned to himself, unable to pry his eyes from the beautiful image for a moment. It was odd, up until she'd donned the leather and put on the sword and gun, he'd been content on not noticing how good looking and cool Domino was... but now he allowed himself something of a window. What the hell, right? Might as well live a little while controlling the Danger Room.

He also couldn't help but notice that no enemies were being generated in her area... which made sense, given her luck. So, barring some bizarre set of bad luck on his part, he generated an enemy for her. Something big and nasty and ready to be diced up with a katana... or shot to death... or maybe even to eat her. You know, whatever worked.

Well then, Lady Luck, let's see how well you handle up on the Triceratops... a trained triceratops, with a local rider. One with a nifty bow and arrow... and he's a mean shot.

He let loose his creation, and watched with joy, pausing only to keep a monitor on Maggott. The African was really pwning up on the Deinonychus with those two slugs. They were vicious little bastards... but as Forge had set into play, the AI got better as it's enemy did... and now one of them was right on his heels. And did Maggott just make a Jurassic Park joke?

The inner Dungeon Master inside of Bandero caused him to giggle, on the edge of his seat as to what the two new recruits would do next.

[Domino]

Rustle rustle.

Rustle rustle rustle.

Domino's hearbeat escalated and she could feel her muscles shifting automatically for a springback, her power-controlled hindbrain beginning to take over.

Ooh. This was going to be the fun part, after all.

Something huge and terrifyingly like a dragon burst from the brush and bracken ahead of her and her center of gravity shifted under its own power, the katana tossed to her other hand and her right fingers grasping for the Sig before she could blink and before the - no, it was just a triceratops, not a dragon - the monster (and rider?) could close much more than a few feet. She very nearly saw the green grid pattern of her favorite planning program appear over the top of the setting as she noticed tiny details at an inhuman speed, the arc at which the bow was curved being the foremost behind the speed at which the triceratops was traveling.

Too fast and too far. Neena threw herself to the left, barely escaping being run down, but the bowman was leading her; a keen shot hissed past her cheek to bury itself in the tree trunk, bare centimeters away from catching her under the side of the jaw. Instant death at the edge of a three-inch war bolt.

She wondered briefly, while shoving the katana back into its sheath (all about the wrong range for what she thought she might be about to try) and rocketing upright to chase down the triceratops that had been carried a few dozen feet by its own mass, whether you could actually die in the Danger Room, or whether you just "died." She was hoping the latter. It surely wasn't legal or safe for the former, was it?

The bolt, she reflected as the bowman turned in the saddle and began to take aim at the crazy woman who was chasing down his steed, looked real enough to her. So did the one currently lodged in the shooting notch. She threw herself right just as it whizzed past her ear and ther triceratops began to skid to a halt.

Taking the opportunity as the bowman began to reach behind him for a third shot from his quiver, Domino grabbed the girths holding the saddle onto the triceratops and swung herself onto the monster to an enraged cry from its rider, who was just fitting the next arrow to its notch.

Then she stabbed him in the neck with her knife and he stopped screaming. Instead he began to gurgle unappealingingly. She shoved him off the triceratops.

Goodness, she hoped the redshirts in here weren't actors or other trainees. That would just be awkward.

Nearly as awkward as sitting on top of a huge dinosaur that had just realized you were quite clearly not his trainer, and that his trainer was quite clearly spasming bloodily on the jungle floor. She felt the panic roil up through the musculature in its neck even before it began to scream and thrash, which was lucky; it gave her the opportunity to leap from its back and more or less onto a sturdy, low-hanging branch. Slipping only once for a heart-stopping instant, she made it all the way on top of the branch. The leather was actually very good for traction. Not even a scraped knee.

There was, though, a thrashing triceratops nearby. She should deal with that. Pulling the Sig back out of its holster and shoving the knife away simultaneously, she took a couple of shots at the creature's skull (in the few seconds she could get a decent lock on it) before she realized that the thick plating she'd learned about in third grade was protecting it - and the triceratops, in its panic and rage, headbutted the tree.

She didn't fall out. But she did fall down, into an awkward crook that was luckily not the bone-shattering forest floor but wasn't the easiest position from which to escape.

Aiming wildly, she shot from the compromising position and heard a screech, so she shot again - and again. And once more, just to be sure.

There was a lot of stumbling and then a loud thud. Wrestling herself out of the catch of the tree, she stood once more on the low branch, surveying the heavy damage wreaked over the area.

She'd caught the triceratops twice under the chin, once in the eye, and once more in the headplate. It was bleeding from only the first two places, kicking gently and making low keening noises that almost made her feel bad. It was half-lying under the local rider, who appeared to have... burst... under the pressure from above.

(Ew.)

Patting the belt that held her extra clips as well as her holster, she decided against sticking a new one in. Still six shots - plenty. And that stupid song wasn't in her head anymore! Really, triceratopses aside, the luck was still in full effect.

And she'd totally got to ride a dinosaur.

Didn't get much better than that.

Hopping down from the tree and sliding down the rootbase, she gave the dying dinosaur a wide berth and continued on her way. It would have to be harder from here on out; though her comrades might have heard the commotion, they might be unlikely to come running because of the dinosaur itself, and her enemies would definitely have heard and would come to investigate, especially since they could probably tell she'd killed their rider and the monster from the sounds. There was very little even in the infinite dreams of improbability that could cut her a clear path now.

Just as well; it was how she liked it. Glancing up into the clear sky to where she thought the control booth might be, she smiled, squinting against the faux-sun. How thoughtful.

[Storm]

Arms spread, Storm soared gently over the jungle treetops, the leaves below her feet rustling in the wind that was holding her aloft. For the time being, she was observing - both the skills of the new trainees, and Forge's skills, which she had not yet had the opportunity to experience to their full Danger Room extent.

So far, the recruits seemed to be doing well. She could hear sounds of carnage below, and glints of metal which she knew to be Maggot's slugs. She listened to his shouts over the breeze for a moment before moving on.

She flew a few more miles over the jungle, listening and watching, all the time growing more and more satisfied. Forge was a natural, of course. She quelled a little voice in the back of her head that wondered if he could keep an eye on everyone at once in such an advanced program; it WAS possible for people to get injured here. But then she thought about the other things she had seen him do, and thought about the kind light in his eye, and stopped worrying.

This was a good program, and it was time to get up close. Never mind teamwork at the moment; for once, it would be every man for himself.

Storm spotted a clearing and dove, her silver cape flashing behind her. She alighted neatly and lightly on the grass, keeping up the wind a little in readiness for anything. Her hair swirled in tumultuous clouds as she looked around.

She had chosen a clearing because she needed ample space to maneuver; flight by wind was little use in dense foliage, and lightning could easily start fires amongst the trees, even in a rainforest. This was the spot for her. Muscles at the ready, she turned in a slow circle, ready to experience whatever might be hiding in the nearby forest.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. Her head turned sharply to look at a clump of boulders. Was something behind them? No.

They shifted, and with a creaking of rock against rock they unfolded themselves upwards. It was a cluster of stone men, and they grunted as they stood from a crouch and stretched themselves in front of her. There were at least five of them.

Unnecessary violence was against prettymuch everything Storm believed, but she could not deny the pleasure of the adrenaline rush that came from a good session in the Danger Room. She allowed herself a small smile.

[Nightcrawler]

Most people would have found making their way through a jungle a tedious business. It required the clearing of underbrush, making sure you actually had a clear trail and there wasn't something waiting to bite you, and keeping your eyes to all sides as you moved slow enough for anything to catch you.

Kurt had been practically raised on the trapeeze. He decided to take a different route.

Practically flying from branch to branch, a small smile slid onto Kurt's face, black leather coat flapping behind him as he swung along. Being extremely careful to take heed of the cutlass hanging from his side, he flipped through the air, teleporting at the last moment to reappear just before a springy branch, grabbing it and swinging around like the parallel bars.

Once, twice, thrice... release!

A flash of blue, black and dark red, it was almost impossible to tell which way he was facing as he moved, whether he was upside down or rightside up, but his yellow eyes were always moving, searching three steps ahead and planning any teleporting required.

At this rate, finding Forge was going to be no problem.

The blur of green that suddenly appeared in front of him, however, could prove to be problematic.

Kurt was moving far too fast to avoid the scaly creature as it jumped in his path, even too fast to think about teleporting, and he was instinctively reaching for his sword as he slammed into the other form, trapping his right arm between their bodies. They fell in a twisting, tumbling mass, the lizard man's arms grappling around Kurt, Kurt's free hand on the other's lower jaw, pressing away and keeping the sharp teeth away from his neck.

Here comes the ground.

Baring his teeth, Kurt struggled desperately, managing to loosed the lizard's hold on him enough to slide his legs up and kick out at the green man's torso; he tore himself free just in time to teleport away to the safety of a tree branch. He winced and looked away at the heavy thud as the lizard man's body hit the jungle floor below.

And now I'm not so lucky. Unclasping the thin piece of leather keeping his cutlass in its sheath, he slid it free and watched as the lizard men gathered on the next branch, beady eyes watching menacingly.

Definitely not so lucky.

[quibby]

Ah, there's nothing quite as relaxing as a day off. Which makes me wonder why I'm in here, Sam thought wryly as he examined his surroundings. The vibrant greens and ambient noises of the dense rainforest surrounded him, the hole that he'd made in the canopy far above barely distinguishible. Even with that telekinetic barrier in between him and the ground, it had still been a really rough landing. The pain from one massive bruise on Sam's upper arm and the aches from various others that were now forming were enough to tell him that. The foot-deep crater that was roughly shaped like an oversized man was another hint. That little trick had been one of self preservation; Sam didn't think that he could do that again, even if he'd wanted to do so. It had felt the way he imagined it would feel to be crushed in the depths of the ocean. Not very pleasant.

Shifting his mentality to assessing his situation, Sam quickly ran though what had survived the landing: black hat, black leather duster, boots, jeans, Leatherman multitool, watch, white tee shirt with the slogan "Tune It or Die!" in bold black letters. He was set. Or as set as he could be. Having seen what Miss Thurman had brought in with her, Sam regretted not bringing something a bit bigger than the four-inch blade on his Leatherman. Domino, Domino. This isn't the school. Even if he used their codenames out loud, Sam generally thought of the teachers by their given names. Maybe it was just out of an aversion to the name that he'd chosen. Mindblast. It had been the first thing that had come to mind and befitting what he could do, but a derogatory name from childhood. Again, Sam's mind began to wander, wondering if anyone else had a similar source.

"Focus, you moron. Absent thoughts will kill you," Sam muttered. He couldn't stay here and wait for anybody else to come to him; he had made far too much noise on landing, and there would no doubt be predators coming in to investigate the source of that delicious sound. And Sam had no desire to be on the menu for anything, digital hologram or otherwise. Talk about ending on a sour note.

Any further thought was cut off by a sound that was entirely not of this realm: gunfire. The sound was extremely muffled in the foliage of the all-engulfing jungle, but Sam was able to determine a direction. Taking a turn to his left, Sam started walking, branches and undergrowth seeming to flatten out of his way as he passed. Much easier than a machete, Sam thought.

Step, step, step, splash. Stepping out into a slight clearing, Sam found himself ankle-deep in a puddle of some kind. He took a step back, shaking mud and water from his boots, and examined the offending body of water. There are times when even the most intelligent of humans must realize that their vast vocabulary is no match for what he or she is seeing, and Sam found himself in such a position as he gazed at was most definitely a footprint filled with water. "Shit," he muttered. Judging from the shape, it was probably a Tyrannosaurus rex, which would make this... "A game trail," Sam added. Just one more thing to add to his list of worries. He had no doubt that he could deal with a solitary one, with a lot of difficulty, but if two or more showed up, he was quite royally screwed.

"At least I'll be able to hear it coming," Sam muttered as he hesitantly crossed the massive game trail and reentered the jungle on the other side.

Samuel Williams
~Mindblast~

[Maggott]

On his back, Maggott saw Storm glide overhead and then disappear again. He rolled to the side as the Deinonychus slashed down at him, then sprang into a crouch. The dinosaur roared and turned to him, but it's roar quickly turned into a gurgling moan as both Eany and Meany collided with the creature's meaty side, tearing into it and chewing straight through.

Maggott stood and raised a hand to the sky. "No problem down here, luv, just keep flyin!"

Eany and Meany sprang into his arms. "Really axed 'em up, eh, dolls? You did lekker."

The slugs slithered up to his shoulders and hung on tight as Maggott ran further into the jungle.

[Nightcrawler]

Nightcrawler barely had time to move before the lizard men were attacking; everywhere he looked there was nothing but green scales, and without a line of sight... he had nowhere to go.

Sie sind nicht echt. So instead he brandished his cutlass, the blade reflecting the faint light that streamed through the foliage above.

Deflecting a thrust from a spear, Kurt spun aside, his cutlass edge slashing through scale to muscle beneath; he could feel the drops of blood as they splattered across his face, and he cringed slightly, giving an arrow time to zip past and draw a thin line on his cheek. Sie sind nicht echt.

Another flash of the cutlass, and a lizard man fell from the branch, clutching a wound in its stomach. A solid punch to another's jaw sent it scrambling for purchase at the trunk in a desperate attempt not to follow its companion to the ground. Kurt spiraled around from limb to limb, just like he did regularly on the banister, his sword flashing and his body flailing, keeping the lizard men at bay.

A bit too far at bay, Kurt thought, looking up in confusion as they all suddenly retreated. And it was all to obvious why, once he started paying attention. A whole line of archers were on a branch not 50 feet away, all taking aim at Kurt, who was standing on one hand, his legs spread to either side.

Ah... that could be problematic.

And yet, now that the reptilian forms had retreated... he could see where to go.

The twang of the bows complimented the bamf! of teleportation, and eight arrows sailed harmlessly through a cloud of black smoke.

[Maggott]

Meany slammed into the face of a lizard-man, eliciting a scream from the creature. Eany sailed through the air, swallowing an arrow mid-flight and then plummeting down through the chest of its originator.

"Axed up, luvs!" Maggott cried as he ran beneath the tree branches. The girls dropped down from the bodies of their dead attackers and into his arms as he ran through the foliage. He smiled down at the slugs in his arms. "Proud of ya, girls!" We're gonna be the first to find Forge, s'true bob!

His smile was wiped from his face as a metallic sheen rose up ahead of them, rising from the forest floor with a hydraulic hiss.

"Wha-"

A net shot forth and wrapped around the trio before Maggott or the slugs could react. The net had bolas on six corner, and they knotted and wrapped themselves tightly around the new X-Man. Maggott collapsed to the ground, unable to move. He tried to look down at the girls, but couldn't even move his head or neck. He felt them squirming against his arms and stomach, but knew they couldn't chew their way out - if they could, they'd be free already. Their heads must have been forced in toward his stomach and chest, making them unable to get at their bonds.

"Well, shit."

[Storm]

Storm braced her muscles as the stone men lumbered towards her, forming a neat half-circle. They would form a circle soon, she realized, if she let them. Then again, perhaps that would be to her advantage. She quietly summoned her powers, keeping them at bay for the time being. Only her glowing white eyes belied what she was doing.

Of course, these guys didn't exactly look capable of reasoning anyway.

They formed a circle around her, towering up at twice her height, and began to close in. She let them. But come to think of it, they were moving too slowly. Almost carelessly she flicked her wrists and let loose a small stream of electricity from each palm. The little blast tore a hole in the foreheads of two stone men opposite each other. They stopped in their tracks for a moment, and then let out a simultaneous roar. Storm smiled.

As they heaved themselves into a grinding sprint towards her, she flexed her muscles and shot into the air at the last minute. There was an ear-splitting crack and crunch of stone, and the ground was suddenly littered with boulders.

There were four stone men left, though, and they grunted and looked up at her ponderously. Storm briefly considered lifting one to drop him on the ground, a fall that would break almost anyone, but even her power was not great enough to lift three tons of solid rock. Ah well, she would try the usual tactic.

Her arms lifted and her cape whipped around her as she called lightning out of the skies. This was a playdate, and she was going to have some real fun; she called up at least five times the amount of energy she thought she would need. Focusing on the closest stone man, she let fly.

Electrified, he hummed with powerful energy for a moment before exploding in a cloud of dust. She smiled with satisfaction and dove towards the earth, feeling just grand.

[Maggott]

Maggott had only had to return the girls into himself a few times in combat - one of which was the almost fatal fight with Sabretooth. He felt much less conspicuous about it here, where no teammates at all were present, yet he still felt a junglefull of eyes staring at him.

And it was never a pretty or pleasant act as it was, But with this net here, what other choice is there? Maggott tried to look down, but only succeeded in spotting the tops of Eany and Meany's heads. "Shame to ruin the new suit, eh, dolls?" He sighed, then attempted to relax.

"Have at it, girlies."

The two slugs bore into his stomach, the leather uniform giving them no pause. Maggott gritted his teeth and arched his back in pain, grunting into his closed mouth, trying to give no notice that someone was in trouble here on the forest floor. He wanted neither attention from his enemies or friends.

When the deed was done, and as Maggott's stomach knitted itself back together, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Then again...they had to come back out. Maggott's skin and body began to infuse with the strength of the creatures the girls had devoured. Yet, he didn't get staunch as much as he had hoped. Certainly not enough to do any damage to the net. These holograms or whatever aren't exactly padkos, huh? Plan B, then. The kak plan.

Maggott willed the girls to come out once more, and they followed his bidding happily, chowing through his stomach and then slamming maw-first into the net this time, slicing through it with ease. Within seconds, Maggott's stomach had healed once more, and the girl's had chewed the net into their stomachs.

Maggott sat up and looked at his blue-tinted stomach, showing through his ragged and torn X-Men jacket. Ag shame, man. He stood and held out his arms to the slugs, who jumped up and curled around his hands and wrists.

"Let's not do that again, eh?" he said to them as he began to run once more.