"So, gentlemen", said one of the four figures who had gathered in the
room. "What do you say?"
Two of the figures had met before in the past. Well, "met" probably wasn't the right word. They had fought each other, trashing a bar and firing an incalculable number of bullets at each other, somehow both coming out unscathed. But it was fair enough to say they knew each other. Working together wouldn't be all that new either.
Working together alongside a talking panda, though, that was new.
The silver-haired man in the red trench coat was the first to reply.
"Why not?" he said. "Seems you could use some help. And you even brought pizza".
"What he said", said the other figure, a man in a red outfit complete with a red mask with black circles around the eyeholes. "Although I would add that the money you're offering IS a deciding factor".
"Awesome", said the panda enthusiastically. "'Cause if those things I've heard about you are true..."
"Believe me", said the masked man. "The stories don't make me sound NEARLY as awesome as I actually am"
Three figures looked out over a vast, smoke-belching factory at the dead of night. People were walking into the factory in mass numbers, forced along by a number of metal-armoured humanoid beings.
"Cybermen", said one of the three, a black-haired man in a green jacket, watching the metal beings through binoculars. "And lots of them"
"What are Cybermen?" asked another, an anthropomorphic tigress in Chinese-style clothes.
She never got an answer, as an explosion echoed throughout the area.
"That'll be Po", said the tigress. "Come on!"
As the three figures left the area, none of them saw the falcon watching them from the skies.
When they got there, they found a silver-haired man in a red trench coat destroying dozens of Cybermen with a huge red sword, a masked man in red and black teleporting around, destroying the Cybermen by attacking through the gaps in their armour with a pair of katanas, and a giant panda fending off any Cybermen who came close with an improvised form of Kung Fu.
"Tigress!" called the panda, waving to her, not noticing the Cyberman reaching for him from behind.
"Po, behind you!" Tigress shouted, but the man with the red sword cut the Cyberman in two before it could get to Po.
With Tigress' help, they soon destroyed all the Cybermen outside the factory, allowing the captive humans to go free.
"So who are these guys?" asked Tigress.
"These are some guys who said they'd help us find the others", said Po. "Their names are Dante and Deadpool. Guys, this is Tigress, she's a friend of mine".
"So are we going to go in, or are we just going to introduce each other some more?" asked Dante.
"Lupin and Jigen are already in there", said Tigress. "They snuck in while we distracted the Cybermen".
"Dude, you hired ME for a DISTRACTION?" said Deadpool, clearly irritated at the idea.
"Yeah, kind of", admitted Po. "Come on, let's go help them out"
"ALERT! FOUR INTRUDERS HAVE ENTERED THE FACTORY!" said a Cyberman. "UNAUTHORISED DATA RETRIEVAL DETECTED!"
"THEY ARE ALL INCOMPATABLE! THEY WILL BE DELETED!" said another. This one looked to be their leader, distinguishable from the others by a visible brain behind a glass section on its head, and also by the fact it was wired into a large metal chair. Its eyes also glowed unlike the other Cybermen.
"ACTIVATE CONTROLLED UNIT 721"
It wasn't long (but long enough for Tigress to realise how annoying Deadpool could be) before they found their teammates, Lupin and Jigen,
running from something.
"Cybermen?" asked Tigress.
"No", said Jigen. "Much worse..."
Suddenly, there was a mighty crash from in front of them, and through the ceiling crashed a...
To be honest, none of them quite knew what it was. The top-half of its body was spherical and silver with a black stripe running down where its "face" was. Its face consisted of seven red dots (which they assumed were its eyes) in a hexagon formation. It had long black arms with three sharp clawed fingers each and short cylindrical legs.
It slashed out at Deadpool, but the loudmouthed assassin was easily able to dodge out of the way of it. In retaliation, Deadpool shot it in the face, but the bullets seemed to ricochet off the bizarre metal monster.
"Well that figures. Why is EVERYTHING in here immune to bullets?" said Deadpool.
Dante swung his sword Rebellion at the creature, but it simply grabbed the blade in one hand before hurling him against a wall.
"What is this thing?" asked Po.
It was then that Po spotted a strange metal device on its back. The device was a different tone of metal than the rest of its body, and had the Cybermen's logo on it.
"Hey guys, there's something on its back!" announced Po.
"Got it", said Tigress, running towards the creature.
Power seemed to flow into the metal thing until it fired an enormous red beam from its eyes. Po just managed to leap out and pull Tigress out of the way in time, as the beam went on and created a huge tunnel through the factory.
"Bam!" yelled Deadpool, appearing behind the being. It had no time to react before he stabbed a sword throught the device.
The metal creature looked around, as if it didn't know where it was or how it got there.
"What happened to it?" asked Po.
"I think we broke the Cybermen's control over it", said Lupin.
As another battalion of Cybermen approached, firing some kind of arm-mounted energy weapons, the seven-eyed metal being blocked their path, the energy attacks doing about as much damage to its seemingly inpenetrable metal body as Deadpool's bullets.
"Come on, let's get out of here!" said Jigen.
"Thank you", said Po to the metallic creature, before he and the others quickly evacuated the building.
The six of them soon arrived back at the hotel where Po had hired Dante and Deadpool. Po, Tigress, Dante, Lupin and Jigen were gathered round the table, Po and Dante enjoying a pizza, while Deadpool flicked between channels on the TV.
"So what did you get?" asked Dante.
By way of a reply, Lupin held up a simple pen drive.
"Information", said Lupin. "The location of the Orb of Continua, one
of the five Instruments of Time".
Today's team is brought to you courtesy of Italian Schizoid Boy. Review if you have a tam you'd like to submit or if you just want to say what you like/hate/think could be improved about this story. Thanks!