Chapter 1: Run for Help

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Emma couldn't feel the presence of most of the others any more. This annoyed her. She'd felt them when they had all been on the starting block – for lack of a better term, but she could not feel them here. Not even Erik, her one time confidant.

She had not felt those men in black. They were mindless. Probably some kind of robot.

She was in sight of a large ramp heading up into one of the trees before the phone's noise interrupted her run. Next to her, an African-American released his breath. They both looked and the video, then at each other.

"What are those things?" Emma asked. "They're not sentinels."

"What's a sentinel?" The man's voice had a crisp military tone to it. He sounded not unlike Fury. "I was going to say it wasn't quite a manhunter." He looked her over, appearing slightly disapproving. "Jon Stewart, Green Lantern Corps." So that's what the logo on his chest meant.

"Emma Frost," she told him. "Hm. Surprisingly, this phone acts like... a phone. There's a list of the other people here."

Jon took a look himself. "Who's 'Cy...' oh. Got it." Cyclops's name had been greyed out. He snapped the phone shut. "We should keep moving," he told her. "Those things are behind us for now, but who knows for how long?

Emma had already placed a call, glanced behind her again, "Erik? Emma. Did you recognize those things?"

Jon had started jogging up the ramp, Emma hurried to keep up.

"No. They're not metallic," Magneto told her. "Where are you? And why are you using a phone, of all things? I promise you, I do not have my helmet."

"I can't feel you. Something about the distance here is throwing me."

"Understood. I hear..." the phone clicked off.

"Are you coming?" asked Jon.

Emma had to jog to keep up with him.

To her surprise, there was an entire town up the ramp. Buildings built out from the trunks, smaller houses on enormous branches. People were openly staring at both of them. Jon's green uniform stood out like a sore thumb. Emma's liberal costume were attracting just as many surprised eyeballs.

Terrific.

Magneto was running. He hated running. But he'd spotted the glint of sunlight on black sunglasses behind him. And from the rapid footsteps, he'd been spotted too. His metal armor, thankfully, didn't clank, thanks to his magnetism power, but it wasn't working powerfully enough to let him fly.

Thus: Running.

He was near the ramp to something the map called 'Star Grund'. Running one half loop around the large tree, he wait until he could tell he was out of line of sight and jumped. He still had enough control of magnetism that he landed lightly on the ground.

That the gravity here was much lighter than Earth's helped.

He heard his pursuer continuing to 'chase' him up the tree. He pressed himself against the trunk and waited for the footsteps to recede.

They instead stopped outright, remained paused for a few moments, then reduced to walking pace. It was continuing up.

Magneto picked a path and walked calmly away.

Dinah and Oliver walked along the pathways of Silk Grund. "It's actually kind of peaceful, Oliver," she told him. "You think you'd be able to live in a tree like this?"

Green Arrow gave a visible wince. "I already have Flash calling me Legolas. I really don't want to give him any more ammunition. Besides, we should be figuring out how to get home."

Dinah grinned at him. She nodded to the young girl staring up at her. She knelt down beside her and introduced herself.

The girl blushed at the attention, and backed away.

Dinah looked at Oliver and shrugged.

Nick had taken to the caves. Saying they were lit by lamps wasn't accurate. They were filled with something that appeared to be honey, and had attracted some kind luminescent moth.

He was already upset. Someone had forcibly kidnapped him to some godforsaken place, hunting him with god only knew what, and the Raft was probably being broken out of again.

Alright. That last one was a guess, but he was betting on it. He couldn't remember if Magneto had actually been imprisoned in the Raft before seeing him here, after all.

The entrance he'd used was also a bit on the strange side. It was a short ladder, right between two large roots of the giant trees. It had been circled with some sort of flower petals, like it was important in some way.

The caverns themselves appeared to be natural, if deep. They showed signs of human habitation at one point, though they were clearly empty now. Curious.

He would continue investigating – but he was no closer now to why they'd come here. Or more importantly, how to leave.

He also had the damnedest feeling he was being watched, but couldn't spot anything particular.

The chairman looked up from the screen labeled 'Nick Fury'. Six minutes had passed since his hunters had been release. He turned to examine the screens. The scenario called for... there they were. One up near the top of Sky Grund, holding on to a small branch. A second in the caves appearing lost. A third, near the ground of Star Grund.

He cycled through the menus. Objectives, check. Result: Additional hunters. Time allowed: Fifteen minutes. Initiate.

This would be the easiest mission, so he'd bet on completion. He glanced at a third set of screens. It looked like they'd be a winner either way.

Tigra had always had a small belt for the carrying of a smart phone.

That was her story and she was sticking to it.

Which is where it was resting when it beeped, alerting her to a message. It was another video.

"Mission 1?" she asked nobody in particular, and kept reading."Warning: Dangerous situations have been detected in your area." A map overlay popped up, showing two markers and one large zone in the caves with a question mark over it. "Failure to complete any step of this mission will result in increased difficulty."

There were now two timers, the longer countdown, and one coming down from 14:45. Well. Increased Difficulty sounded bad, no matter what was going on. She was already on Sky Grund, having run to the far edges of the map after Cyclops had failed to blow anything up.

So she had to go further up. This was done by a series of ladders (the ramps going away about the the three quarters mark) hooked the tree itself and a series of smaller branches. At the top...

At the top was a child. A human child, holding onto the top of the tree for dear life.

Tigra gave an audible groan. Whatever intelligence had brought them had an awful sense of humor. "In Soviet Russia, cat saves kid from tree," she grumbled. "And I'm older than that joke," she added, in case anyone was actually listening.

Thankfully, she didn't have to jump the last few branches, anyone else probably would have. Claws made for excellent climbing spikes.

"Hey, it's alright," she told him, speaking kitten soft to him. "I can get you down."

He barely looked at her, let alone let go from the tree. "My shuba is ripped. I... I can't get down."

"Shuba?" Tigra asked, blankly.

He did turn to look at her then, and recoiled briefly from shock of her appearance. "My shuba," he said, raising an arm. It looked like a body suit, or at lease a tightly fitting shirt, with a built in membrane resembling a bat's wing extention. Patagia! That was it. His shuba, however, was clearly violently ripped, like someone had taken a knife to it. "I'll fall."

"Nonsense, just hold onto me... haven't you ever seen a cat climb before?"

"What's a cat?" he asked.

That startled Tigra into a moments worth of silence, but even after she regained her composure, she simply couldn't get the boy down.

"You've got to be kidding me," called a voice from down below. "Of all the cliches..."

She looked down. There was the man in blue spandex with the ostentatious 'S' logo. She remembered him from when she awoke in this weird place.

She leaned back, balanced easily on the branch, so that the stranger could see the kid. "He says his shuba is ripped and he's too scared that he'll fall."

"Ask him where we can get one, then!"

That was boring, but practical. "Where can we get you a shuba?" she asked the child.

"Silk... Silk Grund. That's where they're kept. If you tell them that Berek needs a new shuba..."

Tigra relayed this information.

"Stay with him," the man said, looking at the map, and tapping it. "I'll be back with that Shuba before you know it."

That was easy for him to say. She was a sitting duck if one of those seekers came along.

"Increased difficulty?" asked Nick. He was fond of keeping things simple. He also was starting to have particular misgivings as to exactly what was going on here. Arcade might yet turn up, and this whole thing could turn deadly.

But he was in the area. He'd keep an eye out. He only had the one to spare.

The area of the caves he'd reached were larger and more maze like. They were not quite a series of twisty little passages, all alike, but even with a map, it would be easy to get lost down here.

He saw movement out of his eye and turned, focusing on what appeared to be a spot of wall. No. Not a spot of wall. "Come on out big guy," Nick drawled. "I can see you."

"With one eye, you see better than most people with two," said Batman. At least, who else would wear a black suit with a bat logo on it? Nick had studied the list of names. He'd recognized half of them. Batman had been in the other half.

Nick snorted. "I notice everything, Batman."

"I'm sure you do, Mr. Fury."

Now it was Nick's turn to be impressed. He didn't show it, though. "Are you looking for the mystery 'Dangerous situation' down here?"

"I'm trying to figure out how we got here."

"By waiting down here in the dark?" Fury asked.

"I'm running tests. Gravity is 62% less than normal, yet we have a rainforest binome. There's a red sun, but a green sky. Not to mention human like figures, not including the chasers. I am trying to figure out where here is first."

Nick nodded. "Makes sense. Do you think a place like this could actually exist?"

"The possibility we are on some sort of Holodeck had occurred to me."

Nick considered him. "Alright. If you can figure out anything else, or need any help, call me. Or call T- Iron Man. He's insufferable, but a genius. He might be able to figure something out."

Batman considered him for a moment, then nodded. "I'll keep an eye out for any of the seekers if you want to keep looking. Lois and Catwoman are already looking."

Nick nodded, and headed off.

Storm walked along the path. She was staying away from the marker, convinced it was some sort of trap. Something was keeping her grounded, she wasn't able to get enough air around her to get elevated. As she circled around the large tree labeled as Grand Grund she came face to face with one of the men in black. They both reacted instantly. Storm took off, the hunter in pursuit.

It had been a blind corner, and that thing was faster.

She felt the hand scrape her shoulder, and she felt all of her energy just drain out of her.

108:47
Storm Captured.
14 Players remaining.