Author's Note: I needed Gohan out of the way for Iron Man 3 and I needed to flesh out the X-men and Trunks some more. Two birds one stone and a cool ass villain we haven't seen in the MCU like I promised to use a lot of. But one with a backstory that doesn't require some other players be on the board. Anyways I really really want to get through Ultron before taking focus off this story.
Also to the anon reviewer, pretty sure I only have Nick Fury or Tony in conversation with Fury cursing for 95% of this story.
Also I will say this is similar to Danger Room tech and is stationary so not as groundbreaking and pragmatically applicable as Mysterio's stuff.
Also completely unsure how this sequence worked out and would love some feedback. I got stuck on the pacing and imagery a bit.
Chapter 19: A Trip to the Arcade
Gohan was not expecting Nicholas Fury to be waiting for him when he flew in to Avengers Tower at almost eight PM after having spent a few hours cleaning up the zombies with Doctor Voodoo.
"Is there something wrong Director?" He questioned, feeling oddly nervous.
"Indeed, Gohan, you see the Xavier Institute took their kids out on a field trip to the northern part of the Appalachian Mountains...and I will ask you to be calm about this, they disappeared."
Gohan's power immediately shot up and dishes and furniture began to rattle.
"Calm, Gohan! Calm!" Fury yelled over the wind and Gohan took a deep breath and throttled himself down.
"What are we doing to find them?" He grit out through clenched teeth.
"Xavier is combing everything with an...enhancer he has for his abilities, so far nothing, I was hoping you perhaps had a way to detect Trunks?"
Gohan nodded and closed his eyes spreading his ki-sensing ability out. Nothing, Trunks was nowhere to be found. Which meant he was unconscious and low on energy, dead, or being shielded somehow. None of which were good.
"Northern Appalachia you said?" Gohan was out the door and flying off without even waiting for an answer.
Meanwhile Trunks and the other X-kids were two of the three things Gohan feared. Unconscious and shielded.
Trunks, Hope and Nate Summers, Mikhail Rasputin, Kendall Logan, Rahne Sinclair, and Sooraya Qadir awoke in strange darkness.
Nate, being one of the first ones to regain full senses spread his psychic sense outwards, "I...what? There's something wrong here I cannot seem to pick up anything other than ourselves."
Hope frowned, borrowed his powers and did the same, "Are we being dampened psychically somehow?"
"Ding-ding!" A big neon sign lit up saying, 'Correct!' with a full exclamation mark.
"Welcome to Arcade's Murderworld Pinball Extravaganza!" Another sign lit up.
"Play begins in, 3...2..." A blinking shifting billboard style sign had lit up now, with the text changing to each new number.
"Wait..." Mikhail started, "Pinball?"
"Murderworld?" Kendall also echoed the billboard.
"1! Let's play!" Suddenly the floor beneath the kids shot up and they all went flying up into the air as dozens of hard light platforms, springs, flippers, and lights appeared.
Mikhail, Hope, Trunks, Kendall, and Nate immediately began to hover after only twenty feet, and Sooraya eventually got enough bearing to regroup with them hovering with her sandstorm as well.
Rahne had to be caught in a psychic hand by Nate but was otherwise alright.
"This is weird but not too-" Mikhail was cut off as a giant metal sphere flew through the space he was in and he faded through it, "I stand corrected."
"New level! Elvis Pinball!" A nearby sign lit up and so did a bunch of constructs of Elvis at different points in his career.
"You ain't nothing but a hound dog..." one of them began and then as it point at Rahne another was suddenly wearing hunting gear and pulling out a shotgun and firing it off.
"Oh what the hell?" Nate said throwing up a psychic shield too as Rahne, who had shifted into her wolf form let out a yip of fear.
The group made their way up the pinball maze dodging a miniaturized typhoon from a Blue Hawaii Elvis thanks to Torrent, Trunks blasting their way out of a cage materialized by an Elvis singing Jailhouse Rock, and Mikhail slamming into an Elvis in a cowboy hat who was about to unload dual revolvers onto them.
"New level!" A sign announced.
"I am already so sick of this," Hope said miserably.
"Funhouse Pinball!" Suddenly the Elvis's faded and they were in a weird carnival setting.
"I hope it isn't clowns..." Sooraya muttered under her breath as the group searched around for danger.
Kendall noticed it first, strands of hair twisting around and almost grabbing the group by their feet, "Up!" she yelled, and the group leapt to the next platform.
Only to be greeted by a large bearded woman with her beard hair apparently alive flying down at them seeming tossed by a giant flipper off to their left.
Trunks promptly blew her up with a ki blast, "This is insane."
A growl came from behind them and suddenly they were being chased up a ramp by a flock of Jersey Devils, with how vicious the cryptids looked even as they were torn apart by the fleeing mutants and Trunks murder may have been the better term.
Whatever sick game they were in was either learning or was being actively controlled, because when they attempted to fly up the next ramp a ceiling locked them in and water began to pour down from above.
Sooraya, her sand dampened by the rush of water, had to land, "We are getting nowhere!" she cried out.
Nathan nodded in frustration, "I don't get it, even the Danger Room has walls! This place doesn't seem to have a ceiling or any walls anywhere nearby!"
As they struggled their way up the ramp with the ever rising flood of water, Kendall using some of her power to at least lessen the effect upon their speed, fins appeared in the water speeding down the ramp at them.
"Huh...sharks don't really fit the theme?" Hope said half questioningly as she borrowed Mikhail's density shifting and prepared for a fight.
Only to scream in surprise when two shark-finned and deformed dog sized mermaids with razor-sharp teeth leapt out at them.
She promptly caved the head of one in as Trunks blasted the other.
More fins came down at them. This time avoiding them with blistering speed and circling them.
"Don't let them surround us!" Nathan called out as he attempted, and failed to reach out with his telepathy.
"Constructs..." He instead lashed out with a row of telekinetic spikes that impaled a few of the creatures.
Rahne managed to get her lupine jaws around another one while Mikhail and Hope took another two that got close. Trunks focused on blasting ones further up the tunnel to stop reinforcements from overwhelming them.
Finally after another three waves of the creatures they arrived soaking and tired at the top of the ramp.
"Stage Boss! The Sumoese Twins!"
"Sumo...ese?" Mikhail repeated.
"I wrote a paper on freak shows for our mutant history class," Sooraya began, "I only ever heard about Siamese Twins though."
Suddenly the platform beneath their feet shook and they craned their heads up to see a nine-foot tall man in Sumo wrestling garb with two torsos, two heads, and three arms. Holding another giant pinball boulder.
"I feel like that's taking a lot of creative license with the theme," Nathan deadpanned as he threw up a telekinetic shield to deflect the thrown pinball, which ricocheted off into the distance and a few dings and bells went off as it hit other platforms and flippers.
"Yeah I'm sick of this setting!" Trunks commented as his hands began moving very quickly in front of him, "Take this! Burning Attack!"
A fiery ki blast flew out in front of him towards the stage boss, the ensuing explosion went off and cleared to show...the boss rather singed but holding a platform it must have yanked out of the nearby air in front of it.
"Crapbaskets," Trunks and the others scattered as the platform came frisbeeing at them.
"Alright, teamwork time," Nathan stated, "Trunks and Mikhail, fastball special while we distract it!"
With that the team took off in two groups, Trunks and Mikhail to the side and the rest going for an attack on the boss.
Trunks quickly powered up to close to his max and held out his hand, Mikhail floated up and then raised his density as Trunks grabbed him and spun him around, tossing him forward at the monstrous man-construct.
Mikhail increased his density in stages until he struck the distracted boss's back with the weight of an entire skyscraper, shattering the thing.
"Next Level!" An announcement popped up, "Spaaaaaccceeee Pinbaaaallll!"
"I'm not sure how much more of this I can take," Rahne commented, switching back into her human form and breathing heavily as the environment shifted.
Stars appeared and in the distance rapidly closing in was…
"Chitauri!" Trunks cried out as a Chitauri ship, much smaller he noted, began firing...pinballs and lasers at them.
A quick shield from Nathan held the line but he was visibly tiring, never having to push his abilities for such an extended length of time. Only much shorter sessions in the Danger Room.
As their long range fighters fired back and Hope and Sooraya focused on defense with sand and telekinesis a strange wind began to blow.
"Uh...is that you Kendall?" Hope asked looking around to find the source of the now howling wind.
"It's not be!" Kendall yelled as she brought up her own wind to deflect a beachball sized pinball from striking her head.
It wasn't until Hope turned around that she saw it, "Trunks? What's the word you say?"
He turned around in confusion until he saw what she was looking at, a black hole forming behind them and beginning to suck them in, "I think this is worse than crapbaskets!"
Trapped between the black hole and the ship they became desperate.
"It can't be a REAL black hole!" Nathan emphasized, "Sooraya, Kendall, anchor our backs with some wet sand. Mikhail prepare to grab and anchor anyone that gets pulled up. Trunks blast this damned ship out of the sky I'll cover you!"
"Alright! Kame...ha...me...HA!" The trusty blue beam shot out in front of Trunks as Nathan blocked five lasers that would have interrupted the technique. Blowing the ship to smithereens.
The black hole however was still there.
Trunks spun around and fired a ki blast down it too only to see the blast appear out the other side.
"Kendall!" Mikhail screamed, "It's just a wind tunnel I think! Can you turn it back in on itself?"
She nodded, white hair falling into her face and then whipping about as she surged forward to near the mount of the construct and brought her powers to bear.
The sucking winds twisted and whirled and turned back on the edges of the construct, it exploded spectacularly and she ended up having to heal up a broken arm.
"Stage Completed! Time for FIREBALL!"
Suddenly the temperature around them increased and the wet sand around their platform was immediately dried out.
"I don't like the sound of this," Rahne grumbled falling into the middle of the group.
A gout of flame shot out of a nearby platform at them.
"Move!" Nathan yelled.
Over the next few minutes they scrambled up ramps and platforms dodging flaming pinballs, gouts of flame, and occasionally having to switch mid-transition to different platforms due to them becoming red hot.
Sooraya's sand while useful on the defense was also instantly glassed with each jet she blocked, taxing her energy immensely to continue generating new sand. This left Nathan and Hope as their main sources of defense. Trunks could blast the flaming pinballs out of the air and intercept the gouts of flame from far away, but the surprise gouts and streams and traps all had to be handled by the speed of thought from the Summers children.
"We have to be getting close to the end of this one!" Mikhail yelled as he allowed his low-shifted body to be sent spiraling upwards by the hot air of a stream of flame.
Only to come face to face with a giant flaming head. Which, as he looked off into the distance was connected to a flaming body about twenty feet tall.
"Oh Hell."
He shot his density up so that he would plummet down avoiding a swipe of a flaming hand.
"Stage Boss! Inferno Titan!"
"Little late there..." Mikhail grumbled as he stood up on the platform he'd fallen to.
The ensuing battle was rather frustrating for the enhanced teens. They very obviously could not touch the monstrosity but they also could not seem to get its form to disperse. Nathan was too spent to make an airtight bubble around it and Kendall's powers were more localized than her mother's.
"I've got it!" Sooraya spoke up, "Hope how long could you hold on to Kendall and your brother's powers?"
Acknowledgment dawned in Hope's eyes, "Oh that would be tricky. We would need...I can only do as much as she can too. We need all three of us and Trunks and Mikhail need to keep it distracted."
So as the two teens capable of easier flight took off to distract the titan Hope borrowed Nathan's telepathy and linked she and her brother up with Kendall's minds.
"Alright," Her telepathic voice echoed, "The plan is Nathan and I both form an upside down telekinetic funnel above it, Kendall goes under the beast on a sand platform that Sooraya will extend and you push your wind upwards while I pulled from the top of the funnel. We should be able to together create a tornado with a vacuum without needing as big of a psionic construct."
It took a lot of maneuvering to get into positions as Trunks and Mikhail strafed the beast to keep its attention away.
However once they were in position Kendall pushed with Hope pulling from the top and a tower of flame shot up around and past Hope, who had to use the last bit of stamina she had to insulate herself telekinetically and even apply some of Kendall's healing factor to burns that made it through.
"Inferno Titan defeated!" she heard as she blacked out.
"-ground!" she heard as she slowly blinked herself awake.
She groaned as an explosion went off nearby and she turned her head and blinked her eyes open to see her group clustered around her at the top of a completely different platform sitting atop another ramp.
Mikhail appeared to be flying around dropping on top of robots with jetpacks as Trunks blasted ones with tank treads for legs coming up the ramp and Sooraya's sand intercepted lasers and bullets while Nathan caught and deflected pinballs coming in from the distance.
"Hope! Hope you're awake!" She heard from Trunks as she shakily stood up.
"Yeah I should be fine-" She began but was interrupted when a screen flashed.
"Stage Boss: Battletron Warbot."
All of the robots crackles with electricity and one hovering in the air started to seemingly pull the others to him.
One latched on, then another, then another. It seemed immune or at least resistant to damage while transforming as Trunks tossed a ki blast at it.
Suddenly a thirty foot tall robot leered down at them.
"I think Transformers should sue that looks a lot like Megatron," Nathan remarked as they prepared for battle.
A giant missile shot from the thing's arm and Nathan barely got a shield up in time to save them all from death.
However it didn't block the entire force of the blast and they were scattered across the platform, two platforms below, and down the ramp in the case of a now unconscious Rahne.
"We...we're too tired," Nathan grunted out as he threw up another shield, Hope running over to borrow and add her own energy.
"We just...need to hold on," She ground out through teeth grit in concentration.
"This...might be it," Mikhail was down on one knee, he hadn't been able to phase through everything. He'd timed a few high density shifts poorly over the previous two stages and was not immune to flame or explosive heat.
"No..." Trunks said under his breath as the Megatron-knock-off bristled with missile firing hatches that opened up.
"NO!" As the robotic giant fired Trunks's aura burst outwards and as the wind whipped around him it turned golden, as did his hair.
"I WON'T LET ANOTHER ROBOT KILL ANYONE!" A massive kiai and a wave of energy shot out from him, through the missiles, through the robot, and then it kept on going before blowing the roof off of the building housing the deathtrap.
Far away in the mountains Gohan's head snapped up, "Trunks?" He immediately shot off towards the surprisingly strong energy signature. Towards New York City.
"Uggh!" A skeezy looking redheaded man kicked himself away from a complicated computer console in frustration, "That was way outside of the power parameters you provided me with!"
A small grunt came from the caped man behind him, "Do not worry, this won't effect your pay. Killing them was optional. I merely wished to...test the next generation."
"Yeah well now I'm going to have to build a whole new Murderworld somewhere else!"
"What you have to do with the money is not my problem, Arcade," The caped man floated out of the remote control room. Let it never be said Arcade was dumb enough to get caught at the scene of his murders while they were still in progress.