The Iceberg Lounge.

Okay seriously, who puts a fucking SHARK in a tank in a club?! That was the next thing I noticed, after the sign of course. Then I noticed a short man with a long nose and an umbrella, wearing a top hat and a suit no less. His henchmen running towards me as I realized he must be the boss of this group. Looking around I saw more thugs coming for me, wearing different styled outfits, I saw ones with masks that looked split down the middle, clown masks, wrestling masks, all of them heading my way as the floor began to lower down into what I can only describe as some sort of fighting arena. I saw the boss looking guy take a seat in a chair, slowly noticing more people filling the seats above. A man with half his face looking burned, a guy wearing a black skull style mask, another with green hair and a purple suit, I watched as bane walked over to a seat before sitting down, looking into the arena with what I could only guess was excitement.

Were those the bosses of this place? Did I find some way of encountering 5 bosses at once? Names appeared at the top of my hud system, Black Mask, The Penguin, Two-Face, Bane, The Joker. It only took another moment to realize that the bosses would come one at a time, considering how strong the raid boss version of Bane had been I didn't want to take any chance of face multiple bosses at once. Dozens of thugs climbed into the arena, a few running to attack me before the others, I beat them until I saw their health bars vanish as the rest moved closer surrounding me. I didn't bother waiting for the next ones to come at me, summoning my clones and sending them out in full ****, clones drawing their practice spears. Thugs were stabbed, beaten and attacked from multiple angles, some of them were choked out as well.

It was only about 10 minutes later that the brutes started showing up, not that many trying to run into the fight at once though, so they were getting swarmed pretty quickly right away. About half an hour into this and the brutes stopped jumping down, when the last one was dealt with a boss name lit up at the top of my HUD. Penguin floating down like a fat man version of Mary Poppin's, he sent out a few thugs to try and slow me down, aiming his umbrella at my clones before it started to shoot like a machine gun. My clones were being dispelled by only one or two bullets, I kept summoning them, I thought it would be better to save my other powers for as long as I could.

Finally my clones reached him, swarming him and starting to attack, he tried defending himself with his umbrella but I watched as 9 stabs with the spear later his health bar shattered. What? THAT was a boss fight? Is this the difference in doing a run with a party or without? Compared to doing a run with a raid group? Questions for later, The Penguin vanished, his thugs vanished with him, some new group of thugs jumping down to start fighting my clones. The new group of thugs weren't doing much better than the last, seemed a little tougher and the numbers of them were increasing, but they still got swarmed relatively easily. The brutes came in a lot earlier this time, greater numbers too, I was losing my clones pretty fast, but I kept my summoning going. I stopped paying attention to the time, especially when a Titan dropped into the fight and charged at me.

My clones stabbed at his legs and slowed him down, several others going for his neck among other vital or debilitating points. The first Titan didn't survive for long, stabbed by the spears so much and so quickly it didn't have the time to recover or knock the clones back, I didn't notice the notifications stacking, the number increasing as the first titan enemy was taken out or as the next one came down with a couple brutes alongside him. My clones and I continued to fight on, I stopped looking at the timer, the clone I had outside would warn me when I was running out of time anyways right?

I don't know how long it's been... I'm feeling exhausted... Titan's, brutes and small fry thugs surrounded me as my clones were being brought down, the henchmen working together to put down my clones faster than I could summon them. I kept summoning though, sent out lightning and shocked as many thugs at once as I could, taking out multiple at once while the others caught in the attack were **** to their knees. I heard laughing from the clown up above, something about a joybuzzer? Sounded like a terrible joke. Nothing worth hearing from what I could tell. It didn't take much longer for another boss to come down, this time it was 2 though...

Black Mask dropped down and started shooting, my clones swarming him even as Two-Face dropped down in another spot, shooting at my clones to try and **** them back. I sent my clones in as a distraction at first, I was curious about how these bosses would fight, wanted to learn about them just in case I ran into them in a raid group. They didn't do much of anything aside from shouting some guns that did more damage to my clones than normal, so my clones switched to call focus on Black Mask as I blast Mr burn unit with enough electricity to keep him on the ground writhing in pain until his health bar shattered and he vanished, Black Mask following him shortly after. That was disappointing...

I think the training room read my mind, cause it sent in no less than three titans at once in response, the only groups left being the wrestlers and the clowns. I went ahead and got started dealing with them, shocking the titans down and keeping them there. I had my clones use everything they could to their advantage, they attacked joints, targeted spots to deal pain, tried to put the thugs into shock and limit their ability to fight back. The next group dropped in to fight, 5 titans this time and 10 brutes along with another 20 normal thugs. The titans were a problem this time, throwing their friends at some of my clones, taking out several, the brutes helping every step of the way, the cannon fodder thugs were dealt with pretty quick though, allowing the numerous clones to stab, kick, punch and drive their elbows into the bodies of the brutes as well as the titans until they were dealt with.

Before long I found the Joker dropping down, laughing like a psycho as he called in a LOT of henchmen, there must have been around 100 surrounding the arena, then the walls pushed further back and the thugs dropped down to try and swarm my clones. The weakest thug this clown brought with him was a brute, no cannon fodder anywhere in the group, then he called for a Harley and this woman with incredible acrobatics leaped down with... was that an oversized sledgehammer? She sent a clone flying with it so I wasn't gonna risk not taking her seriously, then I saw the Joker pull out some heavy revolver looking gun. If I focused on him first that would make the others vanish right? If it didn't it would be easier to deal with them anyways. I tried to use flight and found I couldn't, a small message appearing in front of me. We're sorry but flight has been disabled for the duration of this arena fight. Good luck!

I heard the gun go off and shoot through multiple clones at once, summoning them back I sent the clones to try and thin the herd of thugs first, the clown duo could be dealt with after. I started by shocking the brutes behind me, a few clones heading to try and keep the clown duos attention off me. I was able to shock around 20 brutes to their knee's, others running at me from the sides, I had to switch to fighting them off with my spear first. As my clones were beaten and getting swarmed by the brutes, I would summon those that got dispelled, it helped take off the pressure on me but there were so many around us. Eventually I was having to hide among the clones to avoid getting shot, then my clones and I started launching other clones up, they attacked the thugs from above by surprise. I heard the clown laughing again and charged a mix of Purple/Red energy to my finger, getting launched straight up a moment later before aiming and shooting the explosive beam at the laughing clown. His laughter stopped as the duo got separated, his health bar losing a big chunk while she lost a smaller chunk of hers.

He got up groaning in pain, my clones and I focusing on the brutes again as we bought ourselves a little time from getting shot at. She went running over to check on him as I shocked more brutes, I was starting to feel a little strain, I could keep going for now though thankfully. I wasn't gonna risk overusing my powers though, so I started to focus on using Energy punches or palm strikes, they coupled with my clones felt less strenuous at least. It also helped me to take out a few brutes at a time, the clones working together to take out multiple as well. Still more than half of the brutes were left over, numbers were getting closer to being even, that's when that damn clown started shooting again. I got a crazy idea all of a sudden and decided to hold up a hand, Joker telling the others to stop. "Hey clown boy? Wanna play a game?" I asked, creating a Green Orb in my hand. "Just think of it like Russian roulette! This orb will blow once it's been hit hard enough, all you gotta do is just smack it back towards me and hope it blows me up first. Sound fun?" He seemed like the type of psycho to enjoy an idea like this, his grin widening further was creepy but his verbal agreement made it even clearer just how crazy he was. My clones stepped aside, his brutes moved out of the way and before I launched the ball out I realized... I was about to play the most insane version of ping pong anyone probably ever had heard of.

I threw the Orb at him, and the bastard actually took the womans hammer to hit it back at me, she moved out of the way giggling as she watched. I used an energy palm to smack it back at him, it was going a little faster now, he returned it again, somehow his creepy smile getting wider. We kept sending it back and forth for little over a minute, the shell starting to crack, he was laughing being insane as he pulled out the revolver and shot the orb, it came flying at me a LOT faster, nearly so fast I wasn't able to get the shield up in time. NEARLY, but not fast enough... The orb bounced back, cracking considerably as it launched back at him like it had been fired out of a sniper rifle. I saw his eyes widen for a moment before it touched his body and exploded violently, the deafening BOOM it sent out had enough **** to knock most of the brutes to the floor, the female clown taken out by some debris that flying at her. Joker was done, his health bar shattered as he vanished. The brutes didn't go away though, instead attacking in anger.

My clones dealt with the rest of them, which only left Bane standing up at the ledge above. He didn't bother sending any others down to fight, jumping down himself he wanted to challenge me himself, just one on one he said. "Sorry... I don't have time for that today." With those words spoken I saw anger appear on his face as I fired 3 explosive beams at him rapid fire, he couldn't dodge them, they were too fast and SLAMMED him into the wall, damaging and putting an indent of his body into the arena wall. My clones charged in, stabbing into the hole as I saw he lost more than half his health from that, was he really expecting me to go one on one with a guy built like a flesh tank? He came charging out of the hole, furious as that **** of his pumped into his system. My clones stabbed at his legs and arms, tried to restrict his movements, he wasn't taking as much damage as before. That **** DEFINITELY gave him damage reduction, by the time he began making it through my clones I summoned more to keep swarming, stabbing and beating every spot of his body that was even the slightest bit open to attack.

He dropped to his knee's, sitting on a magic pixel of health, breathing heavy, panting, struggling, I fired another explosive beam at his head before he could speak. I was on a time crunch and was SURE I'd spent too much time here. I got the congratulations screen, got the completion message for the hidden quest, then I heard the message from my clone outside saying I needed to get moving NOW if I was gonna be ready in time to leave for the meeting. So I booked it out, getting my rewards transferred into my inventory was easy, I'd look at them later but a message popped up. Congratulations! To commemorate your first time doing a run of Survival, your inventory slots have been increased again! Bonus slots have been added for doing it Solo! I looked at my inventory shocked to see the max was at 100 slots now! I wasn't sure I'd ever need to carry anything on my person again looking at all that space.

Regardless I headed back to my room, got cleaned up and found the professor waiting at the front door. "Ah Zane, good timing. The Quinn jet's just landing now. I hope your prepared, this meeting will likely be tense." I understood what he meant, I was as prepared as I could get really. Here's hoping it would be enough. We got on board and after getting strapped in I asked the professor. "So where are we going? The Baxter building again?" He shook his head. "No, though Reed and Sue will likely be where we're going. This meeting will have several of the most respected and trustworthy people that you could share such news with, hopefully Natasha will be the representative from SHIELD this time as well." I nodded my head and tried to mentally brace myself for what I was about to have to tell a such a group of people... "I just hope this goes well professor..." "As do I Zane. Know this, no matter what happens you will always have a home with us."