A Sinister Hunt pt 3

Okay, gotta deal with Modok to get through this room. First things first applying Blue Shield to EVERYONE, not taking any chances here. Good thing I started with that, cause in only a few moments Modok sent a blast of energy at Betsy and Titania, the Shield glowed as it was struck, a few cracks forming but nothing broke. Titania practically leaped forward, but she went PAST Modok, instead trying to **** her way to the door and through it. Betsy used her blades to try and hack parts of Modok's cronenberg form away as they others joined in. That's when I saw the health bar with Modok's name on it, at the top of my view, with a X2 at the end of it. He's got 2 health bars?! The fuck?

Another blast of energy came at me this time, my Shield cracked a bit but thankfully held together. Cyclops blasted and burned away whatever parts of MODOK was cut off, Magneto helping to contain the pieces and gather them, there was more than enough metal to work with here I suppose. The Professor used his psychic abilities to attack alongside Jean, meanwhile Colossus was pulling and trying to rip larger chunks out of Modok. Nightcrawler teleported all around the place, trying to find another way out or into the next room. Modok was higher level but he wasn't hitting hard enough to break the shields that fast, when they did break I was able to reapply them quickly enough that he couldn't get anything from anyone DNA wise.

It was taking us time, a LOT of time, we've been here for nearly 20 minutes already and Modok's health bar has barely hit halfway down it's first bar. There has to be something else we can do to whittle him down faster, right? I started throwing my Fireballs at it, watching as a little chunk popped off the health bar. We started focusing on burning Modok more from there, I created a pile of Fireballs that worked great as a place for the afflicted flesh to be burned in. I also found out that my healing field was NOT hurting Modok nearly as much as it had the former AIM scientists turned experiments. It didn't feel helpful to keep it that far out, so I pulled it back enough that it would more focus on healing the others stamina and help combat any fatigue.

There was so much going on, it was hard to keep track of everyone's movements. It took us another half hour to get him down into the first health bar, the sheer amount of flesh we had to cut off him and burn away was much more than expected. It's when he lost one health bar that things got harder, his power rampaging as best I could describe it. Energy blasts flying in every direction, a dozen or so at a time, waves of attacks either being dodged or breaking shields that I needed to reapply fast. It got even more intense when he reached the halfway point on his last health bar, huge beams of energy firing out, less in number but much more damaging. Nightcrawler, Wolverine and Psylocke were the only ones that could dodge them fast enough, the others all either took big hits or were grazed enough to be slowed down. I watched Colossus basically get hard blast by multiple beams at once, huge chunks of her health being taken off before she was teleported back into the healing field by Nightcrawler.

In that moment we all heard a loud metallic BANG. Titania had broken through the doors and was rushing towards Sinister, Psylocke and Nightcrawler following after her. With Sinister's focus pulled from us Cyclops let out a full blast of her optic beams, a massive freight train of energy slamming and burning through the remainder of Modok's health bar as he finally collapse. His flesh itself melting down into a pile of no longer sentient goo as he was at last dealt with. The rest of us moved to try and catch up quick as we could, another notification appearing in front of me as my legs suddenly gave out from under me.

WARNING! Continual use of powers has exhausted energy levels, please rest as soon as possible and limit power use as much as possible.
What a wonderful thing to read... I found myself being carried by Penny as she and the others charged to catch up to Titania...

What we saw when we arrived was her hammer pinning the insane scientist to the floor, his gut smashed in as she barely restrained herself from slamming it down hard enough to rip his body in two. "Where are they Sinister? The others you kidnapped, what did you do with them?!" Betsy practically screamed in his face, giving him a glare that could melt steel at the VERY least. "What others? Surely you don't think I had MORE subjects to play with do you?" His voice was taunting, even in his situation he was gleeful, like he had the upper hand still. That's when we heard a voice come from the nearby computer, one that caused everyone but myself and Titania to freeze up, one that made Sinister's smile widen further. "They've arrived Doctor. It seems you did the work you were tasked with successfully. My horsemen are finally ready! The last one is on their way correct? Surely you would not waste my time with your frivolous experiments. Right Doctor?"

Titania's hammer lifted a bit as she turned her head towards the screen, there was no visual, but I had a bad feeling that was confirmed a moment later. "Of course not Lord Apocalypse! She's already left, the last of your horsemen will arrive shortly." Sinister practically purred out, a sadistic smile on his face as he looked at the rest of us. "She might be my BEST work yet! Those humans in the Weapon X program really did surprisingly well with her, but I of COURSE improved upon her." No one reacted fast enough to stop Jenny, her claws stabbing into Sinister's body as a look of rage rolled onto her face, it took Jean using her powers to knock out Jenny just for her claws to be removed from Sinister. "It won't matter even if you leave now, you'll not reach her in time before she arrives. Do what you will with this body, I shall simply make another!" Sinister gleefully cackled out.

I stepped up and gently pulled Titania away, slowly moving down towards him as I prepared my mental invasion.

Mental Invasion activated! Select objective for invasion: Servant or BLANK. Reminder, Servant keeps personality and memories intact, forcing them to be unable to resist your will. Blank removes all personality, leaving memories intact and rendering them as an autonomous puppet following your commands.

"Make another? No... You won't..."

Blank has been selected. PURGING all personality and enslaving target. Please keep target restrained or within a distance of 100 feet.

I haven't used this before, so I don't know what to expect... The others and myself are all watching, Titania is the first to smile when it starts. Sinister's screaming. His voice goes at least an octave or two higher. Whatever Blanking is doing to him, it's making him feel ALL of it. His screams slowly get worse, we can see veins appearing on his face, only to move and shift like his internals are all being pulled and shuffled around. He grits his teeth, tries to stop screaming and we watch one of his teeth crack and chip apart. His pain gets worse still, we can tell cause his screams are starting to sound like they came out of The Princess Bride's level 50 scene...

It takes an almost agonizingly SLOW 10 minutes, The Professor and most of the others have already left to go set up the jet in the hopes we'll be able to catch up. Cyclops is searching through the computer for information, Nightcrawler is staying nearby in case Sinister has any last tricks left, Titania is watching with a sadistic glee only a Widow could feel over the suffering of the murderer to her partner, Magneto is nearby keeping large thick metal restraints on Sinister. Jean though... Jean is watching, not what's happening to Sinister's body, she's looking into his mind. She's seeing what my invasion forces are doing to him. His mind is like a mad scientists lab, but somehow darker, more evil feeling. What's worse is that every experiment he's done is kept here, his defenses are being not simply broken down but SHATTERED completely, the information he has is being preserved in the wake of my forces.

At first the Parademons were able to wipe away multiple layers of defenses, then they switched to gathering info and making sure it was safely contained. From there other forces came charging out, led by a woman who's outfit consisted of a gold W on her red breastplate and blue shorts covered in white stars. The forces behind her had a pair of blond women flying alongside her, both firing out what appeared to be hot lasers through the fortifications of Sinister's mind. There were so many others it was hard to keep track, but Jean watched them tear Sinister's personality to pieces, leaving his information intact even as they pushed further in.

When it was finally over, Sinister who'd had such a gleeful look on his face before we'd started, was now stoic. No expression on his face or really any light left in his eyes. "What is thy bidding, my Master?" We all heard from the now stone faced, DOCILE looking Sinister. I HEARD Jean outright collapse to her knee's, saw Magneto have a what the fuck look wash over his face, all just while Cyclops fell out of the chair she'd been sitting in from turning around so fast.

Sinister was looking to me... Jean looked at me shocked, Titania looked furious he was still alive, before Jean explained WHAT she'd seen happen. Showing Titania how my mental invasion had utterly overwhelmed and DESTROYED Sinister's will and ERASED his personality all while she got to watch him scream from feeling every second? Brought that sadistic smile back to her face. Jean explained everything she could to Titania, while I had to snap myself out of my shock. "You helped Apocalypse with his new horsemen. Where are they going and has the last one reached him yet?"

Sinister spoke and gave an access code that allowed Cyclops to find all the information needed, then he answered the last question. "It is possible with a fast enough vehicle, Master. If your quick enough there is a forest you can intercept the last horseman before it can join with Apocalypse." Once Magneto removed Sinister's bindings, we grabbed him and booked it back to the jet. The fact we weren't too late got everyone moving a bit quicker. I took this time to close my eyes and rest, trying to recover enough to use my power again hopefully...

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I awoke nearly 2 hours later, being shook awake by Colossus and told we'd arrived. I walked out to see that Nightcrawler and Wolverine had already rushed off, Cyclops, Psylocke and Jean all following after them. When I was able to catch up we saw Magneto using his power to hold down... Holy fuck... Laura?!

I couldn't believe my eyes, there was this helmet on her that covered everything above the neck, it was keeping her from hearing us, keeping Jean out of her head, it was even blocking the mental connection, below that was an incredibly thick straight jacket that's lock had been broken off it looked like. The shocking part though, wasn't that she had 3 claws coming out of her hands instead of the normal 2, it was the large, long, Adamantium TAIL that had been attached to her. The Professor relaying to us that it had taken Sinister considerable time to make her body accept the tail like it was something she had always had, but it was also the only major modification he'd had the time to make in order to increase her lethality. It looked like it was around the same length of Nightcrawlers tail, but the 4 Adamantium blade's sticking straight out of the end of her tail were certainly a difference. Jenny had been stabbed through and pinned to a tree by it, which she was only now healing from. The hunt hadn't taken as long as we feared it would, but what had been done to her wasn't going to be easy to hide...