InsaneJournal

arthur centino. (takingrisks) wrote in mutanthaven, @ 2010-04-30 14:12:00

"I-- I-- I don't know, I swear! I'm just the receptionist!" A red haired guy stammered and cowered back from Shatterstar's swords. He pointed down the hallway to a hall, before hurriedly pulling the lanyard off from around his neck and thrusting it towards Ric's waiting hands.

Things had moved quickly after Art received that final phone call. The call to Scott had dispatched their back up - Ric and Tabby, with Lila as transport. Gaia had tagged along as well, determined to come along since her friend was in trouble. The group had stormed the studios at the address Art had been given, and were now making their way through the corridors thanks to the security pass they'd taken from the receptionist. The place was oddly deserted, almost as if it had been cleared out in anticipation of their arrival.

Which it had. The only souls left in the building now were Rita and the executive producer - whom the group quickly found once they reached the last studio. It was a vast empty space, with Rita standing slightly in front of a large man, dressed in a strange blue outfit with a sword in hand. Art stepped forward, waving off Star for the moment.

"Rita? What's going on?" He sounded - well, confused was a mild way to point it. The Rita he'd known and really liked had been sweet, a stunt person like him, and she definitely not the sort to dress like that. Or go waving a sword around.

"My name's not Rita," she said in a harsh voice, nothing like what he remembered from weeks ago. "It's Spiral." She leaped at him, sword raised, only to have her sword met by Star's. He'd been itching for a fight, and here it was, right in front of him.

"No, Star, don't." He looked at Rita with somewhat sad eyes, a hand coming to rest on his brother's arm. "I don't want to fight. Not with her at any rate." His gaze moved past her, to the mammoth man standing behind her. "Who are you? And what have you done to Rita?"

"Mojo Brown, at your service. As for the lady... she's exactly as I found her." A chilling smile crossed his face, and Art felt a cold shiver go down his spine. It was a movie villain sort of smile, he'd seen it so many times on so many faces. It also meant something really bad was about to happen, and Art didn't think his luck was good enough to get them through his. Mojo raised a hand, pressing a button on something that looked a little bit like a remote control.

Figures flickered and then hardened into very, the dark room suddenly ablaze with light and full of warriors that looked a little bit like they stepped out a montage of ancient war movies. They were dressed in armour mixed from various civilizations, and while they should have been nothing but harmless holograms, Shatterstar quickly found that their swords were just as sharp as his - and they were impossible to injure. Fists landed punches that left no bruises, and while they battle the endless horde of warriors, Mojo was getting away.

Tabby quickly found that her timebombs were the only thing that affected them - being hit with one of them made them flicker out of existence, and even with her firing them off as quickly as possible, she still wasn't making a dint.

Eventually, though, they worked out something of a system. Tabby burnt a path through the horde for Star, getting him closer and closer to Mojo as they did. Arrogant prick that he was, he hadn't left quite yet, watching the action from a platform far above. He wasn't cocky enough to let Rita leave his side, playing bodyguard as the battle raged. They watched Star approach, Mojo's lips curled into a smile as he watched the warrior fight. He thought he was safe where he was, far above the action and out of reach.

Except for the fact that the platform wasn't quite as stable as he'd thought. It was an old building, and the timebombs of Tabby's that had missed the soldiers had been hitting the walls, weakening it at points. The closer they got, the weaker it got, until the wall collapsed under the weight of the over sized man, him crashing to the ground as Rita leapt out of the way.

Star didn't hesitate. He seized the opportunity, Tabby blasting him a path as he ran straight for the man who so reminded him of the tyrant from his home. You couldn't call it much of a fight - while Mojo had managed to get back on his feet by the time Star joined him, he was no match for the warrior that faced him now.

The others had kept busy - Lila, Ric and Gaia had been doing their best to fend off the soldiers, while Art had been torn between protecting Gaia and going after Rita. When the platform collapsed, he made his choice, leaping through the fray to chase after his ex-girlfriend. He met up with her before she was able to rejoin her boss, blocking her path back to him.

"I don't understand," he said plaintively, looking her straight in the eye. He honestly didn't. He didn't understand what had happened to her, didn't understand why she'd betrayed him the way she did. All he'd wanted to do was save her, and this is what happened.

"You have no idea," she said in a flat tone. "You were supposed to come with me. We would have warriors for Mojo together. I've seen the way things are supposed to be. We should have been together, forever. We--" In a flash of white light, Rita was gone, whatever she was going to say lost in her disappearance. The hard light soldiers disappeared as well, Tabby holding the remote as blood dripped from Star's swords.

"Time to go," Lila called, her voice echoing in the large and now mostly empty space. None of them would look at the corpse at Star's feet - and none of them would comment on it either. They all hurried to the portal she opened, Ric pausing once everyone had moved through.

"Wait," was all he said, a determined expression on his face. He stared back at the building, before spreading his arms. The ground beneath him began to shake, the weakened walls collapsing in on themselves as he carefully channeled his power through the building. At the last moment he leaped through the portal, leaving the building to collapse behind them. No one would be using that building again.

From a distance, a red haired man looked up from his monitor screen, a thoughtful smirk on his face.

"Interesting."