2014.03.04 - Degaussing

The Mansion is an odd place, with odd rules. How one came here is impossible to say- dimensional rift, summoning squares, or blundering into a house that no one on the block seems to notice. Dimensions and gravity run in odd, perpendicular angles to one another. The interior looks like a combination of Victorian decor and American Colonial, via Alice in Wonderland: wide windows that look out onto sunny plains, or into infinite abyss that wrench at the eyes. Chairs on walls. Stairways that run at right angles to relative gravity.

Magneto is slumped in one corner of a smaller room, decorated as a parlor. His armor and cape are stained and still smoking from small burns of some kind. The ectoplasmic husks of several creatures linger, their energetic projections a lingering illusion of the eye and mind. He seems barely conscious, electricity plying between his fingertips, and has apparently been fighting a defensive battle for quite some time. He looks spent and exhausted, his cheekbones stark and his face pale.

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and the ghost girl found something enticingly romantic about a spooky house, as well as the fine decorative nature of Gothic era housing... even if she couldn't gab on about the specifics of architecture. Even if she had no idea how she got here... or where she was... So it was she found herself, invisible and intangible, strolling casually about in her finest spooky gown.

Honestly, she had hoped to find someone here to scare, or perhaps even find the place empty to have a haunt away from home. When she was inside, things definitely took a turn for the weird. Still, she felt oddly at home! Sitting on the wall chairs, walking along the ceiling, she was genuinely amused at the first house that felt as if it was made for her! That wasn't all though. She found herself... feeling something. Something around her, something surging in her... she felt more energized than ever.

Cold as ice, emanating a dull chill, she comes across the slumped figure. Slowly she fades back into sight, perhaps a familiar sight for the mutant named Magneto, if he were able to actually see clearly. A little more odd however, were the strange husks of energy.

Almost entranced by them, her eyes occasionally scanning to the slumped figure, she fidgets idly by reaching towards the shell. At least... until she starts to recognize the slumped figure. Turning away form the husk, with some effort.. "H-hey.. don't I... know you? A-are you okay?"

Mantis' eyes opened about seven minutes ago. She was lying on her back in a child's playroom in an old, exquisitely decorated room. A large mirror with a bronze frame stood imposingly over her, its base not looking nearly stable enough to hold the mirror's weight. Dozens of angular wooden toys lined the tables and shelves against the walls. They looked abstract, perhaps serpentine.

Two minutes went by, her gaze rapt with the blank ceiling, as she concentrated on the the objects in the room. The messages she was getting--the few that there were--were static: like fast-forward reverse scrambles, nearly indecipherable. She was somewhere... else, yes. Oddly enough, why she was here, or even how she got here, seemed less important than finding out why this place didn't read to her. Mantis loved detective stories, even if she was terrible at asking the right questions herself, and decided to embrace this like one.

Slipping up to a standing position, she quickly pulled her head around the corner of the doorless room, and saw a hallway ahead. She took the next four minutes walking down the hallway, ambling at a snails pace. She was having another vision, and it wasn't because of the unreadable building: it was because of the lack of it. Her precognition was... pure. She was absorbing the images: great clashes, dangers. Why did it always show her the bad things? She finally reached the room at the far end of the hallway, and looked inside, seeing Phantasma and Magneto's forms. She stayed quiet. Her trip down the hallway only revealed that this place, whatever it was, was a work of magic. It was the only thing that made sense to her; the deviation from sense.

Walking into the creepy house of magic, not sure what he will find, there's Garth Ranzz. Guiding his way is an electicity changed aura, lighting up dark corridors.

"This place makes my skin crawl. I want to check the disturbance the HQ alerted me here, and get out," he said. The gloomy, foreboding scene increases as he comes to the room, where he finds Phantasma, Mantis in the corner of his eyes, and he stares at Magneto, trying to identify him.

Magneto comes awake instantly as Phantasma approaches, kicking himself backwards with sudden speed. Electricity sparks between his fingers, a crackling ward in the place of his normally obdurate magnetic shield.

"Who... what..." He takes short, hard breaths, clearly controlling his automatic reaction to the approach of the girl he'd met previously. Here, the laws of physics are quite different- Phantasma is as 'real' and tangible as Magneto was in the real world. Perhaps moreso here, even. He shakes his head, trying to clear the cobwebs, and the electricity dims, though it does not quite go away.

"You... you are that girl from the Center," Magneto says, his voice ragged and hoarse. "Is this your doing? I have been here for days, it seems," he rasps. "Maybe a week. I was ripped from reality and dumped here of a sudden, and attacked by these things." He gestures at the lifeless husks, which are vaguely transparent and resemble some kind of panther mixed with a badger.

"I cannot find an exit. One room leads to another and to another, then back to the first room. I found the lobby several times, but was beset by these creatures again, in numbers too many to deal-" he stops, spotting Garth, and his eyes widen a bit. The Imperator struggles to his feet, noticing Mantis as well, and shakes his head.

"It seems my tormentor has summoned more playthings for himself," Magneto says. "Perhaps together we can find a way out of here."

She was never one to pay much heed to things like fields or shields. Unfortunately, here that proves trickier. There's a sudden spark as the field touches her hand, and with a shriek she flails and falls backwards, grasping one of the husks for support. It stops floating however, and instead simply sits in her lap. Seems she could touch those as easily as if they were physical objects!

"H-hey watch it!" she says, a mix of apprehension and a mild alarm on her face. But.. "W-wait.. days? A week?" She looks down into her lap, at the lifeless mass, and gives it a shove. That's when it seems to... diminish. There's a bit of a surge, and for a moment the room grows colder, and her hair does an odd thing indeed, floating as if she was in water as she stands up.

"Well I dunno what you're on about.. I feel great!", she continues, turning her backpack around and unzipping its throat. As Magneto finds others in the room, she busies herself rooting around inside. Her next gesture is to hold out an energy bar and a small juice packet. Childish perhaps... but under the circumstances.

"The rules of boxes, of thorned stones; the incantations and outlines. Marbles in the puzzle-box," Mantis said suddenly, her voice sounding friendly yet also monotone. She stepped over over to the three, taking a position uncomfortably close to Garth, up in his personal space, and sniffed at him like an animal might. She was confirming that he was real. "Here I am transformed: limited yet focused." She looked back over to Magneto, and blinked at him. Her expression shifted several times over, from horror to confusion to horror to a strange sort of sweetness. "Gen--" she started to say, but interrupted herself, "--X."

Garth Ranzz seems to be caught his awe, looking over the room the husks of apparition among the many objects in the room. His eyes then focus on Mantis, and she comes into his space and sniffs him.

"Okay... nice meeting you all, but... would someone mind telling me what is happening here?! One minute I'm investigating a damaged house, the next I'm in a spooky corridor.  Now I'm being sniffed like some kind of flower. I'm... just little confused." His eyes then seem to go into shock as he realized that he is no longer generating a constant flow of electricity... his current reserves are not depleted, but he can't increase them either. "This place also seems to by effecting me oddly as well."

With ravenous motions, Magneto rips into the power bar and consumes it in a few bites, his jawline rippling as he chews as quickly as possible. He punctures a hole in the juice box and drinks it down in three or four long sips. Clearly, the man was starving and running on his most base reserves of energy.

"My thanks," he offers to Phantasma, tossing the empty trash on the ground negligently. He straightens, looking at Garth. Two electropaths in the same room? Magneto makes a minute adjustment to the frequency of his own electrical emanations- a polite gesture, so to speak.

"This one seems to know more than the rest of us," Magneto states, gesturing at Mantis. "So this is a maze, or a puzzle of some kind?" Magneto asks, pondering through Mantis' oblique statement. "That would explain much. I believe I have mapped out which doors lead where, though occasionally they do change. I have yet to meet the entity who summoned me here, which tells me three things: I am a test subject, I am entertainment, or I am caught in a trap." He counts on his fingers. "Do you know what could create an environment like this? Insubstantial, removed from reality itself? Even gravity is not what it should be."

A simple shrug, but a warm smile nonetheless to Magneto's thanks, as Phantasma turns and quite-unconcerned, starts to wander around the room examining the husks of energy further. She could be heard humming to herself most contentedly as she would crouch down, gently stroke her hand over each one, and once more seem to... not glow. But something about her was changing. Her clothing was beginning to take on that same eerily weightless quality as her hair was, and a glance in the mirror gets her to finally take notice.

More than her hair, her eyes had the faintest of glow to them. A pale, ghostly blue color that practically transfixed her. Of course, by this point the mirror was on the ceiling. She hadn't even seemed to notice she transitioned from the floor to the wall, but looking behind her she notices everyone else standing at an odd angle, but shrugs it off nonetheless and goes back to the mirror. Others concerned themselves with survival, she was casually trying to tame her hair back down.

"Well..." she adds rather casually "Something's weird about here. Not that I'm complaining, but... I can't really.. push through stuff as easy. Its like the more I try to ghost through things, the more solid it gets."

"Interwoven corners of the infinite canvas--a nestled nexus ; locations... so fogged," Mantis said this while turning to face Phantasma floating up there. She looked up with a unjustified smirk, and stepped a few paces closer, gazing at her while walking, listening to 'ghost-through-things', Mantis extends her index finger and pokes once at Phantasma's foot, checking it.

Mantis spins around and steps back to Magneto, her tone pepping up: "When decks are shuffled, you still know the cards." She gestures idly at him and says instructively, "King of Spades." She extends her arms to point at the whole room, "Use the hand you're dealt!"

Garth Ranzz nods to Magneto's words. His eyes then look in wonder at Mantis, confused by all this talk of decks and spades.

"So... let me get this straight. Do you mean to say that we're trapped in a shifting dimension-place, and even though it changes, they remain the same, to use things as we find them?" Garth isn't sure if he understands his own words, this time.

Magneto lids his eyes, processing Mantis' words. There's a cadence, a poetry to them that makes sense, after a fashion. "A demiplane," he says, eyes flying open. He nods decisively. "That explains much. Sealed to energy," he explains to Garth. "Energy transfer is always entropic- things resort to chaos. Except on the Astral plane, where the laws of physics do not always apply," he says, speaking confidently despite his relative lack of knowledge of planar mechanics. "And this is a... part, of the Astral plane," he says, glancing at Mantis. He puts his hands behind his back, sounding like a professor lecturing at Cambridge. "So it takes energy in, but lets no energy out. It cannot bleed from the Astral plane, so..."

Magneto nods. "I hypothesize that we are here because of our unique gifts and internal power," he states. "This is a building designed to slowly bleed us to death. Mazes, illusions... some of which fool even me. We struggle and fight and emit heat, all to feed... something," he frowns.

"Come with me. There is but one area I have yet to explore, and with your help, I can get us all there." He flings open a door and starts walking forward with boldly confident steps, seeming to gain momentum as he does so. Mantis' words seem to have given him a new perspective on the situation.

A light shriek and a swift kick meet the unwelcome prod, and with her palms on the wall she pushes herself higher up. "Oy! Keep yer hands to yourself!". For a moment her hair flairs up, looking almost clawlike in its tendril'd locks. A sharp flicker to the glow in her eyes makes it look almost firey and her voice sounds like it is echoing, even if it isn't nearly loud enough to do so reasonably.

Even listening to Magneto talk, keeping an eye on Garth, she was most wary of Mantis for now. Crawling the rest of the way up to the ceiling and 'standing up, arms crossed, she extends a pouty glare her way and the moment the heroine's back is turned, places her thumbs in her ear and wags her hands, making faces childisly.

"Well... Okay. So we are in some freaky ghost place that brought peeps here to snack on their tasty energies." She was comfortable enough to follow along walking, but once again keeps herself on the ceiling, walking along with her head around level with the others, just upside down. "Then... wait.. what happens if we try to take some energy back?"

Mantis is somehow struck with a sense of usefulness; it's something that her words, specifically, rarely brought others to see. In her own mind, she laughed about this: only a crazy situation made her sound understandable. She'd have to remember that. She let Garth move ahead of her to follow Magneto's lead, taking slow, cautious steps forward. Answering Phantasma's question quickly, Mantis said, "Every medium is limited by its tools, every house by its materials. The closer we spiral towards the heart, the more it will strike back. A turtle's shell."

Garth Ranzz takes Mantis's offer to let him pass, and follows Magneto's lead. He does a self-check on the state of his own powers, wondering if he can find and electricity flowing in the surrounding area. "Better to follow you than stand around," he says.

"I have no means to 'convert' this energy," Magneto points out to the team, stepping briskly down a hallway. He stops at a door, opens and closes it three times, and walks through, making sure to hold the door open for everyone. "Though..." He narrows his eyes, focusing, and makes a peculiar gesture with one hand. There's a sharp *crackle* of something yellowish around his fingertips, and even he looks surprised. "...well, it appears I at least have /some/ means of channeling it," he considers.

"The ambient energy here is weak. We must head to the heart of the maze," he explains. "I will take us there, but it is guarded heavily. I suspect I must shepherd my strength until we meet the master of this place," Magneto explains.

"Come, follow quickly."

He leads them through doors and across stairs and at one point, has them double back twice through a room and exit through a window that wasn't there before. In short order, they are on a balcony, overlooking a large entryway that resembles a giant hotel lobby in scope.

Below are dozens of the husks of energy that had been around him, but prowling in lazy circles or seemingly napping. Energized, they look even more like great cats, with broad, powerful claws and hunched shoulders. "The hunters. I had managed to hide from them for a time, but they are certainly the conduit for this energy."

Magneto looks to the three. "I will stand here in reserve while you three clear them out," he explains, in his naturally commanding voice. "We must be careful- they take time to replace, but that energy must go /somewhere/. The more of them you destroy, the stronger the lord of this place must become. So be ready for anything," he warns.

"Go! Now!" he urges, gesturing at the short drop to the prowling mass of ecto-predators.

Far from seeming frightened or even out of place, the Ghost Girl of Gotham seems quite at home here so far. She can't seem to resist pausing to admire paintings on the ceiling, running her hand along a beautiful silver candelabra she finds, and every nwo and then there was that content humming. Truth be told even she didn't know what there was to be so cheerful about... Something just kinda felt... right... here.

Of course... meeting something alive.. or.. er... active at least, and dangerous is another matter. She was still content to stay on walls and ceiling, not once bothering with the floor, until the balcony left her little choice but to go down, or go faaaaar up. Standing and looking down below, some of that usual nervous apprehension was returning.

Then a thought occurs to her... "Its gotta go somewhere... huh?"

Fading slowly from sight, she none-the-less can't seem to become less than half visible. With a little stomp of frustration, she grumbles "Agh! This stupid place! Screw it." She takes a few steps back, then does something quite bold. Its hard to tell where the courage came from, but with a running leap, she actually POUNCES one of the bizarre creatures!

Latching onto it from behind, she says "I REALLY hope this works..." and tries something she's never done before. Usually, to make something else intangible, invisible, whatever... she basically just.. pushes some weird energy into it. She doesn't pretend to understand, but if you can push, you can pull right? Lets see if she can manage to draw the energy out of these things.

Mantis takes a silent two seconds to smile at Magneto. While both awkward and endearing, it was the juxtaposition of her words that seemed most odd: "Your fears also feeding them." She makes a quick gesture, like she were pantomiming thread, or a line, from Magneto's brain to the ceiling.

In the next second, Mantis had darted into the room, and quickly approached the closest 'hunter' beast, who luckily was just slightly removed from the pack... at least for the moment. She stepped back one pace into a martial arts stance, and carefully studied the movement of the creature as it spotted her. Cat-like. Then she fell to the ground, suddenly, gracefully. This not only confused the beast for a split-second, the feint, but it allowed her to level a strong upwards kick into the beast's presumed center of gravity.

Her foot connected, and a deep smack sent the creature hurdling upwards in a slope, landing right on top of another hunter-beast. Mantis' foot stung for a moment, some sort of energy-sting from contact, but she quickly silenced the pain she felt with her uncanny control of her nervous system. Her attack brought the awareness of the foursome quickly to the creatures, and the others in the room looked like they were preparing to attack, each picking their target.

A quick zap of electricity could be heard as Garth punches his fist into the palm of his metallic hand. With this gesture, his body begins to glow with a charged light. Garth knows he can't go all-out, because of his current limitation with this place. But he does know he can cycle his energy, at least, into an on going current of power, using his body as a circuit that it flows through. He runs up to one of the prowling hunters and take a leap into the air using his flight ring to increase his speed to aim a charged upper cut to the hunter's lower jaw.

Magneto considers that for a moment. He'd felt fear, here, for the first time in a long while- unable to access his most significant powers, senses deprived- like a man paralyzed, defending against creatures that cannot possibly exist. Only when he was weary to the point of collapse had they ceased attacking.

"Illusions and control," he says, his lips pressed tightly together. He takes a step back and vaults the balcony, landing effortlessly on both feet. A phantom beast charges him and instead of striking it with a bolt of electricity, Magneto simply leans back and kicks it with all the force he can muster- a blow that can shatter concrete, channeling his powers /inwards/ for the first time. The beast goes flying, with a yelp, and when it lands, it takes a few moments to reestablish its form. He punches another beast, then kicks a third, striking with brutal, inefficient motions that speak of raw power and speed instead of technique.

Magneto starts marching straight up the stairs to the top of the stairwell, following an angry red glow that stands at the top of the stairs.

"Hold them back!" he orders, reaching the top of the stairway.

Sure enough, there is something obviously magical there- a red gem, cut like a ruby, set on a pedestal. But where one might expect a wizard, there is only a skeleton, so ancient that it is crumbling into dust.

"I believe I have found the power source. And it is... not controlled," he adds, looking to the skeleton. "This house, this... trap, it is on autopilot," he explains, ignoring the raging battle below. A beast comes close to him and he absently fries it with a jolt of lightning, turning it into an empty husk again. "It is merely following some long-forgotten programming. Like a computer."

Magneto lids his eyes and puts his hand on the gem a bit timorously, then grimaces immediately at the psychic feedback. "I... I think... I can... commune with it. Hold them off me!" he demands with a choked gasp, struggling against the ruby charm.

It was working, at least on the singular beast she had managed to grab hold of. It was certainly getting a good deal weaker, while she gave a startled gasp at the RUSH of power! That light fire returned to her eyes, and her hair began to move like it had a life all its own. Her gown rippled as though caught by some unseen breeze and that icy penetrating aura was now projecting feet from her.

"Oh yeah... now this is what I'm~AUGH!" Discretion certainly wasn't art of her current plan it seems, and that was when another beast had taken the chance to pounce her. Despite being touched, physically pinned down, she showed no fear. No, she showed pure aggression. That blue flame in her eye shifted in tint, becoming a light purple as she growls "OY! Hands to yourself!" And with that... she sank into the floor!

There was a few moments of nothingness, the monster looking around perplexed, before the rug she vanished into suddenly rippled! A shudder that crossed from corner to corner, before all at once, it violently shook, upending and SPRINGING the confused beast into one of its fellows!

It was like something out of Aladin, the carpet taking on a life of its own. It twists and weaves into tight balls or knots to club and bash, but more often it simply seems to be disorienting the poor beasts. Shifting so they pounce each other or coiling tightly around a few of the more problematic ones, many openings are to be had for the more combat capable.

About fifteen more of the beasts suddenly blink into the room in perfect synchronization of Magneto's hand upon the gem, all hissing and growling. Hearing Magneto's command made Mantis uneasy, and brought to mind random images of him ordering around soldiers, mutants--random images she's seen when first meeting him. But currently discussion, nor peace, was much of an option, as three of the beasts pounced at her.

Mantis simultaneously spun around while stepping back, returning her 360 degrees with a roundhouse kick into one of the beasts, dodging the other two. She'd done combat like this before, but the numbers here were greater.

"Whomsoever cast this domain was--" Mantis began, pausing to dodge another wave of attack. She stepped backward, to get into a more opportunistic spot in the room. --had made it for you--" Mantis sent another series of kicks towards the heads of these creatures, trying to keep them at bay. Many gathered around her, unsure how to get past her kicks, but seemed to be planning to strike as a whole any second. "--Underestimated," she said, her mountingly dangerous situation contradicting her words.

Garth Ranzz strikes the hunter dead on the jaw, sending it downward. He quickly darts around the room, taking in the combat and the words of Magneto. An evil grin crosses his face as he hears 'keep them at bay'--now he knows he can hit them hard. Garth changes up his arm up with a stronger current and dive bombs the ground.

As he comes down he yells, "If you're not grounded, I suggest you get yourself grounded... now!"

With that he brings his metal fist into the ground, sending a shockwave that spiderwebs over the floor floor.

Magneto drops to one knee, holding the gem tight now, white-knuckled. "Almost... there..." he says through gritted teeth, perspiration dripping down his face. He hangs onto the gem with both hands, fighting magical feedback that bleeds between his fingers.

The fighters below are annihilating the beasts- Garth sends them airborne with his massive shockpulse, and between Phantasma's inspired improvised weapon and Mantis' expert, precise combat that does more damage to the beasts than even Garth, they seem to be defeating them with relative ease.

With a roar of triumph, Magneto rips the gem from the stand and raises it in his hand. The gem flickers with rage and a muted scream rises from somewhere, and then the light drops to a mere glimmer. The ethereal beasts stumble, then snarl in renewed rage, as if sensing their life sources being cut off. As a group, they immediately charge for Magneto, who stumbles onto his ass and erects a force field of crackling energy that the beasts start striking furiously, hammering at it with yowls of pain and desperation.

"Help me!" Magneto roars, unable to do anything but keep the beasts from striking him. A few start to get through, their ectoplasmic claws passing through his armor and cutting into him with long, shearing wounds.

It isn't long before the carpet she was attacking with is ripped appart, and Phantasma falls from the sharp rip as though she had been tightly sealed within the fabric itself. There's a brief tumble where she finds herself against the wall next to an old rather large 9 foot statue of a knight, and the beasts turn their attention elsewhere. There's a brief pause where she rubs her head dazed, but now she was angry.

"You.. Youuuuuu" her voice was shaking, and again echoed much like several people were speaking in chorus in different pitches, the girl slowly vanishing from sight again. Its shortly afterwards that the statue trembles. The cry from Magneto comes out, and the most unlikely of saviors suddenly charges from its pedestal! The Marble statue moves as though it were alive, a similar ghostly blue fire in its eyes as was seen earlier in Phantasma.

The marble knight charges fiercely, shield brought to bear and managing to charge into three of the beasts with its shield, and impale another two on its sword like a spit!! The mass the marble commands won't stop easily, and so all five beasts are swept sharply from in front of the master of magnetism, and driven through a nearby wall! Not into, not against, but clean through! This unfortunately proves too much for the statue which crumbles to pieces under the force of the impact, leaving a dazed, groggy and rather exhausted looking ghost girl sprawled atop it. "Ouuughh... T-that... was... interesting."

Mantis took Garth's cue, and jumped up onto a large, Victorian-styled cabinet against the wall. It's aged, polished wood crackling slightly with her impact. The moment it was safe, she saw the beasts unanimously swarm Magneto.

"The ego is a cage!" Mantis screamed up to Magneto, in Buddhist-esque metaphor. "Power can be weakness!"

Mantis glanced over Phantasma and Garth, and then to the swarm of creatures penetrating Magneto's shield. She momentarily stares at the scene of Phantasma's statue assault, marveling at it... but when she sees signs of crumbling, she makes a standing jump onto the back of one of the creatures, landing on one foot on its back, balancing herself despite wobbles.

"You..." she says, jumping quickly onto the back of the beast's neighbor.

"Are..." Mantis continues, continuing her back-jumping like a game of Frogger.

"Fighting..." She jumps ahead with a long stride, both of her feet now posed into a stomp.

"Yourself!" Mantis concludes, the heels of her slamming into the head of a beast about to swat at Magneto, sending it to the ground, its head smacking the floor below. Mantis stands up straight calmly smiles, momentarily ignoring the many creatures just behind her.

Garth Ranzz looks up from the ground he's on with one knee. His ears take in the words, and he looks on with inspiration from Phantasma's strong will. His eyes suddenly look upwards, and he has a memory of the pain and misery of his fellow Legionnaire, the ones from his time, and the feeling hits him hard. He shouts: "Not again! Never again will I watch a teammate fall."

His power then syncs with Magneto energy field, and a burst of energy is sent from Garth to Magneto is the hopes of super charging his powers.

Magneto blinks at Mantis, holding the shield at full strength as Garth reinforces him. He considers her words, her actions, her voice... and then makes the decision. He lifts the gem up as if warding away the beasts, drops his shields... and it starts pulling /them/ into the magic artifact. And not just them- the very power of the demesne itself. The walls melt and run together, the furniture puddles into the floor. There's a vast roaring noise as the nigh-infinite house collapses inwards, again and again, all of reality passing by the four of them without /touching/ any of them. Then it becomes raw whiteness, fading to blackness, the four of them sheltered in a tiny cone of light emanating from the ruby.

Then it all goes black.

When consciousness returns, they are in New York- in Metropolis, in fact, in an old section of mansions that are valued in the millions of dollars. It is precisely the time of day that each of them were taken. Where one of the five-story houses had been, though, is now a crumbling, broken-down townhouse, falling apart and rotting as if neglected for centuries.

Magneto rises, drinking in the energy of the world as if a man in the desert swallowing a gallon of water. He stares at the ruby in his hand, then very gingerly stores it in a pocket in his armor.

"I do not say this lightly," Magneto declares, holding himself stiff from his injuries. "But I owe you all a debt. I take my obligations seriously. Once, and once only, you may call upon me for aid. I might have perished there elsewise." He bows to them- truly bows, an expression of gratitude on his noble features. "I shall return the favor to you, if and when you need it," he assures them all.

Drained from the exertion of... controlling stone.. that was a new one... there's a weakened groan from the hole in the wall she made. She pulls back up to her feet, holding her head with a wince as she slowly drags her feet back into the room. "D-did we win?" she asks, sounding almost hungover, when suddenly things go fast! Then blurry... then white... then black.

Back in the real world, consciousness coming back to her, she swiftly jerks awake and sits up. "Gyagh I'll take you all!" she calls with a snort, looking around hastily and ascertaining that she seems to be.. oh... back here. Well... she pauses to fade in and out of sight, then experimentally wave her hand through a nearby lamp pole. Well.. at least her powers were..

"Woooah..." she was wobbly, and was having trouble just staying afloat. Settling back down to the ground, she instead just wanders over to the gathering of impromptu teammates. Oddly, she had a smile on her face. "Oooh... one chance to have a knight in shining armor come save me? Every girl's dream. You gon' be okay tho?" Ever the punk, the subtleties of the situation are lost on her, but there's a pang of concern hidden in the attitude. "Those things didn't seem to happy with you, and that didn't look like it tickled."

Mantis had a moment of panicked twitches, as the world around her began to dramatically shift, but she soon felt into a spectator's silence, her expression from worry to observant to content. She closed her eyes at the white light, and reopened them to the New York location, glancing around in wonder at the sudden change in scenes. At once, she could feel those old oaks and maple trees perforating the concrete sidewalk outside, letting her know where she was.

She spoke to Phantasma with a calm sweetness, "A desperate fishing line, it was he who reeled us." She walked past Garth, looking to make sure he wasn't hurt. She finally turned to Magneto, "You've a miasma of enemies," she said, stepping backward. She seemed to be making a move to escape, uttering, "But I am not one of them."

She looked to the three just before turning around and dashing away, and concluded by saying, "I am... Mantis." She seemed almost shy, blushing, and then she was gone.

Garth was just barely holding on to consciousness as the world began to spin and change colors. He kept his eyes closed until he felt the cold air of the outside. He finds himself flat on his back, on the ground, with heat vapor emitting from his body. He was gasping for breath. No longer in danger of dying, back in the real world, his powers begin to regenerate. He'd been pushed to his limit, and struggled to speak. "I'm Garth Ranzz."

"I am Magneto, Imperator of Genosha," Magneto declares. He winces and holds a hand to his wounds. "And as I said, call upon me. Meanwhile, I must tend to my wounds." With that, he soars skywards with a blast of motion, moving effortlessly across the sky.