Welcome to the second match of the Tournament! The poll is now open to all members the forum. This is a Challenge Match in which the players were given an additional challenge in addition to fighting the other team.
The Challenge
The location of the match is Central Park. A criminal broke into Pym's laboratory and stole a growth ray. The criminal got away, but not before turning this weapon on ants in order to distract the police. Local heroes were able to evacuate the civilians and establish a perimeter. However, each of our teams only has one half of a shrink ray.
Essential Information
1) Each team starts at an opposite end of the park.
2) They must avoid/subdue any giant ants in your path.
3) They must defeat the other team and capture their half of the shrink ray. Pym will thank the winner for their help.
The Teams
Team Invisible Brainic
Martian Manhunter- 50 points
Gates (Retro-Boot)- 40 points
Kinetix (Non-Terrorform)- 30 points
Kid Quantum II (Non-Time Traveler)- 30 points
VS.
Team Thoth Lad
Amazo - 50 points
Vanisher- 35 points
Ultra Boy- 35 points (with flight ring)
Ambrose Chase- 30 points
Team Emily Sivana
Adam Warlock (Modern)- 50 points
Quentin Quire- 25 points
Magma- 30 points
Nightshade- 30 points
Stature- 15 points
VS.
Team Power Boy
Binary 50
Dr Spectrum 30
Smasher 35 (with flight patch)
Vance Astro 20
Moon Knight- 15
Match 3: Invisible Brainiac
The Martian Manhunter, Kinetix, Kid Quantum II and Gates are about to enter the arena.
Still smarting from their defeat in Round 1, J'Onn gives a telepathic pep talk:
"Okay, we got careless. But let's remind each other how powerful we are -
1) Kid Quantum's brother managed to freeze XS, a member of the Flash family, once. She's more powerful, and once she herself managed to CLOSE DOWN A RIFT THREATENING THE ENTIRE GALAXY. (Widening Rifts, LSH v4 125)[/u] Take that.
2) Kinetix, even before turning into a Terrorform, was incredibly powerful. In a fight with Mordru, she was able to deflect a blast powerful enough to wipe out 20+ super-beings including a Daxamite. (Legionnaires 50). Admittedly, with help, but most of the teams here don't have that much firepower. She can fly unaided too.
3) Gates can teleport to any point in the planet, and his disks are sharp-edged - he took of Ra's al Ghul's arm (The Legion 8). He can easily teleport all four of us. We've also seen him create multiple disks before - up to 4 at a time (LSH v4 91), and nothing says he can't do more.
4) And I am strong enough to have been one of a handful of heroes to fight the Anti-Monitor twice. I can turn invisible, intangible, can shapeshift, and have all of Superman's powers except a nasty weakness to fire - but then I overcame that with the help of Scorch (JLA Watchtower era 78-89 thereabouts, the Fernus story).
The three of you are teammates who know each other's moves well, and I am a telepath. We can very much do this.
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Emboldened, the four enter the arena and, like a well-oiled machine, go for their targets. How do they know what to do? Telepathy, of course. And ants, shmants. Each of the four can evade the ants as they wish.
Leaving their half of the ray in a safe place, they leap at their targets:
1) Gates tackles the biggest threat, Amazo. Martian Manhunter uses his telepathy from afar to stun Amazo long enough for Gates to act - Gates only needs a minute or two. How? Amazo has telepathy too, so J'Onn can affect him. And even without, we once saw J'Onn use telepathy to reach the android Red Tornado (JLA/Avengers 2)!
Now, we know from previous battles (JLA 2006 series 1-5, Tornado's Path) that Amazo's android body can be damaged even though he can copy invulnerability. Black Canary and Black Lightning attacked his ears (described as the source of his power) and Hal and Bats took on his legs ("that's how you stop the Flash!"). Gates uses his disks to quickly port away Amazo's ears and legs and arms and head and torso into ten different directions. Yeah, this won't stop Amazo outright, I think he can repair himself, but it buys enough time that he's not an immediate threat. Ants? Gates can't fly but he sets disks around him to teleport the ants away.
2) Kid Quantum II can fly to avoid the ants. She uses her powers to mess with Ambrose Chase's ill-defined powers over physics. I think Ambrose is a bit more versatile, but Kid Q has greater range and can cover a bigger area. She stalemates him by constantly changing the effects of her powers - slow time down, speed time up, keeps him confused enough that he can't affect her. Again, she can't keep it up forever but she does not need to.
3) Kinetix can also fly unaided to avoid the ants, and uses her telekinetic field to surround herself AND Ultra Boy. Again, she could deflect an energy blast from Mordru; she should be able to withstand anything Ultra Boy can throw by surrounding him in her field. Heat vision or super strength punches won't get through. Super speed? He can't use it if she's restraining him in an airtight field (did I mention she once used her telekinesis to cut off Mordru's oxygen in Legionnaires 50 too?) She might not be able to keep it up forever, but again, she does not need to.
4) Martian Manhunter takes on Vanisher. Vanisher jumps around, trying to get at J'Onn. J'Onn phases so Vanisher can't hit him, and uses a trick from Marvel Comics - he makes Vanisher forget he can teleport. (Ctrl+F Memory Erasing on this page). He easily takes Vanisher down.
This frees J'Onn up to help the others. He goes for the next biggest threat, Ambrose Chase. Whether or not Kid Q is still standing, he phases so Ambrose can't affect him with his physics-messing field. One solidified arm in the chest later and Ambrose goes down.
By this time, Ultra Boy has probably resorted to invulnerability to stop Kinetix's field from knocking him out. J'Onn easily puts him to sleep with his telepathy.
At this point I have at least MM, Kinetix and Gates, and I argue I still have Kid Q too. Amazo should be reassembling himself now, assuming he still can. All four of my heroes jump on him. J'Onn shapeshifts and Kinetix warps his android body to keep him off-balance. Kid Q stalls his android head in a quantum bubble, making him slow to react, while Gates teleports bits and pieces of his android body off. Kinetix takes his atoms apart bit by bit as Gates does so to keep Amazo from reforming quickly. As he gets more and more damaged, J'Onn can phase his arm in and start pulling out bits of circuitry and stuff.
When Amazo was reactivated by the Key (JLA v1 191) or when he fought Detroit (JLA v1 243) or in Tornado's Path (JLA 2006 series 1-5) they were able to beat him using blunt force trauma when he was off-balance. He's totally off-balance now.
It takes a bit of sustained effort, but soon Amazo is down. Even without Kid Quantum (if she goes down earlier), the remaining three should be able to do it.
And with that, my team picks up the other half of the shrink ray and stops the ant problem. Smile for the cameras.
VS.
thoth lad
The suddenness of any competition can take participants a fraction of a second to adjust. As the specialised point man of Planetary, Ambrose Chase is more than used to reacting quickly in that situation. He’s often the first to appear, using his powers to bring his colleagues into missions and minimising counter measures.
Ambose Chase immediately freezes time around the opposing section of the arena using his temporal field. Had they been fast enough to notice, the spectators would see a rippling effect of temporal distortions.
But trained as he is for exactly this sort of action, Ambrose is far from being the first strike of this team…
Faster than biological thought, something unknown has targeted the opposing team. Something else else invisible, travelling at the speed of light and with Kryptonian power*. Its advanced computer brain is far in advance of anything in the arena. It has been built solely for combatting and defeating superhumans.
It shears past the ants and through the opposing team, before any could have had time to take action. At the speed of Barry Allen it could undoubtedly have gone through them on numerous runs before Martian Manhunter (the fastest of the opponents) could react. Kid Quantum is targeted first and is taken out, with Gates being the secondary target to fall to multiple super speed punches at Superman strength.
As it clears the opposing team at super speed, the unknown being sends a brief blast of mental chaff into its enemy’s minds. While not having the mastery of Manhunter, it will disorientate them all when it reaches them through Ambrose’s field. Doing that brings the figure into the Manhunter’s biological speed of thought, which is just when Chase’s field effects hit. With Kid Quantum down, there’s nothing to counteract Chase’s work.
The being smiles throughout the contest. The cameras may pick it up as endearing but Amazo is simply pleased at being himself.
As Ambrose’s field hits Jo will have unleashed his flash vision. It seemingly slows down to outside observers as it seeps into the field’s influence. A heartbeat later Jo switches to Ultra invulnerability, and uses his flight ring to fly up above the fray and the ants. His flash vision is matched by a second wave of searing energy from the other side of the arena: Source unknown, but it got there at light speed (Martian Invisibility+ Flash speed).
Vanisher is the slowest of the team, but is able to add gunfire into Chase’s field. In these opening moments, he will only be able to fire a few shots. A few beams of energy from his guns lance across the arena, the light slowing as they hit the field shortly behind Jo’s Ultra-vision.
As the energy attacks penetrate through the field, Chase adds gravity onto his temporal field, crushing his opponents down. It’s not enough to seriously affect the Manhunter, but none of the others will be able to cope with it, stuck as they perceive the world at a crawl.
We’re still moments into the contest. The Manhunter’s sheer force of will and strength should be making headway against the forces around him. As he looks to break free of the field, the whole opposing team is hit by the heat of twin suns coming from the supervision of Jo and an unknown source, as the energy reaches it.
Note that all of these are area effect powers. Chase’s field will affect the Manhunter whether invisible or intangible. Likewise, the flash vision will affect the entire opposing team. Ambrose’s temporal field will affect the Martian’s ability to launch his own mental attack. As Amazo doesn’t have a biological brain he is resistant to the Manhunter’s own psionic attacks.
From this initial assault it’s a case of dealing with anyone still standing.
I imagine that this will be Kinetix using TK shields to offset some of the gravity attack, but still affected by the slowness of time. Vanisher isn’t the world’s best shot, but it should be enough to force Kinetix into a moment of diversion against his initial gunfire. She may even have enough TK raised to fend off the combined heat vision of Jo and our mystery team member. As the energy attacks arrive, she could be conscious to hear the cry of pain from the burning Martian as he passes out.
If she is, she won’t be able to counteract an invisible sonic attack or withstand an opponent moving at superspeed through her field at atomic size. Numerous Kryptonian strength punches to her shields or from an opponent suddenly within them, may not even be needed.
While Jo and Ambrose target Kinetix for a second alone, Amazo will use Firestorm’s transmutational powers to create a sugary smelling mound seemingly out of thin air in the middle of the arena. Giant ants will be pretty fast so it’s important they have something to do after the first few seconds.
She certainly won’t be able to cope with the sudden vertiginous blackness as light bends around her and gravity crushes in further within her TK fields. The same would apply to Gates in the unlikely event that he can withstood those super speed & strength punches delivered before he could think.
Should Jo need to go up against anything stronger, he need only do so for a moment before his superspeed companion takes care of anyone else still standing. That psionic attack would be persistent throughout, so it’s only the Manhunter who would put up any form of resistance to it.
Any kind of conflict, brings out the smiling rogue in Jo, eager to test himself. He’s the camera’s poster boy for my team and his Legion code keeps the others firmly in check. Besides, Amazo is most invisible throughout.
Still at range, the Vanisher can remove anyone he feels to be able to stay conscious through those couple of seconds of combat. He can teleport them away, shoot them with lasers or more simply use his gas gun to render them unconscious, teleporting in to deliver the shot and back out again. While he won’t race into combat needlessly to do this, Vanisher is also most likely to teleport the shrink ray away, teleport to safety to combine them and then return to use it on the ants.
“You’re welcome Dr. Pym”
Interfering ants can be teleported away, removed by strength+flight of either Amazo or Jo or be slowed to a crawl by Ambrose.
Things not going well?
Amazo combines intangibility with superstrength to go under the arena and cause an earthqquake against his foes.
Ambrose can bring out his guns, creating a wall of flesh wounding bullets in addition to time slowing.
Jo's used to switching between his powers, but would take the high ground to blast at range. That ring comes in handy to keep his safer.
Vanisher teleports opponents across a continent allowing time for others to regroup.
*Amazo can combine the powers of the Justice League, and not just shift between them. (JLA 191)
Match 4: Power Boy
Astro, Smasher, Dr. Spectrum and Moon Knight stare across the park at the giant ants coming their way.
Binary however, spies Adam Warlock. “well crap.” She makes eye contact with Dr Spectrum and nods to Adam Warlock in the distance. Dr Spectrum understands.
They five take to the sky ignoring the ants. Smasher carries Moon Knight easily.
Binary speeds in laying down fire at the opposing team of Adam Warlock, Nightshade, Quentin Quire, Magma and Stature.
Stature is the only one immediately injured by the intense blasts Binary is putting down. Adam Warlock tries to use his quantum energy control to fix Binary but for the moment she is too fast and agile.
Despite the pain Stature grows to swat Binary but is not fast enough, it takes Binary a moment but she blasts Stature into fiery unconsciousness. Stature lands with an intense crash, squishing two ants underneath here and the other ants in the area scurry away … terrified by the fire and noise.
Binary thinks, this isn’t going to look good on camera plus … those ants might get out of the park and start terrorizing Manhattan.
“AGH!” She yells. A moment lost in thought and Adam Warlock has the drop on her. She struggles to resist his quantum control with her own power drawn from stars.
Dr Spectrum swings by, only he can help Binary now with his power prism but there’s three more opponents to deal with first. His prism glows and four bright balls fly forth each zipping at light speed to each opponents face.
Magma, Quentin Quire and Nightshade all get a rich blast of light in their faces. Adam Warlock shrugs off his and begins hammering Binary again. Nighshade disposes of the ball of light in an inky shadow.
Magma responds by freaking out, earth shatters and lava erupts from the ground.
However, Binary’s team stays high in the sky. Magma might be doing more harm to her teammates than opponents. Nightshade sneakily disappears in a shadow portal avoiding the chaos.
Smasher chooses to drop from the sky and engage Magma, She tosses Moon Knight away and he daintily hops down with a cat’s grace. Smasher points her flight patches at Magma rocketing from the sky smashing into Magma with a huge impact despite the flames and heat because she has switched her power to invulnerability.
One more down, Smasher turns to Quentin Quire who is cowering in the middle of the wreckage of Magma’s outburst. Quentin throws rocks and debris at Smasher but it has no effect … then Quentin uses his telepathy to confuse Smasher … exchanging his image for Moon Knight’s. Smasher charges towards Moon Knight but Moon Knight is far more agile than Quentin Quire would be and easily dodges for the moment.
Vance Astro sees all this and rockets in, he knows what is going on, he’s been hanging back because Quentin might be more powerful but Astro is more skillful and his few bag of tricks are effective such as a powerful telekinetic force blast he fires at Quentin Quire shattering the Kid Omega’s force fields. Quentin tries to regroup, Smasher is freed from the illusion, but Astro deftly and gently drops the kid with a karate chop.
Dr Spectrum seeing that they have taken the edge flies back up towards Binary … where he sees her crumble under the quantum energy control of Adam Warlock. She disappears in a crushing wave of light that distorts her image as if she is being shrunk into a black hole. However, Carol Danvers is not one to go down easily and while she is crushed under Adam Warlocks power she explodes releasing all the fire and light she can muster stunning Adam Warlock even after she winks out.
After the loud boom of Carol’s last effort. Nightshade reappears: shadows streak toward Dr Specturm … yet … Moon Knight has been waiting for Nightshade to reappear and pounces on her with a bevy of kicks and punches … she drops her shadows against Dr Spectrum and turns to a shadow herself to avoid Moon Knight.
Smasher says “let me” and transfers her power from invulnerability to energy blasts as beams of light streak from her eyes to strike Nightshades form. Nightshade is able to resist .. but it stalemates her.
Dr Spectrum knows he’s already wasted too much time and needs a good strategy for Adam Warlock, who while stunned and tired is still out of his league.
Dr Spectrum honestly can’t think of anyway to defeat Adam Warlock, he considers throwing him into space but Warlock could just return … a light harpoon through the gut? Even if it could pierce his super strong form, that’s pretty gruesome in front of these cameras.
“What do you think Prism?” The prism responds “There’s still a lot of lava here”
Quickly Dr Spectrum prepares a light slingshot that grabs Adam Warlock, even as he comes to, the light harnass swings Adam Warlock around and throws him down into the lava plunging him deep underground!
“That’s gotta hurt, even for him” Dr Spectrum quips, exhausted.
Nightshade is left, even overcoming Smasher’s energy vision but Astro creates a force bubble around her penning her in, after the battle with Smasher she can’t muster the strength to break or teleport free, and even if she did, Dr Spectrum is recovering now.
Vance Astro picks up the second half of the shrink ray. (He’s always one to be responsible).
Smasher says tiredly, “there’s still all these ants” …
Moon Knight says “I’ve got an idea” After some time explaining and getting the others on board with his plan. Moon Knight chases down the ant in the lead, hops on his back and wraps a length of cable around him like a harness … and drives him to the Manhattan zoo. The other ants follow in a single file line.
Thanks to the press, that’s the photo the makes the newspapers.
Once corralled in the zoo, and after tons of photos and a special giant ant exhibit that draws huge crowds … Hank Pym shrinks them back down to normal ant size.
VS.
Emily Sivana
Stature stares out into the field and then back at her colleagues and sighed, "Pym's security system failed. Again."
"So? Just go an talk to the ants!" Quentin Quire gestures.
Stature shrugs, "I can't talk to ants."
Quentin blinks, "Really? You are Ant-Man's daugh--"
He is interrupted by a blast of energy.
Adam Warlock said, "Be quiet and mind-link us all together. Magma, create a barrier between our half of the shrink ray and the other team..."
He sees Binary begin to accelerate out of the corner of his eye and quickly flies to head her off. He tries to stall her with his quantum magic, but it barely makes a dent because she has the power of the stars themselves. Adam knows this is going to be a stalemate, and decides to grab onto Binary's arms and teleport them above Earth so that any further energy bursts do not have the potential of causing harm to innocents. Of course, this means he is removed from the field for the rest of the match as well.
Meanwhile, down below, Magma has created flows of lava around their half of the shrink ray and stands in front of her little hill, prepared to fend off against any attackers. Nightshade tried to teleport directly to the object, but was quickly stalled by Dr. Spectrum. As this is a non-prep match, I did not research his powers deeply, but from what I understand he is basically a Green Lantern and typically people with dark powers can overpower Green Lanterns. Nightshade would quickly figure out he has light powers when he tries to blast her. Nightshade shadow-folds a tidal wave of darkness onto him, which knocks him straight to the ground and out of the match. However, Nightshade was not paying attention to Smasher, and the Imperial Guard surprises her with an unexpected volley of punches which knocks her of her feet and onto the ground. As she tries to get up, Vance Astro flings his mighty shield and Nightshade is knocked unconscious.
Quentin Quire, who has been telling the ants to turn around and providing mind-links the entire time of the match gets cries of help and decides that it is time for a gambit. He telepathically tells Stature to shrink down to normal insect size and to make a run for the other half of the weapon. Meanwhile, he lets go of the mind-link, moves forward to the other side of the arena, and proceeds to reach into the minds of the remaining opponents. Similar to what he did to Wolverine in the classic "Riot at Xavier's" Arc in New X-Men, Smasher becomes overwhelmed with memories of past mistakes and failures and is rendered useless for the remainder of the match.
Unfortunately, Quentin has no time to celebrate the victory as the other two remaining members prove more resistant to his mental powers. Quentin gets the feeling that there is something else in Moon Knight...either multiple personalities or a foreign entity... and instead focuses his attention on Vance Astro.
Another natural-born leader who loves his country? Where do you all come from? Quentin telepathically quips.
At least I know who I am. Do you know who you are? Vance Astro replies. The future Guardians of the Galaxy leader tries firing telepathic blasts, but Quentin easily dodges them (remember he's had classes with the likes of Professor Xavier, Emma Frost, and Rachel Grey).
Kid Omega. Rebel leader, popular, and future Phoenix host, He quips back. This infuriates Vance Astro, who tries to telekinetically lift Quentin from the ground, but Quentin creates a psionic shotgun and fires it at Vance Astro, who convulses in pain. That is more than enough time for Quentin to signal to Magma to grab their half of the shrink ray and advance forward to help when and if Vance Astro recollects himself.
Stature had made her way to the other half of the shrink ray during the psychic battle, but was briefly halted by Moon Knight. She narrowly dodged his weapons, but was almost smashed by his foot when she panicked and began growing to the size of a giant. This knocked Moon Knight to the ground,. Just to be safe, she picks him up, and throws him in front of the giant ants. Stature then returns to normal size and grabs their half of the shrink ray.
Magma flies in with the other half of the shrink ray. What happens next depends on the psychic strength of Vance Astro. If he is pretty strong, then Quentin Quire would provide psychic shielding while Magma blasts him from the air. He would run straight into Stature, who is primarily a brawler. As she can shift size, I figure it would be more difficult for him to use his telekinetic powers on her. As the saying goes, even Superman can't be in two places at once, so sooner or later Vance will not be able to keep fighting in multiple fronts...especially when Stature could grow to meet him in mid-air. Maybe he will be reasonable and surrender, and if not Quentin will gladly use the psionic shotgun again. The three of them quickly put the shrink ray back together.
"Cassie, it's good to see you again," Dr. Pym says.
Stature replies, "You are welcome, Dr. Pym. But shouldn't we shrink the ants?"
Pym laughed, "Why would we do that? I already invited them to the movie's premier!"
Invisible Brainiac (80%, 4 Votes)
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thoth lad (20%, 1 Votes)
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Power Boy (50%, 2 Votes)
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Emily Sivana (50%, 2 Votes)
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