Miss
The plant does not respond and it strikes Spore that, to his dismay, it is too ignorant or underdeveloped to even have a language of it's own.
The fungus lashes out again but the tentacles are wild and thrashing, not striking anything but a ceiling light, exploding it in a shower of sparks that rain down on the group.
Disappointed, Spore consigns himself to attacking the fungus, whirling a series of whipping vines at fungus.
Midnight glides sideways to get a better angle, then throws more bolts of lightning at the remaining plant.
Napalm hurls more acid at the plant, careful to lob it to the back wall and avoid Spore completely.
Midnight blasts the fungus and the top of it explodes in a haze of sizzling purple mushroom tat actually smells oddly delicious.
With the threat of the plants dealt with, you look more closely around the room. Clearly these plants were being harvested and cultured in some way but the purpose is not immediately obvious.
What is obvious is that some of the varieties of plants are obviously dangerous and were contained safely behind an electric fence - a fence that was purposefully sabotaged by the man lying dead on the floor.
Ebon lows his fists as the last one the plants seem to be defeated. "So what happened here?" He says walking over to the dead man brushing off the last of the dead vines. "Did he try and turn the containment back on?" He kneels down searching the man.
Aside from the weapons the group already noted at a glance, the man has a plain white keycard on a lanyard around his neck.
Napalm takes the keycard and tucks it into his pocket. "Maybe this will get us through some doors." He looks at the plants they destroyed. "What the devil kind of plants were they growing here?"
He shakes his head. "Let's get out of here."
Finishing checking the rest of the roo for further threats, Midnight glides down to near the floor
Whatever he was doing here, he cannot help us now and nor can we assist him. I agree with Napalm, we use the Lanyard and proceed
She moves forward and takes a position by the door, moving through once everyone signals their readiness.
Ebon nods. "I'm sure there will be a lot more like this ahead of us. Let's keep moving" He moves with the group heading to the locked door.
"Yeah, let's get moving," Spore says, sounding glum, as the thorns on his body retract slowly.
Glancing back as he leaves, Spore offers a prayer for the fallen plants, and inhales deeply, taking in the scent of the fungus and committing it to memory.
Napalm backtracks to the vault door that had the keycard reader. "I bet this opens the door." He pulls out the card.
A good idea Napalm!
Midnight stands ready as Lucas swipes the card.
The group return to the heavy steel door and press the white keycard against the plain panel beside it. There is a barely audible beep and a tiny light flashes from red to green.
The giant letters above reading
You aren't sure what you were expecting beyond the door. But it probably wasn't this.
Row upon row of hospital beds lie in this large room but unlike any ward they are crammed together so that they are practically touching. Dozens of drip stands are beside them like rows of sentinels though the bags are only half full and the IV lines dangle limply dripping slowly onto the tiled floor.
The beds are unkempt, but empty, as though all of the patients were moved very hastily.
Banks of monitoring equipment stands against one wall though most of the machinery is in flames, a hazy, oily smoke filling the room slowly. Two men dressed in civilians clothing pour gasoline over the remaining equipment and proceed to set it alight. Another two move cautiously between the beds, eyeing you warily.
You are the ones who have destroyed my facility...?
The voice comes from the rear of the room. It is smooth but highly accented. A man moves like a panther, haloed by the licking flames of the burning machinery. He has long black hair and is clearly of east asian origin.
But most striking is his slim, muscular body. Topless, it appears every inch of his skin is covered in beautiful, intricate tattoos of hundreds and hundreds of animals.
This man is a high ranking member of the Hand. No one knows his real identity, but most simply know him as Tattoo - for obvious reasons.
He is an assassin and strategist for the organisation.
Tattoo is a mutant with the ability to animate the tattoos on his body and other two dimensional images his blood has come into contact with into physical beings, or weapons.
"What the hell...?" Napalm shouts at the medical staff. "What are you doing? Who are these people you have here?"
He suddenly sees the tattooed man. "Who are you and what kind of insane experiments were you doing?! What is all this machinery?" He grabs a grenade from his vest.
You are standing in the way of progress, and necessity. the man says calmly, but intensely. Whoever else is out there will be dealt with soon enough, the Hand closes into a fist.
You. he shouts to Ebon. Our battleground is far from here. Out of respect for your order, I will allow you and your companions to leave. I will be chastised for it and I make the offer at great personal risk, but we should meet at the gates of Dhengfeng, or among the blossoms of K'un L'un, not here on this unhallowed soil.
Ebon steps forward his won large dragon tattoo showing on his bare chest as the Tattooed man calls him out.
"I don't know you but it's clear you know me." He holds his fists up as his tattoo begins to shutter slightly.
"Your offer is very generous but my mission is to end the Hand and I'm afraid we wont be meeting in K'un L'un. Take up your weapons, I will show you that I have been trained to end your kind."
"Progress should come about organically. What you're doing is wrong," Spore says, slinking into the room, and putting his body in front of the others.
The Hand will soon be sheathed in a glove of mail. Come then, son of Dhengfeng, if you would choose this to be the location of your death then so be it. the man draws himself up into a perfect crane stance.
Hi entire body seems lengthened but his equilibrium is perfect, aligned with gravity and relaxed downwards through just one foot into the floor. His other leg is raised as high as possible and he transfers his weight back and down through the standing foot.
Though defensive in nature, Ebon knows the stance is that of a man who attacks with high energy and from strange angles. His trained eye recognises expert form when it sees it and he begins turning over thousands of hours of training in his mind to determine how best to counter and defeat such form.
The other men around the room draw a variety of weapons; hatchets and slender bladed fighting knives mostly and await their order to kill.
Tattoo's limbs flow like water as he changes stance from crane to snake. At the same instant one of the depictions on his upper arm seems to magically uncoil from his flesh. A huge green-scaled cobra rises hypnotically from his shoulder, swaying from side to side before rearing back and spitting venom that flies impossibly across the room, striking Ebon in the face!
The venom burns and sticks like glue, gumming up the monk's eyes with searing pain.
Tattoo the shimmers slightly before disappearing entirely!
Hit
Success
Thankfully he is able to turn his head enough at the last moment to prevent himself being blinded by the spit.
Hit
and
Hit
and
Miss
Hit
and
The rest of the Hand operatives close in, slashing out at Spore while another throws a dagger that pierces Ebon's shoulder. Napalm manages to block the hatchet of one of the attackers with his baton but not before another dagger slices a furrow in his thigh.
Napalm grunts as the man's dagger hits him, but the mutagen's powers prevent it from cutting him. In response, the scientist tosses the grenade he's holding at one of the men in front of him. It hit his feet, erupting into a spray of liquid nitrogen.
Ebon is surprised by the attack, his overconfidence showing as the Tattoo man and his men catch him unaware.
He takes a deep breath as blood starts to pool beneath him, he attempts to block out the pain crossing his arms in front of his chest and letting out a large breath he focusing his chi and steps forward his hands glowing.
hp - 10/34
Spore consideres pulling a fungal growth out from inside his body, and decides against it just yet as the others are too close to the mind-affecting powder. Instead he whips a vine in a circle menacingly in front of him, assuming an odd stance from which his body is largely protected, and then strikes out at the victim of Napalm's nitrogen bomb.
Kicking off from the ground, Midnight soars as high as the ceiling lets her, before unleashing a bolt of lightning at the man currently between Ebon and Spore.
Did not confirm
Napalm tosses his canister of liquid nitrogen that bursts at the feet of the assailant some distance away from him. Even as he does so a blade snakes out of the haze and slashes painfully across his bicep.
Fail
Spore's vine wraps around one of the killer's throats and with a powerful twist he hurls the man clear across the room, crashing through beds and tumbling up against the wall.
Midnight blasts the man between Ebon and Spore, her electricity dancing in the air between them and then exploding on his chest in a shower of sparks, eliciting a cry of pain.
and
You see Tattoo flicker back into sight as he pumps his slender arms and sprints around the room, leaping deftly onto one of the beds and then, from his crouched position, jumping like a monkey onto the next and the next again.
As he does so he levels his pale eyes at Midnight and a massive scorpion emerges from the ink on his chest, hissing as it comes and then lancing out with it's sharp tail, piercing her thigh with burning acid before once again his flickering form disappears.
MIss
Miss
Hit
One of the ninjas slashes out at Ebon but the monk blocks the attack and pushes the man back with a deft but largely painless punch to the chest.
The others blade catches in the tough, bark-like structure of Spore's hide but the third once again slashes Napalm, this time deeply across the chest.
Following behind in the wake of the ninja he threw across the room, Spore slips forward, putting himself dangerously in-between two of the remaining fighters, hoping to draw their attention. Whipping vines around himself in a flurry, he strikes out at the southern ninja.
Hissing with the pain, Midnight's violet eyes narrow and she snarls as Tattoo once more fades away. Throwing out a hand almost casually she targets another of the minions.
Napalm winces when the ninja cuts him. He brings up his baton and tries to hammer through the ninja's defenses.
Ebon turn for a moment and nods at Trystt. "It's just like The Hand to hide!" He pants his wounds still affecting him. "Stand and fight!"
He starts to spin he hands around in an intricate movement as the dragon on his chest shudders and then it seems to stick its head out and a large yet of flame shoots from Ebon chest.
hp - 13/34 casting burning hands towards the square I saw him in last... AC = 22
Spore spins, hurling nature's fury at the ninjas assaulting his friends. Vines as thick as a man's leg crash into the Hand agents. One wraps around the attacker and hurls him up into the air. As he smashes into the ceiling and begins falling Midnight swoops down and blasts him with electricity, hurling him across the room.
Trystt steps behind Napalm and manipulates the electrical field around them to painlessly cauterise his wound.
The tech falls back onto his SHIELD training, snapping out his baton and swinging it with a whistle at the Hand fighter but it is deflected pretty easily.
At one time Ebon's people, those of K'un L'un and the Hand were one before a violent divergence meant the three factions split. He draws on ancient training probably more similar to Tattoo's than he would like to admit and unleashes a blast of arcane fire where he last saw his opponent.
Success
Hit
The assassin slashes out again, cutting across Napalm's shoulder.
The next cuts Trystt deeply but seeing his little friend in danger, Spore shoots a vine out at the last second that deflects the blade into her shoulder where it looked certain to drive home into her heart.
Miss
Tattoo appears before Ebon and slashes out in a deadly arc with a razor-sharp katana. Ebon reacts out of pure instinct and leans backward. The blade whistle close enough to his face to cut through his headband.
The white cloth splits and falls in two neat pieces.
Don't be foolish, child of Dengfeng. You stand and fight like a lummox but we make you fear the night!
With that, he once again vanishes!
Ebon grits his teeth as he moves into his dragon stance and strikes out with two large punches where Tattoo was.
"Show your self and I'll show you fear!" He shouts out.
Napalm screams again as the ninja continues to cut him. The scientist realizes the man has him pinned down and panics from the close quarters fighting. He grabs a grenade and throws it at the man's feet, momentarily opening himself up to another attack.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Miss
Hit
Ebon swings and feels his fist connect once. Tattoo grunts in pain.
Miss
Napalm's grenade practically freezes the man to his core. He topples like a falling tree and hits the ground with a horrible crack!
As Napalm tips the odds into their favor, Spore moves to the far end of the room, keeping an eye on Ebon and waiting for Tattoo to reappear, intending to distract him with his pheromones when he next reappears.
Gliding around the ceiling, Midnight continues her assaulton the hand's minions.
and
Reeling from Ebon's punch, Tattoo repositions, dashing nimbly between the beds. He emerges beside Spore and suddenly his arm is no longer his own but rather a massive paw of a polar bear, furred and clawed and thickly muscled.
He brings it down with tremendous force smashing through limbs thick enough to be tree trunks and almost crushing Spore.
You will regret coming here and interfering with what you don't understand!
Spore absorbs the surprise blow from Tattoo with a grunt, as his outer layer of greenery turns brown and falls away with the bear claws, revealing a fresh, albeit slightly smaller, 'skin' underneath.
"I regret very little," Spore rumbles in return, surprised, pained, and very angry.
With a series of strikes, whips, and lunges, Spore retaliates with a wild series of flails.
Napalm breathes a little easier when the ninja goes down. "Ok, so where did he go?" He looks around and sees the man appear and nearly crush Spore. He reaches for a grenade, but finds his vest empty. He reaches for a canister on his belt.
"Hey! Chew on this!" He charges forward and hurls a canister at the man. Acid sprays out towards him when it hits the ground.
As the acid spray out, Tattoo turns his face away and raises an arm, a huge bird's wing morphing out his arm and along his flank, catching the worst of the sizzling liquid.
Ebon pushes forward the Hand agent pulling back. So he moves into taking advantage of his lost ground, jumping down aiming for his face.