"If there are Sentinels at the mine, why did I just see a group of them hightailing it the other way?  Unless they're going for backup?"

As he neared the mines, he saw a large, greenish-grey figure along with two smaller ones.  "Uh, what's with Frankenstein?  Friend or foe?"

The three near the mine could hear the whine of a jet engine as Iron Man landed a respectable distance from them, just in case he got bad news from Cap.

A fist shattered through the stone from within. Paige crawled out of the hollow shell. Before anyone could wonder how she could fit in there without suffocating the shell crumbled to dust in the Hulk's hand.

She snapped at Tony.

"The hell are YOU? Another one of ROXXON'S goons?"

*heard over the SHIELD frequency transmitter Captain America and Iron Man are wearing*

"Captain! Iron Man! I love a hostage and rescue mission as much as the next guy but we've got sighting of some sort of DRAGON over New York City!"

"Tony! Fly up to the zeppelin for refueling and head straight to Hell's Kitchen!"

"Cap, you lead your new musclebound friend and your backwoods battalion in for the rescue and our agents will back you up! This dragon thing has ROXXON written all over it so there's gotta be some sort of connection. Find any info you can that can help us stop this Fin Fang thing! Over and out!

It couldn't be seen from behind his mask, but Tony raised his eyebrows at the girl's very odd appearance and put up his hands in response to her little outburst, "Far from it dollface.  Those jerks got their dirty paws on my designs, hence the similarities.  Actually, I'm here-"

He was cut off by the transmission from Fury.  "Sorry folks, looks like I'm needed elsewheres.  But you got the big guy there and Cap is on the way, so things should be peachy... hopefully."

That said, Iron Man blasted off towards a zeppelin waiting far off in the distance.

To Hell's Kitchen >>

"Well what are we waitin' for? I gots KIN ta save!"

Sam runs towards the entrance. As a Sentinel aims his weapon, Sam's body glows as his force field reflects the bullets. An instant later the Sentinel is crushed against the back of the cave wall.

"There's another tunnel! This way!"
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 14:18, Wed 06 Feb 2019.

Hulk lopes after Sam, itching to find more of the metal things to pulp. As he passes the one Sam crushed, he stops for a moment to drive a thunderous fist through its chest, just for good measure.

"Alright, big guy," said Captain America, "no need to break everything you see. Try to limit it to the can men and maybe doors."

There was no stopping the Hulk. He was more a force of nature than a monster. But he was certainly effective at getting rid of sentinels.

As the unstoppable force that is the Hulk, continues down the passageway the party finds a steel door, just the sort of thing Hulk likes to smash.

"Hulk sees door, Hulk needs to break it!" growls the grey behemoth to the man behind him. Taking a deep breath, the Hulk slams both fists into the barrier to his forward progress.

After blow upon blow of gamma-powered fury the door falls with a deafening clatter off its hinges. Inside is...you guessed it...a secret laboratory.

A klaxon wails from deep inside the tunnels as men in yellow rubber outfits in rediculous cylinder-shaped headgear covering scurry about in a panic, going deeper into the repurposed mine tunnels. Some of them carry firearms and begin shooting at the Hulk.

Captain America steps over the remains of the once-formidable barrier and follows Hulk into the room. The mooks with the guns seem well taken-care-of, so Cap angles the shield in their direction, but runs for the opposite door and into the next room.

In the next room Jay Guthrie and the two kids are trapped in a cage. On the other side of the room is gigantic brain the size of boulder in a huge glass tank of green bubbling fluid, surrounded by switches and dials. There’s also a table with a dissected body that appears to be half-lizard. Papers are strewn across the floor as if the scientists left in a hurry.

Slowing to a cautious walk, Captain America approached the lizard man, though he kept his eyes on the giant brain. "Are you kids all right in there," he asked? "We'll have you out in a moment." He took his eyes off the brain only briefly, as he checked the dissected corpse, taking note of what organs had been removed. He had a feeling that Dr. Banner would have been more useful than the Hulk.

Jay speaks up. "We've been pushes around and pistol whipped but we're still alive. Them yeller folks was cuttin' up that scaly guy. The said somethin' about an antidote before they took a'runnin!"

Hulk barely bothers to take in the brain, the corpse, or any of the lab equipment that Bruce Banner would have been drawn to. Instead he crosses the room in several large strides, grabs the bars of the cage in two enormous fists, and, with a roar of anger directed at those who imprisoned these innocents, attempts to rip the cage apart.

The three prisoners back up, and the two yonguns clutches the winged one's sides as the Hulk tears open the bars.

"Jay? Can I be that kinda Doctor when I grow up?" Ask the freckled reheaded child.

Jay chuckles. "If you eat all your greens, maybe!"

"A cure, you say? So, they think this is some kind of disease?"

Cap looked at the lab equipment, now scattered all over the floor, and picked out an unbroken test tube and a stopper. He collected a sample of whatever fluids he could get without actually touching the body.

"Okay, let's vamoose, before those Sentinels come back."

Jay starts picking up the notes strewn across the floor.
"They said this was one of their own scientists that got bit...I saw him change while they were strappin' him down. That speak by that brain said it was their highest priority!"

Sam quickly gathers up the handwritten notes strewn across the floor.
"There's chemical diagrams on these...they could be part of the cure?"

While Sam gathered up the papers, Captain America guarded the door, so there would be no interruptions. "Good idea. Take anything else you think might be of use, too. I'd hate to have to come back, just to get a microscope slide."

Tossing the cage bars carelessly aside, Hulk now turns his attention to the giant floating brain.

"Stupid brain!" yells the Hulk, as if speaking loudly will help him be heard through the jar and the liquid. "Why did you take Hulk's friends? Answer Hulk, or Hulk will tear you apart like he did that cage!"

The speaker hisses with static.

“I did -not- kidnap those children! I am as much a prisoner as they are, if not more so!”

That gets Captain America's attention. "I've never met a brain in a jar who was not in charge," he says, turning to face the jar.

”And you’ve found more brains like me? There’s AIM for you. Always repeating their experiments. I was just another scientist A year ago! And now that you’ve compromised this facility? Even if Doctor Banner here doesn’t destroy me now I already know the number of hours I’ll survive without maintenance down to the tenth of a second!”
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:55, Thu 21 Feb 2019.

Hulk leans in to the brain in the jar. "How do you know puny Banner?" he growls. And a fair question it is too: how DOES the disembodied thinker know Bruce Banner's secret? "How long will Brain last? Hulk will carry brain to safety, save brain if brain helps Hulk's friends!"

"Even with your distended features and darkened pigmentation I can still recognize your profile. Not to worry, I wouldn't expect you to remember me in this state, even if you did retain your intellectual faculties.

We went to the University together. We dissected that fetal pig together in Advanced Biology. I...was...Mortimer Braddock. Now I just have a file abbreviation for a name.


MODOK.


And while your offer is appreciated, it is impossible for me to leave this chamber. Not with this equipment. Not with this tank. And I'd fall apart in your bare hands."

A machine in the corner starts cranking out a long folded sheet of paper.

"Here is the antidote. Doctor Banner, if he still exists, can create a vaccine. Of course this may all be for nothing if the energy readings from the Antarctic continue to increase. A pity I won't survive long enough to measure it. At least my remains will be quickly broken down to energy and consumed..."