The Questers...

[Quaxo9]

[img=left]http://www.cbreview.net/album_pic.php?pic_id=154[/img]

Two seconds on the phone and I'm already grinning as I hop down the front steps of the precinct. There he is: showing off - just like a man, I say. I wave and whistle at my flyboy before replying.

"Heya sexy. Wouldn't you know it, I just got a week off - starting now - so someone else will have to book the guy. The kidnapping, however, is up for grabs. Especially when it's involving danger...oh, and Hawaii is a nice bonus too."

[Mattson]

[img=left]http://server2.uploadit.org/files/LordMattson-ForceA.jpg[/img]
The armored man circled the building once more before landing. He dropped the unconcious man under his arm and scooped up Nancy.

"One express trip to the pacific."

He took off into the air before continuing.

"So they want me to get this black box from a downed plane. Monster Island is where it went down if you beleive that. They'll have a plane waiting to fly close and drop us close enough to fly in."

[Ralthric]

[img=left]http://server2.uploadit.org/files/Aliexster-Jorge.jpg[/img]Further inland of Monster Isle there is what might be considered a 'game trail', save for the fact it was the size of a four lane highway and traveled upon by some of the most dangerous beasts on Earth. Currently one of them was scuttling it's way along, a horrible multi-legged insectoid beast with a dozen eyes and a plenthora of gleaming fangs. Trailing a few dozen yards behind it and a few in the air was an odd coppery contraption with a large blue lens, seemingly defying gravity silently. A slight russell of leaves caught the machine's attention away from the monstrosity, it looks into the trees for the source of the sound for a minute before turning back to it's original mission.

Then something burst out of the trees to latch on to the machine, forcing it to the ground on the other side of the trail. "I finally got one of you things..." The man on the probe's back says through his teeth, though it's hard to tell since every inch of his body is covered by a carbon-fibre bodysuit with hood that seemed to change slowly as it got exposed to the light. The only thing that stayed constant were a pair of goggles intently looking at the machine for something resembling an off switch. "Now stop struggling," He says wrestling the thing to the ground but doesn't seem to be making much headway. Suddenly with a surge, the machine lurches towards the sky, with the man clutching on for dear life.

Screaming out his lungs as they both head further into the forest as his hands search for some sort of component he can yank out of the otherwise smooth surface of the probe. On the underside, he feels a small cube wiggle a bit, "Here we go, let's see how you like THIS" He says yanking it out the component, suddenly the light leaves probe's eye and drops out of the sky, forcing the figure to tuck and roll protecting the machine with his body. Coughing a bit getting back up to his feet, Jorge mutters to himself, "You're a lucky thing you know that? You're about to put me into a new tax bracket. You and that plane that went down are going to net me a tiddy profit upon my return to the world."

Jorge starts to head for his camp on the other shore of the island, little more than a Zodiac, a high-hide, and a small solar generator for power. He was almost halfway to his 'home' when a roar shattered the silence of the island, "That wasn't one of the beasts about here..." Jorge says after his experience on the island so far. "Almost sounded like..." He says before deciding that he should check it out. Hoisting the machine up into the canopy, he hides it within one of the trees with thick leaves for later retrieval. Checking his suit for any sort of tears in the short flight that would cause the charcoal that makes him invisible to the noses of the various monsters. Not finding any, he heads off through the trees in the direction of Beloved, the fractial camouflage changing patterns slowly every other second. The reassuring pressure of a high-tension crossbow on his back with several-syringe arrows filled with tranquilizers of various strengths. If what ever it was turned out to be hostile, Jorge had something to put it down for at least a few hours.

[Qwathings]

[img=left]http://qwaring.com/vector.jpg[/img]**Telepaths on an X-men mission have the important task of maintaining a telepathic link with all of the other members of the mission, to allow for instant awareness of any of the other member's falling into danger. But Alex knows full well that even when they were X-men Bel had always pushed away any of his attempts to hold her with such telepathic links, and so he never offers her such a link. Instead he always leaves a psychic window open for the woman. Should she ever need to call out he'd hear her. From this telepathic window Alex hears his feline companion call out. He doesn't know what the word means, but it carries an odor to it that lets the masked man can probably guess what it could translate into. He spins around, his black boots kick up sand around him as he turns away from the surf and looks upon the dense jungle. Within instants he is sprinting towards the center of the island. As he vaults over a row of bushes and into the wilderness he calls out to the device that instantly chirps to life in one of his belt pouches.**

Cerebro-ite, Nightstalker's location?!

**The device presses a cold mechanical thumb down on Alex's sense of direction. It bends the man's instinctive compass until it points towards the location of his endangered companion. With a shift of his weight the masked man turns towards the direction he's being led into. His footfalls drop through any plant growth until they slam into tender soil and continue to send Alex flying through the jungle in a mad dash. His costumed form tears through low branches and vine, scatters leaves and green matter, as he runs through it all to reach Bel. Anything his body can't run through is smashed or shoved aside by telekinetic forces that instinctively reach out to dispose of any obstacles. One final leap carries Alex through the last veil of leaves until he splashes down on the mud directly to the great cat's left. His green eyes run over the furred length of his comrade, searching for injuries in need of tending. Alex then slides his attention away from Bell and over the jungle around them in search of their enemy. The air around him tingles with psychic forces that ache to lash out at whatever dangers has brought Alex here.**

[Quaxo9]

[img=left]http://www.cbreview.net/album_pic.php?pic_id=154[/img]

There's really no need to hang on - he's got me and I'm pretty sure he won't drop me or he'll have quite a time finding a date for Hawaii on such short notice. Well, maybe HE wouldn't, but at any rate, I'm not really thinking about the fact that we're several hundreds of metres off the ground at the moment. I'm a little distracted.

"MONSTER Island? As in - that's actually a real place? I thought it was just something the government made up to keep us from finding their grow ops."

I pause for a moment, trying to get my thoughts in order and figure out what's most important for me to have for this mission.

"I need to stop by my place for my bikini. Oh, and a gun that I don't have to write five pages of paperwork for each bullet fired would be nice."

[Quaxo9]

[img=left]http://www.cbreview.net/album_pic.php?pic_id=155[/img]

::Her throne, held aloft by an intricate structure composed completely by web silk, happened to be graced with her presence at this time. Queen Arachnia, no long merely Queen of the Spider People, but now of the whole of Monster Island as well, coddled one of her favourite pets while managing to look like the very picture of royalty. While she toyed with an arachnid the size of a volkswagon, one of its smaller cousins scuttled up and bowed low before the throne. Not one to ignore any of her peoples, she immediately turned her attention to the small one with a decisive flick of her wrist to the first spider that indicated its immediate dismissal.::

"Speak, brave scout, what is your report?"

:: The scout stood upright and raised his first two legs in salute to his Queen before telling her of the tiger and the man who controlled the trees. The Queen listened attentively before giving instructions to the enormous spider that stood in the shadows at her side. ::

"Bring the male to me. Your troops may feed upon the tiger. We have animals enough here."

::Her laughter filled the cavern, but ended abruptly as she looked at her "co-ruler" - who was none other than the infamous Mole-man. ::

"That is, unless you have need for a kitty in your experiments, my dear."

[Qwathings]

The throne cavern... deep beneath Monster Isle...

[img=left]http://qwaring.com/moleman.jpg[/img]**It's halfway through the maniacal laughter, that concluded the eighth rant filled speech that outlines his latest assault upon the surface world, that the Mole-Man realizes that Aracnia was speaking to him. The diminutive man turns towards his bride, his slitted goggles peer out from behind the high collar of his emerald cape, which matches his equally green clothes, and look upon the spider queen.**

A cat? No, kill it, what do I need with a cat. Feed it to one of your pets, if you wish to, my love.

**He then looks upon the small army of small, yellow skinned Moloids that are slowly making their way through the main hall and towards the throne chamber, but quickly turns his attention as well as a suddenly shaken voice back towards Aracnia.**

B-but check it for tags first. The cat could be a pet. Yes, check it for the number four. We must not kill it is it's marked with a four.

**While his mind dwells within a place of fear and humilation the Mole man looks towards the approaching inhuman Moloids and calls out to them.**

Are you certain there were no markings on the plane? If there's a four anywhere on that I'll exile you all to the surface world until you choke on their polution and fry under their sun filled, ozoneless skies, yes, you'll die horribly in their terrible, terrible world.

**The three dozen small humanoid creatures lower the wreckage of the crashed spy plane, which they had dragged accross the island and into the caves in the mountain to bring it all the way here for their master's plans. The yellow Moloids crawl and climb all over the torn up and bent prototype plane in search of the number four, the symbol of their king's most hated and feared enemies. While his monstrous Moloid minions search the damaged plane once more the Mole-Man turns towards his bride again.**

Have your subjects memorized the photographs I gave to them, do they know what to do when they see a Fantasticar? Or a Pogo Plane? Or the Thing? I- I would just hate to lose this newest incarnation of our Isle. I do so love our trips here, it's nice to get away from our vast subterrainian domain for a few days. And if my plans are successful then I will be able to use this surface plane in my latest scheme to expand our domain. Today Monster Isle, not to mention nearly all of the subterrainian world, and tomorrow Hawaii! Nyah-hahahahahahaha!!!

[Mattson]

[img=left]http://server2.uploadit.org/files/LordMattson-ForceA.jpg[/img]
One quick stop and a nice plane ride later, finds Force in Hawaii boarding a rental boat. The man in the armor is sitting back with the armor recharging. The plan is ride in as close as possible then fly the rest of the way. He looks over at Nancy with a smile then at the horizen.

"You know we could see about getting you a costume too. Forget the cop stic and maybe be honest competition for those Heroes for Hire jokers."

[SilntAngl5]

[img=left]http://qwaring.com/bel-av.jpg[/img] Most women hated bugs. Fortunately for Beloved, she was not one of those kitten-footed women... despite the paws and such. Bel now hated bugs in a very different way. These bugs were like giant slugs. Slim coated her fur the instant the damned creatures had fallen from the silk cucoons and spider-like threads they used to swing from tree to tree. There these slug-like creatures waited for prey to walk below.

Bel, though, was not prey. These slugs though, were not just slugs. They had a maw of sharp teeth tipped with digestive poisons that would begin decomposing their prey into simpler, more easy-to-digest compounds before they painfully expired. As they maw kept the prey still, the retractive body of the slug would slowly pull its food inward toward its digestive tract where it would be further broken down into feces and later disposed.

Ironically, $hit" was Bel's last thought before a sledgehammer of pain rocker her hypersensitive cells. The maw of teeth that swallowed her head and bit her neck sent the first blow, then came one ricocheting from her ribs and legs. They were everywhere, and they were huge... and it hurt. Beloved, the Nightstalker, was no stranger to pain. Her past was riddled with the physical and emotional aspects of it. This was no different.

What was slightly more difficult was that her cells, the very things she could control and manipulate, were crystallizing. As she writhed and tried to free her head from the mouth of one slug-like creature, she also had to concentrate on stabilizing her cells and isolating the digestive toxins that coursed through her adrenaline-saturated blood stream. Claw stretched and swiped downward for a final time at the maw around her head and at once she was freed. The slug fell to the forest floor almost cut in half. The gaping holes it left on the Tiger's neck were black and the source of rotting flesh. The cat-like fighting instincts left her to wrestle with her demons while her mind raced through each muscles, each nerve, cell, vein, and bone. The poisons were plucked like bird seed from a feeder and carried to one part of her body. As the last of the human-sized slugs were removed, Beloved managed to shift her cells one last time. They shifted and morphed around the contained blob of decaying flesh within her stomach until she was mostly human again. That would be how Alex found her. She was on her knees with her head touching the ground. Large, cat-like ears were held flat against the back of her head. Her claws dug into the earth as a long, tiger-striped tail twitched and her body shivered. Beloved's stomach heaved and released the clumps of still-rotting flesh onto the forest floor. She lifts her shoulders and tries to pull herself up.

"... D- *Cough* -don't... naverkhu..."

But the canopy of forest above them is silent. There is no more threat "up there" as Bel suggested. The only real threat are the dozen remaining maw-laced slugs around them that slowly enclose the two comrades in a tightening circle. As they get closer, they lean forward, opening and closing their rows of needle-like teeth that drip with the tinted saliva.

"Poison... their bite..."

[Ralthric]

[img=left]http://server2.uploadit.org/files/Aliexster-Jorge.jpg[/img]Arriving at the sight of the battle, Jorge stopped and watched what looked like a large cat struggling with what he had termed 'sluggers', very nasty things. He almost ran into those things while chasing another monster that had a rather creative spore attack, devoured it and would have done so if he didn't climb the nearest tree. The things fall from the trees, but they only got up there due to mature, more insectioid form climbing up there to lay the cocoons.

Looking up at the tree he was in, he could see he was right in front of another cocoon that was moving. Taking out his combat knife, Jorge stabs the thing, producing a nasty scream from it as ichor flowed down to the ground. Looking about and seeing that there were no other cocoons that were occupied, the mercenary looked down to see the large cat turn into a woman and some odd man come to her aid. *Oh great... super heroes, why can't they just leave well enough alone? But why were they here in the first place?*

Of course the answer to that was obvious, no one as self-important as that guy in the flamboyant blue outfit would come out here for grunt work like he was doing. They only come here to drop off monsters or stop one from getting out to threaten the world, though the apperance of the strange plane put forth a third possiblity. Well that wasn't going to happen, what ever it was, it looked like government bleeding edge tech, which would mean they would pay through the nose to get it. And if he could get it before those two bozos, it would probably drive up the asking price. Unsheathing his tiger claws, he heads off through the jungle doing his best to keep to the tree tops.