[Issue] We Fought A Zoo

[Narrator]

Robin, still flattened and with a giant hoof-print in her pulls herself off the floor, wobbling back and forth a bit before she notices Taurus stumbling his way towards Tosh. Who she somewhat carelessly discarded.

Swirling her arm in a circle like a cartoon character gearing up to throw a punch she aims for one of Taurus' legs and whips out her arm to try and snag it around his ankle and yank him back enough his footfall will hopefully miss Tosh.

Tereza takes the blow and skids across the floor, scrambling back to her feet and trying to get to where she can dive on Tosh to protect him, but her injuries are slowing her and even as she leaps, she's not sure she'll make it.

Will's initial plan had been to jump off Taurus before he fell to the ground, but Karkinos' whip scuppered that plan. Instead, it was all Will could do to hold his basic shape and stick to Taurus' massive face; likely being slammed into the floor as the minotaur fell.

Robin's last-second exercise in cow-tipping results in the massive minotaur falling just short of Tereza as the werewolf leaps between him and Tosh. Taurus hits the ground hard, cracking the concrete floor. For the moment, the enhanced mutant seems dazed.

Tosh's eyes slowly open. "Wuz happnin'.... where..." he says, groggy and confused.

[Will Stanton]

Will slammed into the concrete floor as well, temporarily out of the fight.

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza, standing protectively over Tosh, looks down at him, "You okay?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh slowly nodded. "Sleepy..." he said, barely awake.

[Narrator]

Karkinos isn't done. He wraps a whip around one of Taurus' legs and drags him back. Unfortunately, the pain wakes the minotaur. Karkinos tries to keep pulling but can't match Taurus' strength as the mutant heaves himself up, chuckling menacingly.

[Tereza Rozanov]

"Shit," Tereza growls, putting herself between Tosh and Taurus. "It's over, asshole. You've lost."

[Narrator]

"I have done no such thing," Taurus answers. He kicks his whip-wrapped leg forward, bringing Karkinos stumbling forward directly into an elbow strike. The blow cracks the smaller creature's chest carapace and sends him flying, energy whip sparking out of existence. Taurus' burned leg begins to rapidly heal.

"Hahaha! The power! I feel like I could take on the Hulk!" the minotaur laughs in an increasingly savage tone. "I can certainly crush the lot of you."

Yet as he rises to his full height, he hits a snag. He can't straighten out of a bestial hunch. "What?" he asks nobody in particular, annoyed but also possibly afraid.

[Tereza Rozanov]

"You've let your beast take you," the wolf growls. "Your substance is making you forget what it is to be human," she spits the words, "And you chose to be prey, strong, true, but prey all the same." Her lips curl back from her teeth and it's hard to differentiate grimace from grin as she straightens up onto two legs, one arm still encased to the shoulder in ice. Her wolf is riding her very hard, possibly reverberating up a very particular mental connection.

[Robin Stanton]

"Yeah my dude. You need to chill on the aggro mooooooood." Robin needles the giant bull-man. Better he go after her than try to stomp on the already hurt Tereza who doesn't exactly look like she's about to back down either.

[Narrator]

"No! I am no prey!" he shouts, swiping an arm at Tereza as he rounds on Robin. His rage-filled eyes seem less intelligent than before, his mind deteriorating. He drops onto hands becoming hoof-like and bellows in fury before charging at Robin.

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza ducks under the swing, snagging Tosh with her good arm and unceremoniously sliding him across the floor into one of the corners before she turns back to the fight to see how Robin's doing.

[Robin Stanton]

"I think he's seeing red!" Robin quips as she tries to jump up and turn into a red piece of cloth for Taurus' head to snatch out of the air and get blindfolded by.

[Narrator]

Robin's maneuver works like a charm, blinding the enraged beast. Worse still for Taurus, he gets tripped up as his changing body pops his skeleton into a quadrupedal stance. Stumbling, he bellows as he tries to shake off the cloth.

[Robin Stanton]

"Whoa! Hey! Oooph!" Robin exclaims as she tries her best to cling to the mountain of muscles trying to throw her off. She's not really sure where to go from here, only that this is currently a relatively safe place to be and that it might give the others a chance to come up with something to bring down this giant beast.

[Tereza Rozanov]

For a moment, it looks like the wolf is getting ready to tackle the creature and then one of her ears flicks. Her iced arm extends gingerly and the fingers splay. The floor beneath the bull begins to freeze over, especially under his hooves.

Fight smarter, not harder, sister.

You're one to talk.

[Will Stanton]

Will slowly began to sit up, shaking his head to try to regain focus on the situation at hand.

[Narrator]

The formerly humanoid bull scrambles to stay standing but falls for a second time, calling out in impotent fury as he struggles to regain his footing on the ice.

[Will Stanton]

Shakily rising to his feet, Will started to make his way over to Taurus, swinging a heavy metal fist to try to deliver the knockout blow.

[Narrator]

It takes two hits against his thick, armored skull, but Taurus is knocked out.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh sat up. "Right... I was taken by..." he said, looking over at the unconscious Taurus, "What the hell happened to him?"

[Robin Stanton]

"The X-Men!" Robin exclaims proudly. "Oh and.. some kind of mutating super serum virus. That your grandpa ran off with to... release into the world... We should probably check on Sam and Ainsley!"

[Will Stanton]

Will groaned.

"We'd better get our butts over there," he said, beginning to jog down the hallway. "Someone get Tosh up to speed, and get him a glass of water, or something..."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"I'm starting to remember what grandpa told me. I know enough," he said with resolve, which apparently his legs weren't feeling as he nearly fell as he tried to follow.

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza leans in to help Tosh get down the hallway. "She's... angry," she comments without any real indication who she's talking about.

[Narrator]

The injured crow-man trudges by without looking Tosh in the eye. He had helped kidnap him after all.

The group soon reaches the intersection. Coal peers around the distant corner to the left and, when they catch up, leads them to the door to Lab B.