[Issue] We Fought A Zoo

[Narrator]

"Sam to the rescue!" Robin cheers as she's freed of enough snakepedes to shift back to normal and leap back from the mass while her braid continues to punch at the ones that try to approach.

"You gonna be okay with the bites? They look like they could be mondo poisonous..."

Tereza falls back towards Sam and Robin, leaving hummocks of ice behind her to try to sly down the horde.

Tereza manages to buy the group some time to decide their next move. Will they fight or retreat?

Ainsley let's the animals duke it out as he noticed 'Phil' out for his break.

"Coal, pin him! Don't bite, just scare!" Ainsley calls to his friend, hoping to catch him and steal his ID badge for further access into the facility beyond the first door.

Coal bounds for the sidewalk around the building and makes a sharp turn for Phil, talons scrabbling on the concrete. The shocked zoo employee breaks from his paralysis and starts running. He doesn't even make it ten feet before a leaping crow-dog tackles him to the ground, pinning him there. He struggles at first but one short growl from Coal is enough to stop any resistance.

[Ainsley Green]

Ainsley snatched what was clearly a keycard off the man, and held it up with a flourish to present it to the ladies.

[Samantha McManus]

"If it gets us inside, then everybody move. I don't know how long Tereza can block the grates."

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza continues throwing up ice hillocks in the creatures' way, falling back towards the door. "Grab the guy and let's get inside."

[Narrator]

With a terrified Phil in tow and countless snakipedes on their heels, the team scrambles inside. Slamming the door shut on one poor critter, cutting it in half, the horrible rattling sound is mercifully muffled.

The room they are now in is a spacious supply area with large avenues between shelves for moving crates. There are several exits marked with signs reading "'Offices," Maintenance," and "Medical."

Phil swallows hard and says, "I'll do anything y-you want, j-just please don't hurt me."

[Ainsley Green]

Ainsley took Phil by the back of his labcoat and shook him hard, mostly just to spook him, then looked at Sam with a wide grin, clearly waiting for approval of some kind.

[Samantha McManus]

"You'll have to excuse my associate here," the talking mongoose says.

"He'd heard what was being done to animals in this facility, and he's more in-tune than most with them. So as you can see, being here has made him... excitable."

"Now, if you were to tell us how we might access the lower levels, he might be far more agreeable..."

[Narrator]

"I d-don't know what you're talking about," he answers, "I don't know where you get your information but we don't hurt the animals here. And the only lower level is for storage." The waves of fear and confusion coming off the man tell Sam that he honestly doesn't know what goes on below.

[Ainsley Green]

Unaware of Phil's honesty in the same fashion that Sam is, Ainsley shakes him again, following up with a menacing scowl.

[Samantha McManus]

"Oh? Are hybrid snake-centipedes just de rigueur for your days here?"

"You saw where those were pouring out of, didn't you?"

"Tell me, does your card allow access to storage?"

[Narrator]

"Y-yes... but I don't know what those things were, I swear!"

Again this feels true to Sam, but at the same time, it feels as if there is something niggling at his mind that he isn't saying.

[Samantha McManus]

"But you're not telling us everything, are you?"

"What are you trying to hide?"

[Ainsley Green]

Ainsley picks up on his lacking honestly now thanks to Sam, and looks at coat.

"Give him a spook, but don't hurt him, Coal. He's lying." He asks Coal.

[Narrator]

Coal growls softly and the zoo employee yelps. "Okay! Okay! This place is weird! Animals go missing, management doesn't care, parts of the park are closed off for construction despite me never seeing a single worker, and every now and then I hear things through the vents... almost like voices..."

[Tereza Rozanov]

"And the money was too good for you to ask any questions," Tereza growls from where she's keeping a lookout.

[Narrator]

Phil doesn't say anything in his defense.

"I... won't have this job after the X-Men are through with the place, will I? So I might as well help if I can."

"Mister Maclaren is an arsehole anyway."

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza glances at him, then at the Sam-goose. "Probably as good as we're going to get."

[Samantha McManus]

"Aye. Make sure we've got his key-card, and let's go below."

[Narrator]

With his keycard in Ainsley's capable hands, Phil leads the team to the loading dock's spacious freight elevator.


Inside, Tereza's nose picks up the faint remnant of Tosh's scent. There are only two buttons by the door: "G" and "B." Below those is a locked service panel.

[Tereza Rozanov]

"They definitely brought Tosh through here," Tereza comments, glancing around the interior of the elevator like, well, a caged animal.

[Ainsley Green]

Ainsley in turn kept his eye out of things that would normally be found living in the walls of any indoor facility.

Runaway lab mice were always a good source of information.

[Narrator]

Something with the simplistic, barely perceptible chatter of an arachnid is crouched In a corner above. It gives the impression of being defensive of its meal.

[Ainsley Green]

"Oi." Ainsley addresses Sam before stopping abruptly to stare at the spider in the corner. He then reached out to it.

"No want feed. Need help." He replied. His spider-talk was better than some of his other insect dialects, but it wasn't great.

[Narrator]

The little black spider's tone relaxes into one of curiosity and hesitant cooperation.

[Ainsley Green]

"Need find-" Ainsley paused, trying to find the right word. Spiders didn't have friends.

"Clutch-mate. Smells like-" Fuck, they don't know what sharks are either. Fish? No...

"Storm. Smells like storms." He finally decides upon, hoping the spider would make a correlation between lightning and Tosh's primary ability.

"Might look big and scary, hairless, sharp teeth, or might look small, for a people. Seen him?"

[Narrator]

The arachnid seems to understand, after a fashion. It conveys that several unnatural creatures took such a being down with the moving, lower than the humans usually go.

[Ainsley Green]

Ainsley addressed Sam, taking a pin out of his hand and jabbing himself in the finger with it as he did.

"She says he was taken to a lower level than they usually take humans. It could be B, but I bet there's something behind that panel that makes this blighter go lower still.

I need someone to lift me up to that web."

[Narrator]

Coal offers his back as a stepping stool and helps Ainsley to reach the web. The spider crawls back a little before hesitantly inching closer, eager for the drop of tasty blood.

Anyone examining the lock on the maintenance panel would find it requires a standard key and can thus be picked.

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza looks at the lock, "Anything you can do with this, Robin?"

[Will Stanton]

"A place like this needs higher security if it's going to keep us out," Will said, jamming his finger into the lock and expanding to hit the tumblers. "Let's move."

[Narrator]

It takes some ingenuity, and a hell of a lot of guesswork, but the team figures out how to manipulate the electronic guts of the unlocked panel to send the elevator to the hidden second basement level.

The door opens at the bottom to reveal a nondescript hallway. A hallway blocked by guards in tactical armor armed with rifles. Some of them are even human.

Behind them stands a slender guard with some very simian features. "Not one inch further X-Men," says the monkey-man.

[Will Stanton]

"We're in the UK; surely, you should use the metric system by now," Will said, though he paused. "I take it you're the welcoming committee?"

[Narrator]

"Insofar as we're here to say you aren't welcome. But I'm sure the crawlies told you as much."

"Now... do we need to use force?"

[Will Stanton]

"Not at all. You can just take us to our friend and surrender peaceably; it's all the same to me."

[Tereza Rozanov]

"I could be up for using some force," Tereza says, grinning over Will's shoulder at the guards.

[Narrator]

"Well then, have it your way," says the monkey man with a vicious smile before adding, "Open fire."

Bullets fly from their respective rifles like a swarm of wasps.

[Ainsley Green]

Naturally, Ainsley ducks for cover.

He also starts searching for the sounds of trapped animals. That seemed to be this places' 'bag'.

[Will Stanton]

Will hit the floor as quickly as he could, flattening and slithering along to close the gap between him and the armed guards, planning on taking them out from below.

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza ducks back behind the wall of the elevator, back to one of the panels as she blindly launches some shards of ice at the bad guys.

[Narrator]

Naturally, Ainsley ducks for cover.

He also starts searching for the sounds of trapped animals. That seemed to be this places' 'bag'.

In the distance, he hears the rough, threatening snarl of an annoyed big cat and the weird barks of the crow-dogs.

Will hit the floor as quickly as he could, flattening and slithering along to close the gap between him and the armed guards, planning on taking them out from below.

A less intelligent guard shoots down into the oozing Will, accomplishing nothing but spraying tiny bits of clay around. The monkey hybrid, however, brings up a stun baton and sticks it into a hole in thin air. Another hole opens above Will and the end of the baton stabs down at him.

Tereza ducks back behind the wall of the elevator, back to one of the panels as she blindly launches some shards of ice at the bad guys.

There is a bestial grunt of pain and the half-rat stupidly shooting the floor grabs his arm, where a dagger of ice is now lodged.