xp_logs | Excelsior East Casino - Well, that was fun.

"Well, that was fun," Amanda said wryly as the three of them gathered on the other side of a door marked "Staff Only". "Hopefully that lot out there will stay occupied while we find Artie." Her tone was at odds with her appearance, the stylised "Alice" waitress costume making her look a lot younger than usual - if you ignored the extremely short skirt and the very low cut blouse.

Wade was dressed as the King of Spades - he even got a faux spear with a faux spade on the top. It was all for show, though, so he leaned it against the wall as he shrugged out of the King of Spades' overcoat. The thing had some ridiculous shoulder pads and made moving quickly difficult. "Hopefully," he agreed, pushing the uniform jacket into a janitor's closet near the Staff Only door. "Let's not bank on it, though."

For a moment, Wanda rested a hand gently against Wade's shoulder so she could reach down and adjust the red stiletto heels that had apparently been part of the Red Queen costume. "And now I know what would happen should someone remake Alice in Wonderland with a BDSM fetish," she sighed before focusing on Wade and Amanda. "Well, let us get this show on the road - my breasts cannot wait to be out of this corset."

"Now there's a mental image," Amanda muttered with a grin as she took the lead, heading along the rather plain hallway to another door. This one required a security pass and she gestured to Wanda. "After you, Boss Lady."

"I always do get the fun jobs." A touch was all it took to release the lock and Wanda wiggled her fingers in their gloves, knowing she'd made the right decision to keep them on. She backed away from the door once she was certain no one was about to come flying through the other side towards them.

Having people with nifty, reality warping powers was so, so nice. Wade grinned as the lock disengaged, then unlatched the door and pushed it carefully open. "Alright, ladies. I'll take point, if neither of you mind?" It'd be easier for him to get shot if there were actual guards and not just electronic security measures ahead. He grinned and flicked his wrist, letting a throwing knife drop into his hand.

"Healing factors are so handy," Amanda murmured, with another of those wicked grins of hers as she fell in behind Wade, letting Wanda take the rear - her powers would let her know if someone was coming up behind them. "Huh. Hall o' Mirrors. Why can't these people ever be normal?"

It was, in fact, a corridor of mirrors. Walls, ceiling, floor - everything was covered in fun-house type mirrors that warped and shifted their infinite reflections, until your eyes watered and your head ached. Amanda squinted, trying to see exactly where they were going in the eye-watering chaos.

Wade squinted at the hall of mirrors and extended one arm so he could brush his knuckles along the wall as they crept forward. The hall branched off to his right and he glanced in that direction before pausing. "Looks like we've got a couple options," he said, only to stop mid-thought as he heard the faintest click and felt something depress beneath his boot. "Damn."

Wanda shuddered as if struck as her entire mindscape of red lines exploded the moment Wade took a step. She was frozen, unsure of what exactly was changing around them but certain something very bad was about to happen. She squinted, trying to see down the hallway as she watched the lines shift and blur while others sharpened and started to move ...

"So," Wade said, tone almost conversational. "Do lasers bounce off mirrors? Cause if they do, I'm getting out a gun and shooting me some mirrors. We've got lasers popping up and coming towards us fast."

"Just when we need a science nerd, there's none to be found..." Amanda had no idea if lasers bounced off mirrors, but she did know her shielding spell could block them... probably. "Head's up, folks, one bubble coming up!" she warned, clapping her hands together. The shield that popped into existence around them was a crazy meld of colours, almost like a soap-bubble, reflecting the frenetic energy of the place. "Sorry in advance for the migraines. Wade, can you see where the laser turrets are? I can give you a window to shoot through if you want to take them out."

"Speaking of migraines," Wanda muttered, a hand gripping her forehead as she struggled to concentrate, "my head is killing me. I will try to even things in your favor, Wade, but it may prove ... difficult." She couldn't even open her eyes because the sight of the lasers screwed with the mental overlay of the shifting chaos strings but it didn't help much, really, considering that every time a laser shifted, it completely shifted the subtle balancing act of the chaos around them. Still, she could try, even if her brains came out of her ears.

"Yeah," Wade said, flicking his throwing knife back into its sheath and unholstering his Heckler & Koch USP. "Gimme a sec." He squinted through the swirling, rainbow colored shield and said, "Front and to the right." He could hit two, he thought, from where they were standing. There were two more on the left. Not bothering with the suppressor given they'd probably already alerted somebody to their presence, Wade clicked the safety off got ready to shoot out some lasers.

Amanda put her hands together and shoved them through the bubble, setting her teeth and pushing her hands apart, stretching a hole in the swirling rainbow energy. "One window," she panted, pulling away. "Better be quick - knowing our luck, it'll be the one spot the bloody lasers hit."

It took Wade a second to make sure he was aiming at the right spot, but once he was sure he let off one shot and one of the red lasers winked out, taking several little bouncing, mirrored lines with it. The next shot went off cleanly, though the one of the mirrored panels on the wall shattered with it, and another of the lasers went out. "Two more," he muttered, shifting a bit so he could aim at them. He took them out quickly and then double checked behind them to make sure there weren't any sneaky lasers back there. "We're good," he said, holstering his firearm after thumbing the safety back on. "Just uh... careful of the glass." And other booby traps.

"Nice shooting." Amanda dropped the shield with a sigh - Atlantic City wasn't exactly a great metropolis and shielding lasers took more effort than she'd expected.

Wanda groaned in relief, determined never to end up in another room with lasers again. "Shall I provide point?" she asked, stepping delicately over glass shards. "I cannot say that I can detect or prevent some of the booby traps but I might be able to navigate us around the worst of them."

"Works for me," Wade said, following behind Wanda as she skirted the worst of the shattered mirrors. He didn't hear any other tell-tale clicks as they moved toward the end of the corridor and he only saw one other branch moving off to the left. Their intel indicated Artie was being kept straight ahead, though. In all honest, Wade was more worried about guards turning up to see if the lasers had taken care of them. They had to've tripped some kind of alarm when he stepped on that trigger.

None popped out of the side corridors, though, so he kept moving carefully in Wanda's footsteps, checking behind them every so often to make sure no one was stealthily creeping up on them.

Behind Wade, Amanda glanced from side to side, ready for anything popping out of the mirrored walls. Going up against someone who was had dated Arcade meant that they should be ready for anything.

Which meant, of course, that when the next trap came, it came from the ceiling.

Wanda's powers gave her just enough warning to shout as something came flying down from the ceiling; she jumped backward, purposely slamming into Wade with enough force to knock him into Amanda in an attempt to get them all out of the way. Despite her efforts, it almost wasn't enough and she sucked in a breath as whatever it was slammed into the ground only inches away from her face. So close she felt broken shards of the floor hit her as her eyes threatened to cross.

Wade took the hit from Wanda and felt Amanda at his back as they dodged the massive, sweeping blade that came at them after the bulk of the creepy looking machine hit the mirrored floor. Eyeing it from the floor, he guessed it'd been modeled after the Queen of Hearts from Disney's cartoon. "Jesus Christ," Wade said over the sound of glass being ground beneath it and its echoing laughter. The maniacal 'off with your head' that it kept repeating wasn't really doing anything for him as he rolled to the side to keep from squishing Amanda.

Pulling his gun from his shoulder holster again, he aimed at the Queen's head and fired twice in an attempt to shut it up.

Crawling out from underneath Wade, Amanda grimaced at the giant Queen-robot-thing with the whirring blades, steadily working its way towards them. "And to think people think magic is balmy," she muttered, blocking her ears as Wade lifted his gun. his shots managed to break something inside that stopped the blades and the advancing, but the voice kept on shrieking for their heads. "Let's get Artie and get the fuck out of here." The mirrored hall ended up ahead, revealing beige carpeting and wood panelling. Something resembling normality, at least.

When Wanda paused, they all stopped. Just because it looked normal didn't mean ... She blinked in surprise when her powers couldn't hone in on anything more dangerous than some ripped carpet that could potentially trip someone. "Well, that's a lovely surprise," she said, striding towards the wood panelling.

Hiking up her dress, Wanda used a combination of chaos power and a strategically placed kick to open the hidden door. When the door opened, they were able to see Artie. Barefoot and wearing only pants and an undershirt, he was handcuffed to a radiator in the back of the store room, knees drawn up against his chest and his head rested on them. Dark bruises covered his face and arms and a newly scabbed-over cut on his head had bled onto his shirt. Never large, he looked even smaller than usual as his eyes cracked open to see the rescue party.

As Wanda reached for him, red light spilling from her hands as she went for the cuffs, she suddenly laughed. "Marie-Ange's influence, Artie, or quick thinking on your part?" She gently tilted his head with one hand as the other came away with a palmful of rust from the former handcuffs. "Good enough that I almost fell for it."

Artie looked at them gratefully. He hadn't thought that anyone was coming. "Bit of both," he said, letting the text float over his head and the image of the bruises vanish. "thought that if I looked half dead they wouldn't be as careful. maybe I cld escape."

“Looks like they were rough enough as-is.” Amanda was given him a quick look-over in her position as team first aider, and not all of the injuries were faked. “I swear, Artie,” you have a talent for pissing people off.”

Wade hadn't bothered with holstering his gun again. He'd just followed Wanda in and then taken up a position near the door after making sure the rest of the room was clear. Glancing back at Artie over his shoulder, he quirked a brow. "Seriously, kid." He wasn't actually upset about it, though, and that was obvious. "Anybody we're gonna need to worry about specifically on our way out? Also, you need some shoes. Or you're gonna have to piggie-back your way out of here because this hallway's a wreck."

Taking hold of her long red skirt, Wanda yanked, ripping several long strips of the heavy fabric. "Never let it be said that women's fashion, however ridiculous sometimes, does not come in handy." Holding them out to Artie, she nodded at his feet. "Here. Even if Wade does end up the pack mule in this act, this is better than nothing since I doubt they left your shoes sitting around. They were probably afraid you'd throw them at someone."

He took the cloth and began to wrap it around his feet. "Thanks. How did u find me?? No1 knew where I was." And he'd been goddamn smug about it, too, right up till he realised just how much shit he was in.

"That's a long story," Amanda replied, kneeling to help him with is impromptu 'shoes'. "And a talk that we're going to have once we get you out of here. And by 'we', I mean Remy and Marie-Ange." Now she was sure he was safe, Amanda was masking her relief with her usual dry humour."

Artie nodded and stood. He was sore and stiff as anything after being cuffed to the radiator but he could move. "That's fair. I've been pretty stupid lately. Had time to think about it, even. Can we get out of here?" He took a deep breath and pictured his face uninjured, placing that image over the bruises he currently wore. He was still conspicuous in rag shoes and no shirt but no longer looked injured.

"We're good to go," Wade said, eyes back on the hall they'd come down. It didn't really make any sense, leaving something or someone important completely guarded by electronics, but whatever. This wasn't Wade's show and that was totally fine by him. The faster they got out of this place, the better. "I'll take point on the way out and just retrace our steps here to hopefully avoid any other booby traps."

"Amanda, cover Artie," Wanda said, "and I will cover our retreat."