Logs:Hell on Wheels

Hell on Wheels
cn: violence/gore, bugs, death
Dramatis Personae No-Eyes, Storm, Wraith, Hardcase, Punch-Eyes, Bear, Hand-Knives, Clout
In Absentia	2024-09-18 "...didn't see that coming."
Location <MOJ> Arena - "Roller" "Derby"
It's a fairly safe bet that the Mojoites do not, actually, understand the rules of roller derby At All. Whatever sport is being played here today bears very little resemblance to the Earth game of the same name excepting that it is on a sort of ovoid track, and the players each are on wheels. Very (very) nominally, point assignment is meant to come any time someone from either team manages a full lap around the track -- no mean feat given the spread of obstacles and "referees" whose main job seems to be interfering with the competitors. Probably the fact that there's been absolutely no egalitarianism in what sort of wheels they've been assigned -- unicycle? Motorcycle? Roller skates? Monster truck? -- is also not helping matters very much. Just at this exact moment, one of the "referees" -- let's call them Zebra Two -- is swinging a hard U-turn from where they've just been giving Hank a Stern Talking To Red Card Minor Exploding. Both the refs are them quite easily distinguishable, as per well-studied Earth customs, by the bold black-and-white zebra striping of the very very different craft they are piloting. This particular craft is some strange alien make, far faster and far more agile than anything the competitors have been given, as evidenced when it blips at near-impossible speed away from the furry blue X-Man's sad tricycle to reappear halfway across the track near the rear of the pack, strewing a long trail of minor explosives in its wake. Somewhere just up ahead of the pack, a searingly intense wall of plasma is truncating a majority of the path. Probably the other ref is there, but for now I think in some minor mercy, they will stay off camera. A bright pink and purple Cybertruck comes blazing down the track. "Blazing" might be too generous a word for Destiny's driving, which is indeed extremely fast but not even slightly controlled, swerving wildly and losing traction often. Maybe she meant the hit the brake going into the turn, but she accelerates instead and the truck's driver-side wheels lift clean off the track as it whips around hard. Probably she did not do this deliberately to avoid one of the referee's cardsflagsbombs, though it does accomplish that. When the bomb goes off, however, the explosion handily tips the monstrous vehicle past its precariously balanced two-wheel turn. But really, Destiny might have managed to roll it over even without assistance. Careening very off-balance through this mess, right now, is a very garishly red-and-purple painted -- it looks like an old-timey carnival car has escaped from a circus, really, and it's very (VERY) loudly tootling an eerily off-key whistling calliope song that would not sound at all out of place in an Actual Circus or in the background of a horror movie. Nominally at the helm of this contraption is Ion -- is he steering? Does he care about steering? His hook is on the wheel and he's sort of, kind of, looking ahead of him, as he lurches his car precariously onto two side wheels to veer (mostly) around the smattering of explosives. Mostly. There's still a juddering that rumbles through the absurd vehicle -- at least it doesn't do much to make the music any worse! -- and a moment too late he's telling his passenger: "Ay, Bear, hang on --" Oh well, hopefully they were already hanging on, it's been a wild ride and it's not gonna get any less so. Especially considering the near collision course they're on with the Cybertruck just in front of them -- -- no, wait, the moment their carnival-car is making contact, both the circus car and the Cybertruck vanish, reappear just out of explosive range. Ion is wide-eyed, grinning bright. Is it at the near-death experience? At Egg? At the LOOMING PLASMA WALL in front of them? Who knows. The car THUMPS back down onto all four wheels with a heavy rattle. "Tch. Bear, you wanna drive?" Apologies to Grundy County — the Tennessee school district has been made bereft of graciously donated one of their fine yellow (and now blue!) buses to today’s games. Mojo, you really should consider giving them a sponsorship slot, especially since the door and one of the passenger side mirror have already been ripped clean off. Otherwise the vehicle is representing its hometown with aplomb, pulling out of the rear to… slightly less the rear. Gaining, at least, on the minefield, if not yet to PLASMA WALL. In the driver’s seat, 'WRAITH' is wrestling with the steering wheel, the multitude of pedals, the fact she does not really remember how to drive manual. Is the bus supposed to speed up into explosives? Helpfully, Kitty is hitting the hazard lights before driving into the new obstacles, fingers curled tight and teeth clenched as she takes the whole vehicle … mostly out of phase. Mostly. There may be bits of seat cushion and seat belt strewn across the track as Kitty floors it. Hardcase is admittedly not 'blazing' down the track, breath shuddering, pushing harshly against the shopping cart she's been given and jumping on it to ride out the momentum, before dropping back down to push some more. There's a healthy amount of armor that's grown across Amo’s shoulders, and in a helmet shape across her head. Her uniform is torn in various places, both from the armor that pushes up against the fabric and the various obstacles she's had to barrel through—yet her shopping cart is miraculously holding it together—if the back wheel spinning erratically occasionally. She grits her teeth, and her head whips back to the referees not far behind her dropping bombs. Armor quickly begins to bloom across her back, and she gives her shopping cart another harsh shove just as an explosions drops much too closely behind her. She's launched forward, the armor she'd just built up cracking and breaking off from the force of it. She leans harshly to attempt to steer her shopping cart in prep to go around the plasma wall. "Fucking- AY Can I get a-" She wheezes between breaths, "Taxi here?" In most regards PUNCH-EYES is not driving his vehicle up to OSHA standards at all, but he did put the seatbelt on and he is giving his horn a quick BEEP-BEEP when he does anything, even though he has been hanging toward the back of the pack, keeping an eye on the stragglers behind him. Or in front of him, maybe? He's driving in reverse, one hand operating the wheel and one arm propped across the back of the seat, the movements of his head restless and nervous even if his face, behind the visor, gives nothing away. As the bombs skitter across the track Scott spins his forklift, painted cheerfully in vivid blue and look-at-me yellow, in a surprisingly compact loop with a cheerful BEEP-BEEP, slamming the forks down from their OSHA-approved 4-inch hover to scrape with an unpleasant skid of metal on the floor, batting several of the explosives to bounce away toward the perimeter of the track. They're unfortunately exploding as he does so, but the forklift weighs about seven thousand pounds so at least it's going nowhere, even if the same cannot be said for its paint job. He whips back into reverse toward the plasma with another honk of the horn, moving -- well, fast for a forklift, at least, pulling up alongside Amo. "Give you a lift!" he shouts over the roar of plasma. Egg is a contributing cacophony to the general percussion of explosives and the more immediate circus soundtrack emanating from the clown mobile. Ears function as antennae, upright instead of drooping and flicking left-right-left in tandem with the constant probing clicks and chirps of echolocating, taloned hands flailing in coherent maneuvering as possible given the volatility of their course to assist Ion in directing their path amidst the chaos. In addition to their role as acting co-pilot, the vampoyle is also self-appointed and in charge of munitions--gathering and deploying. Case in effect: their tail wraps around the back of their seat when their vehicle tips around a trap laid by Zebra Two, as they leaaaan far enough out their side of the carnival car to ballast the air against their wing-sails, ballooned to distribute weight that allows them to swiftly and deftly scoop up undetonated bombs before their transportation jerks in the opposite direction, plopping them back inside. Piling at their feet and in their hands are vaguely bio-mechanical bombs of some sort, clearly alien, and more importantly, undetonated. But safety first: Egg grabs the seat belt and fastens it with a firm shake of their head at Ion, and a wicked smile as they point from an upheld incendiary to the wall of plasma ahead. The eternal looming question--are they begging forgiveness or asking permission? Next pose will tell! Hand-Knives hangs in tightly to the handlebars of his scooter, bend slightly at the waist to maximize speed. Somehow he isn’t at the back of the pack, and quickly making his way up the line. He slows next to Scott just long enough to lift a gloved middle finger and make meaningful eye contact before the other man whips around right-side-forward. Akihiro’s attention shifts to the incoming bombs and a soft swear later he’s making his own evasive maneuvers, but doesn’t get quite far enough away to avoid the shrapnel spray. The scooter starts to wobble violently as he’s peppered by metal, but somehow he pulls it together and twists the throttle harder, pushing further ahead towards the plasma wall. Kiri and her little red wagon had both been perhaps ill-advisedly hitching a ride in back of the cybertruck's bed, but the latest series of swerves and explosions jarred them loose and when the truck slams down onto the track they both go flipping over the extremely futuristic tailgate. They fall in a sort of slow motion, but she's not moving slow at all when she uncoils the rope already secured to the handle of the Radio Flyer and lassos the rearmost pipe of the mad electric calliope instead. The wagon never actually touches down. It's hovering a ways above the track as it's towed behind the carnival car, Kiri balanced on it like a surfer. She gives a loud whoop to get Akihiro's attention and beckons with perhaps undue excitement. "Ay! You wanna get on this train yeah?!" The plasma wall is closing in faster toward the tumbling mess of Cybercalliopetruck, though it is, at least, starting to break up, gaps here and there to allow some chance of actually slaloming through the blistering heat in their variously, dubiously agile vehicles. The ground itself is also breaking up, here and there, making the choice of where to venture through the gaps in the wall precarious as well -- one of the "safe" slots through the plasma really an immense pit, one riddled with sharp spikes, one intermittently sending up its own blast of some terrible biting energy. Zebra Two is zipping forward, no doubt eager to meet whoever manages to get out the other side. Somewhere here now -- oh! Here is the other ref, no doubt ready to make a fair and balanced call of their own. Zebra One has risen up from somewhere in the center of the remaining bits of shrapnel on the field to study the yellow and blue. This particular craft isn't exactly "wheeled" the way the competitors' crafts are wheeled, it is really mostly just One Big Wheel, a strange sphere of some unknown substance that seems to move easily through space. The pilot inside it is also strange, something amorphous and blue and radiating with a gleeful kind of malice that suffuses the stretch of track nearest them with a deep psionic muddle, lapping at the X-Men hungrily with a mental touch that at once disrupts their sense of proprioception and instills a confused and somewhat paranoid hostility. "All-a-fucking-board," Ion is calling with a grim cheer to Akihiro. He's kind of gesturing Kiri with a lassoing motion like this is some deranged rodeo and Akihiro and his scooter are their STEER -- at any rate the baffling carnival ride is PLOWING forward. Can't stop won't stop don't know how to -- "God damn," Ion's teeth are gritted, and there's no telling now if this is a grin or a grimace or if he's just bracing, the heat is intense and maybe their ride is shortly due to ignite, "Bearpire, you blow that fuckin stripey shitbag --" There is admittedly only a very short window to hurl explosives towards the stripey glowing silhouette of Zebra Two through the shimmering red haze because then they are ramming once more into the Cybertruck and then the entire conglomeration of Brothers is tipping into the nothingness of a terrible pit and then -- -- vanishing, thank god, and reappearing on the other side. The red and purple of the Carnival Car is much less cheerful under its coat of searing. The godawful loud music is still blaring away. Zebra Two is free to make its calls, probably, because the car (and all attendant brethren) is tootling right at them. Inhuman senses hone in on the blurring visage of Zebra Two, noseleaf flaring in haughty defiance as Ion navigates them through the wall. Through the din of eerier carnival music, they lurch forward one arm out the wind to lob a glowing orb of explosive fauna--it bears vague resemblance to a purple tomato--once they solidify into view and their vision locks on the striped referee. Prey targeted. Bombs away. Either way, their is manic chirping and gleeful abandon in the broad sneer Egg flashes, brimming with pride with a premature thumbs-up at Ion. 'What-is-black-and-white-and-red-all-over-?' they vehemently sign. There's a stark relief across Amo's face that she can't quite verbalize when Scott pulls up, and she's reaching to grab the edge of his forklift, when the psionic muddle hits. She stumbles, eyes widening, but manages to get a grip on the frame of the forklift last second. Her hand hangs onto her shopping cart, desperate and clumsy, and rock solidifies her grip around the frame, and she finally manages to to drag herself up onto the step. She grits her teeth, and drags her shopping cart up onto the step of the forklift with her. The rock around her hand is growing however... and spreading up across the back of her neck in her growing paranoia and confusion. She whips her head towards Scott, an unusual wild panic in her eyes, and she very much looks like she's about to jump back off the lift--instead, she attempts to deck Scott across the face with what is essentially a rock boxing glove. Kiri loops the extra rope loosely in her left and as she sights Akihiro. She hurls the lasso, which does not look like it will reach quite far enough, except that some unseen force suddenly pulls Brother and scooter alike forward -- directly into the flying loop of rope. "Hah! And my mama say I'll never catch a man that way!" She turns as the crackling plasma approaches, and if the lowering of her weight indicates any lack of faith in Ion's mad train conducting, her bold ululating says otherwise. The sound spikes sharp just before they blip away, and has gone quiet when they emerge on the other side. The lower stance was wise, after all, as it seems unlikely Kiri would be able to keep her balance as before, a long swath of burns wrapping around her body. She is not out, though, not yet. Just down on one knee, gritting her teeth as she holds onto the sides of her little red wagon and tries to keep both it and Akihiro, if he's still behind her, steady. Maybe Egg's joking is not so very premature, because the explosive is splattering over Zebra Two's flashy speedster ride, sending the thing careening back in a spray of weird red alien gunk and dusty trackdirt. Just as quickly it is veering back around, quicksharp and zigzagging in its path towards the toasty Brothers. From the cockpit of its sleek vehicle numerous immense manyjointed armored limbs are emerging to peel the Cybertruck partially open and then -- wait, no, then Zebra Two is gone. Maybe its pit crew is helping repair some broken wheels after that explosive. Probably it is just getting a headstart on waiting for them after the next stretch. Somewhere up ahead there is a finish line, but, well, it's probably not the first time they have seen it today. There are several large and icy ramps to navigate between here and there. Their dropoffs lead into a wide-ish moat. That's probably not a problem, right, Ion? There is, also, a very large swarm of -- are they bugs? They are small, and manylegged, and chittering, and they are crawling onto the track in a horde and closing in on the Brotherhood, just in case they decide to deliberate Too Long about their next move. They look a bit hungry. "Hold on!" Scott's voice is still loud over the general din as he raises the forks back off the ground and tilts them up to give the shopping cart a slightly smoother (or at least quieter) ride, before he punches the forklift back up to speed. They skim through the divide in the plasma, missing the jet of energy from below by a hair and the ride is not smooth for long before Scott suddenly seems to forget how to drive; they veer left, then overcorrect back right, then overcorrect again back left. "Akihiro!" Scott is yelling, through this, with sudden malice, and maybe he has something else to say to Hand-Knives but it is swallowed rather quickly when Amo punches him -- Scott grabs not at the quickly-forming bruise but at his visor, spluttering and spitting something bloody-drooly-furious but not initially coherent until it resolves into "-- the hell was that for?!" He no longer wants a passenger, he's slamming the shopping cart back down -- down? Nope, the cart is going up, maybe he forgot how to work this thing. Destiny seems reasonably calm for a blind person behind the wheel of a vehicle she does not know how to drive at the head of the Brotherhood's crazy rodeo train. Said vehicle being opened like a can around her also does not cause her any obvious distress. Perhaps she knew Zebra Two would not get much further. Once they have gone she stands up through her new sunroof and turns to solemnly inform Ion -- and the audience, really, "That moat is full of countless unspeakable creatures that will devour us. And water, quite a lot of water." She frowns, and after a brief pause, gives a flat "Ah" before clarifying, "the water will also devour us." Ion, possibly in the running for parent of the year here in Mojo World, is giving a thumbs up right back at Egg with this direct hit once they have a Brief Reprieve from their referee. 'Burned fucking zebra.' He's sporting the worst trucker's tan ever, now, where his outside arm has blistered up in the open side of his unwieldy vehicle. He's sticking his head out the large windowdoorthing to peer over the ice ramps towards the large moat. "Shit, hope this damn thing --" But here he's looking back to Kiri, and through the scorching and the reddening now he's finding, somehow, a smile again, his hook clicking once together. A large jolt of electricity flashes out to fry several of the nearest bugthings to approach his ride. "... float. Think you steer this leg, huh, fly-girl?" Akihiro lets out a small yelp as he’s successfully lassoed and pulled into the procession, gripping the scooter tightly and doing his best to keep the thing underfoot. Just as he begins bracing for burns they zap further ahead on the track and he releases a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. One glance is spared over his shoulder towards Scott, the smallest of smiles spreading across his face as Amo punches him, then he’s focusing on the path ahead once more. “I think I can make the jump. If not I’m going to give whatever’s in the water indigestion.” Slightly ahead of Scott and Amo’s fistfight, the bus — vaguely melted and somewhat on fire around the back of the chassis, where Kitty’s strategy of 'driving directly through plasma' caused plasma to meet some still-solid plates of metal and seatbacks — is turning wide and coming right back to the rest of Team X. Nevermind the Brotherhood of Evil boyfriend-corrupting Mutants, Kitty’s induced malice is aimed right at the incoming forklift's driver. She’s turning again, trying to sideswipe both her teammates with the side of the bus — but with her proprioception Fucked, the bus is phasing in and out of material existence in shivery waves through the vehicle. Good news, if one is avoiding a battering ram, but perhaps bad news if one wants to avoid being fused into a bus. Egg-Bear-Fly-Girl's proud thumbs-up flows into an enthused fist pump as their antics take intended effect. With a chirp and puff of their chest and a dip of the chin, their competent claws reach for the wheel--but not before flinging another alien vegetable (or is it a fruit???) bomb at the oncoming swarm of insectoid creatures. Hostility? Blood lust? Given their usual penchant for these things, it's unclear if their sense of either are particularly enhanced or if the hematophage's predatory and competitive streak give them an edge as--who knew the magic of video games (and likely Dystopian Real Life Experience)--would prove them such a capable driver, freeing Ion to ringlead their enemy with whip-cracks of electricity and zzzzap those caught between to their peril. Amo is pulling herself around the frame and into the drivers area of the lift itself, abandoning her beloved shopping cart, eyes glassy with a manic confusion. It takes her too long, limbs not behaving how they're supposed to, and by the time she's close enough to try and jump at Scott again, she's face to face with a phasing bus. She yells out, her previous hostility temporarily overshadowed and she reaches for the wheel--some of the bus manages to just barely phase into the skin of her forearm, and she's yanked backward--almost completely off the forklift-- but instead she slams into the back frame of it. She gasps, sharp and pained, as the skin rips and the bus takes it with it. Kiri lifts her head when Destiny speaks, and lifts her eyebrows, too. "Ay, Baby Bear, step on it!" As they accelerate up a ramp she pushes back to her feet. Does she need to stand up to deploy her power more fully? Perhaps not, but she does need the lung space to whoop -- almost louder than the calliope -- as the concept truck launches off the edge, and then the carnival car, and then the toy wagon, and last the absurd scooter. They do not follow an arc one would expect any of those objects to follow when launched at high speed off a ramp. When they reach what would have been the apex of that arc they just forget to fall and continue chugging up into the air, carried by their momentum while their wheels spin without purchase. Scott is wheeling the forklift desperately out of the way of the bus -- it might have a much smaller turn radius but it's also a good deal slower. "Shadowcat, what gear are you in?" he's shouting at his teammate as the bus barrels toward them. "Step on the -- watch it!" He grabs Amo's arm none too gently as he spins the forklift around again, trying not to let her fall off over the side even as her shopping cart, alas, gets dashed away on the side of the bus. "Hold on," he grits again, flooring it. (The top speed for an electric forklift is about 10mph.) Oh, wonderful, there is so much fresh meats here! The many (many) swarmy insects that have been arriving are extremely pleased about the new arrivals -- probably they would have been content to invade the Brotherhoods' vehicles, and quite a large number have streamed up into the calliope, into Destiny's garish and awful Cybertruck (which is, somehow, a little bit more Still On Fire after coming through the plasma than the calliope is, smouldering low but steady and choking slowly up with smoke) and starting to seek out the occupants with sharp savage pincers. The very very tiny bits of flesh they gouge they are carting away immediately to, apparently, start their own tiny building projects in the bottoms of the vehicles. Industrious little things! Alas that the Brotherhood is so quickly away but no matter because the many (many) (many) (many) more are happily rerouting to the vehicles still very much On The Ground. Busy busy busy busy. Zebra One's psionic aura is shifting -- the hostility is still definitively present, though it is not quite as intense. The confusion is heavier, though, slippery and disorienting. At least it does also feel a little (just a little!) like being high, which might be some distraction from the many nibbles. Over on the other side, still black and white and red all over -- maybe even blacker and whiter and redder, actually, because now it is wearing a very large smile, behind which can somewhat disconcertingly be seen its slavering maw of many many many sharp-sharp teeth and several long tongues restlessly swiping at them -- is Zebra Two, its many sharp-bladed arms unfolded into several whirring rotors that are slicing in rapid capricious patterns through the incoming Crazy Train's airspace. "The fuck them mutie cops do --" Ion has twisted somewhat painfully back over his shoulder as they take off to peer in some bafflement towards the messy jumble of X-folk. Just as he's starting to rise, though, eyes narrowed in -- fury? Confusion? Something, anyway, towards the pair of women attacking his PUNCH-EYES, he's just as quick hissing in sharp pained fury at the swarm starting to clamber up one leg. There's a shiver of energy that ripples through him, and then through the floor of his strange airborne ride, leaving a trail of charred insectoid husks tumbling off his bloodied flesh and all down the floor of the car where they'd started their deathmarch towards Egg. "You fucking kid --" Nope. He doesn't really have time to ask Egg to lob more of the explosives, he's just gesturing immediate and wide-eyed to the whirling grinning DEATHBLADE monster they are headed right for. His hook is on the steering wheel as if there's any point in trying to steer the floating piping death train in midair, and as the first spinning blade slices right THROUGH the front of the calliope, there's a very messy spray of blood and then another, last blip. The insane Brotherhood train zips past the grinning referee to crash down just before the finish line. The music is still playing, loud and off-key. Ion slumps against the bloodied -- well, remains of the steering wheel. Is everyone here? He's certainly not bothering to check as this nonsense vehicle limps across the... hopefully this is the line, he's not checking that either. "Last fucking stop," he's muttering. Amo huffs out a dazed breath, and some of herself manages to come back, if only for a moment, “…ay Scott?” She blinks against the growing confusion, “Shit…sorry bro. {Sorry. Sorry.}” She mutters in te reo, and she grabs onto his shoulder—originally searching for the chair of the forklift to orient herself. Some armor ripples across him and forms a little helmet around his head—carefully avoiding his glasses, and some smatterings around his shoulders. “There you go bro…ay wazzat?” She narrows her eyes at the growing swarm of bugs, and she grips his shoulder a little tighter. Armor has been rippling across her skin, and as the bugs first invade their vehicle she’s growing some more. “Nah- NAhhh.” She expands some more armor on Scott, around his back before letting go. She frantically swipes at the bugs as they crawl up one of her arms—unable to direct her armor to the right spot—and the bacteria delayed in its reaction. She makes a high pitched noise of distress as they manage to burrow into her skin, through some of the cracks in the poorly formed existing armor—then under it. She grits her teeth, clawing at them with armored finger tips, even as they carry chunks of her flesh away. A new layer of armor ripples across, finally, delayed, and most of the bugs get ejected—not without having left her arm a bloody mess. She fruitlessly stomps on the ones on the ground, “Think we gotta get offa this!” Despite having been exploded, set on fire, and partially disassembled, Cybertruck of Evil Mutants still manages to maintain structural integrity when it crashes and spins out in slow motion over the finish line. Even as it does so, the front axle snaps and sets off a chain reaction of dissolution. The chassis comes off panel by panel, like a hideous steel flower shedding its petals with sad, tinny clangs. Some of its intricate electrical innards were still on fire, and those plop out as well when the undercarriage comes apart. The other axle breaks, and one of the tires rolls off an impressive distance -- right into the moat of death. The remaining door manages to hang in there until Destiny opens it, at which point it, too, falls off its hinges. Her uniform is torn and charred and stained almost entirely red, and she, at least, tumbles out onto the track in a suitably dramatic fashion, trying and failing to right herself before collapsing for good. "...didn't see that coming." "Step on what?" Kitty yells back, voice melting from rage to ragged laugh in one half-breath as the psionic fog changes. She's trying, at any rate, to shift the gears again, a task that is suddenly highly amusing and highly difficult through the artificial confusion and blood trickling down her arm and coating the gearshift. The bugs crawling up-in-through her and carting away bits of thigh and bicep down the length of Kitty's bus are likely not helping matters (though probably they also don't like it when Kitty and bus erratically turn to air, sending them falling to the track or worse). The bus screeches to a stop not too far from the forklift, and after a couple of false starts the back door falls open in invitation. Are there points to be won, at this point? The engine of the bus, for all it's been through, is still rumbling, front wheels turning vaguely toward the finish line. "You guys getting in?" Do any of the staff here even notice the destruction left behind, here? Do any of them even care? As the last of the Brotherhood's vehicles, dilapidated and somewhat-on-fire as they are, limp over the line, the sky lights up with a celebratory riot of red and purple. The fires in the arena gutter out. The bugs, busy as they have been with their very important building projects, retreat to wherever they came from. The "referees" whisk off to whatever hell they are being stashed in in their off season. As happens every time, really, the slightly-nervous slightly-fawning bright-smiling handlers currently assigned to each team appear from Nowhere, Really, with congratulations for the winners and vague platitudes for the losers; they're stepping over Destiny's limp body like they do not even notice it to usher those still standing off away.