Anger Management

New York

Avenger's Mansion

The Danger Zone

As soon as Tony told them the name, Ben had some idea of what he was getting into. Tony guided the group to a room with blank wall panels. The room began to shift with a few button presses, separating the group and creating new hallways. Since they were superheroes, Tony programmed superhuman threats, living up to the name. While not designed to kill, if you got hit, it would hurt... a lot.

Wasp found herself in a dark corridor with neon green lights. When she took a few steps forward, the sounds of shifting panels caused her to freeze and turn in their direction. Several guns were deployed from the wall. With little warning, they fired several missiles fired at her. Shrinking down, she narrowly dodged the first one. As the second approached, she flew upward and away. Stinger blasts made some detonate away from her. However, one of the remaining missiles exploded a bit too close, the blast sending her into the wall.

Pulling herself to one knee, Wasp took a breath. The guns reloaded before launching another volley of rockets. As she was about to fire again, several repulsor blasts destroyed them. Iron Man landed before Wasp and raised an arm at the guns. The armored gauntlet flipped open, revealing its own small missile. With a smirk, Tony fired, destroying the obstacle with relative ease. Before Tony could boast, more weapons were deployed at their location. Not wanting to stick around, they made a tactical retreat.

Ant-Man walked through the darkness cautiously. In an instant, fluorescent lights shined. Metal tentacles extended out from the floor and wrapped themselves around the hero's legs. When strength failed to free him, Ant-man pressed a button on his belt. His Pym particles activated, shrinking the hero out of their possible grasp. His escape was cut short when floor panels flipped up, dropping him below before closing. The room rumbled as the floor exploded, revealing an irritated Giant-Man.

Thor held his enchanted hammer, Mjolnir, in one hand and his cape billowing behind him. In a test of agility, he flew through a long corridor with rotating arms and wrecking balls. Despite the Asgardian's strength, his overconfidence in this mortal test got him. A wrecking ball managed to get into his blind spot and struck him into the wall. Like a domino effect, this slip was enough for him to get battered one after another before landing on the ground. His godly rage started to simmer, unamused by his lackluster failure. Thor raised his hammer and smashed one of the arms. With a throw of Mjolnir, it destroyed several walls, leaving a relieved Thor behind.

The Hulk casually walked around the room. In his mind, anything that Stark would throw at him shouldn't be as bad as what the military threw at him to kill or capture. He knew it was for training, but this wasn't something Hulk actively did. For the most part, he was locked away inside Banner until the stresses of life caused him to come out again. Now, he held the reigns. He was technically a hero now, trying, at least. The shift between survival and heroism would be difficult to get used to.

It didn't take long to reach an empty hallway. A floor panel lit up as she stepped on it. About fifty feet away, opposite walls extended out and pressed against each other. One by one, they closed toward the Hulk. An unlucky drone that tried to attack Hulk was grabbed and thrown into the wall compactors. Unbothered, Hulk waited for it to reach him, and when it did, he held both arms out. Instead of crushing its victim, the metal creaked against gamma-enhanced muscle. Hulk felt the strain as the pressure grew. Growling, he gave a forceful shove to both sides, destroying them and opening up the next room.

There, Hulk stood before a large armored robot several feet taller than him. As soon as the simulation began, the robot launched a powerful energy blast at the Hulk, who quickly charged toward the robot with incredible speed. The armor was no match for the Hulk's strength, and he quickly smashed through it, causing it to stumble back against the wall.

The robot regained its footing and launched several more energy blasts at the Hulk, who easily tanked them and continued his attack. The Hulk unleashed a barrage of punches and kicks on the robot, each one causing the machine to crunch and spark. Using its advanced AI, it began to electrify itself and grapple the Hulk.

The Hulk, however, was not intimidated. The electricity coursing through him only fueled his rage, allowing him to fight back even harder. Despite what others may think, the Hulk was not simple-minded. He was smart enough to determine the location of critical systems and exploit them to his advantage. Ultimately, the Hulk emerged victorious, destroying it with a powerful smash.

In the next chamber, Four Arms was ready to test his abilities and combat skills. His four massive arms flexed in anticipation. Robots and drones emerged from all sides, firing energy blasts and launching projectiles at him. Four Arms quickly responded, using his incredible strength to punch and smash the machines.

Four Arms broke through another barrier, a destroyed drone in each hand. Turrets turned to his location and fired a barrage of bullets and missiles. "You weren't kidding about getting on our level!" Ben charged at the wall, shutting down those defenses. As the simulation progressed, the difficulty level increased. Four Arms found himself facing multiple opponents at once. When he dodged an energy beam, the roof above came down on him, and his arms raised to catch it.

The weight pressing down on the alien hero started increasing dramatically, reaching several million metric tons and more. It got to the point that Four Arms was brought down to one knee. Seeing that he was reaching his base limit, the alien hero yelled out, focusing on going even further beyond. He pushed himself to the limit, pushing his muscles to the max. In a flash of green light, the red alien changed. He grew larger and blue compared to the standard Tetramand. There were purple muscle fibers exposed across his body, and he wore black overalls with white stripes. Surprisingly, there were only two arms, but they looked a bit peculiar. With greater ease, Ultimate Four Arms pushed himself back up. The strain of the press was reaching its limit now. With a definitive upward shove, the entire roof section exploded.

Similar to the Hulk, another Robot Titan came for him. Four Arms stepped into the metaphorical ring. The fight began, and Ultimate Four Arms immediately used his footwork to close the distance on the robot before it could respond. This dash speed was proving to be an effective weapon.

The robot responded by punching at Four Arms, but he bobbed his head to dodge and used the momentum to retaliate with a quick combination of compact punches in succession. The alien's enhanced flexibility allowed attacks from seemingly impossible angles and positions while also pivoting on his legs and fighting in both the orthodox and southpaw stances.

As the fight continued, the robot increased its speed. Slowly, dodging and countering became more difficult. Seeing this, Ultimate Four Arms kicked it up a notch.

Using his advanced muscle fiber control, his two arms split down the middle, now matching his namesake. While his arms were now half their size, his flurry punches were four times faster than before while still stronger.

Despite the robot's advanced technology, Ultimate Four Arms still had the advantage. The match was intense, with both fighters pushing themselves to the limit. In the end, Ultimate Four Arms emerged victorious, having successfully defeated the robot with a powerful punch to its central processor, causing it to malfunction and shut down.

As things settled, Ultimate Four Arms met up with the others in an adjacent room. Understandably, the more human teammates showed signs of exhaustion. "Heh. You know how to go big, don't you, Tony?"

The armored avenger laughed. "Damn right." He got a better look at the evolved Tetramand. "Gotta say. I'm liking the color."

Wasp flew over and landed on Ultimate Four Arm's shoulder. "Is this normal from that red form?"

"Kinda. You can consider it a bit of an upgrade: stronger, faster, more control." With a thought, he reverted back to his base red form. "It's not something to use casually." Four Arms turned to the rest of the heavy hitters on their team.

On the side, Hulk rolled his shoulders while Thor stretched his arm. "Seemed a bit soft. Is that the best you've got?" Hulk crossed his arms in a bit of pride.

"You're all lucky that this room is self-repairing." Iron Man then smirked under his helmet. "By the way, that was level 1 of 10."

Four Arms turned to Wasp on his shoulder. "When's our cheat day?"

Wasp panted. "Hopefully, tomorrow."

"Kinda reminds me of the Perplexahedron."

"The what?"

"Uh, ever watch the movie Cube?"

"Yeah."

"Well, imagine that but the size of a planet with armed drones and traps."

Wasp looked back at the Danger Zone. "I'll stick with this."

Later

Most of the team took a break before moving on to the next portion of the tour. Hulk and Thor managed to make some small talk with each other regarding the training room. They entered a room with glass-like walls. At the center of the room was a large round table with a large A, matching their Avengers ID cards.

Tony gestured to the operations room. "And this is the assembly hall."

"Ooh." Wasp flew in to explore.

Ant-Man sighed."All the money you've thrown into this is very impressive, Tony. Were you bored? Are we your new pet project? Why are we here?"

"Come on, Hank. There's no need to be so negative," chimed Janet.

"Yeah." Four Arms walked and took a seat at the table. "He made it pretty clear after the whole Graviton thing." Hulk took a seat next to him.

"That's right, red." Tony turned back to the scientist. "You bring up a good question. You seemed kind of angry, but that's okay." Iron Man and the team gathered around the table. "JARVIS, bring up the most wanted list." The table projected a hologram of various criminal faces. While some were familiar to Ben, like Graviton and Mandrill, he'd have to read their profiles when there was time. "Seventy-Four supervillains escaped on the day of the breakout. Graviton is being held by SHIELD. We caught Mandrill, but we've got more work to do. Technically, Hulk was one of them, but I'm working with the legal team to get the big guy an official pardon."

Four Arms and the others agreed. "Thank god, you're handling that stuff. We don't need to be getting caught up in the bureaucracy in the middle of saving people."

A figurative weight lifted off the Hulk's shoulders after hearing that. For a brief moment, Hulk's eyes flashed yellow again. He could have sworn he heard someone else speaking to him. It came out muddled.

"Did SHIELD get back to us on how all the systems failed?" asked Four Arms. Four supervillain prisons failing was definitely not a coincidence. Someone felt that they would benefit from unleashing all this chaos.

Iron Man sighed and shook his head. "Sorry, but SHIELD hasn't gotten back to us. Not even the big news organizations have been answered. It's all being kept hush-hush for now. Either Fury's keeping a tight lid on the situation, or he doesn't know. Either way leaves more work for us."

"Well, that sucks. Hopefully, they give us something." Four Arms started going down the line of villains.

Thor pointed to a group of faces. "I know many of these villains. The Wrecker and his crew are formidable. His weapon is of unearthly might."

Ant-Man put up a hand. "If we do recapture them all, where do we put them? The Big House is destroyed. The Vault is destroyed. We haven't heard anything about the Cube."

"Wait. Where did they put Mandril?" asked the Alien. "I would hope locked in a cell with male-only jailers." This brought the room to a pause.

Tony quickly messaged the local station that took Mandril in. A few seconds later, he sighed in relief. He was secure and followed the containment procedure provided by SHIELD. "We're good for now. In any case, I'm working with a colleague on something now. Reed Richards has proposed a prison that is actually outside this dimension. In a place, he calls the Negative Zone."

"I have not heard of such a place." Thor believed that maybe Heimdall was familiar with it.

This idea caused the Alien hero to pause. This was the second time a sentient species decided on an extra-dimensional prison. It's not a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. "To clarify, did you guys discover or create this dimension?"

"Discovered. Why?" asked Tony.

Four Arms blinked. "Don't you think there should be a little more research done there before we start chucking people out of the universe?"

"I have to agree with him, Tony," remarked Ant-Man. "Do we know if there are any negative long-term effects or even native inhabitants? We're not trying to be inhumane."

Tony rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, not yet, but we're working on it."

Hank sighed. "It pains me to say this, but we may need to ask the MRD to use their facilities temporarily."

Four Arms cringed at the name. "Oh, god. Not those guys..."

"Too much talking," Hulk groaned. "We should just go get these guys." He punched his fist into his hand for emphasis. "Figure everything else out later."

Ant-Man sighed. "As much as some of us may like to, Hulk, we need a solution afterward. Furthermore, we don't even know what caused the breakout in the first place. What's to stop it from happening again?"

Wasp started dosing off on her side of the table. "You know, maybe we should call it a day. It's getting late, and we all need some time to recollect ourselves. Let's get some rest and concentrate on beating up some bad guys tomorrow."

The others agreed as well.

"I can get behind that, at least," Hulk said tiredly. Maybe the stress of the past few days was getting to him.

Night

After an eventful evening, it was decided that everyone go their separate ways and recuperate. While Wasp wanted to go back to their penthouse, Ant-Man convinced her to come back with him to Grayburn College. There were several reports that he had to finish for the board. As for Iron Man, there was a bunch more paperwork and legal he had to finish up with Pepper at Stark Tower to get the Avengers project off the ground. Hulk and Thor remained at the mansion, with the former making his way to the backyard. In comparison, the god of thunder relaxed before the familiar fireplace.

As for Four Arms, he hadn't prepared anything for short terms stays here at the mansion, so he was wandering about the halls alone, save for the Azmuth AI.

From his earpiece, he gave his thoughts on today. "As far as official meetings go, today was still productive."

Ben shrugged. "True. It could have been worse. What are your thoughts on the Breakout and stuff?"

"It is unfortunate, but my connection with the Cube was left moot when all major power systems were physically cut off. I'm as in the dark as you."

"Yeah. I was expecting that. Do you think we should teach them how to make their own prison dimension?"

"While it is interesting to see that some circles here have already discovered inter-dimensional travel, I'm a bit disappointed that their first instinct is to place their prisoners there before exploring and cataloging it. There's a reason I created the Null Void, less unknown factors."

"I'm concerned about this Negative Zone too. Who knows what's in there?"

"In any case, there is another issue I'd like to bring up. I've been picking up some strange energy readings throughout the day, but I couldn't make it out. If I had to guess, it would be magic related." Life energy was not his strong suit.

"Maybe it's just Thor."

"It's not. I had already taken his ambient energy, and the source appears to be coming from outside the Mansion."

Four Arms blinked. "That's not good."

"It's not. And it's only grown stronger as the day went on. I don't know why, but whatever it's trying to do, it's not working. I advise caution tonight."

Arms slumped. "With my luck, it'll blow up in my face soon. Better to make the most of it and have it outside the house."

Mansion Garden

The Hulk sat in the moonlight, surrounded by various plants before the koi pond. After taking a breath, he dipped a finger in the water, sending a ripple to all corners. Through the distortion, he could barely see the image of Banner. "- making a -, Hulk. They will - on -." Before Hulk could ask what he was saying, he heard a knocking. Turning his head, he found Four Arms leaning against a wooden post.

"You doing alright, Hulk?"

The giant turned back to the water to find nothing. He shrugged. "Fine, I guess."

Four Arms pulled out his Avengers card. "How about we get something to eat and take a trip to the park, take our mind off of things?"

Hulk looked at the brick walls around the property and the metal gate. This place was still uncomfortable for him. Maybe in time, it would change. "I'd like that."