The three fighters suddenly found themselves transported to a desert waistband, the perfect environment for Berry to attack in.

---

Junior smacked into the sandy ground. He had been swimming and now, sopping wet flopped to the ground, sand sticking to the front of him. He coughed out a mouth of sand and spat. Getting up he felt wobbly for a moment, as if he was still in water. He spat out sand again and tried to brush himself off. It was futile, but he spat again and phased, causing the sand to pass through him along with some of the water. Free of the sand he wiped his eyes and looked around, not the least bit happy to see the sand girl or George...

George wasn't thinking about enemies right now. Well, not in the group at least. He stuck out his hand, offering it to Junior to help him up. "You okay?" he asked to the boy, looking around for the person they were sent here with.

"Yeah..." Junior said taking George's hand. He didn't particularly like George still, but having him was better than that damn sand girl.

Strawberry sat up quickly and looked around. "Damn Mojo. Could've given a girl a warning at least." She looked around to see who was there with her and wasnt any happier when she saw two of the "x-kiddies". While she knew she could take the sentinal down with no problem, she'd done it several times before, it was the red kid that she was worried about. She focused on the sand at their feet and made it lift up into a kind of think sand fog to obscure their vision.

"Now, none of that." George said, raising his hand to Strawberry, or at least in her direction "No reason to give him what he wants." Definitely not Sentinel talk "We could be trying to find a way out of this place instead."

"He's right." Junior said, lifting his hands. "Before you go trying to peel the flesh from our... my bones, just lets talk for a second..."

"Oh, believe me sweetie, there is no way out of here." Strawberry said as the sand cloud started a very slow spin, just enough that they could feel the sand brushing againat their skin. "I either kill you and get to go back to my room, or you kill me and it doesnt really matter where I go."

"Why?" Junior asked, raising his hand to block sand from his face. "Why kill us? Because Mojo wants you to? Pretty shitty excuse if you ask me."

George was a sentinel. A fancy one at that. He walked forward, straight towards Strawberry, since he had her on at least three different tracking devices right now "If you've just done what he wants, and you're still here, then something is wrong with what you're doing."

Suddenly sand rushed into the damaged spots on George's "skin" as he started forward. "Don't move any closer robot. I've fought plenty enough of your kind to know how to bring you down. As for you, little red boy, you've never been under the spinless one's tentacle, you don't know what it's like. If I don't get him ratings, he doesn't keep me around. And he isn't the kind of thing that returns people in once piece."

Junior reached out and grabbed George's arm, phasing him so the sand didn't damage him further. "Then help us get out of here." Junior told her.

George was glad that Junior was going about this his way, and not trying to murder the woman. "Think of it this way. You can try, with us, to get out of here. And there will be a higher chance of doing so, because the X-men have escaped from Mojo multiple times. We just almost drowned him even. Or you can stay here and continue to fight people until you get low ratings and he kills you."

"Are you deaf, hun?" Strawberry asked, crossing her arms. "I already said there isn't a way out. We have been trying for several years now with no luck. And you guys don't look like no X-men."

"We ARE the X-men." George insisted loudly "Well... I.. uh..." He looked a little uncertainly at Junior. "These guys" he pointed at Junior "are the X-men. And they are your ONLY ticket out of here."

"We can get out of here." Junior told her. "Mojo isn't all powerful. We can beat him."

The sand fog stopped moving for second before falling back to the ground. Now they could see Strawberry clearly, and that she was giving them a look of disbelief. "I'll give ya a shot, if you can't find a way out then I'll have to do what I'm here to do."

"Berry what are you doing?" Mojo's face appeared as a hologram above the arena. "Cancel these idiots before I cancel you!"

"Really Mojo?" George was quick on the draw "You're going to cancel an ESCAPE ATTEMPT? One of the most profitable and viewed things you could show? I mean goodness, this alone must be pulling them in. Not just a fight... but a fight for freedom. The X-men, just what you wanted. And doing JUST what the people love them to do."

George took the words right out of Strawberry's mouth. The one thing he didn't have were nice "assets" that always helped when talking to Mojo. "Oh Mojo. You know the Sentinal is right. Let these children struggle to get out before I take them out." she said as she brought her arms and hands together to push her breasts up to show more cleavage, "How good will it look when the 'X-men' fail against the ingenious mind of Mojo before a live studio audience?"

Mojo, above all things hated to be made to look like a fool. "I don't expect a glorified stripper and a rusted bucket of bolts to know anything about ratings. Your viewers expect a fight. That is what they'll get... or I could push you over to channel 69..."

Junior almost wasked what channel 69 was, but thought better of it. He could figure it out for himself.

"You know you wouldn't waste me on that stuff." Strawberry challenged, "You'd lose more ratings here then you'd gain there." she added, putting her hands on her hips, defiantly.

"I would waist you Berry... I would waste you all over channel sixty nine." Mojo told her. "You wouldn't be the first semi-talented wretch I transferred to Tentacle Island. Ether shed some blood or get prepared to shed some other bodily fluids!" with that the hologram flickered out. Ether Berry had to fight, or would find herself slaved out to the porn network.

Strawberry gave him the universal "fuck you" chin flick as he vanished. She looked back at the two infront of her with a sigh, "Sorry guys. I ain't doing no third rate smut for anybody."

"We can help you." Junior tried again. "If you can get us out of this arena we can find the others and escape... we just have to find the device he used to bring us here from Earth."

"Then you'd better start looking." Strawberry said with a hint or urgency and regret in her voice as a wall of sand rose behind her and surged forward reaching the two with the force of a tidal wave.

Junior grabbed George again and phased, causing the sand to pass through them.

Strawberry frowned as she saw the sand pass right through them. She started the sand spinning rapidly around them in a cyclone that suddenly sucked up the sand at their feet, creating a pit beneath them.

George wished he hadn't suffered that massive power overload. Anything he did was a danger of setting something off to explode in him. His rocket feet were no different. That's why he didn't use them. He threw himself and Junior forward, for the edge of the pit. He just hoped Junior didn't phase them through it. Actually, phasing them down into the sand might be a good idea.

If Junior was going down, she was going with them. With the momentum of George throwing him forward to the edge, he lashed out with an energy whip, snagging Strawberry's ankle with a tendril of what looked like white light. With the weight of a robot and the boy swinging towards the edge, she would have to close the pit, or be dragged down with them. Junior found the sand easy to phase though, but solid mass was easier to move in. Sand wasn't exactly solid. He couldn't phase them through the side of the pit and back out, not till he figured out how.

Strawberry let out a startled yelp as the energy whip wrapped around her ankle and started dragging her towards the pit. Not about to be taken out by her own attack, she let herself slide closer to the edge which would make the two go further into the pit. Then, with a sudden stillness before, the pit started to fill with sand from above as the flying sand fell into it. She sought to bury them alive under the sand.

George grunted. He had no idea what the hell was wrong with this person. They offered had an escape attempt and she reacted by trying to kill him? He held onto the edge of the pit, until it began to fill from the top. He grunted, flexing mechanical muscles and tossing Junior out of the pit. He might get buried, but that didn't matter.

"George!" Junior shouted, feeling his hand sling him up and throw him. Surprised he sailed through the air and slammed hard into the sandy ground behind Berry. His concentration broke, causing the whip to dematerialize.

The second Strawberry felt that tug on her leg vanish, she jumped into action. The pit edge began to shift and move as the pit shrank in diameter, but spun like a maelstrom, sucking the robot down into the crushing weight and seeping damaging sand into his systems. She rolled over and got up, facing Junior as he lay in the sand. "You're not doing a good job of looking for a way out." she hissed as she lifted and slammed a small sand wave down ontop of him. "I don't want to kill you guys, but I have to put on a show!" she whispered as quietly as she could so Mojo would, hopefully, not hear.

A holographic image appeared over the arena. A segment of another fight was playing. Penelope freaking out as shadow leaches latched onto her skin and falling into something black and squirming. "There's always someone tougher on the playground isn't there?" Waya said over Penelope's body, then a moment later something lashed out and she fell, her legs severed at the upper thigh. A moment later the lights went out and the scene cut, back to Penelope pulling away from Waya, bloody as she flopped over into a pool of blood. "I did it..." And the crowd erupted in applause. "One down nine to go..." Mojo's voice said from the video. "How long can the X-Kiddies last without their voluptuous leader?" His laughing broke through in the end as the image faded above them.

George couldn't see right now, he was too busy digging his way out of the hole. At least he was trying to. George wasn't like other sentinels, he'd been designed differently, and the sand that got into his body was... annoying... but he could try to get around it.. Maybe. Sand disabled Sentinels because it got into the body and jammed it up... he just had to apply a little more... lubrication.

"YOU SICK FUCKING BASTARD!" Junior screamed as the image faded and he realized what he'd just seen. "YOU SONOFABITCH!" Junior was usually not one for fits of rage, but this was Waya... They'd been raised together, played together... he'd carried a torch for her since he was fifteen years old. He'd maintained hope but... not now, not ever now. The image of her collapsing as the camera zoomed in burned into his eyes. rage welled inside him and there was only one other person he could take it out on. He turned to face Strawberry.

"Oh shit, Penelope." Strawberry said as she saw the holo-image. Then she turned and saw the look in the red boy's eyes, "Oh hell." she said before she suddenly blasted him with a full force of sand, trying to push him back and keep him away from her. The sand maelstrom continued to grind and spin around George, trying to tear him apart and destroy his inner circuitry.

Her sand was nothing to Junior he simply phased through it and began actively absorbing the energy her attacks were exerting. His hands filled with light and strands similar to those he had seen Maribel use, seemed to pour from each finger. He used these like the whip and attacked, swinging them, ten fine strands of shimmering light, slashing through the air at her.

One good thing about Strawberry's previous profession is that it makes you limber. She was able to dodge the majority of his attacks, but a few made contact and left visible marks. She knew that her attack wasn't hurting him, so she changed tactics and instead lifted it thickly infront of him to he couldn't see her. She lifted up a lot of sand which caused the trap the George was in to slow a bit.

He ran through the wall of sand as if it wasn't even there and thrust his hands forward, strands lengthening inexorably, wrapping around her arms, legs and middle. Waya was dead and Junior's grief translated into absorbing the girl's energy, but as he did, he swung her and struck her against the wall of sand she had just created.

The suddenness of the attack caught Strawberry off guard and she hit the wall of sand before she could make it fall and let out a cry of pain. She made the sand drop as she tried to figure out what to do next, struggling against the energy bonds he had on her.

Junior relentlessly drained everything she had to give him. The way he felt right now he could suck her dry and be perfectly fine with it.

The pain was obvious on her face as he drained her, but she wasn't about to just give up. He may not be hurt by sand, but let's see if he can breath under sand. With that she opened up the ground underneath him and buried him in the sand and kept opening the sand below him till the slack on the lines vanished.

They didn't vanish. He'd learned how to hold his breath for a long time and as sand poured down on him he lifted her and slammed her into the ground, the wall, the ground again.

After several slams and the energy drain, she was no longer putting up a fight. She lay limp in the energy bonds like a marionette waiting for commands from the puppeteer, some blood visible from various scraps and abrasions on her body.

With the sand no longer pouring in on him Junior felt her energy ebbing and despite the murderous rage he had begun with, stopped. The strands vanished and he phased through the abundance of sand. He needed to find George.

There was an explosion of sand at the top, George emerging with a sudden eruption. He got out carefully, trying to avoid more sand getting into places, and looked around as his body spat out small globs of congealed sand onto the floor.

Junior jumped and threw his arms up over his face. When he realized it was George he smiled, then realizing he was smiling at George of all things, he stopped. "They..." Should he even tell him about Waya?

"Where's the girl?" George asked, looking around and frowning, some sand pouring out of his body cavity as he did "And... do you think you can help me get this sand out of my body?"

"I knocked her out." Junior said, placing a hand on George's arm and phasing him, letting the sand fall free. "They uh... that pink girl. She and Waya fought..."

"How injured is Waya?" George asked, scanning Junior for indication here. He still was uncertain, but from all indications, it sounded as if she was pretty badly hurt.

"It..." Junior's voice sounded moist and hollow. "It looked like... like she was dead..."

George just seemed to pause. He stood there, his little robotic brain making a whirring noise. "I need to kill Mojo." he said, his voice oddly monotone "How can we escape from this area?"

"I duno..." Junior accepting George's reaction as the perfect responce to that particular news.

"Maybe the woman that you knocked out will know?" George asked, looking around to see if she was laying somewhere he hadn't observed before.

When he looked for Strawberry's body, he could not find it. She appeared to have vanished.

Junior turned, surprised that she had recovered from his rampage so quickly.

George began to scan on different frequencies, searching for her on everything he could summon up, ranging from heat trackers to sonar.

Suddenly the sand a few feet away opened up and revealed Strawberry, standing weakly. Suddenly two large balls of greatly compressed sand rocketed in from behind them and smashed into the back of their heads. She hoped that this would take care of the red boy, but had little hope of it doing anything to the robot except denting his body.

Junior struck the ground hard. Hard. His phasing ability often protected him when he saw something coming, but this was behind him and struck hip with enough force that his head snapped forwrad sickly before he hit the ground.

A quick scan... he'd be fine, but George had barely felt the blow of sand to his own head. His wasn't shaped like normal sentinels, it was longer, a bit like the creatures from Alien. Not to the same extreme, but it was back heavy and the blow had barely shaken him. "You know, for someone who said she would help us, you're not doing much." George said as he took a step towards her, careful of the ground "I'm guessing you want to stay here."

"If by stay here you mean stay on this channel, then yes." Strawberry said, as a pillar of sand rose from the ground and wrapped itself around George. It didn't do anything but stop him from walking towards her. "As much as I want to get out of this...dimension, planet, whatever the hell it is, I'm not going to risk getting sent to channel 69." Junior's body sank into the sand as the ground below him opened up slowly and then closed up again. Only Strawberry, and Junior once he woke up, knew that when she had the sand swallow him up she had created an air pocket that should keep him alive and just make it look like she buried him alive.

"Well, that's retarded. Because it's most likely you're either going to die in the arenas or he's going to send you there anyway. What do you think is going to happen otherwise? You play along and he sends you home? Why would he ever do that?" George frowned at the sand enveloping him, his body starting to... Sentinels didn't have a vibrate function did they? Either way, it was making the sand unstable, and he was starting to free himself.

"I would rather die then go to channel 69." Strawberry said as another sand pillar rose and joined the first in holding him back. "I've been doing this for awhile now little robot, I'm not retarded. I know that I am probably never leaving here and that my only chance of going homes lies with two people who I am supposed to kill."

The vibrate function kicked it up a notch, to the point where the sand was practically dissolving around George. He pushed forward suddenly, exploding outwards in a shower of sand and running for Strawberry. "Either help us..." he said calmly as he brought a flurry of sparking, vibrating fists around to punch at the girl "or die. Because you are doing neither at the moment. You are just prolonging whichever result happens, making it harder for the better one to win."

The sand under Strawberry opened up and swallowed the girl, getting her out of the way of the attacks. Right behind where she was, popped up a giant sand fist that met George halfway.

The vibrate function made it hard for non-solid materials like sand to effect George right now, and throwing his arm out cut the sand fist, softening the blow. He was like a moving electric drill at the moment. "It is rather unfortunate, but you're rather forcing our hands with your lack of co-operation."

There was no noise or movement as the sands went quiet. About a hundred feet off, the sand lifted up and started to move away, like something was moving away from him under the sand.

George switched off the vibrate function, saving his damaged body a little bit. "One of my friends is possibly dead. You just buried an... acquaintance..." honestly, she'd probably saved him from being dismantled by Junior later on in life "give me one reason why we shouldn't leave you here? Or make this fight so boring that he decides you should go to channel sixty nine anyway?"

"Because he will simply cancel you." Came Strawberry's voice from a distance, nearly inaudible.

"We have fought greater enemies than you." George said with a shrug, tracking down the sound of the voice to find where she was "And Mojo knows it. He wouldn't cancel us, he'd move you and put us against different people. And then we'd escape, and you'd likely be stuck here." He was moving slowly towards the sound of the voice, tracking her down.

"So pretty much you are doing what you just ridiculed me for?" Strawberry countered, "Playing along in hopes of getting home? He isn't as stupid as he looks." the voice seemed to be coming from vicinity of the, submerged moving object which had stopped moving several hundred feet from him.

"If you stopped attacking my team mates then we'd surely have a higher chance of getting out..." George pointed out to her, before leaping suddenly and going at a run straight towards the moving object "It would take less than a minute to get us out of here, yet you continue to attack us." He hit the vibrate function before he landed on the lump, proceeding to try and dig her out.

Junior, feeling highly concussed, shifted in the sand. He could hear their arguing, but could only see the way Waya reached towards the pink girl before falling over into her own pool of blood. Waya was dead and there was nothing he could do about it.... that girl had sliced her to ribbons because Junior hadn't acted quickly enough before. His fists clinched as he imagined her in his hands again, threatening to drain her. He should have just done it in the first place...

The sand shifted above him and a very small shaft of light popped through the sand and shone on the "wall" infront of where, in the sand, was written, "If you are awake, find the way out. I am keeping robo-boy busy."

There wasn't a reply as George leaped on the lump. As his first hand went into the sand, it all collapsed and dropped him into a large and deep pit, his vibration function causing him to gain momentum down the pit faster. Strawberry could be seen about a quarter of the way down from the top, sitting in an alcove and looking quite worn out. "I'm not explaining myself to you again robo-boy. I told you why I am still fighting." she mumbled as she watched him fall and started closing the pit in at the top.

Junior looked up, seeing the message. It was quite tricky of her, especially after what he'd done to her... Alright, find the exit. There had to be a way out of here somewhere.

George felt himself descend suddenly, but he didn't panic at the sudden velocity. "You will be explaining yourself to the members of channel sixty nine soon if you are not careful." he said blankly before stopping his vibrations suddenly and starting up his foot thrusters. He knew it would happen, but it might be worth it. The explosion from his feet threw him forward, a ballistic missile of fire and metal. His jets had short circuited and exploded, but it was enough to get him to Strawberry.

Strawberry let out an exasperated sigh, "Dammit." she said as the robot launched itself at her with a violent burst from his jets. She knew she couldn't take much more of this and really hope that she hadn't bonked the red boy too hard and that he was already going about find a way out. The sand below her disappeared and she fell out of the way of the soaring robot and her alcove was filled in. She was already on the move by the time he hit the wall where her resting spot was.

George grunted as he missed, though the sound was merely for show. He didn't need to make any sounds at all, even if he did feel like screaming from the explosion of his feet. He began to dig upwards, deciding not to chase Strawberry, but returning towards the surface. He really needed new limbs now.

Climbing up the sides of the pit was very difficult as his weight kept making the sand slide and shift instead of standing sturdy to give him support to lift up.

As George became overcome by sand and eventually buried, the arena lights flicked on overhead, revealing not a desert, but a large room filled with sand. Spectators sat aorund the rim of the arena, applauding. "Stand aside Penelope, we got a double threat straight from the vine!" Mojo's holographic image flickered above Strawberry. "Tell the fans Berry, what's it like to make your first kill on the air?"
Meanwhile, as Mojo interviewed Berry, Junior located George and managed to get him to the air pocket Berry had made for Junior. "You should let them repair you." he told George. I can get around without being spotted and find a way to get to the others and get out, but I duno that we have the technology to fix you back home." Wait a second... Was Junior, who basically openly hated George for the function for which he was designed and carried out, giving him advice on trying to survive in this place?

"I... don't want them to repair me..." George said, looking a little nervous "What if they do something to me?" Would Junior let them stitch on an arm if he'd lost one in the fight? He doubted it. That was what Junior was asking him to accept, and it twisted inside of him with all the horrible images of what it could entail.

"You might have to let them though." Junior told him, finding himself patting George on the arm as if to console him. "You wanna kill Mojo right? For Waya. You can't do that right now... you can turn his weapons against him."

"What if I become his weapon? He could try and control me... try to use me..." George shuddered at the idea, and a spark of electricity pulsed between his broken shards that used to be his feet. He stared at them for a long while, then said gently "For Waya... I will do it."

Junior smiled. "It'll be ok." He said, trying to console the robot. "I'll take you back to where she left you and I'll help you dig out. I think you put on a good enough show he might not wanna change you too much." They were phasing now, heading towards the area where she had left him. George would have to start digging again, but it would be easier being phase pushed by Junior.

George nodded slowly, starting to dig through the sand, heading upwards. He didn't find it much more difficult than before, after all, his hands hadn't been damaged any more, just his feet. In fact the greatest danger right now was accidentally zapping Junior. "Thank you..." George said gently before he broke the surface of the sand.

MEANWHILE...

Strawberry popped out of her hiding spot in the sand as she heard Mojo talking. She quickly scurried the rest of the way out and expelled all the sand off her and acted very cool and calm, "It was a breeze fighting such gullible enemies, falling for the old 'knocked out girl' trick. It's a bit of a shame though, the red boy is kinda cute." she added with a flirtatious smile.

The crowd laughed and applauded. "What's it feel like to kill for the first time?" Mojo asked.

"Oh hun, just because you ain't seen it, doesn't mean it's my first time." Strawberry said. "But to do so in front of all my wonderful fan means I have done my job."

"There you have it ladies and gentelthings!" Mojo cried to the crowd. "Your luscious ripe, straight from the vine Strawberry!" He paused to let the crowd erupt in applauds. "Tell us, what should we do with your spoils of war?" he gestured to George, digging himself free, sparking, shorting, in a rather poor state of disrepair. "It's not every day one finds a Sentinel Hound with it's very own artificial intelligence."

Strawberry stroked her chin in a play of thinking it over. "I could always use a personal servant. Having to fix my own hair everyday is quite a drag."

Several smaller robots appeared in the arena, hovering over to retrieve George for his repairs. "The program ended, blocking out the crowd and Mojo asked, "Is there anything left of the red one?" He knew what sand could do to a body and if she'd done a god enough job, even his bones could have been turned to dust.

"I'm pretty sure that he isn't anything more then red dust." Strawberry said as she watched the robots got George. "So am I getting him or are ya turning him into our next fight?"

"I'm... I'm not done..." George said, staring to crawl towards Strawberry on his broken hands and knees slowly "I'm still a-alive..." Whatever he was. "I can... I can take you..."

"Take him away." Mojo said to the bots. "Give him... level five treatment... That'll suit him nicely I think." Heeding Mojo's orders, the small salvage bots approached George. He began to feel a particular sort of tickle, the charge of an EMP about to be fired on his level. They were going to knock him out.

George lashed out at one of them, trying to stop them from firing the EMP. He didn't want to be knocked out... he didn't want to be fixed. It was actually pretty pitiful seeing him laying there, swatting at the small robots as if they were vulchers circling his corpse.

He clipped the bot and it went spinning, but a moment later, all George knew was darkness.

Strawberry shook her head in a saddened way, "Poor, pitiful, stupid robot." she said as he was rendered 'off'.