Summary:Extradimensional aliens kidnap several hundred citizens, including several metahumans. Resistance is NOT futile! Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Across America— even the world— a strange surge in kidnappings. People, snatched from their homes overnight. Some leaving behind worried parents and baffled friends. Mostly adults, though some children as well. Perhaps against the global background of abductions, barely a blip in the mean data. But still of terrifying concern for the families and friends of the missing— and for the abductees.
Awakening from a particularly deep sleep, the abductees find themselves in a number of large cells. They seem more appropriate for herding cattle than managing people, without even base amenities such as beds. Just bare waste reclamation stations against one wall. The 'walls' themselves are strangely constructed, looking more grown than hewn from steel or stone. Yet they're dense and unyielding to the touch. Ozone crackles near an electrical field that cordones off the sole exit, perhaps thirty feet wide and twenty feet high. The lighting is a soft ambient pink that comes from no discernable source and it's perhaps a little warmer and more humid than most people find comfortable. From the looks of it there are four of these large holding cells, all facing a common circular area and access corridor beyond. It's impossible to tell time of day, the weather, or even where the residents are— America, Earth, the universe, or… beyond.
An orange hand grips Peter Parker's shoulder, and when his eyes open, a concerned orange-skinned woman is staring down at him. Kori Anderson, fellow Midtown High student, looks… concerned.
"Friend Peter!" she says, voice low and urgent. "Are you the injured? Please remain calm, we are… I believe we are in some danger."
She helps him sit up and look around. Most of the residents of Cell Block A are still unconscious, or barely coming back to it. Kori looks surprisingly alert and wary, with a tension in her frame Peter's likely not seen before. She's wearing brief pink hot shorts almost too abbreviated for polite company and a cut-off tee with 'Midtown High PE'. Barefoot and her hair a tousled mess, it's pretty clear that Kori was yanked from her bed. Looking around the dishevelled state of the others nearby, this seems like it was the case for most of them— though a few might have been merely napping in their day clothes as opposed to being pulled from their bedrooms.
"Can you move or walk? We were drugged," she explains, quite calmly. "I woke up feeling very much lacking the orientated." She helps up a few other people nearby as they groan and stir awake, shaking off the torpor through benefit of sheer willpower or advanced metabolisms.
Peter got to a sitting position. He looks down and realizes he is dressed in his Captain America underwear (DON'T JUDGE ME) and, as far as anyone can tell, nothing else. And for an 18-year-old nerd, he ie ridiculously fit. Ripped, even.
He gets to his feet and looks around. "Not…sure what happened, Kori. Take deep breaths, get yourself together." He looks at the cell around them.
"We're in trouble."
Noh-Varr rolls onto his back and stretches, peering up at the ceiling with a blink then propping himself up on his elbows to look around. He's wearing just black boxer briefs and his Nega-Bands. After a moment, he comments "I've woken up with someone not remembering who they were but I've never woken up somewhere not remembering where I am. I don't /think/ I took anything powerful enough to affect me." Standing, he turns in place to examine their surroundings.
Drugs. Drugs don't do much on at least one person here. At the very least, they're far less effective on Rose Wilson than the average human. The small platnium haired young woman turns towards the orange-skinned alien, the focus of a monocular eye narrowing upon the tall Tamareanan's visage. Her other eye? Covered in an eyepatch. "I've been in worse situations," she says, matter of factly. She is standing near that pink aura of light, twists her lips. She, too, apparently was abducted from bed by the sheer lack of clothes worn upon her athletic body. But, she's got a katana in her hand, strangely enough.
"I've not seen this technology before. It isn't SHIELD. Energy field. But, no guards. I've been up awhile. We're very much alone."
Christopher Powell was very deeply asleep when he was taken from his bedroom. This is evidenced by the fact that he's only dressed in a pair of green and blue plaid pajama pants and a purple amulet on a chain around his neck, his hair a bit touseled, but then it always looks kind of intentionally that way, so not too out of the ordinary. He groans as he wakes up and mutters. Chris is not a morning person. "Did I fall out of the b.. no.. the Hell?" He looks around, rubbing at his eyes with the palm of his hand and sitting up.
"Understatement of the century right here, folks," quips a dark haired girl that is half-sitting with her head hanging forward in her hands. She was mostly dressed at least, wearing a pair of purple yoga pants and a loose t-shirt that said 'I'm with Stupid' with an arrow pointing to the side. It was a gift. Kate lifts her head with a deep breath as she squints trying to shake off that lethargic feeling. "Sorry. Force of habit to snark. Ohman I could use a coffee right about now."
Pausing a moment Kate runs her hand back through her hair only for her hand to dip back quickly reaching for the familiar bow at her back. She'd been on a stakeout after all and apparently nodded right off. Go her. At least she still had her bow apparently. Her eyes dart around taking in the mishmash of people here with a few lingering looks at some shirtless guys before clearing her throat. "This is the worst slumber party ever. Any idea how to ditch it?"
"I am completely the together, Peter," Kori assures her friend, solemnly. "But if you think it will help." She starts taking deep, steady breaths, in a manner that probably would be a little enticing if she wasn't so obviously trying to do a Good Job at Breathing.
Her gaze transfers to Noh-Varr and his Nega-Bands. Something flickers— recognition, perhaps? But this is not the time and place. And Kori certainly isn't outing herself as anything except a high schooler, at the moment.
"Please friends, let us not be the alarmed," she tells the others, bidding them peace with a downpress of her palm in the air. "My name is Kori Anderson. This is my friend Peter Parker," she explains, gesturing at the short-but-ripped nerd in the Captain American underwear. "I do not know where we are, but we must be the calmed, not the panicked," she tells them.
"I am unsure how I came here. The walls seem quite rigid and I do not see an immediate means of egress," she says, her chin lifting upwards to scan the ceiling overhead. "But I think escape is a priority. We should look for an escape hatch, or find a way to take down the energy field. Once we liberate ourselves, we can rescue the others who have been kidnapped."
She looks down at Peter's shorts, then laughs and points. "Oh my the gosh! You are wearing the underwear of the Captain America! Did he give you those at school?" she asks, with a giddy hilarity.
"It is funny because you are not the Captain, you see!"
Peter give Kori a wry look, and opts not to bring up the fact that Kori kissed Rogers. Not helpful at all. He walks over to the electrical field, peering at it. "Odd setup." He looked up to the light fixture. "Hey, does anyone see any access panels, either inside or outside of your cells?"
Noh-Varr doesn't look panicked. He doesn't even look disturbed. "Hey Kori. Hey Pete. And everyone else. I'm Noh-Varr, Kree warrior, so you don't have anything to worry about." He walks over to look at the energy field. "So the thing about energy fields…" he says to no one in particular. "Is that they're only as strong as what they're anchored by. Let's see how strong that is." Moving to the side, he punches the wall. Hard.
Not opting to share -her- name as freely as Kori gave it, Rose does seem to agree with Peter. Her observation? "It's foreign. Kind of like your girlfriend, over there. Not from around here." Meaning, alien. The casual reference to Kori and Peter is forgotten as soon as it comes out of her mouth, and her singular eye moves to critically watch the results of Noh-Varr's punch, noting, "The brute force method? Pretty Boy might have the right idea."
But, the jury's out on that, for a few heartbeats.
Christopher Powell pulls himself up to his feet and looks around the cell that he's in, running fingers through his hair to push it back away from his eyes. "It'd be kind of weird to have access panels inside cells if you don't want people in them to try to use them to get out," he observes, but he looks anyway because, why not? Then he glances around at the others, realizing something, and looks down, noticing that a) he is mostly undressed and b) the amulet is out in the open. He wraps a hand around it kind of reflexively as he wanders the perimeter of the cell, looking around at it. "I'm Chris," he offers, when names are given by a few.
Kate Bishop pushes to her feet as she steps closer to the forcefield herself to regard it, and what lay in the room beyond. Her eyes rise to look over the ceiling just as others had before her. "Kate Bishop. Hawkeye." The names are offered back with no pretense of caring whether they knew or not. They were all around her age or younger after all. "I don't really know what a Kree is but if you think you can do something about… Oh." Kate's gaze jerks over toward Noh-Varr's wall pummeling to stare openly before just shrugging. "Okay, that might work." While he does his thing she looks to Kori, and Peter, and Rose and the others giving a small nod. Even if it was an awkward situation there was no need to not be polite. "Nice to meet everyone. I don't see a control panel but there must be one somewhere. Likely behind what he's hitting," she adds with a gesture in Noh-Varr's way.
Noh-Varr's denting the hell out of the wall but it has a strange elastic quality that's taking some of the zip out of his hits. And it's making a hell of a lot of noise. Kori, rather calmly, walks as close as she can to the field and touches it. It *zaps* her with enough energy to make the air crackle with ozone and cause her to flinch. "Ah!" she exclaims, holding her hand to her chest. She leans left and right, trying to see around them, and points across the corridor. "I see an access hatch of some kind above the fields," she explains. "Perhaps if we can break free, we can sabotage the other systems from within and get people free. I imagine we'll have a fight on our hands," she adds, ruefully. "I cannot imagine there is not an alarm system. Friend Peter— you are very intelligent," she tells him. "Perhaps you can find a means of sabotaging the security systems from inside the corridor." She looks to Rose and Kate. "I do not know who our captors are, but if you wish to travel with Peter, it might be prudent to fight from cover. Our enemies may be very mighty."
She examines the archway opposite Noh-Varr's position and exhales. "I really did not wish to do this," she mourns, and hauls a delicate-looking fist back behind her ear.
WHAM! The whole cell jolts as she and Noh-Varr hit the wall at the same time, in unison. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! With the two working in tandem the archway *cracks*, the energy field flickers, and then collapses. A strange burbling klaxon starts up, and Kori rushes forward on bare feet that barely seem to skim along the floor to brace herself in front of the main security gate. "Quickly! We must not let them overrun us!" she cries, trusting the others to find their own place.
Peter runs out of the cell as soon as the field drops. Where is it, where is it…AH!
Peter spots the access hatch and steps over to it, seeming to ignore the alarm as he opens it.
Alien technology is not something you cover in Physics, not even in the advanced classes. But math is math all over the universe, and certain principles remain. He looks over the panel's contents. A touchpad in some alien language. He doesn't seem to see…
…wait.
He may not know the language, but he can see that some keys are touched more often than others. He can find five buttons. A code of some sort.
He hovers his fingertip over one, and his Spider-Sense tingles unpleasantly. Doing that will cause more harm than good. Then the next…same. Then the next…same.
And then the next one, and his Spider-Sense goes DEAD.
He pressed it, and a strange character comes up.
"Kori…give me twenty seconds…I might be on to something…"
Noh-Varr saunters casually out of the cell to take up position in the corridor in full view of those who should shortly be showing up. "I'll draw their fire." he tells the others. "Those of you who can fight, take them out. Those who can't, stay where it's safe. Don't come between me and them." he cautions as his Nega-Bands start to glow.
Rose calmly walks out of her cell as the energy fields go down. She gives a satisfied nod to the pair of powerhouses and the results of their efforts. Her neck twists slightly as she looks through her one eye to Starfire. "I fight my own damn way, thanks." There's a faint sneer to her expression, but it's brief, her action further indication that she's clearly not used to being a team player. She rolls her shoulders, takes a cleaning breath and then focuses her attention towards the main entrance doors where their captors will be coming from. She rolls her wrist, then, the katana's blade twisting with expertise in the air near her side, and then she carefully tucks herself into the side, a quiet little cubby where she'll be able to lurch out and take out or take advantage of at least one of the first responders. She looks back to Noh-Varr as he says something that she actually needs to pay attention to. Her eyes narrow suspiciously, but she nods, once, silent. Attention fixates back to the door. The katana goes still in her hand, her intent clear. Unlike their captors, Rose doesn't seem to be interested in 'taking prisoners'.
Kate Bishop reaches up to slide her sunglasses from her forehead, where they often perched like a headband, to cover her eyes properly. They were mirrored making it impossible to see where she was looking. It also helped to protect from any flashy, explodey lights that might occur from that shield going down.
As soon as it drops she swings her bow forward with one hand. The other dips down to the quiver attached to her thigh by straps to withdraw an arrow. It's notched and she moves out, keeping the bowstring taut, while finding an open spot to stand awaiting any coming down that corridor. "Drawing their fire will help. I'll be sending my own." Hopefully arrows would work against alien armor? Man she hoped so otherwise she was going to have to make some real crack shots.
While everyone is pouring out of the cells, Chris gives the amulet a little bit of a squeeze and then there's sort of a crackling of dark energy around him as the Darkhawk takes his place, giving him a bit more height, an avian looking suit, and large retractable wings. These, he keeps retracted as he moves along with the others into the hall, that glowing amulet in the center of the suit's chest. The voice that comes out of the suit is strange, not entirely Chris', but altered, deeper, as though two voices speaking at once. "No, we need to free the others from their cells." He takes up a position near Noh-varr but not in front of him, moving to help fend off whatever might be coming to stop them from escaping.
America Chavez stands up from her place in a cell, wearing blue boyshort a red tank top with a star on the front like she was advertising underclothes in some sort of patriotic department store magazine. Her ordinarily perfectly coiffed curls are plastered against the side of her head and she yawns as she sways. America looks around slwoly and a faint frown crosses her lips. Then she reaches up to touch the side of her head.
"Oh no they fucking didn't." The muscular Latina teen stalks out of the first cell and straight toward Cell Block Number 2, walking with enough force to make the floor rumble slightly, rebounding from her presence. "Oh *no*, they fucking didn't." She comes to stand right in front of the cell block door and tenses up visibly, coiled like a lean panther ready to strike. The stars at America's wrists begin to glow, then her eyes turn a brilliant blue white to match. She turns, then delivers a massive, wall-quaking, dimensionally suspect level of force at the door in question.
"I did /not/ get out of bed with bed head today! HAAA!"
There's a solid line of defense set up when those security doors open. The guards— a dozen or so— spill into the room armed with force weapons and crackling with energy shields. They're probably expecting a malfunction, a half a dozen confused prisoners slipping through a flickering doorshield.
Instead they're greeted with a hail of power and fury as Earth's defensive line opens up on them. They're ugly, big brutes, a cross-breed of a pig and four-armed gorilla with pale pink skin, three eyes, and digititrade knees. Their lower arms are thin and agile, and their lower limbs swollen with muscle. Their confused, galloping stride sometimes uses those lower limbs for balance but they cover a lot of ground.
Then they run facefirst into a wall of armed resistance. One goes down with a screeching wail of pain as he's set alight by Noh-Varr's energy beams. The others hastily erect force fields from portable generators in front of them. They shimmer with hex-shaped grids of light that repulse the initial energy attacks, but check their momentum quite thoroughly.
"Peter! Work quickly!" Kori yells, voice tense with concern. Green fire coalesces around her hands and she throws twin beams of energy at the onrushing aliens, slamming into those forcefields with tremendous force.
Peter tried the fifth character, and then he's in. He thinks.
A menu comes up, and he checks the characters. At least menus are also universal. Okay. Four options, and choose the last one? a warning, but his Spider-Sense isn't going off. Okay. This could be it. He is about to press the corresponding key…
And then the entire panel redlines as a result of the energy feedback from America's…tactical decision.
His eyes go WIDE and he jumps back from the panel before it explodes, just like the ones in Star Trek. He rolls to a stop, a flash burn being the worst of the damage, and looks to Kori.
"I ALMOST had it until SOMEONE fried the system! I need to find another access panel. And QUICKLY, before whatever happened happens AGAIN!"
Rose -waits-. She'll let the others draw all their attention - hell, one of them, the one who called herself Kate Hawkeye said she'd even draw their attention willingly. It all serves her plan. Which is to wait until they lay down their defense. Then the half-naked, katana-armed one-eyed woman launches herself at the nearest pigorilla with fluid motion. She's too close to them, and too quick, to give any of them time to react to the surprise of one of their captured being so damn close.
The poor alien is met wtih a katana through the throat, and its comarades get to hear the wet, gurgling sound it makes as the blood spills into airways. The energy force field it'd just finished erecting gets a strong back-kick by the Ravager, her intent to open a swath for those behind herself and lower defenses.
Then, she's rolling on the floor, … just in time to. If she'd waited another moment she might've been crushed by one of those massively strong limbs of a nearby pigorilla. Instead, she skewers it with her sword with an expert, precise knowlege, twists the sword, then slices it out with brute force that likely most people wouldn't have against all that raw muscle. There's going to be a lot of blood, before she's done, looks like.
The Door to Cell Block B whines as it buckles underneath the force and then the lights flicker. Power surges out of Peter's console as the door's locks forcibly release against the desires of its hermetic seal. America is breathing heavily, still staring with those glowing white-blue eyes as she comes to regard everything on the far side of that door.
The woman points in with her thumb then hooks it over past her shoulder. "Keep your heads down. Everybody *out*. Keep away from oncoming uglies." America takes a deep breath as she turns to see Peter's reaction to the console exploding. She's making her way toward the next of the Cell Door, however, walking with a cool stride that probably paints a target on her back. "…Sorry about that," she'll call to Peter. "But if you need me to stay on this side of the door better tell me now."
It seems that America intends to kick her way into another of the cells. Maybe the console will actually explode this time.
Glancing over at the crackling sound, Noh-Varr's brows rise. "You're not Shi'ar. What are you doing With Raptor Armor?" That though is a question for later as he looks back toward where their former captors will likely be coming from. As their initial blasts make the guards halt and take up a more fortified position, erecting their energy barriers, the Kree leaps upward, doing a half flip so his feet hit the ceiling and just stick there. The higher vantage point lets him fire over the energy barriers, both Nega-Bands glowing brightly as they release streams of energy at the guards.
"Seriously?" Kate risks tearing her gaze away from the hallway to glance America's way as the Latina starts to break the others free. Her obvious anger was at least getting the results that she couldn't get by helping to free others.
Or maybe not judging by the way Peter was reacting at least. Kate lets out a sigh. "This is no time for a bad hair day! Here!"
In one smooth movement her hand releases the hold on her notched arrow sending it at one of the first few unsuspecting guards to come through in a very unpleasant location that she hoped was similar in anatomy to the males of most Earth species she knew. Better to have a flailing roadblock than an easily stepped over dead body, right? The motion isn't stopped there as her hand sweeps back to catch at the hair band she wore slipping it free, and lobbing it finger-gun style at America. Aimed right for her bedhead.
No sooner is it snapped off than she draws another arrow to fix on another target in a less delicate yet still effective way
Christopher Powell turns toward Noh-Varr and says, "Fighting those guys." There are talons at the end of those hands now, and Chris launches himself toward the guards as they come toward them, taking the low road since Noh's opted for the high, and staying over to the left, figuring he's less likely to get energy streamed if he doesn't weave back and forth. He is fast, and acrobatic, and manages to leap over one of the energy barriers to land on the guard behind it.
The klaxon changes notes and there's the sound of jowl-heavy roars of outrage. More thundering hoof-analogues. More guards. The resistance is much fiercer and more effective than the guards expected, and despite their strength the sheer celerity of Rose Wilson is difficult to match. Perhaps more devastatingly than the wounds she and Kate inflict is the damage they do to their line of defense as the guards panic at the sight of blood, dropping their energy shields and hastily re-orienting to address the more frightening attackers up close. *Blood*! Bright blue, sure, and reeking of strange chemicals, but what kind of unimaginable primitives would use *steel* as a weapon?!
"Push forward! We must not let them get a beachhead!" Kori cries, and then she's *flying* as well. The crackling viridian energy blasts turn into a full aura around the girl and she swoops in a dazzling display of aerial acrobatics, flinging what looks like balls of superheated matter at the rear echelons and blasting apart anything that gets in front of her with those green columns of energy. She's agile enough to avoid their counter fire as energy weapons are deployed, tight bolts of blue plasma lancing through the air. The Tamaranean is clearly familiar with Shi'ar battle tactics and borrows the Darkhawk's dodging wake to disguise her own aggressive countermoves. She launches more aggressively to try and physically bowl through the attack team's line and break them up, a daring maneuver that is successful but earns her several fresh burn marks from their energy weapons. Still, it creates room for Noh-Varr and Darkhawk to move up and support her, choking off the antechamber entirely and giving them the offensive advantage to press their escape.
Cell Block B is full of panicked individuals staring wide-eyed at America as she shatters the energy field blocking their escape. The shimmering fields of power holding C and D shut seem to be glowing brighter now, perhaps as more energy is shunted their way.
A fair-skinned girl and a heavyset young man with deep auburn skin rush up to America. "We want to help!" they demand of her. Visibly metahuman? Courageous enough, but it's clear this fight is well out of their wheelhouse. They balk as two of the massive guards break from the main melee and rush America in tandem, roaring howls of anger!
Peter looks at America for a quick moment. He would need to find a new panel, open the panel, hope the code wasn't different, take 20, maybe 30 seconds…
And by that time America could open BOTH cell blocks. Why waste time with a lockpick when you have a two-legged breaching charge?
"Just let me get to cover before you blow their doors off!" he calls out quickly, moving behind the firing line.
Kori can fly…someone's going at them with SWORDS…and the lady with the bow is sniping them.
He was going to have to wear his web-shooters to bed if this was going to be a thing, now—all he had was his favorite set of jams and his cutting wit. Probably best if he stayed near the one shooting from the rear ranks, in case one of those ugly things SOMEHOW made it through all…THAT.
When the two multi-armed gorilla *things* charge toward America she looks up, her lips pursing into a grim line. She reaches up to brush her hair- and a thump strikes her hand. The hairband slides into place. She spends a second gathering up those long, wavy tresses.
"If you want to help keep your heads down for now," America calls. "I've got this. Then go join the others and see what you can… *do*. Get away from the doors. Come on!" There's a grunt of effort as she kicks one of the gorillas brutally aside and then back hands another to the floor. "And I thought I was having a bad hair day. Mmph." ANother, brutal kick into the sides of one of the things.
"I'll try to get the next door open," the woman's calling as she places herself, feet shoulder width apart, in front of the next cell block door. There's that glow again. Eyes, the stars on her wrists, even the on on her shirt. ANd she delivers a brutal kick- and the forcefields start to glow as well. The light flickers as America throws more of herself into it. Power sizzles.
This can't end well. And America isn't going to back down, obviously. But she could probably use a hand, to judge by the way her muscles are shaking and she's set her jaw.
As attention fully turns on Rose, the cyclopian girl doesn't seem all that surprised, or all that worried. There's another precision stab into the upper arm-joint and shoulder of one of them, and she uses it as a vaulting point to jump, twist over the aliens back. Then Rose says something that should worry everyone.
"I'd get back if I were you!"
The dropped energy weapon from her first victim is snatched up off the floor; large and cumbersome, Rose doesn't seem to have a problem weilding it with one hand as she turns. Turns, and fires one blast at the exposed backend of one of the force-field generators, even while ducking behind another, hitting the floor and rolling on her side to evade those stompy odd pigorilla feet. It should make quite a mess, if the reaction is what Rose suspects it will be, if her calculations are correct on how much portable energy must be stored in them to withstand the brute force this team is laying down on them …
Several more energy blasts are directed toward the guards to help sow chaos as the energy shields drop. Pushing off the ceiling, Noh-Varr flies into the middle of them, grabbing one in each hand as he lands. "Didn't your mothers teach you to never kidnap a Kree warrior?" he asks as he lifts them off the ground and starts using them to pummel others. "We're the strongest, bravest, smartest, fiercest, sexiest, fighters in several galaxies. And we never have bad hair days. Or maybe that's just me."
When Kori flies overhead into the crowd of oncoming guards, and America starts wailing away again. Then Rose picks up that giant weapon using it expertly. And Noh-Varr jumps in being kind of awesome in a way. Kate dodges to the side to avoid the fire from Rose's new weapon while tucking to the side, and re-aiming to avoid the sudden mass of people. "I suddenly feel inadequate. Wait. No I don't, my hair is perf."
Kate reaches for another arrow with her shaded gaze moving to Peter as he approaches to flash him a smile. "I'm starting to think you and I might be the most normal people here. Good job on the cells even if… You know. Think if we find another panel you can figure out where we *are* though? Might come in handy."
Peter simply points to the insane levels of mayhem going on just ahead of them. "I'm gonna just wait until the RUBBLE STOPS BOUNCING, thank you very much!" he whispers quickly to Kate.
Christopher Powell actually pauses halfway through fighting the pigorilla he's pinned to the ground to look over at Noh-Varr. There is no expression on that avian mask but if it could stare for a moment, it would. The head shakes, and he's almost barrelled over by a charging guard before he uses the one he's on to vault backward, and then forward again, plowing that one to the ground and moving forward with Kori, trying to keep up that line of defense with her, for now keeping to hand to hand combat and using guards to shove into one another like giant thick-limbed bowling balls.
Rose's attack detoantes one of the portable generators in the worst way possible, and all that energy is directed *backwards* into the onrushing security forces. It blows their line fully apart and allows the escapees to pluge through them like a cannon shot, bowling them over and breaking through to the next part of the deck. The living ship groans in protest at the violence within. The Tamaranean whips her head around, her hair curling around her more like fire than fiber (and looking *the most* on point, for the record).
Kori grabs one of the pigorillas that Rose … disarms, and relieves him (it?) of a short, energetic blade. She grips it with a casual ease, point low, and looks supremely competent with the weapon.
"HAAAA!" she screams, and flings herself into the thick of it with Chris at her elbow. Between the slashing arc of the blade and the viridian light curled in her left hand, she leaves a bloody mess of violence in her wake. "Peter!" she shouts over her shoulder. Her voice sings with bloodlust. "Find us a way to take this ship or flee it, please!"
Noh-Varr and Chris are able to keep up easily, and their momentum prevents the guards from setting up more powerful defenses. Still, both would recognize they're tactically outmaneuvered and vulnerable. Especially if they go one direction and the kidnapped hostages are exposed to reinforcements. A short-term win, but not a victory. Not yet.
America starts hammering on the third cell block door field. This is much more energetic than the last one and the feedback violently intense, grating against the limits of even her superhuman sensibility. It leaves singed skin where she hammers against it and violent electrical feedback crackles around her. A few prisoners too close to the door are injured by the feedback as well, but it finally collapses with a deafening *CRACKLE* of discharging energy that blows out lights and panels all over the room. It casts much of the area into darkness, and the door field for Block D starts to tremble with violent instability.
The two metahumans at America's side fall back and provide some cover and support to the prisoners, trying to keep things orderly and prevent a panic from breaking out. It's successful for now but there's clearly a mob panic on the edge of breaking out. If a riot happens there will be a hundred or more people stampeding towards the exit and right into the line of violence.
Kori hovers near Noh-Varr and gives him a scornful up-and-down. "I do not believe any of that is true, friend Kree," she tells him rather politely. "But if it makes you feel better to think of yourself that way, I will not disabuse you of it!" She flips her thick mane of fire-streaked red hair at him rather diffidently, then with a 'HAAAH!' swallow-dives a pigorilla and impales him with her sword, flinging blood and viscera about.
Danielle Moonstar went to sleep, not thinking anything weird was going on… but then woke up in the strange cell. However, whoever their captors are, they might not have been expecting Asgardian magics. When America opens her cell, the mutant comes out wearing gleaming chainmail, her sword drawn as she looks warily back and forth and a winged helm gracing her head. "Hey, what's going on around here?!?" She sees a few people she recognizes, and she also has on… er, bunny slippers.
Look, she wasn't expecting to be kidnapped, alright?
Peter looks at Kori for a moment, his face incredulous. Take the ship? Take it HOW? Even if he COULD find the bridge, if it HAD a bridge, the ship was fast approaching the 91st day of its 90-day warranty; he could sense it, although he wasn't sure how his Spider-Sense COULD interpret it.
And he didn't think he had the time to learn an alien language AND how to fly an alien spacecraft before whatever power source currently voicing its displeasure gave the ship the bejeezus and ripped the guts out of it.
He,,,didn't know what to do. All he wanted was to get off this madhouse of a failed alien…
…WAIT. HOW did they get ON this ship? It had to be done, and fairly instantaneously. So it had to have some kind of transporter system that had yanked them from where they were.
He looked to Kate, then said, "Wait here…and how nothing ELSE blows up."
Peter checked the wall until he was what he thought he was looking for, then ran like Hell and Satan and all the demons were hot on his heels, bolting past Dani as he runs in the opposite direction of the fight…
America is getting singed, and she's gritting her teeth as her flesh scorches. The energy crackles around her form and the air fills with the scent of ozone, but it doesn't seem that the girl in the patriotically theme t-shirt and boy shorts has any intention of giving up on her chosen course of action. She grasps the field with both hands and shoves. Now she and the forcefield are glowing in tandem, a pulsing surge of light and force. "Grrraaaah." America's chest is heaving with the effort of breathing while she exerts herself like this. The muscles in harms, her shoulders, and even her legs are flexing as she plants her feet. "Get. Out. Of my. WAY!"
The escaped mutants are swarming about Danielle and moving to assist with the defense of the cell block. Meanwhile, Miss Red, White, and Blue has a giant target painted on her back. It's shaped like a glowing star.
The savage with the steel sword doesn't revel in the destruction she's sewn, she takes advantage of it with a calucated, purposeful mein to her own little private war that speaks volumes to her training and mental fortitude. She doesn't seem the least bit exhausted, either, and instead presses the attack.
The energy weapon screams in her hand as it launches a projectile straight into the face of one pigorilla, while her sword twists to a backhand hold and she twists to slit the throat of an incoming attacker with clean, cold efficiency. She's learning. Learning how these creatures fight. And she's adapating, to fight them even more profciently.
"Someone go protect that idiot," Rose snaps. He -did- seem to be the only one who understood the technology, here. Or had any chance of getting them out. She points her blue-viscera-dribbling sword at Dani, "You. With the slippers. Don't let him get killed until he gets us out of here."
Then, back to the fighting, and keeping the guards back. "You losers aren't half-bad," she tells the others fighting with her. It might even be a compliment, of sorts.
"Good thing then your belief doesn't really matter." Noh-Varr answers cheerfully, throwing his left pigorilla into two others who unwisely moves too close to each other. "Find the way to the bridge and I'll fly us back. Wherever back happens to be at the moment."
The volley of arrows that had been coming from Kate stops as she moves to the side to reassess the situation. The assault on the onslaught of guards was becoming a bit crowded with Kori, Noh-Varr, Chris, and Rose all in the fray. They were doing well enough on their own as it was. To top it off, she was running low on arrows. Until they had cleared enough of a path that she could reclaim some off the fallen Pigorillas it meant it was time to conserve what she had left. Raising her voice she calls out over the din of fighting, and America's attempts to break the last barriers, "Falling back onto defense!" It was really all she could do for now.
Which means she moves out of the direct line of fire to help cover others. Namely, for the moment, America and Peter for so long as he's in sight. Even as she does, she hears a familiar voice and glances over. "Dani?" Well this is interesting. "TLDR; kidnapped, fighting our way out, pigorillas are the baddies. Be careful." Yes, she said 'TLDR.'
"We're.. not in the dimension we cane from," Chris says in that strange modulated dual-voice that is both his and the suit's combined. "I hope this ship is capable of interdimensional travel. And before you ask, no, I don't know where we are, I just know we're not.. where we started. It's fuzzy. I don't speak.. it's complicated." He doesn't bother to try to explain entirely what's going on there. He's a little occupied with the pigorillas that are swarming them. He hangs back, not pushing too much further forward, instead just focusing on holding ground while the others continue to work on getting them out.
"We're about two dimensions left of center," America will call out to the rest of the group. She's still pressed up hard against the final Cell Block door, but she pauses in her straining to speak. There's perspiration pouring down the woman's face, soaking her t-shirt. She takes a ragged breath in through her nose. "That doesn't mean anything to you. I can- see /where/ it is, but I don't… Think… I could get us back. Um. One second." With a snarl, Americ throws herself into the forcefield even harder. The lights over head start to dim.
"One… Step… At a time." There are more burns on her arms and shoulders now. Her hair even starts to frizz slightly, which would no doubt mortify her. But right now she's busy trying to short out the entire ship. The forcefield has basically enveloped America in sheer energy now. All the power from the first three has rerouted to this door. She isn't even pounding it any longer, just trying to pu all of her strength into tearing it apart. Another crack of energy. A spike of white light toward the ceiling.
America goes *flying* through the air away from the cell, slamming into one of the pigorilla monsters and smashing him rather brutally into a wall. As for the cell…
Peter knew it looked like he was fleeing the scene. Being Puny Parker again, the guy who runs from trouble. That was kinda okay, actually. He wasn't too keen on advertising that he was Spider-Man to a bunch of strangers.
Superhuman-beyond-imagining, alien, and magical strangers. What the heck was he doing in such overpowered company? Trying not to get his butt blown off, or blown up if the collateral damage keeps tallying up.
Then he found it, a recessed chamber that connected directly to the cell blocks. He opened it up…
…and recoiled.
The chamber held two things. One was some kind of giant crystal that resonated purple. It looked purple, but it also resonated purple. He didn't know HOW he knew that.
The second object looked like a giant INSECT, with mandibles, pincers, bulbous multi-faceted EYES.
Then those eyes looked at him, and a voice SHOVED its way into his head.
<HOVATA JUNKAN EHN GAHVE…>
Peter was driven to his knees, clutching his skull. "For the luvva JIM BELUSHI!"
A pause…then a voice in more conversational noise levels, albeit still in his head…and sounding like Jim Belushi. <Hmmm…is this better?>
Peter's eyes went wide. "Uhhhhh…yeah. Yeah, it is."
<Your mind is much more pleasant than the…pigorillas? They are the Klenmach, but I like your word better.>
"Who…WHAT are you?" he asked.
<I am TRANSMAT. That is the name they gave me. I handle the transmission of matter from Poandle the transmission of matter from Point A to Point B. Hence, the name. To answer your next question, yes, I was the device that delivered you and all the other prisoners here. You were collected for various reasons, none of 'em good."
He didn't know what was more unsettling, being told he was picked for experimentation, or that he was being tooc get ready.
He didn't know what was more unsettling, being told he was picked for experimentation, or that he was being told by an alien voiced by Jim Belushi.
Cell Block D blows open, freeing the last of the prisoners. More metahumans join the fight, flinging their weight into helping the wounded or just providing what support they can to the heavy-hitting trio of Darkhawk, Noh-Varr, and Kori holding the fighting line and keeping everyone organized and moving along.
The blast from America shorting out the system knocks the hard-charging Latina girl on her ass, out cold and incapacitated. Several rush to her side to haul her out of the line of fire, cowering where energy weapons can't hit them readily.
Several of the Klenmach abruptly *pop* into existence in the middle of the crowd near Kate and Dani, accompanied by a shimmering of purple energy. They roar and bellow, swinging weapons around indiscriminately.
The Transmat clicks and burbles at Peter. <You are going to ask if I can block their teleportation. I can't!> it tells him. <I am slaved to the starwhale's neural network and the slaver commander has priority. I can return you to your dimension of origin,> it tells Pete. It chitters menacingly, despite the friendly nature of the 'voice' in his head. <My only request is that you please shatter the life support pods before I do. I would rather be dead than continue to assist these … what is the word. 'assholes',> the Transmat quips. It points at a bank of delicate looking crystals blending with the living material of the ship. It's pretty obvious what the creature is wanting— but less obvious what Peter's next move will be.
Dani blinks at the creatures beaming in, and looks at Kate, "What in the name of Muspelheim is TLDR anyway?!?" She glares at the Klenmach, and concentrates, conjuring a vision of their Worst Fear to hopefully incapacitate them.
Which is probably something more than a Valkyrie in bunny slippers…
Peter looks up as the ship rumbles. "This ship isn't going to hold together much longer."
He is trying to distract himself, to try and think of ANYTHING other than what Transmat is proposing. "I…there's NO OTHER WAY you can escape yourself? No way I can somehow…unhook you from this, so that you can get away?"
Rose looks back to see if Dani's doing what she asked the 'valkyrie' to do, and sees the imminent danger … without realizing what Dani is doing to them. Rose's barefeet cover the distance quickly, and one of the pigorillas gets skewered through the head with her sword from the back. Rose pulls it out, and looks to other threats; she's only taken down one of the number, and there were several going after. Still, Kate had proved to be a damn fine shot with that bow. That hadn't escaped Rose's attention and perhaps that's why she feels free to pause and assess the battlefield anew for another opportunity.
<There is none,> Transmat assures Peter. <I am wholly dependent on the starwhale for life support. If you leave me here, I will be used to kidnap other sapients. I am not asking you to kill me. Simply allow nature to free me from these chains.> It gestures again at the life support pods.
Lights flash in Cell Block B and C. A hundred people simply *flicker* from existance amidst a flash of white light. <There. I have returned a quarter of your fellow humans and alien allies to your world of origin. I will return more in a few moments, once the energy cells have recharged.>
Dani's psychic assault drops two of the Klenmach in their tracks, screaming in horror at things only they can see. The third, a particulalry brutish looking sort, roars at her with blind outrage in all three eyes and jabs at the Valkyrie with a two-handed grip on the energy pike in its hands, trying to run her through with a swift motion.
Kate Bishop winces when America goes flying. She takes a half step about to go check on her, but the newly freed prisoners do that far better than her. She was one of the few left armed. Much as it might be her instinct to check on someone potentially hurt, right now it was a priority that she use her skills for other reasons. Which apparently included helping to save her own butt right now when those new aliens pop into existence near her.
"Too long, didn't read! It means a quick summary of events!" The explanation is for Dani even as she turns to fire at one of the lunging aliens. "I'm kind of running out of arrows so if anyone is in any position to pick some up that would be just great!"
Peter was encouraged…somwhat. If he wasn't going to actually kill Transmat…if this was a true escape…
He had seen that move in the second Karate Kid movie. These weren't blocks of ice, but…
His arm sweeps through the line of pods, hitting them with the strength he could muster, which is plenty enough to shatter them all. He picks up a few lacerations, but those will heal in minutes. "Send me with the last batch, Transmat…I want to make sure everyone gets out of here."
Sometimes there are no perfect resolutions.
Kori looks back over her shoulder. Her metahuman senses are keen to the flow of energy and the sudden absence of a hundred life forces plys against her skin.
"We are fleeing!" she declares, looking elated. She redoubles her efforts to hold off the enemy, with Chris and Noh-Varr at her side. The Darkhawk and the Kree warrior are certainly powerhouses, holding off wave after wave of the Klenmach, and they begin working to create a fighting retreat.
When Peter emerges from the grateful Transmat's chambers, there's a telepathic voice following him. <Please join together into the tightest of groups in the center of the main corridor,> Transmat bids them. <I will sustain the means for you to escape.> The air glows a hazy white color that concentrates in to a singularity at the center of the room. As people walk into it they're *blipped* out of existence, disappearing to the other side of reality. America's carried out by helping hands, and the metahumans set up a barricade to help protect the civilians as they plunge (some hesitatingly) into the white void.
In moments the injured and sick are gone, then the others, and soon only the fighters absorbing the brunt of the Klenmach assault remain.
Kori rises into the air, gathering all the energy she can muster for a long three seconds, while her allies hold the line. She screams fury and unleashes twin blasts of green plasma discharge from her palms, scoring long furrows in the floor and blasting along a line of the pigorillas to send them flying. Death and destruction falls in her wake and she falls to the ground, looking momentarily completely drained and feeble. But her big hit buys everyone enough time to get clear without dodging countering fire, and she's among the last to plunge into the teleporter.
Four hundred people congregate on a beach. It's hard to tell where they are. America? Pacific or Atlantic? City lights are in the distance but too far out to see. It's late evening, twilight really, and it'd be dark save for the popping of white lights as the last evacuees flee the clutches of the extradimeinsional entity and the Klenmach controlling it.
"Is that everyone?" Kori asks, sounding a little reedy but growing stronger by the moment.
Then there's a HUGE burst of white light and a decompression shockwave of something massive displacing a huge amount of air. A mass the size of a battleship appears a few hundred yards off the coast and falls sixty feet into the water with a roar of the ocean protesting. The waves hit hand enough to knock almost everyone off their feet.
When they recover, there's a creature that surely could only be described as a 'star whale'. It looks like it's fissuring apart, likely due to the physics of this reality versus wherever it's accustomed to residing. It screams in rage and pain, though a hollow laugh of victory echoes in a familiar tone in Peter's mind.
The creature thrashes twice, then goes limp.
There's a sound of roaring and the whale's mouth opens, allowing a steady stream of comparatively ant-sized individuals to fly out of it. More Klenmach. And other strange entities that defy normal biology. Most of them wearing some sort of suit designed to let them survive outside the whale's innards, most likely.
"…I believe *now* that is everyone," Kori observes to the people getting back to their feet.
Peter looks down. Well…he's KINDA dressed for the beach. Except it's chilly. and he doesn't have his wallet. Or his web-shooters. or a mask.
He realized, with a wry smile, that only Transmat knew what he did. Everyone else saw Peter Parker flee the scene…like the goober he was.
He looked around, then smiles wryly to himself. Everyone was safe. Transmat was free of his captors. And he'd figure out a way somehow. He knows what he did. No sense trying to get credit for anything. Besides, it would sound…self-serving.
No sense disrupting the narrative.