Summary:A temporal storm in Central Park brings out the Young Avengers, and they meet a potential new member. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Spring has been reluctant in giving way to summer in New York - which means that sometimes that there are days that start off so warm and sunny and clear - only to darken and start to turn as storms roll in - sudden spring storms that tend to dump rain fast and then seem to disappear. It seems that in Central Park that one of these storms is forming.
But instead of blowing in from the Hudson, this storm seems to be swirling and forming directly over Central Park, the clouds spiraling and twisting as lightning and thunder wrap around it and discharge about various buildings and striking at the park itself.
Where the lighting strikes, time itself seems to be distorted. A grand oak that was sprouting up on the edge of the lake is suddenly a sapling again, leaving a family of squirrels confused as to what just happened. Another lightning strike hits near a policeman's horse, and suddenly, instead of sitting on a horse, the policeman is saddled upon a hungry dinosaur. The creature roars and bucks the police officer off of him, and is turning hungrilly on the rider.
The time storm continues, warping and twisting the objects that it strikes. One of the bolts hits the lake, and a pair of frogs grow and evolve, suddenly becoming bidepal warriors that leap and strike out, a massive tongue lashing out to grab a hot dog out of a vendor's hands and sending the poor guy screaming as he runs off, abandoning his post.
In the middle of the storm is a swirling vortex - a tornado? And in the middle of it — is that the figure of a /person/ within it? One - perhaps two! It's hard to tell from the ground as the storm rages.
"Young Avengers! Assemble!"
Kori has to repeat this a few times, because the comms system for the resident level isn't set up yet. So it's more 'flying door to door and banging on it to wake people up'. And then text a few folks who aren't around yet. And then round people up and start flying them from the Baxter Building to Central Park, which is tricky as hell for some of the non-fliers.
But they MAKE it, at least the people who are around to get their game face on. The Tamaranean warrior goes on point, standing a wary distance from the cataclysm unleashing in the air over Central Park. "What *is* this?" she demands, gaping in astonished shock. "It is much the terrible looking! Surely, this is not *normal* weather for New York?" she asks her nearest ally.
Illyana Rasputina wasn't actually aiming for here. Or now. But the Time Turbulence rippling through the area has sort of hijacked the Limbo Express in a rather ungentle manner. A circle of light opens up a good fifteen feet up and Illyana and Dani fall out of it. That it was unexpected makes it even worse, giving just moments for Illyana to try to twist into a position that lets her take the fall without going splat, all over the ground.
The blonde's outfit was also not designed for practicing your groundfighting skills, such as rolls. But at least the black leather saves her from getting scraped up on the sidewalk as she leaves bits of silver decoration in her wake.
Shaking her head, Illyana looks around, blinking a bit dazedly. "This isn't Kansas." She ducks over to the side as the hot dog vendor goes screaming by.
Ravager has 'assembled'. She's assembled a pair of pistols, her energy katanas, her bostaff, a pair of bladed katanas, her gossamer knife, and a few throwing knives - not to mention a couple smoke grenades along with clips along her bandolier. It didn't take her long, either.
Now she stands next to Starfire, arms crossed, looking at the storm - and, the various things happening that are far, far from normal. "I'm no science nerd, but I'd hazard a guess that someone's experiment to either move between planes of existence, or attempt to time travel has gotten seriously fucked up."
A glance to Illyana, then the one-eyed girl in dark blue and orange costume says, mildly, "No shit, Sherlock."
A further glance around, craning her head with her monocular vision, "Dinosuars and giant frogs. I got out of bed for this?"
Sure, it was silly to be riding on Brightwind through the portal, but Dani feels most comfortable with her horse nearby. In this case, Brightwind's wings spread as the horse and Dani land near Illyana. "Definitely not Boulder, either. Wait, 'Yana, I think that's Kori over there." She points over towards the Tamaranean, then looks around at the weather, "This is definintely a storm of ill intent, but I'm going to try and keep these people from being eaten."
With that, Brightwind leaps forward, taking to the air as Dani nocks her psychic bow, sending a paralyzing bolt of fear towards the dinosaur that's chasing after the cop.
Keiko had been just about to purchase a hot dog when the disturbance started, it's the first break she's had all day. The police dinosaur has certainly got her blinking and beating a hasty retreat just as Illyana appears.
"It's not Kansas but I could summon Toto." She manages to deadpan, touching the tattoo on her left shoulder and muttering something. Above the frey as the others assemble, a gigantic Dragon appears and roars.
"Glydril is mine, try not to hurt her." She tells them.
"Frog monsters!" the vendor calls at Dani and Illyana as he runs past. Indeed. One of the frogs is standing on the hot dog vendor's cart, eagerly eating all of the dogs within and knocks over the mustard in the process, spilling yellow blood all over the green grass. The other frog monster lashes out it's tongue, aiming for the vendor, but grabs Illyana instead, trying to yank her into his maw to chew on.
One of the lightning bolts strikes a pigeon, and the bird mutates and devolves, taking flight as a winged dinosaur. Soaring into the sky, it /screeeecooos/ loudly as it sweeps around to try to swoop down and capture Dani it's claws. The arrow the woman fires strikes the dinosaur on the ground, getting it's attention, but with Dani up in the sky, it looks for other targets - and seeing Koriand'r and Ravager, it starts to rush towards them, his massive maw opening and showing rows of teeth. This isn't a bunny. Or was it? Who knows for sure.
In the sky above the fray, one of the figures lashes out in attack. A bolt of magnetism strikes the hot dog cart, heaving it up as the person heaves it away from the frog creature and flings it skywards to slam into the other figure in the vortex.
Kori zips towards the charging dinosaur and punches it. Hard. While hovering in midair. It's not 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee'. It's more 'kissed on the snout by a runaway train'. Kori punches *hard*.
"Ravager! Assist the blonde girl who is being attacked by the giant frog monster!" Kori instructs her companion. She flings starbolts at the flying pteranodon.
"Hello Dani! How was your day today?" she calls over to her friend, beaming cheerily.
Illyana Rasputina looks confused at Dani. "Who?" And then she just stares at Keiko, before pointing at the dragon in the sky. "That's not Toto! The wolf, the *wolf* would be Toto."
Then that slimysticky frog tongue is wrapping around her outstretched arm, jerking her off in another direction. The blonde sorceress summons her staff with her free hand and uses its length to block the frog from being able to haul it into her mouth. When the creature doesn't discorporate from the impact with the Soulstaff, and with its' tongue pulling Illyana's arm into that gaping maw the the demon queen snarls, "Eat this."
A stepping disk opens at her fingertips inside that yawning mouth and several dog-sized demons leap out, giving Mr. Froggy something to chew on and releasing Illyana's arm, letting her drop to the ground. "Ugh." She wrinkles her nose. sliiiime.
Brightwind banks just in time, keeping the former pigeon from making off with his rider, "Was a lot better before I got attacked by Jurassic Park rejects, Kori!" Dani shouts back. Hearing that Ravager will take care of Illyana before she's turned into frog chow, Dani then signals Brightwind.
The horse dives down sharply, intending to trample the frog creature while it's distracted. "Apparently these things don't have enough of a brain for my powers to work on them!" Which, well, could be a problem. Though, well, perhaps honey instead of vinegar could work, as Dani focuses on the animal telepathy side of things to try and calm one of the dinosaurs down. Or at least try to keep it from eating people, anyway.
"Who and went and made you Queen?" Rose snarks at Starfire, but she turns, and pulls out a pair of pistols, which both begin emptying clips into the Frog's head with a deadly accuracy and almost clockwork precision in pulling the triggers.
"Someone needs to tell the Tornado Twins in there to learn how to play nicely," she calls back, over the storm.
Between her bullets, and Illyana's demons, the frog-monster is likely toast enough, and Rose launches one of her smoke bombs into the whirling tornado.
"The wolf would be Toto, it would also be dinner." Keiko points out, pulling the short rod from her backpack and extending it to her quarterstaff. "And I'd rather Bella, errr Toto, not be harmed. I bought the Wizard instead." It's a weak pun that dies on her lips as Illyana is grabbed.
Glydril roars loudly as she releases a gout of fire at the flying dinosaur dropping on Dani, banking sharply to avoid bolts of lightning that arc around her.
Dani's animal affinity would be working - if Kori hadn't /punched/ a dinosaur in the /nose/. The creature roars, falling over on it's side as it takes the hard hit from the Maltian Woman. It rumbles, and decides that fighting /her/ is not a good idea, especially as Dani's suggestion gets him to start to running off. The flying dinosaur, on the other hand, is currently tangled up with the dragon construct and probably not doing so well.
Poor frogs. They were just sitting at their lilie pads, and now Rose and Illyana are killing one, while the other one leaps away, and starts to try to find a new target - someone that doesn't have guns and starbolts and all of that.
The smoke bomb billows up into the whirling storm, and one figure seperates from the other. Throwing out both of his hands, he fires at the figure sitting in what appears to be a chair. "I WILL NOT RETURN!" roars the smaller of the two figures as he fires upon the chair, but apparently his own fire is not doing enough on his own as the smaller one gets slammed into and crashes into the ground.
When he rises… who wouldn't mistake him as Iron Man on first blush? With that red and silver armor, and shoulder pads, he definetly looks like the earlier models of the armor, but as he raises his hands, it comes to notice that he is much smaller — and sounds /much/ younger than the more infamous hero. "We have to close that portal, can't let him get here!" he yells to the others. With that, he fires off a pair of blasts as he lifts off the ground again, hitting towards the vortex with all his might. "Aim for the chair!"
Dani blinks at the Iron Man-ish figure, then shrugs slightly, taking aim with her psychic arrows at the chair. Hopefully whoever is in the chair can get affected by fear, as she takes aim and fires with her psionic power. Brightwind, for his part, stays airborne keeping moving with all the lightning and storms roaring about.
Helena Wayne was just trying to enjoy the city. Drop off some resumes. Relax over the afternoon. That's all. But this is New York, so…things happen. Without any of her gear, weapons, or disguises, coming closer to the chaos was probably not her best decision ever. But she's also too curious not to. Which is how she came to be perched on the lower branch of a nearby tree, spectating.
"It is the Man of Iron! We must protect Tony Stank!" Kori cries out, and moves with that shocking acceleration to interpose herself between 'Iron Man' and the blurring, spinning chair. It'd look almost comical, the tangerine dream wearing purple booty shorts and a crop top and thigh high boots, all in purple— except she's a towering 6'6", framed by a rippling mass of red hair, and her eyes burn with the same viridian fire coalescing around her body. She drives her focus to her hands and flings a double-blast of power at the chair, in tandem with Dani's arrowblasts.
"And do not let any of the adorable saurians escape! Especially the big one!" she adds. "He would make a mascot most cute!"
Illyana Rasputina's frog was not just sitting on its' lily pad. It was trying to EAT HER. The demon queen is *not* a fan.
With one frog now a smear on the sidewalk and one of her demons trying to wear its skull as a hat, Illyana rests the butt of her staff against the ground and leans heavily on it, wincing. Ow. Everything hurts.
The blonde takes a moment to take in the myriad of activity, raising an arm to deflect some of the dirt and clods of grass that go flying when chibi Iron Man slams into the ground.
As Kori reminds her of the fleeing frog, Illayana siiighs and looks to the demons. "Mumbo. Jumbo. Fetch."
Aim at the chair? That's a little beyond Illyana's scope. Instead, she just stands back and keeps leaning on her staff. She'll keep watch. Yeah. Ow.
Glydril does not like being tangled with the avian, her wings beat down hard trying to disengage. She screams again - though the sound might be lost in tumult that's occuring around her. Dark ichor starts dripping from multiple wounds - too much of this will be a problem.
A belch of fire sears flesh - the smell of cooking bacon fills the air. Strong jaws clamp over the back of the dinosaurs neck and Glydril moves in a death roll.
"That's not Iron Man…" Keiko peers at the figure in red and silver, swinging her quarter staff to hit the escaping the Frog Dinosaur with resounding splat. Mumbo and Jumbo can catch it easily.
With no aerial assault apart from the dragon, Keiko can't do more than she is either. The others will have to do something about that.
Ravager's lips twist - but she'll leave the chair to those that can fly. Instead, she turns her attention towards the big dinosaur. And Rose begins to run. She is no speedster. Not by any strech of the imagination - but, she likely could very easily win any Olympic Sprint. SHort, or long distance. She reaches upwards of 40 miles per hour, catching up to the large reptile that is hustling away, and as she catches up to it's rear leg her katana snick-snicks out and slashes the tendons and muscles that make that backleg mobile.
THen, she's doging out of the way, before the large dinosaur can turn on this irritation and snap at her, thrusting the other sword into the side of its head as far as it will go.
The frog creature was just about to leap at Helena when suddenly it's struck down, leaving it wounded for Mumbo and Jumbo to leap on and take down. Ravager's attack on the dinosaur is super-effective - and it seems that Koriand'r is not going to be getting a pet in this. With Starfire, Dani and the smaller armor firing onto the chair, there's a scream of anger and frustration from within the cloud as Dani's arrow disorients, allowing the other two to crush the chair and forces the vortex to snap close.
The sun's back out - it's a nice and warm day.. and as if nothing had happened, time reverses itself. The tree returns to it's normal size. However, the creatures that the Young Avengers took down, are still down. Apparently Mumbo and Jumbo both get frog monster skull helmets, while there's enough for everyone to have dino-steaks.
When the vortex closes, the armor drops to the ground, landing in the lake with a massive splash and disappears beneath the waves.
Ravager flicks the blood off her blade, calling, "Barbeque tonight," in reference to the dinosaur. She turns, already aware due to the loss of the sound of wind and fury that the battle is over, the storm is gone.
Her eye glances briefly over Helena, then to Illyana who gets a smirk, and a salute with the katana in her hand before the blade is sheathed again over her back. She almost looks disappointed the fight is over so soon.
She starts walking back across the space between her, and the others, head turning as the splash sounds and the falling armor is the cause of it. There's a grunt of exasperation. "SOmeone else going to go get that? Or do I need to take my gear off and go retrieve him?" Swimming is one thing. Swimming with all her gear, plus carrying up however much Iron Lad-Man weighs … well, that's a bit of a strech for her.
Helena drops herself down from the tree branch, picking her way carefully around the…chaos. "Hey Rose, Kori," she greets the known entities as if this were an entirely normal thing. Then again she's from Staten Island, so hey, at least there are no clowns.
"Looks like you guys decided to have a party." She follows Rose's gaze toward the lake, curious, then starts in that direction. It could be a thing with cool electrical components, right?
Brightwind lands down next to Illyana, nickering at the blonde a bit as Dani says, "Hey 'yana, you okay?" The valkyrie dismounts easily, glancing at the surface of the water, "So… um, can anyone actually swim? I mean, I can, but I don't think I could carry him out of there." Hey, she's pretty strong, but not Asgardian level here.
Since the frog was going to leap after Helena, that puts the batkid near the now-corpse. And the demons that were sent to get it. Which puts them new Helena. Who is apparently *much* more interesting than the corpse (though Jumbo did get his matching hat). The pair of demons start to circle/stalk Helena, sniffing at her.
Illyana nods to Dani as the woman lands near her. "Eh. Got my bell rung for sure."When the question comes up asking who is going to play fetch, Illyana looks around at everyone and groans. "Fine, fine…" She waves a hand and in the lake, a stepping disk opens under chibi Iron Man, while another opens a bit in front of her. The armored one drops out from the second disk. Along with a *wooosh* of water from the lake which spills out and laps at Illyana's boots. "I played 'fetch'. Someone else gets to play 'doctor'."
The avian dinosaur crashes to the ground, Glydril only just managing to pull herself into a climb again. One wing is ragged and the creature is bleeding dark ichor … Keiko mutters something and the Dragon disappears into smoke.
The tattooed woman glances around. They all seem to have this covered. She'll start to make her exit.
"Nice Dragon, Keiko," calls Ravager, smirking at the tattooed woman. Yeah. She noticed. And she's going to make sure Keiko is aware she noticed. Just because.
"Nice trick," comments Rose at Illyana, then the toes the Iron Suit, not too roughly, "You alive in there? Hey. You better respond, before I cut your suit open to save your ass. Figure you're pretty attached to it. You got three seconds."
Helena pauses when the person/robot is retrieved, which gives her a moment to notice the demons trailing her. "Should I be worried about these?" she asks, pointing at them. "Do they belong to someone? Are they subject to leash laws? Safe to touch?" Because she really wants to touch the armor, but she might have to touch the demons to get to it.
Portal opens. Underneath the armor and some curious fish.
Portal reopens on the ground, and water splashes and fish flop as the red and silver armor lies there for several moments. And then the optics and other lights start to come to life.
"Temporal adjustment complete." announces the suit, before opening and revealing the face of a young man that turns and starts to cough.
The way the suit moves, and reconfigures - it's something that Helena may have never seen before. Even as Rose moves to nudge it with a foot, that area of the armor suddenly forms spikes - as if to warn her off.
"Where…?" he starts to ask.
"Central Park, New York." comes the response from the armor.
"When am I?" is the next question.
"Unknown."
Dani passes 'yana a grin and says, "Thanks." Then she peers curiously at the young… man, as it turns out, inside the armor. "Hey, we're not going to hurt you. Really." She gives him an easy going grin, even as she's wearing her full Asgardian armor and regalia. "It's 2019, despite how I'm dressed. It's a bit of a story."
Kori floats impassively nearby, still wreathed in a coruscating nimbus of green energy. This is not her world, her timeline, her species. She leaves it to the humans to decide how to handle this wayward Iron Man— but she's clearly nearby as backup, prepared to intervene if necessary with *extreme* prejudice.
"Hey!" Illyana yells over a the two demons that are starting to try and do the whole jump-scare thing that wolves like to do to encourage their prey to run. As the blonde turns towards them, the look at her, look at each other, and then bolt off into the trees.
Cursing under her breath, Illyana gathers herself and hurries after them before they get into trouble.
Roses comment gets a lift of Keiko's chin in acknowledgement. She doesn't say thank you like others might. "She fought well. As did you."
The voice sounds from the now open suit, Keiko peers at it curiously. There's not much to say but she'll watch for now.
"Now -that- girl was weird," mutters Ravager, even as her pistol is smoothly drawn and casually leveled at Nathaniel's face.
"Now that you're okay, why don't you tell us why you're here, and trying to turn Central Park into Jurassic Park?"
It's not that Rose hasn't seen Helena. Or heard her. It's just that - well, Rose is very focused. And, she's not certain this young man isn't a threat, yet. Though she's fairly sure he's not - better safe than sorry.
"20… 19." repeats the young man and reaches up to rub his head. "Right.. okay." he mutters, and looks around. "Thank you. Wait. This isn't right." There's a frown as he suddenly finds a gun in his face, and the visor /snaps/ close, and both arms are raised to point at Rose in point blank range.
"WAIT!" the voice cries out inside the armor. But it doesn't seem to be directed at /Rose/. More directed at himself.
"The armor's defensive.. it sorta.. reads my mind and guesses what I want to do." comes the quick response, before he forces his hands to lower. "Let's try this again." he manages.
"I wasn't the one doing that. I mean, not directly. Theoretically, I guess when you bend time and dimensional streams, it could be a result of collateral damage.. maybe that's what.. no, it was probably the chair." he finally says, head thudding back against the ground. "I could write a whole disseration on this one event, and still not be believed… so. I'm from uh. Not around here. Well. Not like. From another land. I mean, I'm from Earth. Just… what's the date?"
The armor replies, "29 May 2939."
Dani blinks at that revelation. "Okay, well, that's… different. Ravager, please?" She glances over at Rose, arching a brow in her direction as she wants to take a less aggressive approach to questioning. Then she looks back to the Iron Man lookalike, "So about 900 years, give or take a few decades, from the future. What was the craziness with the guy in the chair all about, exactly?"
Once the demons are gone, Helena picks her way back over toward Rose, Dani, and the armored stranger. "Oh man. Tell me you have a neural interface," she sighs wistfully as she watches the armor react on its own. "See?" she says to Rose. "It's totally possible!" In nine hundred years. That part'll sink in eventually.
Ravager makes an exasperate sound, before muttering, "Whatever. Don't say I didn't tell you so," and she holsters her gun, looking at Helena. She comments to the other girl, "You see the shit I have to put up with?"
She then folds her arms over her chest, and looks down at Nathaniel. Another headshake at Helena. "What? You want a costume with a neural interface?" The blue eye narrows, thoughtfully, assessing Helena.
Reaching up to rub a hand over his face. "Neural interfaces are still about five hundred years off. Mind if I stand?" he asks, before lowering the helmet again. "I mean, I never thought I'd consider being pinned under a beautiful girl a /bad/ thing." he manages, blushing at that, before he waits for Rose to move so he can push himself up. "I'm Nathaniel. Or Nate. I mean, that's what my friends would call me." If he had any. And he pretty much figure everyone here will be calling him Nathaniel.
"Guy in the chair? He calls himself Kang the Conqueror. He's from my future's future, and wanted to make sure I didn't escape from there to get help. But…" And then there's a pause.
"…I take it you're not the Avengers."
"No it was my science fair project," Helena waves a hand at Rose, trying to get a closure look at the armor. "A neural interface, that is. The groundwork for one. Mine takes at least ten hours of calibration, though, just for basic stuff like left, right, forward, stop. Because brains work differently, of course, and it's reading the electrical patterns in the brain, so it's basically like it's teaching itself a new language every time you put it on a different person, so really it's a pretty impressive language translation program in its own way…Hey, I never thought of it quite like that. I bet I could apply the program to codebreaking or translation. Oh man."
All of that probably means very little to Dani and Rose, but at least Helena sounds excited about it.
"We call ourselves the 'Young Avengers'," Kori explains, still hovering. At least the fires have gone from her eyes. "Because the Avengers are very much 'the sick' and 'the hotness', but that name is taken. Also we are all much younger than the Avengers, as you can see from our lack of old people on the team," she clarifies, and waves a hand at the others. "My super-special codename is Starfire, and I am not allowed to tell you everyone else's names because I keep getting their names and code names confused," she says, with a ready cheer.
"Rose! Will you tell him what everyone's codenames are?"
Dani gets a wry expression at that, giving Nate a look, "Um, yeah, so we're the Young Avengers. I'm Mirage, also with the X-Men. The woman that was threatening you is Ravager." She gives him a cheerful grin, "Don't know much about the Avengers, the originals anyway. I may have spent some time in Asgard, and we don't exactly have the Internet there." Which does explain the armor, at least.
"That's MIrage," Ravager says, pointing at Dani. "I'm Ravager. There are several others on our team as well. Darkhawk. Noh-Varr. X-Man. America. Wolfsbane. Rainmaker."
She looks to Helena, "This is Helena. She's pretty cool. She is going to nerd out over you and all your super-future tech. If you can't tell, she's have a nerdgasm right now."
She smirks, then. "Get help for what? And, what? You came here looking for the Avengers?"
"You're thinking of control through the cerebrum. Which is fine if you're considering just the basics or control and manipulation of drones through a neural network." Nathaniel responds offhand to Helena's comment as he works on getting caught up. "But what you really want to do is interface the parietal lobe with the central processor of an organic memory chip so that it can map and mimic your thoughts and translate them through a techno-organic neuro-kientic… well, maybe in a few generations." he finally relents. But he does at least let it slip to Helena that the armor is /neuro-kinetic/ in nature. It's responding directly and interfacting with his brain.
"Young Avengers.. I don't recall hearing of you in the history files… I'll have to access those later." he admits with a sigh, shaking his head. Or maybe they never came together in his dimension. "I was escaping from him, actually. He wanted me to be a tyrant like him.. and I didn't want to do that." he shrugs his shoulders and slumps. "I didn't expect him to interfere with my time jump."
"Huh. Interesting. Though skipping the cerebrum leads to things like…well," Helena gestures to the faceplate, referencing Rose almost getting armor-smacked. "Interesting, though." She's lost in thought for a moment, then clears her throat, flashing a friendly smile. "Anyhow, hi, welcome, these guys are great and totally trustworthy. So if you need to lie low, I'd definitely vouch for them. Kori saved me from a killer rabbit once."
With the others departing, Nathaniel gets a chance to breathe. "I'd love to stay around and talk.." he offers Helena a smile. "But.. I really should orient myself with where and when I am now. I mean, I wouldn't want to bump into my own grandmother— well. Four times removed.." he glances down awkwardly at that and shrugs. "Anyway. See you around." The helmet snaps into place, and Iron Lad rockets off, the armor forming extra boosters to give him push.