Summary:Dazzler and Darkhawk help a strange extradimensional visitor get out of Chinatown. Who knows what it was saying, but it seemed to get the message! Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The market is filled with people in the middle of the evening, lights glittering here and there over stalls, some of which are closing up for the day, others that are lingering in the warm summer air as patrons still make their way through the shopping row, picking up some last minute bargains as the day is closing. There's a quiet kind of buzz in the air, a sort of electricity that one might feel before a storm rolls in, and indeed there are clouds on the horizon, threatening rain, but not immediately.
Chris strolls through the stalls, a bag in one hand that contains some things that he'd picked up earlier, walking along next to Alison. "I like to come down here every once in a while, pick up some stuff that you can't get elsewhere in the city.." like some randomly weird looking fruits and vegetables with exotic names.
"It's the closest to fresh you're going to get in this city" Alison smirks. "Ooh! Ugly fruit." She veers over to a stall selling fruit and vegetables that don't look like it should - strange shaped carrots, lumpy apples, non-orange oranges. "I always feel bad for ugly fruit" she sighs, picking up a gnarled potato. "They're the outcasts through no fault of their own." She considers this for a moment. "Maybe I should have said 'empathy' rather than 'bad'." Alison is dressed like she often is; sneakers, tights, t-shirt, (fake) fur lined jacket. "We should buy things from here. Make them feel wanted before we eat them."
When Alison veers off, Chris takes a moment to shift direction and follow after her, heading toward the ugly fruit. He gives her a little shoulder-bump and says, "Nothin' wrong with being a little outside the norm." He smiles and nods toward his bag, "Hey, I got stuff. Your turn." He laughs, "Make them feel wanted before we murder them. Nice, Ali."
"I like to help everything feel good" Alison grins in reply about the fruit, "Before I kill them all." She laughs before giving Chris a nudge in return. "It's better than being thrown out on the street. And they're cheaper." Alison starts to gather up mostly fruit from the stall. "Could we get much more out of the norm?" she nods sagely before finding some cash to pay for the edibles she is 'saving'.
"Violent!" Chris says to Alison with a laugh, "Scary." He grins at the nudge and staggers a little to the side, as though it were harder than it was. He's in his usual jeans and t-shirt, a graphic T with a picture of the cheshire cat that says "We're all Mad Here" on it. Chris grabs a bag for her to put the fruit in, holding it open so that she can pick what she wants and drop it in. "I'm pretty sure we /could/ given the opportunity."
The energy in the air seems to fairly crackle, growing from that little subtle buzz in the air to something a bit stronger. Lights along the street flicker, going on and off briefly, and then again as the wind begins to pick up around them.
Alison happily 'saves' fruit and vegetables until she is pretty sure her grocery budget has been reaches. "That should do us for a while" she nods. "Yeah, I guess we could be a bit more out of the norm. Maybe we should try?" she grins before glacing up at the flickering lights. "God…not another blackout. I guess everyone's turned on their air conditioning at once. Though with that wind, they don't really need to." She is looking a little apprehensive at the change in the night. "Can you feel that?"
Christopher Powell seems more than content to wander along with her, holding the bag while she completes her 'rescue' mission. Once they've gathered up everything, he offers to carry it for her unless she wants to. "How would you suggest we try?" he asks, both brows rising a little bit, but not seeming opposed to the idea.
The picking up of the wind and flickering of the lights draws his attention and he glances around. "Yeah, I feel.. something. But not really sure what it is other than maybe a thunderstorm coming? Think we should find some cover?"
The wind begins to whistle faster, and bits of paper and wrappers, receipts and things drifting in the street are picked up and go tumbling down the street. Then, little bits of electricity actually begin to arc off the street lamps and neon signs, tiny tendrils that jump and connect from one thing to another. "Okay, that's.. weird.. do you see anything?" he asks. He doesn't, not yet anyway.
Alison shivers a little at the wind even though it is not especially cold; and in this summer's heat, that would be appreciated. A thunderstorm. Of course. What else could it be? "Cover would be good" she nods, ushering Chris away from the market. She will carry her own groceries.
And then there is arcing lightning! "The only thing I see is…" A little yelp as one of those tendrils gets awful close. "Umm…I think we need to get ourselves grounded somewhere. Quick." Alison's about to make her getaway but stops after a step. "And we have to get everyone out of here too."
There's a shadow that circles high above between the buildings, a strange shadowy creature that looks like a stormcloud, with lightning arcing beneath it, spreading out from the midst of it like a spiderweb, but its shape is not unlike that of a manta ray, the sort one might expect to see slowly 'flying' through the water of the ocean. "We've got company," Chris says as he looks up at it.
Looking around at the people all around them that have started to panic a bit he says, "Alright, yeah, we need to get people off the street. Not sure what that is, but it's not playing well with the electricity." As people start to scatter around them, Chris begins to tell some of the folks with their carts still out, "Quick, get inside. Leave the cart for the moment. You need to get out of the storm." He moves from one cart to the other, gesturing up toward the sky, and trying to hurry people inside. Some go on their own. Others linger to watch in fascination.
Alison looks up as directed and sees… "What the… Should we call the others?" She means the team. A nod about getting the people off the street though maybe directing their attention to strange things in the sky is not the most sensible thing. What follows is panic. Screaming. Yelling. Running. Though there is a silver lining to this cloud. All the noise is charging up Alison's power.
"Come on, keep moving." Alison tries to get the phone gawpers to get out of harm's way. "Hiding behind the phone won't protect you" she points out, doing her best not to simply drag people away. One eye on the manta-shadow at all times.
"Maybe," Chris says when she asks if they should call the rest of the team. "Depends if there's only one or if there's more. Maybe we can lead it away from here, or something?" He isn't sure exactly what to do with it, but he seems willing to do something. "Maybe I should go fly up there? See if I can direct it somewhere? Could you.. uh.. I dunno.. maybe you could distract it?" He's not entirely sure what all she can do, so he is open to suggestions.
Alison certainly can't fly. "Distract it? I doubt it's a fan of my music" she teases before nodding a little more seriously at him. "I can try something." Her secret identity gets a beating again as she starts to emanate flashes of colored light around her and into the air towards the object. "Hopefully it will notice it." 'And be interested' she adds mentally. She certainly doesn't want to attack it. All it's done is what she is doing - make pretty lights.
"I can carry you," Chris nods upward toward the sky. Because he /can/ fly, well, he can if he shifts. This is said as they work to get the people off the street. Meanwhile, the thing circling overhead seems to be looking for something. It's not clear what it is, but it seems to be circling in a narrower and narrower spiral, as though zeroing in on something. It's imposible to tell what on the ground it might be seeking, but the closer it gets between the buildings, the more the electricity seems to crackle. Several neon signs pop and explode in a shower of sparks, which sends more people for cover, even those who had been filming with their phones.
At least people are starting to get out of the way. Even if it means more panic as signs start to explode. Alison ducks down from the sparks, peering up at the descending shape. "I think it's coming to us" she points out, dismissing her flashing lights since it seems to have something in mind already. "You think it would be safer in the air or on the ground?" She eyes off a metal fire escape - that is NOT a safe place. "Do you have your suit?" she calls out over the screams and exploding lights.
"I think it'd be more dangerous for us, but less dangerous for them if we can get it away from the streets," Chris suggests. He then nods in the direction of a nearby shop that's been abandoned but the door is open. He ducks inside and places his hand over his chest. There's a faint glowing beneath his hand, a sort of violet gleam, and then Chris isn't there anymore. Instead, there's the avian form of Darkhawk, taller, larger, and considerably more well armed than Chris. The strange dual-toned voice that comes from behind the visor says, "You want to go up or stay on the ground?"
Alison stares at the transformation. "Where were you hiding that?" she asks before holding up her hands. "Actually, I don't want to know." Chris is right about taking it away from the people. A deep breath before she nods. "Okay, let's try and get it away from here. All yours, 'Darkhawk'." If only she could fly herself!
When she agrees, the large avian looking Darkhawk steps forward and wraps an arm around her and easily lifts her, spreading large silvery wings once he's outside and takes off into the air. "Okay, up here, I can shield you from people below. Want to get that light show going again?" He begins to circle the creature and lets out a shrill weird whistling sound, as though trying to get its attention. "Here fishy fishy," he calls out. The thing doesn't seem to be paying much attention to the other dark flying thing nearby, at least not at the moment.
Shrill whistles help. Dazzler is pretty immune to loud noises since she 'feeds' on them, so Darkhawk can make as much noise as he likes. A nod to trying to distract the thing again. Flashes and circles of light and color filling the air around them. The occasional moving shape when she feels creative. "Do you think it's organic?" Some animals can do electrical attacks, sure, but they don't normally fly in the streets of New York.
"No idea.. it looks like it, maybe? Though it seems to be making that cloud around it, and the electricity, like a big flying eel emitting a cloud of squid ink into the.. air?" There's an uncertainty in his assumptions, as though he's pretty much guessing. "Bioscience isn't really my thing. I'm more a mechanical/electrical science kind of guy.." But as the lights flicker all around them, that seems to get its attention.
Whatever it is, it begins to lift back up into the air and move in their direction, the flickering lightning around it seeming to shift to match the patterns and colors of the lights that she's emitting.
Alison is more than aware that Chris is guessing. But they're better guesses than she has. "Science isn't my thing at all" No surprise there. She does, however, notice the way the thing is starting to copy her. Alison changes it up a little, seeing if the thing copies her again. "Hey…do you…do you think it could be trying to communicate with me? Maybe it flashes words…or something." Back into the realm of guessing again.
"Maybe," Chris says, "But you definitely got its attention, so uh, keep flashing it? I mean.. you know owhat I mean." He coughs just a little bit, and it sounds funny coming out in that weird dual-toned voice.
It does seem to mimic her pattern of colors, changing only a moment after she does to match. It doesn't move very fast, but as it slowly starts to rise up from the street level, the effect it has on the ground below is lessened. The lights stop exploding anyway, and electricity ceases to arc between buildings.
On the other hand, it is getting much closer to them, so Chris continues to fly just slightly faster than it, moving away from Chinatown and toward the ocean.
Even in times of stress, Alison can't help but giggle at the 'flashing' comment. "I will do my best. Umm…do we know anyone that can speak light? I could be telling it all kinds of rude things." And they are getting quite high…and higher still. Underneath it all, Dazzler is just human, and falls are not her thing. "Where do we lead it to?" She smiles sweetly at the thing. "Hey…can you understand me?"
"I mean, whatever you're telling it, it's following us, so uh, let's hope that you're telling it 'nice fishie' and not uh, 'your mom was a sea slug' or something," Chris says, though he can barely talk to the voices in his head, let alone some sort of strange fish thing. He keeps their distance, but not too far ahead, so that it keeps coming after them. "I don't know anyone who speaks light, myself."
There doesn't seem to be any danger of Darkhawk dropping her. He seems easily capable of holding her weight, and likely a considerable bit more as he continues to make his way out over the water, "I'm going to try to just get it out toward the water, where it's not right over people.. then we can figure it out from there. I'm not real sure where to take it other than where there aren't a bunch of bystanders."
The fish thing flashes a series of colors at Dazzler, red, blue, red, blue, green.
Alison nods to Chris's words, happy for him to take the lead since he is carrying her. Never disagree with the person carrying you high in the air. "It might look like a water creature, but they don't fly. What if it's alien?" More guesses again.
The thing is now coming up with its own light show and it is Alison's turn to try and duplicate the 'message'. She runs through the people in their team in her head and…yeah…a shortage of light speakers. Though there are some clever people. "If this thing wants an answer… I mean, if it is saying 'what's your name?' and all I say back is 'what's your name?', it's gonna get mighty angry pretty quick."
The good news is that though the thing doesn't seem to be able to communicate directly with her, it can mimic her patterns. And when she starts to mimic its pattern back to it, it actually begins to crackle less. The black inky cloud of smoke around it seems to dissipate, revealing the creature within. It is definitely alien-looking, at least it clearly doesn't look like its from earth. It is a kind of greyish mostly-transparent jelly-fish-like manta-ray shaped being, with large iridescent eyes, and the colors continue to flicker around it, but the electricity has reduced, and it floats above the city.
"Whatever you're doing, just keep doing it. It seems like it's.. uh, well, it's either chargin' it's lazors, or it seems to be calming down, maybe?" Chris hazards. Look, bad things have stopped happening, so he'll take it at this point.
Alison has never seen an alien before - she thinks Kori is from Malta since why would Kori lie about that - so she takes a moment to take it all in. Almost forgetting to keep up the light show. "Yes, it seems to be calming down but we can't keep doing this forever. I'll fall asleep." A pause. "You think it's charging lasers? I'm not good with lasers. Not incoming at least." Alison will attempt to offer a smile at the creature along with the light show.
The thing continues to float not far from them, no longer moving, just hovering over the water, seeming to "speak" through light with Alison. Though what is said is impossible to discern, apparently the thing seems to make a decision. The lights stop, and there's that kind of inky substance that begins to surround it once more. It's white this time, rather than black, and the cloud seems to form around it, spreading outward, flickering a little as though the electricity and colors were still inside of it. And then it just.. dissipates.. and the creature, and its cloud are just.. gone.
Chris hovers there, staring at the spot where it was. "Uh.." is all he manages, eloquently.
Alison is far less eleoquent. She simply stares, mouth open. "Was it something I flashed?" she mutters before shaking her head clear. "Tell me that suit of yours has a recorder in it? We can show the flashes to people." A pause. "And the alien." She looks back in the direction of the market. "What do you think it was after? If it was after anything at all." A soft laugh. "I guess we can't even go shopping these days withotu something weird. Maybe we're further out of the norm than we thought."
Christopher Powell continues to stare at where the thing was, but it doesn't reappear, but the evening sky is still filled with storm clouds, and Chris says, "Uh, we should probably get out of here before it starts pouring. I mean, I'd be find but you'd get pretty wet." Then he shakes his head, "No, I don't have any recording in the suit." He then turns and begins to fly back toward the city, taking them back to China Town just long enough so that they can pick up their bags where they'd stowed them before taking off. There, in the abandoned shop, he flickers for a moment and then Chris is back where the Darkhawk once was. He glances over at her then and chuckles, "Yeah, well, at least we make a good team?"
Where does that suit go? Alison checks their wet ugly fruit before smiling at him. "We are a team within a team" she notes before peering in the direction of the sky. "Do you think that is a natural storm? We should go let people know what happened since it will be all over the news. And you should definitely get a recorder put in that suit."
Where does it go, indeed. There's just a kind of shimmering and Chris is there where the suit was a moment ago. He checks on his own bag, and it seems that everything is relatively intact. "The storm seems normal. Maybe the thing just got caught up in the storm? Maybe it made its own cloud as kind of an aggressive reaction to the storm, thinking it was just a bigger version of.. itself? I don't know." He muses, staring up at the sky from where they stand. "But, yeah, we should probably go tell the others." Though he flushes just slightly and says, "I uh.. don't know if I can do that, actually. I can't really change it."
"You can't change your suit?" That seems rather odd to Alison. "Maybe you could ask Riri to help out? She made that suit of hers all by itself. Might be able to slip something into it." It's a suit as far as Alison is concerned; no transdimensional body swap thing. "You gonna carry me back to the building?" she asks with a sly smile, "Or shall I grab a cab?"
"No," Chris says firmly when she suggests that Riri can do something to the suit, and there might be a little bit of sharpness in it that he doesn't quite catch before it slips out. But then he sighs and says, "I'll explain it back at HQ." Then he nods and says, "I can take us back." He places his hand over his chest for a moment and again that shimmer happens, and the Darkhawk holds his arm out to her, to pick her up again, "Why take a cab when you can fly?"
Ah, the suit comes out of his chest. Hence the reason Chris touches it. It's so obvious! Just like Iron Man. Though the sharp retort was noted, Alison lets it slide since he is carrying her back to Baxter Building. "What happens when there are flying cabs?" she teases, happy to be picked up and making sure that all their bags are safe from being dropped. "Up, up, and away!"
"When there are flying cabs, it will still be cheaper, though by then you'll have your own flying limo and won't need a lift," Chris points up as he takes off into the sky and flies them back to the Baxter Building, coming to a landing on the landing pad where they can land their suits and vehicles and flying horsies or whatever, before heading back into the building.
"Hopefully the flying limo will have windows" Alison smirks as they fly through the rain and back to their headquarters. A little streching once they are on the pad before heading inside with all the groceries. "Anyone home!" she calls out as they reach the Young Avengers floor. "Aliens are invading."
"I would figure when you can get your own flying limo, you can have as many windows as you'd like," Chris opines once they return to the building. Once they are safely on the floor, he shifts back, and the suit vanishes once more. He laughs when Alison announces an alien invasion. "We don't even really know what it was. It might not be alien. Could be extradimensional."
Alison looks around the quiet living quarters before smirking at Chris. "Judging by the excited response of our teammates, they've either been massacred or don't think it's much of a big deal either. Guess I'll go unpack the groceries. Want to check the news, see how much damage was done?"
"Maybe the aliens got them," Chris says, though it's clear he doesn't believe that. He goes over to the TV and grabs the remote, flicking it on and flipping through the news. "Looks like it's being reported as a bad transformer in Chinatown."
"Seriously?" Alison calls back from the pantry. "Whoever is controlling the media is doing a great job. Maybe there's something on the internet? You know, pics and videos of what happened. Probably of us too." A pause. "I assume they don't mean 'Transformer' like a robot in disguise."
"No they mean like an electrical transformer. Hey, there's us!" Chris points at the screen where there's a close-up of people running around on the street and the two of them trying to direct people on the ground. Interestingly, the camera pans up a few times, but the flashing of the lights and darkness makes whatever is in the sky just look like a part of the clouds. He keeps watching, "I don't see like.. anything incriminating on here, at least not yet."
Alison can move like the wind when she's on the television! She watches the images with a careful consideration. "I don't look too bad" she allows before a furrowing of the brow at the 'alien' images…or lack thereof. "Where is it? That's not what we saw. You think it hid itself of have the pics been manipulated?"
Christopher Powell glances over at Alison and laughs, "You never look bad. Ever. It's uncanny. Maybe it's your other super power." He then looks back toward the screen. "I think it's up there.." He points to where there's the crackling of what looks lightning beneath a cloud on film. "I mean, from beneath.. you couldn't see the top.."
"You say the sweetest things, Chris. Totally accurate, but also sweet" Alison grins. "But you could see the shape when we were there. You can't see it on the image. Hey, could just be the angle." She makes her way over and gives him a hug. "I might crash. Been an exciting day. Stay charming, Chris." A kiss to his cheek before she heads off to her room.
Christopher Powell continues to squint at the screen and then glances back at her, grinning, and shrugging his shoulders. "It's just true." He gives her a one-armed hug in return and says, "Sleep well. Ali. Thanks for going out with me, and uh, helping get that thing out of Chinatown." He grins, and then flips off the TV and tretches, wandering off toward the kitchen.