Summary:Ooh, tentacles in the Bowery are not what you think. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The border between the Bowery and the Disaster Zone is an interesting No Man's Land of information and treasure, if you're a suitably deranged genius or an amoral fiend.
Fortunately for AIM, they have no shortage of either.
Currently a team of AIM "beekeepers" are probing around one particular site, staying out of view as they scared off or intimidated most of the locals into being gone. Grumbling about wanting overtime doesn't stop the science exploitation team into digging deep into the Earth. Over their comms, one of them exclaims, "Whoa! I think we found i**EEERKKKAUGH*!!!"
Be careful what you wish for…
Tony was at Stark Industries, sitting in a BORING meeting. Thankfully, he had his -special- shades on so he could work while he was present, but honestly, he didn't -WANT- to make speeches or anything of that nature. He just wanted to go home and eat grapes and probably try and upgrade JARVIS, despite the disembodied British voice objecting to the need.
Of course, Tony had no problem teasing JARVIS…
But then JARVIS, since Tony lets him moniter AIM communications juuuust in case something happens, like a slip up in communications for example, that finally makes him perk up. He has a smile on his face all of a sudden.
First reason! Because AIM scientists are morons in beesuits and Tony loves it when they astronomically epic fail.
Second Reason! Anything to get out of this damn meeting.
So, He stands up, bids some of the shareholders adieu, and immediately makes his way to the Rooftop. He taps a few buttons on his watch to bring up Avengers Communications. "Alright team, Avengers Assemble! AIM Fucked up, so I have a feeling we're going to go and clean up their mess. Follow these coordinates." Because JARVIS is that good.
He immediately jumps off the roof like the showman that he is and with a 'DEPLOY!' The Iron Man suit emerges from a secure location, and wraps itself around Tony. Thus, the Iron Man takes flight, flying to the destination at Mach 2.
Erkaugh does not require much translation for Wanda to understand. It, like crying for "Mama", is a universal constant. No one needs to know what that particular wail ricocheting from the crumbled buildings, the lost houses and the crumpled commercial district, means.
From beneath the concrete slabs overhead, forming that rare intact ceiling even if makeshift, the witch freezes in tracing the highly questionable marks engraved on the pitted, weathered surface. They will wait. They haven't gone anywhere for a few weeks, they will not go anywhere for a few hours more. Marking their presence with a tag of pure energy serving no other purpose as a mystic bookmark, she pulls a stiletto from her boot and stalks along the edge of the wall where it arbitrarily ends. Emerging with her head held high is waiting for her head to be lopped off like a dandelion, and so she sinks down into a crouch. That shrill noise requires her to look around, dust always an excellent sign of where she needs to attract her.
Slow, careful, she plants her feet to creep along with the skill of someone who grew up in the battlefronts of urban guerilla warfare. A snapping motion with her wrist throws a protective barrier around her, settling on her coat and those curb-stomping boots that were last popular around 1994. Was she even alive then?
Carol was definitely alive then, though she has made sure no one witnessed her wearing them. Because she didn't. Really.
Honest.
However, Carol was at her apartment when she heard Tony's call over channels, and responds, "Alright, Tony, I'll be there shortly. What've we got?" And with that, she launches herself out of the patio, glowing brightly as she soars off towards the Bowery.
Meanwhile, the remaining AIM guys are running away from the hole, the last one screaming in fear as he almost makes it out… until a metallic tendril loops around his leg, pulling him back in. The screams turn into noises far too… pulpy to be anything good.
So was Tony! How funny is that?
Though As Tony flies, he hears Carol's transmission and he decides to get just a little bit quippy. "Oh just some skinny deeping off the atlantic. Hope you're bringin' the bikini!" He cannot wait for the silence at his flirtations before he speaks much more honestly.
"Looks like AIM woke something up on one of their digs. Wanda's probably already over there being really weird. ETA on my end, three minutes. Catch up!"
and so, three minutes later, Tony comes down with a fast landing that makes the dust rise and the earth rumble just a tad with the impact. "Honeeeyy, I'm HOOOOOOMMMMEEEE!" Tony shouts through his helmet. He also notices Wanda with her shield up. "Oh hey Wanda, how's it going?" Oh yes, he was not worried at all.
Then he notices the metallic tendril. "Ohhhh. He's not coming back for 'Japanese Squidlord 2'.
Being really weird: that goes for a bunch of beekeepers in their pristine white suits involved in at least three different vertices of trouble. Fleeing only works so well.
Two of them have become pinned under rubble that thrashed to life in a way that concrete really shouldn't. Wires hang from the torn structure avalanching onto the site that previous was useful for working a couple strange, jury-rigged devices that would make MacGyver proud. The squeal of a protesting fan dying on clogging debris makes a much quieter sound than the muffled howls and attempts to dig themselves out from several hundred pounds of ruined building atop them. Team two has a little more luck, considering they are protected somewhat by open air. With all the dust thrown up, they might not actually have much sight of what is drilling up through the wreckage of their spelunker friend. Metal detectors and magnesium torch thrown aside, they're reaching for some kind of helpful Taser device that probably delivers more than a few thousand volts. The battery pack is bright pink. One has Hello Kitty stuck on it.
As for the third, they're caught up in battle with a long, long metal tendril coming out after another. What's the point in running when the ground is trying to explode? Their attempts to fling objects in the way to deter the very friendly prehensile appendage isn't going very well. As much as it doesn't /stop/ the advance. Or the two tendrils bursting out of the ground to eagerly seek that fast moving machine-man in tantalizing reach. Hello Tony, come get a big metal hug!
"You live here?" asks Wanda without a trace of irony. It's Tony. You can never be sure. She dives away from the back draft of his descent, using the cover afforded by a low wall and rolling. None of that is going to much help her if the metal appendage wants to explode from the ground, though being smeared in dust has its advantages to being harder to spot. The shielding around her is invisible, but she hasn't vanished yet. "Your friend?" A general wave of her hand indicates the troublemakers.
From the depths of the hole comes a metallic shriek, and something lumbers out. On the surface, it appears to be a normal Sentinel, buried under the rubble after the attacks that left the Disaster Zone, well, as it was. However…
Most Sentinels don't have a second, human head growing out of their shoulder like some tumorous abnormality. The tattered remains of an AIM beekeeper hood still drape over the head, though the eyes are a metallic blue now, glowing eeriely in unison with the 'normal' Sentinel head. Tendrils ripple and writhe out of the robot's chest, metallic filaments absently striking out at random until the robot head looks at Wanda…
And then the 'human' head looks at Tony…
The robot announces, "ORGANIC LIFEFORMS DETECTED. COMMENCING ASSIMILATION PROTOCOLS. ALL WILL BE ONE." With that, tendrils rocket out towards both Wanda and Tony, the techno-organic limbs not bothering with subtlety as the human head screams in unending agony…
Tony looks at Wanda at her question and he tilts his head. "Only on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I'm too busy not being an alien lifeform." If Wanda knows what a flat out lie is, Tony just gave it to her. Then he elaborates. "No, Wanda, I don't-" TENDRIL!
"WHOA!" Tony immediately fires repulsors out of the suits palms that not only blast at this creature, but also blasts Tony -backwards- to allow him space in conjunction with his thrusters.
"Listen, I LOVED you in Star Trek, but can you go find Kirk to assimilate or something?" He runs a medical scan on the life form.
"Talk to me JARVIS. What is this thing? A parasite?"
Too much in the way of an answer from the man. She has to figure out what he means while on the run is too difficult to do. Not when she has to back pedal and responsively flinch from a horrific shape bursting through the air. A little too close to the nightmares scouring her idea of a good night's sleep.
For just an instant, too fast to be seen save by luck, her eyes turn a sickly shade of ultraviolet. The recoil effect straightens her up when she starts running from her pursuing cause. It might help to give Tony room to fire up his repulsers or something else as he needs to take action. Never cage in the energy weapons, as the rule goes. Which means her having the opportunity to suggest she is far from a tasty treat, not at all. "Low," she hisses where anyone should be able to hear, her Transian accent rising. It makes for a rough razor on the ear, since the comm link does not like what she does, not one bit. It starts popping and crackling as the distortion of the chaotic fortunosphere revolves around her in a vicious spin. Twisting fate, bad girl.
Worse when she hurls the pinpoint hex ahead of her in a rippling wave, a beam of light that isn't straight but coursing like a wild ocean. Thin, but more than prepared to strike at a moving target. Her underlying intent is destructive, immobilizing, violent.
The repulsor blast knocks the "Sentinel" off-balance, square into the path of Wanda's destructive hex. The impact seems to fracture the creature, splitting it neatly into two separate halves, blood and lubricant oozing out of the central mess that is the left and right parts of the thing.
Until the injuries close up on either side, the thing mutating and changing into two smaller 'halves'. One with a fully human head, interlaced with electronics and circuitry, and one with a robotic Sentinel head, but the eyes… the eyes are all too human now. Both mini-Sentinels howl, again sending tendrils towards Wanda and Tony, adjusting their attacks this time.
Which is, of course, right when Carol comes in, touching down near Wanda. Seeing the things in front of her, she blinks, "Um, okay… this is not what I was expecting!"
Tony looks at Carol when she FINALLY shows up. "Geez, Carol, took you long enough. When I ask you out on a date, I at least would like promptness." The wink accompanying it suggests that he's completely kidding. "Oh by the way, M Night Shamalayamamalama is trying to be the Borg." He points at THAT MONSTROSITY.
And yes, he absolutely butchered that one director's name on purpose. Death by name-butcher.
Then he watches the 'Sentinel' split into two haves, even with the human heads. "Ohhh..thats so gross. I'm gonna need a shower after this."
Then he has tenticles coming after him. "Hit it hardcna'ttalknowbye!" Tony tries to fly upwards, despite the limited space. JARVIS intervenes though on Avengers communications. "It would appear to be some manifestation of a techno-organic virus sir. More than likely, those tendrils are the carriers of the virus. If they touch your skin, I am uncertain if modern medicine will be able to assist you." "Thanks for the pep talk." "You're welcome, sir."
So, Tony lifts his arms and blasts two missles that pop out of one of the suits arm-sockets, hoping to make at least one of the miniatures go -boom-.
There is a name for that function. It's unfortunately in possession of an octopus organization. One hex blast severing the mutant robots into several was totally planned, clearly. The witch obviously meant to do that, because she is a cat. An appearance of blood, however, brings her lip curling in disdain. She stands in place for only a moment, for being on the run makes for a harder target to catch than one resting in place. Especially with those awful, awful tendrils.
Look, she's not hiding behind Carol. She is triangulating, especially with a brilliant notion in mind. One that shatters when she looks oddly at Tony for a moment, and then seizes a handful of energy out of nothing, one empowered by a little too much force.
A backward swing of the hand and she throws like a girl. A girl trained by a thousands-year-old sorceress. An angry girl at that. Red light bleeds ultraviolet at the edges. "Your party," she tells Carol simply.
The missiles from Tony hit the human-headed Sentinel, the explosions shrouding the results for a second… but when the smoke clears, well, it's no longer standing there. So that's good news.
The bad news, is that now there's a pool of resolidifying liquid metal and flesh in some unholy amalgamation. Like "What if John Carpenter designed the T-1000" level of weird insanity as various robotic and human-esque heads form out of the goo and howl in agonized existence, trying to reform from the impacts.
Meanwhile, the robot-headed Sentinel falls backwards from the impact of the eldritch blast from Wanda, exclaiming, "ADAPTING… UNKNOWN ENERGY SIGNATURES… ANALYZ*HWARK*". Collapsing on its back, it then picks itself back up, gauging the level of opposition as well as the new arrival…
Carol blinks, then says as an aside to Wanda, "Girl, we have got to get you to some better parties." With that, she unleashes a full power blast at the "Sentinel" that Tony hit earlier, the light blinding in its intensity…
And when it clears, there's nothing left but a scorchmark on the rubble, as apparently it was at the end of its rope. Unfortunately, that moment of triumph seems a bit short-lived, as Sentinel #2 sends a massive tendril from its chest, aiming directly right at Captain Marvel!
"This feels like I'm in a James Cameron movie..which would be kinda fun, but Terminator? Really?" Tony seems unhappy about this as he lands across from the liquid metal trying to restructure itself to attain solid form. But since Carol is taking care of THAT guy, Tony shifts his attention to the Sentinel trying to take a shot at her. So, he firmly puts his feet at shoulder-length and fires the Unibeam at it! Take it down hard.
Geez, this would make the plot of a good horror story. If only there wasn't copyright!
|ROLL| Wanda +rolls 1d20 for: 17
Terminator movies are lost on Wanda, predictably. She doesn't get the quip or the quote, but she certainly needn't. The horror of a face and blood emerging from metallic substances is enough to curl Wanda's lip and narrow her eyes. Their howling mouths beckon to something that brings an ungodly garnet glow to her eyes, the registering emotional impact under that frozen Slavic expression all she needs to demonstrate her stance on AIM's work. The stiletto ends up back in her boot sheath, given it's about as effective as bringing a knife to a shape-shifting gun party. Not very fair, even as she wipes the perspiration from her brow with that vaporized blast emitted from Carol's fist not doing nearly so fine a job as one could wish. There's still one more.
"Stark!" A sharp retort doesn't likely seem necessary, but there it is. See Mr. Repulsor. See Mr. Repulsor fire on the thick tendril. She's learned her lesson from the robot and another hex isn't the call, but that doesn't mean other options aren't at hand. Her hands twist and move through a series of oddly serpentine patterns, rotating with a sudden eloquence with her fingers folded down. None of that rarified scarlet glow: the other half of the codename applies, the one that bothers SHIELD and keeps vanishing from database entries. The hop-skip of three interlocking rings join together with a triangle and a portal bursts open along the nasty tentacle's path. Preferably just short of Carol by a meter or two, but the terminus of the portal is directly /behind/ the thing, making a perfect loop to close if it decides to stab her. Maybe it can stab itself for good measure. If Tony's beam vaporizes the thing closer, then adjust portal distance nearer accordingly. "I was having a nice party. It had wine," she tells Carol through gritted teeth. "Maybe even a bikini."
The tentacle goes right through the portal, and impales the Sentinel as it squawks, "ERROR ERROR ERRORERR…" right before the unibeam hits it. And it just implodes from the impact, vaporizing into nothing but base atoms after Tony finishes it off.
Carol shakes her head, "Thanks for the save, and… wait, a bikini?" She glances over at Wanda, looking a bit more surprised at that than Horrible Sentinel Monsters From The Deep. Which… well, part and parcel of being an Avenger, one supposes. She quirks a faint grin at that, then looks around, "That was… um, something, for sure. Looks like we got it all, though?" She glances over at Tony, as while she does have awesome sparkleblasts… sensor scans, not exactly her forte.
Tony then straightens out.
"Boom!"
Tony does one of those poses where he's like 'you can all bask in my glory now' but then Wanda says something that immediately gets his attention. "Wait, Bikinis?" Tony shifts his head over to Wanda and Carol. "Did I hear that right? Is this going to be a good day?"
Tony actually looks humorous, but then he's running an environmental scan. "Infestation eradicated sir."
"Alright everyone, good work. Now Wanda, since you are our resident expert on all things weird, what the hell was that?"
The resident expert on the /weird/? Hello, space lady over there. Wanda immediately pats down her coat in search of — there it is. A stick of pure maple sugar that anyone in their right mind probably identifies as being of Vermont. It has a maple leaf and no French. She breaks it in a third and slips the portion into her mouth, sliding it under her tongue. The molten effect will take a while to happen, but that immediate sugar hit certainly helps with regulating her Saturn V rocket metabolism and the immediate need for something to counterbalance fatigue and a nap syndrome. It counts for something.
Another light crunch and she puts the remaining two-thirds in her pocket, the sticky sweetness spared from those unaware of the risks taken with maple syrup. Really, delicious but deadly. Her gaze moves to Carol and then Tony, settling back on the vaporized bits. "Human. Metal." Talking with her mouth full? Never. She has manners, though they're going to be in play after swallowing most of the morsel. So a few minutes. "«It seems experimental. Not magical, but corrupted. Any kind of life energy warped in that way will always read so. Perversions of nature.»" See, she can talk… in German.
Carol hrms, "Maybe something from space, it's possible anyway. I mean, there's the Phalanx in outer space, though it doesn't seem quite that… well, weird. It just drains organic life, it doesn't well, graft it." She shakes her head, "Probably we need to quarantine this area off, and make sure we get all the AIM guys accounted for here. If there's any left, anyway." A bit grim, but considering what they just witnessed, also somewhat realistic.
Tony looks between the two of them, though Wanda's initial actions seem to make him tilt his head a bit. See? Weird. She didn't even say anything while she did it. Did she just grab a snack? Now?! Man, its moments like these where she reminds him of her twin. "Well, I have a rough idea of what it is, but I didn't think that was necessarily possible."
But in the Avengers line of work? Anything is possible.
"It looked like some kind of techno-organic virus. Somehow, whoever created this thing, or whatever this was, managed to fuse together machine and flesh at a molecular level and give them the good ole fashioned borg treatment. Wanted to assimilate us into some kind of hive mind. Likely wanted to turn us into that." He shakes his head.
"My question is, how the hell did Sentinel parts even get this deep? Not even a mutant in sight down here." He shakes his head ever so softly.
"Full Quarantine. I can get a SHIELD team down here on the double. Worst case scenario, we get a squad down here to do some purging. This gets into the wrong hands and we'd be dealing with an infestation."
Pietro gets to wear the longer pants. Wanda gets the snacks. Together, they are basically one terrifying teenager to early twenty-something. It all works out. She nods to the evidence they had, Tony's statement warranting a grim sound. "May be traveling or hidden. Maybe more. A lab?"
German again. It's simply easier for her to communicate in where English sometimes fails, and she's working her best to insinuate herself among the scientific terms in action. A techno-organic virus, and her without her Cable decoder. All the same, her expression darkens at the mention of the Sentinel. "Stolen? Hidden lab?"
Again, one really uncomfortable idea. "You see in other lights. Look, maybe, and see bodies. Call SHIELD. I will…" She /is/ technically the third SHIELD wheel in the street. Carol earns a raised brow, a gesture. She has a phone! It's very clearly suffering in proximity to her.
Carol grins a bit, "Way ahead of you Tony." She's actually speaking into her tiny Bluetooth earpiece, since… well, the nice thing about the Kree? Great tech.
Really, that's about the only nice thing about the Kree.
Anyway, Carol's talking on the line, "Yeah, we need immediate containment here in the Bowery, focus on my location, and this is a Priority." She grins over at Tony and Wanda, "It seems okay for now, but better safe than sorry, especially with something like this."
"And a muffin," Wanda adds cheerfully. A quarantine… and muffins.
Tony looks over at Wanda for that brief moment with a tilt of his head. "Traveling? Traveling where? I don't recall AIM having access to Sentinel tech." Tony shakes his head ever so softly as he looks over at Carol when she's making the call.
"Eh, I won't investigate. Lets give Nick Fury something to fuss over. When he calls me, I like watching the red light on the line blink." He winks at Carol before he clears his throat a little bit.
"So, whats this I heard about bikinis?" Yes, he's still on that.
The auburn witch shakes her head with a certain weariness. Sentinel tech is troubling indeed and she shrugs her shoulders. "I like the sun. Bikinis. Party. I was in Rio."