Summary:The Hootsforce is out in force Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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It is a nice night to be Ambrose, for once. The sky is clear, the night is not too hot, the humidity levels are just right and the streets are peaceful. Nothing is tripping the Bane. Yes. It is a good night to be Ambrose.
And then something runs by him. It's looks like a dog but it's large and metal. And then another one runs by but this one has someone riding on it.
And then then a car at the intersection ahead of him is T-Boned by an SUV and suddenly there is GUNFIRE everywhere.
TIC TIC TIC. Sixth and Avenue C. Packmaster is on scene.
TIC is the call for 'Troops in Contact'. In this particular case it means that Jeriah London has managed to run down the people he was chasing - people that just stole something rather important from the nearby university - and is now fighting them. Normally SHIELD would prefer to avoid open combat on the streets of New York but advanced Quantum processors are not something you let criminals and terrorists run off with. Because after they do nothing that ISN'T itself secured by a quantum computer is safe."
What a nice night to be Ambrose indeed. It merited a light blazer overtop his cotton t-shirt and jeans over his boots and the Brit is just shy of attempting to whistle a tone-deaf tune. Even the Bane is content, hunger slaked by a ride on the subway from which stairs he just emerged onto the sidewalk.
"What the — " A nimble, sideways dance for the first metal dog.
"BLOODY FFFF — " This for the second dog and its rider, his hands now upheld and the ancient curse snarling beneath his skin.
The silver-haired master-thief flinches at the sudden crumpling collision before ducking into the shadow of a nearby alley, the better to peer out cautiously from his crouched state. Who in the HELL in the WHAT?!
Ops. May. I'm en route. ETA thirty seconds. May had been just about to place an order paneer tikka masala when the call went out. She quickly gave her apologies to the restaurant staff citing a work phone call, and after walking calmly out of the establishment takes off at a full sprint.
Cutting through an alley, she all but literally skids to a stop THIS close to running smack into the silver-haired… Atherton? To be fair, her shocked surprise last one blink, and then she's leaning past him to look in the direction the man clearly has (had?) his attention.
"Ching-wah TSAO duh liou mahng," she mutters more than clearly enough for Ambrose to hear and understand, pulling a pistol from under her jacket as she continues to speak in quiet rapid-fire Mandarin. "Atherton-xianbei, I need you to stay clear. Or better, go home."
Without waiting for his reply, she races out and after the two huge mechanical dogs.
"I thought this was supposed to be a night for us." A british woman says as she slides from the SUV. She's dressed rather nicely - if a little 'classically'. Ambrose will recognise the style - 40's and 50's when pin curls and victory rolls were in fashion.
Perhaps more interestingly than the dress she's wearing, is the cybernetic implants that can't be hidden. Left eye and right arm and completely replaced. Other implants grace the right hand side of her face.
"Sir!" She calls out as she sees Ambrose. "I'm going to have to get you to move back …"
"Rain check!" The former rider of the big metal dog says as he shoots. A car near May and Ambrose and Jemma turns itself on - there is CLEARLY no one inside - and then does a J turn and flips itself over so as to serve as cover. Which Jemma is aware of because she knows how that happened but it may as well be witchcraft to Ambrose and May - particularly because Ambrose didn't feel any 'power' to make the thing animate.
But then he does feel power. His Bane feels something potent. A lightning bolt strikes the ground near them as the firefight rages and when the flash clears a man in green armor and tight white leather pants is standing there with what looks like an enormous LARP hammer.
"McFIFE IS HERE!" He yells in a slightly nasal, slightly shrill voice.
The intersection has two more wrecked cars now and there are perhaps eight people firing automatic weapons versus the dog rider and both dogs which appear to have back mounted turrets. May and Jemma and even Ambrose can get close.
Or at least they might be able to if a spray automatic fire didn't shatter the brickwork near them as more gunmen close in from the opposite side of the street.
May comes out of blooming NOWHERE and Ambrose wheels to react before realizing just who it is so nearby to him. He checks the Bane out of instinct to avoid hurting her and thins his lips. A moment is needed to remember the term of respect — ah, 'elder' — and then he's squinting with carmine-bright pupils after the woman.
"These are the times when I hate you the most, Oliver, you — " His hissed cursing is drowned out by another burst of gunfire. He straightens in place when addressed by Jemma, rather shocked to hear such a familiar accent in New York at a time like this.
"Perhaps you should move back yourself, miss — BLOODY HELL!"
The slip of language for the arrival of this bombastic, electrically-involved hero in the tight white pants. Bowie, eat your heart out. Swirling up around him now within his aura, the Bane hisses and Ambrose very nearly does the same.
"I just wanted to go for a fucking WAL — " Away disappears the moonsilvered hair as the automatic gunfire shreds part of the brick wall he stands near. A harsh sigh and the Jackal rolls up the sleeves of his jacket, jaw set. "«Enough of THIS!»" he spits in Farsi.
Out of the alleywall he slips, behind the abandoned carcass of a car, and marks the spread of the gunman. A gesture of his hand at them, palm out, makes to net the Bane over them all and cause abrupt full-body pins-and-needles if not collapse from sudden energy loss.
May had been using cars for cover from the return fire in the manner she's used for literal decades, but when one car just all on its own decides to set itself perfectly, she actually stares for about a second and a half before gunfire from the other direction gets her head back into the game. Muttering yet another choice invective in a decidedly non-English language, she pops out from her vehicle cover to fire at the second group, as much to get them to back off as to try and place their locations.
She sees movement and … damnit. Of COURSE he didn't listen to her. She knows that he's by no means the average civilian, but there are still rules to follow and rule number one is don't get in the middle of a SHIELD firefight. Abandoning her cover, she hastily rushes over to where the silver-haired man is hunkered behind a car and hisses at him in Mandarin, "What the hell do you think you're doing? You need to get. Clear."
This close up, he can likely see that the pistol in her hand is anything but joe average store bought.
"It's Agent. Agent Simmons." The well dressed British cyborg woman says primly, flashing her badge. It's all so incongrous, the ways she's dressed and the fact she *is* a cyborg. "And how many rain checks is that you owe me now?" That's to the man who's riding the dog.
It might be telling that she doesn't flinch when the car starts and then overturns. "Take cover, Sir." She tells Ambrose as she crouches herself.
"What in all living hell are *you* doing here." And please, please, don't tell her that the Canny Canuk is somewhere nearby.
"I am here to protect defenseless civillians. Stand behind me Mi-"
And then Ambrose steps out. He drops one of the gunmen as May sees two more moving up. The sound of fire has slackened off from the far end of the street and bolts of purple energy start streaming toward the new arrivals from the man that Jemma is talking to. He's also closing but moving in short bursts between cover so he's quite far away.
"CANADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Someone yells as they slam into one of the gunmen from behind. Ambrose starts to take shots. May is taking fire. Jemma takes shots and Angus reaches out to try to pull her behind him but then his Hammer starts to glow. And point itself at Ambrose.
"Evil Energy from Zargorthrax! Captain Canada, your SHIELD!"
The Canny Canuck throws his shield into the air and Bowie-Pants-Man zaps it with lightning from his Hammer.
And suddenly the ENTIRE street sounds like the inside of a bell. A very large, very angry bell.
"BY THE POWER OF HOOTS!" McFIFE somehow manages to shout above all of that. It DOES knock several of the gunmen down. But it also affects May, Ambrose, Jemma and Jeriah. Possibly not as much given that three of those four are 'special' but still.
"I have cover, Agent Simmons," calls out the Jackal between spates of gunfire.
Then arrives May again nearby to him. "YOU need to get clear," Ambrose hisses back in Shanghainese with a quick glance over at May. His snarl showcasing teeth is instinctive and flashes canines a hair too sharp to be purely human; if that wasn't enough, his pupils carry the Bane's bright-red glow. The one gunman he'd dropped has charged him with energy to make him antsy — as if he weren't impulsive eough. "You are outnumbered even with your weaponry and your agent with the hammer is doing what precisely?!"
A gesture at this McFIFE person then, as if May were responsible for herding the Guy In the Pants.
Ambrose ducks back behind the car again as the gunfire turns his way and he curses in Farsi as metal dents, sparks, reacts to the bullets. When it pauses, he looks up in his crouch to see the damned hammer pointed at him. A finger pointed back at it: "No — no, now you SEE HERE, YOU BLOODY IDI — "
His chimes are literally rung by the impact of the bolt to shield. Clapping his hands to his ears, the Jackal leans against the car. "I may kill him," he rasps, perhaps loud enough for May to hear…if she still has any hearing left.
May is forced to duck behind cover again when those goons fired at her and Ambrose again, but then there's an exceedingly annoying voice nearby. Since she's ducked down she has a moment to turn and look and… gao shenem gui is with those TROUSERS?? The guy is doing nothing but drawing attention, so her ICER pistols snaps around and she fires off a round at McFife's head JUST as he's—
The resounding gong of the lightning hitting that shield takes May down almost instantly, her ICER falling to the street as she collapses with her hands over her ears and her eyes squeezed shut.
No, she can't hear a damned thing right now besides that ringing, but if Ambrose wants to kill that gaisi de huaidan, ti bixu dengdai zhuanshen. Ta hui chishou sha si ta bing xiangshou ta.
"Take your hands off me!" Jemma huffs, stumbling a little in the heels that she's wearing as Angus shoves her. It does put her in a perfect place to see the hammer and shield show, though. "Oh good lord…"
Then the bell sounds.
"Owwwww…" Jemma's ears are ringing and she has to spend valuable nanoseconds muting some of the input. With a roll of her eyes, her cybernetic arm reaches out to grab the hammer "You can give that to me. I don't thing we'll be needing that again." She's strong.
"And now you dastardly pawn of Zargorthrax. You are going to tell me the secrets to his fortress at Dun-AUGH!"
Angus McFife, rightful king of Dundee and wielder of the Gloryhammer, is tackled to the ground by a steel dog the size of a small pony. Which sits on him. Ambrose may now do to him what he likes.
Jeriah shoots several more times and in the chaos May and Ambrose might not notice another car starting itself and deciding that it doesn't like folks with guns either… and ramming them. With no driver.
Someone is controlling the tech around h- Jeriah. It's Jeriah.
"What all of the hells is going on here?" The solider demands as Jemma takes the hammer and Captain Canada gets into some kind of trouble that has him going "Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" In the background. Jeriah has a briefcase in his hands which has the quantum processor in it. So, you know. Mission more or less accomplished.
Most of Ambrose's hearing comes back in time to hear the plaintive calls of Captain Canada in the background. Wincing, he makes his way to his crouch again and observes how the cybernetic canine has executed a sit-stay on the Hammer-Pants Guy.
"Oooohhhhh…ruddy bastard," hisses the Jackal. One can see the muscles in his jaw and shoulders twitch in self-control. Thank Kent for instilling something of a moral compass in the master-thief. Jemma appears to have the hammer, so Ambrose contents himself with knowing he did the RIGHT thing instead: not bringing the ire of the Bane down on the hapless sap.
"Agent May, what is making the cars move?!" This he shouts overtop the gunfire, diminishing as it might be.
May doesn't answer Ambrose, she's still down for the count. And even if she wasn't, it's likely that her hearing is screwed for at least the next few minutes. She does start to stir, though, forcing herself to move even though she's still completely disoriented and can't hear much of anything past the ringing.
"Ops. May. Friendly fire, compromised. Can't hear replies. Notify any nearby agents able to reply," she grates out in a low and even flatter than usual tone as she squints then picks up her ICER. Her eyes focus on Ambrose for a moment, then she turns to look where she last saw Jemma and finds the biochemist has very neatly taken that idiot's hammer away, and one of London's dogs (is it the one that answers to Shep? She can't tell them apart) is sitting on said idiot. Oh, and London's right there too. He looks as irate as she feels, but she still can't hear him.
Okay, clearly turning her head wasn't the smartest thing to do. She's going to stay very still for a moment here, see if the planet settles again.
"Just your usual friendly not-heroic nuisances." Jemma answers as she holds the hammer away from McFife. "If I see you again, McFife, I'm going to brain you with this. Is that clear?" It's all so … proper and nice - but deadly serious.
"I've no idea what the idiot Canandian has done but he's probably bounced his shield off some friendlies. It's your turn to stop him." She informs Jeriah.
"Agent May needs attention. Are you alright, Sir?" That's to Ambrose, who really is making the air blue. "And that was Mister London, making the car moves. You can thank him for saving our asses."
"I was just going to let him run off." Jeriah says. He makes a common military sign for May to stay where she is and that medical will be on the way. Since she seems to need it. McFife just groans in response to Jemma.
"Are you alright sir?" That's to Ambrose. "If you just stay here we'll have someone look at you."
Ambrose probably doesn't need that but hey Jeriah doesn't know that.
"Hang onto this, Jemma, I'm going to make sure the area is secure."
And with that and a nod to Ambrose the ex-spec ops soldier moves back onto the street, making sure no one is playing possum and generally checking bodies. SHIELD will be here soon enough. Whether Ambrose is when they get here, well that's up to him.