Summary:A charity concert is crashed by powered thugs looking for a crystal. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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The Brooklyn Mirage is one of four venues in the Avant Gardner complex, spanning a whole city block. It is a fine day for the use of the outdoor venue. The charity concert is packed and the warm up acts are just getting wrapped up. There is going to be a short break between them and the main event just to let everyone get settled and give people a chance to get last minute concessions or what have you.
Things are just starting to quiet again when someone taps on the microphone. It's a woman with long dark hair in her early thirties wearing a military style jumpsuit has stepped up to the mic. There are several people on the stage behind her, men and women both, but they don't look like a band.
"Ladies and gentlemen: I know I know, I'm not Guns N' Roses. But I have an announcement for you. The most valuable thing in the entire world is being given away as a grand prize for attending this fine concert. THIS MICROPHONE!"
That gets a moment of stunned silence from the crowd but then the woman… does something to the microphone. It glows briefly and there is a wave of power that washes over the crowd coming FROM the microphone itself. Suddenly it really is the THING to have. It's not an all-overpowering kind of feeling. The strong willed can fight it. But it's there in the back of their mind. Man that's a nice microphone. It'd be great to have. And it'd be a shame if anyone else got it.
"And it goes to… whomever can get it." She tosses it into the crowd and pandemonium erupts as people start irrationally trying to climb over one another to get to it. The ones closest begin fighting over it. As for the woman and her crew?
Well, she smirks and heads backstage. Moments later there's a muted 'boom' as from a small explosion but most people in the crowd are too distracted to care. Not everyone though. The din of the place can be heard for a solid mile, even out into the water, and a few people have the wherewithal to place emergency calls.
Mera has been out in the water, tracking down outbreaks of 'black goo' to destroy, when her quest was interrupted by the most excruciating noise she had ever had the displeasure to hear. A surface-dweller rock concert. So she was already heading that way to try and help the poor people crying out in agony - what else could make that noise - when chaos erupted.
Not expecting to interact with humans today, she is dressed in her green bodysuit as she rises up out of the water, hardening it under her so it looks like she is standing on the surface. The surface dwellers seem to fighting among themselves, so nothing new there, but she can feel the tug of something unnatural too. Mera had heard the tail end of the proclamation - a prize? That piques her curiosity though not the insatiable lust of need that it seems to have invested in everyone else.
An explosion. That noise has her refocused again, running across the water towards the source.
Attending a charity event is rather a new thing for Priscilla Frost. Nevertheless, she has been enjoying herself, though she would probably enjoy more if there was a small dancing stage somewhere here. Good music has always meant dancing and expressing it to Pris.
The interruption didn't seem like much of one at first, and Pris was unconcerned. With so many minds here, she could not pick up those of the woman on stage very clearly - until it was already too late. Strong-willed and with a shielded mind, Priscilla is able to brush away that wave and the niggling thought it tries to create, but what is done is done, and chaos erupts.
The empath and telepath's mind is swamped with the urges and desires of the crowd going mad all around her. Her instinct is to try to help and control these people, so that they do not hurt each other. But the explosion implies something more important and dangerous going on backstage. With a frown, she hops up from her seat and takes a rather acrobatic leap over several of those nearby to reach an aisle, then charges down that towards the stage, juking and twisting this way and that to get around the surging crowd. Gotta go!
Having come to enjoy the show, and more than happy to spend a little money for charity, Hank is dressed up tonight in custom tailored (by necessity) eggshell white three piece suit and a snazzy white fedora. His shirt is a deep blue brushed silk, and he wears a white tie with horizontal blue lines of varying thickness angling downwards along its length.
He has very eclectic musical interests, pretty much anything that isn't vulgar is of interest so the opening acts are quite well appreciated.
He is a tad surprised at the military clad woman and her commentary. Eyes of yellow narrow as she makes her speech, and as that compulsion effect washes out the instant he realizes how very unnatural his attraction is he raises a mind shield, not a powerful one, but for a non-psion that's no mean feat.
Lurking at the back of his mind he still kind of wants that Mic, but…no, 'splody takes precedence. Being as how he's extremely distinctive, Hank doesn't make any bones, he dons his reading glasses, and morphs them into a visor. "Fiat Lux." He states, and then the suit he'd been wearing morphs…becoming his armored costume as he moves not towards the 'splody just yet, more important to help the norms. He leaps to where the mic is, and rather than fight for them he tries to eliminate the bone of contention. If he has his druthers he'll simply crush the thing, if he's able, and hopefully end the effect.
Of course, with Hank's usual luck it will just make everyone tussling want to kill him.
It's the distant sound of the explosion which brings Steve Rogers to look up from picking out another avocado from the local farmer's market stand not but a handful of blocks away from the venue. In his motorcycle jacket over a plain grey t-shirt and jeans tucked into combat boots, he pauses, avocado in-hand. His eyes rise to the stall-minder with a frown.
"You heard that?"
The woman blinks and looks in the same direction of the sound. "Yeah, sounded like a power line exploding or something."
"Right. Here, this one 'nd…this one." Taking his bagged purchase with a quick smile and proper payment plus extra for the family, the Captain then strides quickly back to his motorcycle. No helmet (don't tell Barnes) on his head means his hair gleams brightly as he kicks the vehicle into gear and takes off with a sharp rumble of sound.
What he arrives to at the concert's fringes looks like a mosh pit gone mad. The avocados are left in the bike's mounted bags and he immediately looks for the nearest security official, the better to ask what on earth is going on? What can they report to him? Steve, at the moment, makes no point whatsoever to hide his identity; all he's missing is the shield.
Who is Guns N Roses, Keiko wonders as she lurks in the back of the Mirage.
Go to the fundraising event, Keiko. It will be good for you. Koa had said. Make you remember that you're human.
Well she's here and been hit on at least twice - she hasn't broken anyone bones or punched someone so there's that - and not there's a riot. Perfect. She'd rather be home, watching Elena play but no, she's here and … by the way her tattooes are tingling, that was magic.
It's the explosion that gets her attention - the police can deal with the rioters, right? Keiko eyes the crowd about her, hissing as she bares her fangs … she's got to try and push through the crush and at her size, that's a challenge.
The great part about having Spider-Woman as your alter-ego is that when you can't afford to go to a Guns N' Roses concert is that you can, in fact, still go. Crouched up in one of the high places and busy munching on a corndog when the concert was supposed to start, Gwen was perfectly positioned to watch… the most epic mic-drop that she's ever seen, right after a jolt from her danger-sense.
And the ensuing chaos. That too.
She's busy scanning the cro— No; no, that's not the right word, the horde — to try and work out some strategy of… stopping this nonsense, when she picks out Hank; a man his size is hard to miss. What with explosions going off, she takes off at a run along the high up place she's in, heading for where the mic-droppin' missy went and presumably started blowin' stuff up.
For the most part those who CAN scramble away have. Sadly that does not include the security who was here to begin with. They're all in the center of that mad mosh pit stroke riot. Newly arrived security seems to be less affected but they're having a hell of a time getting things under control. Sirens are wailing in the background.
Steve and Keiko are both in the position of needing to shove through the crowd to get to the stage if indeed that is where they are going. And that means being attacked. Not in the same way as they're used to, most people here couldn't pose a threat to a SHIELD cadet much less a proper SHIELD or WAND agent, but if they dare the crowd attacked they are. From all sides. As well as having people try to shove past them or climb over them without meaning to hurt them but also without caring if they get hurt or not.
Hank also has that problem but both more and less. He is even less susceptible to fists and feet than Steve or Keiko but because he is a bit more obviously strong he is also seen as a bigger threat which means he gets a LOT more attention from the crowd no matter what he does, even if that thing is just standing still. As it is? He crushes the microphone which makes some of the people stop. And it also makes at least one of them scream in fury and try to smack him over the head with a chair he got from… somewhere.
As Mera approaches she can feel something very like a psychic tug on her mind although not quite the same thing. It tells her that there's an object in the center of that mess that she really, really wants. It's not strong enough to actually compel her to go try to get it, but it clearly was strong enough to do that to a LOT of the people here.
Gwen from her perch can see Priscilla push up to the stage and she can see the big guy in the center do something that makes the crowd seem to falter. As both she and Priscilla make the stage there's another explosion that brings down the curtain and reveals the woman and her group standing over what very much looks like a crystal the size of a good size marble bust.
"Damn it, I told you that was too much." The woman looks up. "Jensen, Bjerg. Get 'em."
Two men with what very much look like Polynesian tattoos turn. One rushes straight for Priscilla. The other one picks up an amp one handed and hucks it right at Gwen.
The woman and one of her lackeys start laying more explosives while the remaining people fan out onto the stage to try to keep anyone ELSE thinking of joining Priscilla and Gwen from getting through. And with the crowd now at least temporarily starting to still, that's a very real risk.
As if surface dweller objects can ever appeal to an Atlantean! Though it does seem a very nice microphone… No! Mera shakes off any strange allure, growling at the audactiy of someone to even try to compel her into an action. With that massive melee of muddled minds making such a commotion, she half considers drenching the lot of them with a wave of ocean water to help them cool down. No, she needs to find the source. And that seems to be backstage from what she can make out. Drawing water with her as she runs, Mera makes for the suspected culprits.
The tall improbably curvaceous mocha-skinned woman with the incredibly long riotous mass of ebony ringlets clad in painted-on-tight beaded and bedazzled jeans, motorcycle boots and a t-shirt gets up to the stage, suppressing an urge to sneeze and growling with annoyance as she realizes someone here is mucking about with magic … and that seems to include the tattoos on the guy charging her.
Weapons would be nice. Pris really should talk to Sarah about gear-summoning charms of some kind. But enough of that for now!
Voodoo crouches in ways jeans that tight should not be able to do - blame the CCA, folks - and waits for the charge. She stays low - so low there's no way a guy that big can match her, which gives her the advantage in spite of his momentum. And then she snaps out her left leg and pivots with incredible speed and strength, driving her heel into one of his running ankles as it leads the way, taking out his balance to let him fall as she then pushes off and rolls away. Her purple eyes flare bright enough to be seen with the naked human eye as she unleashes a blast of psionic energy into his skull, hopefully rendering him stupefied if not unconscious, and then starts sprinting after the woman trying to lay more explosives. "That'll be enough of that!"
Keiko growls and hisses as someone knocks her over and then *someone else* manages to step on her foot. "Get out of my way." She's not as affected as the rest of the participants but it's just serving to make her angrier and surly. "By Limbo, I'm going to have your hide." She grunts at one man, finally managing to slip past some of them.
It takes her a good few good minutes and very sharp elbows to get through the crowd. When she emerges, her hair is tousled, her skin an obsidian black and black, leathery, bat wings flicker on her back - there one moment and gone the next.
"Get out of my way." She tells one of the other lackeys before remembering who she is. "Agent Keiko Kurita, WAND." She even manages to find her badge and show it to the lackey. "This is the only time I'm going to tell you. After that … "
This tiny woman is going to kick his ass.
Looks like it's a-people wading we will go. Steve, having confirmed with securiy that a microphone was involved at first and now having observed the stage curtain's fall with its revelation, dives in.
Ow. Ow. Um, ow, his toes. Um, lady, elbows — KIDNEY. Ow. He's near enough at one point to holler at Hank, "If anybody can turn off the crazy feed, that would be appreciated!" His voice carries easily enough; long-practice on the parade grounds in active war helps. Recognizing Keiko at the very least, he then eels his way over to show up behind her.
"Senior Agent Steve Rogers, SHIELD. Think you'd better move, she means business," he says very calmly as he adjusts his jacket on his frame.
"Well, bother." Hank is actually pretty well impervious to blunt damage, and his strength is such that he could juggle SUVs with ease, allowing for their size of course. That said, he doesn't want to hurt anyone, these people are innocent, it is not their fault they've been turned into berserks and running amok.
With all that said, he just…wades carefully through the mass, letting people pound on him with chairs, fists, whatever - he /does/ keep an eye out for pointy things and firearms, of course. Those pose a greater threat, though he's more worried about the crowd in case the shot is missed, or a stab goes awry.
Encouraged by the way some falter, Hank can only posit that proximity to the now rather lumpy mass of the once-mic is a factor. Nope, not aware that the effect is magic, he's not a mage after all - he is a Scientist! Still, proximity is a safe bet, logical even, and so he lobs the thing as far as he can, sorry Mera - he aimed for the ocean. Considering the length of his arms, and that he can impart about twenty-thousand pounds of thrust in a fraction of a second odds are pretty good that the thing is going to be hella gone in the next few seconds.
Eyes of yellow track to the good Captain America, even if he's in clothes the clarion call of that parade ground voice is familiar to Hank. A sharp nod. "On it." He states, even while being mobbed.
Oh, so now there's a big crystal and some very obvious bad guys and— and—
"WHO BROKE THE MICROPHONE?!" Gwen erupts, and utterly unable to help herself fires a glob of webbing into the crowd pretty much indiscriminately. Apparently she could only hold it for so long. After a moment of deep breathing and some deep, spider-meditation, she does manage to get her mind back under her own control — partly because that danger-sense is screaming at her again. Something about a dude with an amp, which she rolls out of the way of just in time. "That's rude!" she shouts back. "For that, you get web-in-the-face."
This time, the glob of webbing is more appropriately targeted, namely for the face of the guy who just threw an amp at her. She follows it right in, rushing the guy with her hands balled up into fists, ready to give him a good punch in the gut — a restrained punch in the gut, afterall, no need to deliver enough force to accordian a pickup truck.
Mera senses something else rapidly approaching with the water that she's pulling. Something breaches from the sea with a salty spray everywhere and lands not too far from Keiko, carrying water of his own behind him. It's Koa, in a wetsuit. And he looks pissed. "What did you do?" He says to Keiko. He's joking a bit, even though this is a serious situation. But honestly, she goes out for one concert and this happens?
The water behind him - separate from the water that Mera was drawing - forms into a very large hammer.
The crowd is at this point cowed enough to push through but there are also other problems. Priscilla manages to just flip the one coming at her over her back which gives her a clear shot at the woman, her lackey and the crystal. She's close enough that she can see there's something inside it which is probably why they were trying to blast it open. She can ALSO see that there are a couple of cracks in it and a crater the size of a basket ball around the damn thing so they'd used a fair amount of blast already and not opened it. All of this is probably secondary though because the woman's lackey - herself a woman - stands up and raises both hands which causes the ground immediately in front of Priscilla to literally turn into lava and then 'leap' under its own power at her. This at the same time as the ringleader abruptly sticks her last bomb onto the crystal, activates it and kicks it at Priscilla. "Have it then!"
Webs to the face are really good retorts. It's a pity Gwen can't use them more often. Either way the amp goes sailing past her and out of the venue. That sudden car alarm going off is probably a good indication of where it landed but no one got hurt, Probably. The punch winds the man she's fighting but also tells Gwen that her target is super tough in addition to super strong. Fortunately he is still trying to get the webbing off his face and that means she's got another shot at him before he recovers.
Steve and Keiko, in the mean time have had the party come to them. Well, Steve Keiko and Koa and Hank. Three people jump down off the stage and rush them as the crowd clears. The one coming at Steve has the same tattoos as the one fighting Gwen and if he's seen what's been going on he knows that means this one is strong and tough. Not subtle though. He winds up for a haymaker and delivers it trying to knock the Captain out with one punch.
Keiko the mean time has a smaller, but quicker man come at her with two knives both of them gleaming wetly. Odds are good they're coated with a poison of some kind and he too goes for the knockout, trying to slash her twice across the torso.
Hank finds the area around him suddenly and forcefully cleared by the earth shaking this way and that. Then a man rushes him from the stage, molten rocks flying to him and covering him as he moves until he's about the size of Hank but made of really hot stone. A big, sizzling fist swings toward his face.
The one for Koa just gets flattened by a hammer made of five tons of water. And then as he tries to rise, gets flattened again. Koa looks annoyed.
Mera's position does not go unnoticed and she feels something suddenly try to wrestle control of the water away from her. It's not coming from the human off to her left but rather from the one remaining unengaged person on the stage. He's holding both hands out, trying to not only yank her water away from her, but yank all the water OUT of her. He's strong. But she is of Atlantis.
Typical. Even when surface-dwellers are in a life and death battle, they still throw their trash in the ocean. Hank's throw was noticed. Mera spares a nod for Koa at his appearance before there is another being attempting to wrest water from her body. That is a VERY nasty thing to try to do, and it has convinced the Atlantean that maximum damage, including death, is now allowed.
Mera does her best to hurl the water she has been dragging with her towards the lava. She doesn't even note whether it hits its target, as she is now focused on the the man trying to drain her dry. Two can play at this game, and may the stronger will win. Mera outstretches her hands towards him in return, drawing the moisture from his body. The blood drying up in his veins. Skin turning dessicated before his eyes. It is not a nice way to go,
Goodness, so many people he knows here, thank goodness really. Keiko, Koa, Priscilla, Captain Rogers…Mera he hasn't met, but has seen some few mentions in the news, and he even knows Spider-Woman, helped patch her up once after a rather severe altercation with a certain Hellbino. He has a brief 'small world' moment, and then even as he was about to leap towards the sound system, intent on taking it out the ground shakes and a man armored up in molten rock is trying to punch him in the face. "Oh, hello, who might you be?" He can't help it, banter is part of the superhero code!
Not terribly willing to get punched in the face, Hank will pivot, taking it on the shoulder instead and using the momentum of the spin and the punch to launch a kick intended to send the mag-man flying right into the sound system he was going to wreck by less molten rocky means. He's not trying to do any particular harm, and he hisses as his bare foot is burnt rather painfully.
For a fairly massive and bulky fellow, Hank moves with fairly astonishing agility.
"Right. So much for critical listening skills."
Rising up onto his feet and bringing up his hands into a well-balanced Brooklynite boxer's readiness, Steve watches his opponent approach. The move is telegraphed well enough — the Captain marks the amount of intent put into play from the tattooed man, which more than likely means the tattooed man is used to leveling opponents the first time.
Kidney punch it is, and Steve ducks the haymaker to swing a fist up and under for the solar plexus with little check on his own strength.
The flash of Gwen in her costume briefly makes the man glance over. "Glad to see you present! Stick it to 'em!" he calls out to her, shameless in his punning.
One target down, two new targets to deal with. Priscilla eyes the whole scene, taking it in as her mind quickly starts cataloging possible moves. Then the stone is thrown to her, and she instinctively catches it as she dives into it and rolls away, letting the lava flow strike where she was for the moment, not where she is right this second. Please, no one pay attention to the hand becoming cartilaginous claw as Pris pries the explosive out, then spins like a top very tightly and hurls the explosive up, up and away …. hopefully far enough away that no one has to die.
OK. Now to deal with lava wave. Pris dives and rolls again, as she tries to figure out what she's going to do … oh. Duh. MotherMotherFrost would NOT be pleased with how long it took her to think of this! Pris focuses her mind and takes aim on the woman controlling the lava … and her eyes flare brilliant purple again as another lance of psionic anergy reaches out to slam into the woman's consicousness.
Keiko gives Steve a fierce smile. Well. Maybe it's a grimace. Seriously, when was the last time anyone saw her really smile. One day, maybe Steve will agree to work out with her and she can stop throwing the other SHIELD agents around.
When the pissed looking Koa shows up, Keiko gives him a flat, yellow lizard, eyed stare. "I told you, I don't like how they look at me." She's joking? Now, that's hard to tell - not even her inflection gives that away.
"And this guy thinks he's a match for me…" she says as the small, quick guy comes at her. It happens so quickly - she pulls a metal rod from behind her and extends it and becomes a whirling dervish, knocking one hand wide and bringing the other end of her quarterstaff down on the guys wrist.
CRACK And that's not her quarterstaff breaking.
"Find the microphone." She says to Koa. For all Keiko knows, the whole room glows to the other Agent. "Or deal with the guys with the pale imitation of my ink."
The best way to deal with people isn't necessarily just to hurt them. Well, sometimes it reall is, but there's often other options, like webbing them to the floor or something. Or, well, sometimes you really just want to hurt them, and Gwen is still feeling off-kilter. So she whirls around, lifting one foot to boot the powered-up rude jerk in front of her, much harder this time, square in the chest. "HYAA!" she yells in so doing.
With the man no longer right in front of her, Gwen finds time to look over at Steve, after he greets her, and snaps one hand up for a salute. "Yes sir!" she shouts back, "Sticking it to them right away!"
And indeed, she makes good on that, sending a glob of webbing after the guy she just kicked, before she tosses another ball of the stuff to the woman who seems to be in charge. "Catch!" she shouts, as she lobs it. "I like catch. Do you like catch? Sports are fun, really." And since it's so much fun, she tosses another blob of the stuff at the man Steve is fighting, because ganging up on the badguys is always a good idea.
"Where's the big crystal thingy?" she asks, of nobody in particular. She's definitely lost track of it.
"What Microphone?" Koa blinks? Hank had gotten rid of it after all and he arrived slightly too late to feel its effects. Why would she be asking him to get a mic? He doesn't think that telling everyone to knock it off is going to help. Instead he slams that water hammer of his down one more time putting his opponent down for the count.
The 'boom' far above tells Priscilla that her throw was good enough. And her psychic attack catches the lava wielder flat footed and puts her down. And the other woman is quickly falling back…
… until Gwen catches her in the shoulder with a web and sticks her to the wall near the door. She immediately pulls out something absolutely unnaturally sharp and starts cutting but she knows she isn't going to have enough time. Unless…
Mera pulls out all the water from the man in front of her after a short but very intense struggle and no, it's not a good way to go but in her defense he was trying to do it to her. The crack beneath her is that of Keiko breaking the wrist of the knife wielding attacker which is followed shortly by Koa very quickly 'blinking' to his location and kicking his legs out from under him. Another down.
That punch to Hanks arm is HOT and it does burn. So does sending him into the sound system but that at least gets him away and the impact does seem to take the wind out of his sails. Another down.
Make that yet another because while Steve isn't as strong as the man he's fighting, he does know where to land his punches and they HURT. Enough to double the man over, send him to his knees and give Steve a chance for a follow up. And that's right when golden beams of light strike Steve and Hank right in the chest. They don't hurt. They just feel a bit odd. Wait. That came from the back of the stage.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, the NEW PRIZES!"
All of the crowd that is left, which is a fair bit of it, stares at Hank and Steve. Everyone can feel the tug and it's stronger this time but still not overwhelming. They want Steve and Hank.
No not like that! More like they want to take them home and put them in a display case. Or just have around. You know. The same way you want to have nice art around or display a treasured memento.
Anyway, the crowd proceeds to RUSH Steve and Hank for different reasons than they were being rushed the last time. Still hurts though.
The woman in back tries to finish cutting her way free to slip away as any of her crew still able to move also attempt to slip out. There are only a couple still mobile. The one Prisc originally flipped and the one Steve was about to finish off.
Is the mic gone? Keiko has no idea, she was lost in the crush and then focussed on these guys.
As the guys wrist breaks, Keiko goes to grab him but Koa is there and finishing the job. "Took your time getting here…" she growls just as the new wave of persuasion goes over and the demon she's bound revels in it.
Before Koa knows it, the tiny Agent has positioned herself between Hank and Steve and the crowd. With her quarterstaff held in an offensive stance, the yellow eyed and now nearly completely obsidian skinned woman snarls.
"They're mine …" Oh. That's not good. What was it Koa had been saying about being more … human?
A boot to his attacker's shoulder intends to shove him well away and with a few tumbling rolls. Steve then rolls his neck and shoulders both before pausing — straightening in place as something tingles into the middle of his chest and then both up and down his spine. It makes the fine hairs on his neck and arms rise.
Magic: not like the Asgardian thread connecting him as Einherjar to Astryd, but magic nonetheless.
He brushes at his chest once before realizing how the crowd has gone silent after the booming announcement. A look at Hank is both shocked and long-suffering.
Then it begins, even if Keiko's there with her staff and snarling. Steve fields grabbing hands as best he cans with deft martial art twists of his wrists and arms. "No, ma'm — no, sir — SIR — M'AM, I AM — EXCUSE ME, YOUR HANDS — I AM MARRIED, NO — THAT'S MY SHIRT — CEASE AND DESIST IMMEDIATELY!!!"
As the dry husk of the man crumbles to the floor, Mera is already searching for more troublemakers. She may have met Steve Rogers once, in costume, but that was a long time ago. And she knows Koa and Keiko. But the others, they could be bad guys too. The announcement of new prizes helps point out who the real danger is. Not the two who have suddenly become collectable if they are kept in their original packaging, but rather the woman who outed them.
Mera concentrates on her now. The same trick she did with the other one. Drawing out every ounce of the liquid essence in her body. If anyone wants this person alive, they better tell the Atlantean.
Gwen might've initially resisted the microphone, but now there's new prizes, and they are WAY BETTER PRIZES than some islly microphone. Have you seen the muscles on those two? Mmmmm. MmmMMmMMmmmm. Yes.
"We'll talk more later," Gwen promises the woman in charge, as she gives her the works with her webshooters; not really aimed anywhere in particular, just basically a lot of webbing below the neck. Good luck with that. "I gotta go get the prize, you understand."
And with that done, Gwen sets about securing her prize. She leaps back up to the highest perch she can find, and then climbs up into the girderes that rock concerts always have set up. She positions herself directly above the scrimage; once positioned, she goes ahead and fires down into the crowd; one webline for Hank, and one for Steve. She doesn't even wait to see if she's managed to hit with both of them, she just starts pulling! "MIIIIIIINE!" she shouts, hoisting pretty much… whatever she's managed to snag up into the air. (Or else she's going to start having a tug-of-war with whoever else is grabbing at them, there's that possibility too.)
That stronger surge flows … right around Priscilla, whose mind has been more strongly shielded now than before to keep out the ruckus of all the mental chaos going on around the crowd. She turns to look around, arms still wrapped around the large crystal. She eyes the woman webbed to the back wall, almsot free, and focuses on her with another flare of purple eyes and a psionic blast to the skull, repeated if necessary to get the desired result. Turns out that another of the crew got away, but enough is enough …
Now what to do? Pris does not have a teleport charm, or her bike. And she can't exactly kill those kills to end the frenzy. But she has a thought, and turns towards the redhead standing on water imperiously. "Douse the two of them! Hose them down! Running water tends to wither away magical energies that are not close-anchored!" Go ahead. Ask the stripper why she knows this. Just do it later, OK?
Not really enjoying the burns on shoulder and foot, Hank is pondering getting involved with the fight on the stage when a golden ray strikes his broad chest, and…doesn't hurt. "Huh." He says, somewhat surprised. And then he parses what he just heard. "Prizes?" And then comprehension dawns in the pause before the storm. He can't help it, he just facepalms a brief moment, and in a very credible Wile-E-Coyote murmur states. "Mother." Very softly.
Pandemonium.
Luckily-ish, he's in costume, so at least unlike Cap he doesn't have to worry about losing his shirt, on the minus side the thing is pretty well skin tight, because - 'costume'.
He IS rather glad that punting the mag-man had a deleterious effect on the jerk, so at least that was good. SOMEthing went well here.
A glance at Steve and he offers a hand, shifting from Wile-E-Coyote to Arnold Schwarzenegger. "Come wit' me if you want to live." He intones sonorously with a fairly good Austrian accent. If that hand is accepted he'll leap for the rafters, sadly, in true Hank luck, the leap is almost perfectly in tune with Gwen's webbing enhanced yank. UP they go, MUCH faster than intended. At least demon-Keiko won't likely have to kill anyone! Though…mmm…maybe Gwen might be in a spot of trouble, what is it with Spiders and Demons?
Before Keiko can do too much to enforce her claim she gets blasted sideways by the worlds largest spritz bottle. "NO! BAD KEIKO!" Koa says as he uses the water that was in that hammer he was controlling to fire hose her into a wall. And every time she tries to move he does it again.
Truth be told Koa had been caught a bit off guard by the sudden tug on his mind but seeing Keiko plant herself like that had shaken him out of it because… wut?!
"Your Highness if we could get a hand here? We'd like that one alive for at least a bit and soaking the crowd might help?" Also soaking Gwen. Or maybe Priscilla can do something about that.
The ringleader isn't going anywhere and only one of her crew has escaped so that part was pretty successful. Unfortunately Hank has just helped Gwen yank himself - and possibly Steve - up to where she can WEB THEM MORE. So that's gonna need to be solved before she decides to make off with her prizes.
Down in the crowd a fight breaks out over Steve's shirt. And his belt. And a small handful of Hank's hair. Why? Well reasons, surely.
"EXCUSE ME, THAT'S MY A - WHAT?!"
An extremely irate Captain Rogers glances over at Hank and reaches for the hand — only for Hank to get a gripful of motorcycle jacket instead. Given it's open, Steve is lifted off the ground for a second or two before combined grabby-hands at his jeans and the jacket's torquing means he slips from it. A thump boot-first back to the stage and back he goes to balancing a careful act of slapping away marauding hands with less than bone-breaking force.
Still, there's Gwen's webbing to take into account, but not in time to spare either grey t-shirt or…belt, apparently. Up into the rafters, Steve is hoisted by it and hangs there, a hand keeping his pants in proper placement while the other is twisted across his body in webbing. He's not quite upside-down, but near enough to it, and again comes a long-suffering sigh as he swings back and forth.
"M'am, this is not what I meant when I said 'stick it to 'em'," he says to Gwen in particular.
"Not a ca--" Keiko starts to growl but finishes in a gurgle as Koa knocks her against a wall. Through all of all it, she doesn't let go of her staff but the wings of the demon appear in full.
Only to be crushed against the wall when Koa hits again. And again. And again…"
It's spluttering, hissing, bedragged, obsidian skinned WAND agent that Koa will have to deal with … when this is done.
VICTORY.
Gwen has her prizes. That's the really important take-away here! A wuick bit of extra webbing for some subdual, just to make sure they don't try to escape. And to make sure Steve's pants don't fall down, either. This wouldn't be a good time for that. "Yay!" she declares, as she stands upside down on the girders, and grins broadly at the two guys from behind her mask. "I win! I win I win I win. I have no idea why this was suddenly so important, wbut it really really was, and I'm sure I'll totally regret this in the morning but we're here now and isn't this great?"
She clasps both hands in front of her chest and the eyes on her mask go all big and doey. "I love you guys."
*BONK!* Hank impacts a girder with his head, and with Gwen pulling hard, and his own prodigious ability to leap, that girder /bends/. Hank's head is mighty hard, but even if he doesn't sustain great injury he does see stars, and that -does- hurt, rather a lot. Which means that Gwen has ample opportunity to web him the heck up, he ends up looking rather miserable as he gets essentially cocooned to the girder, webbing sticking to all his exposed fur and the positioning sufficient that he can't really apply much leverage to free himself.
A look to Steve. "I am so sorry." About the bad grab, he honestly was trying to help! Truly.
Pinned well and truly for the moment, Hank looks up to Gwen. "Spider-Woman, yes, we love you too of course…but…do you think you might do us a favor? We'd be very grateful, that nasty lady down there, I do believe she has designs on your prizes…with my super hearing I am SURE I heard her plotting to steal us away…"
The rest of the crisis as dealt-with as it is going to get, Priscilla sighs and walks to the edge of the stage. She asked the Queen to douse those two; that request apparently fell on deaf or disinterested ears. So be it. Pris exhales, inhales, focuses deeply … and then her eyes flare again, releasing a bow-wave of exhaustion across the crowd. Telempaths are fun! The real fun is that the exhaustion is real … because that is an awful lot of psionic energy, which has to be packed in tightly enough not to miss anyone, and pushed hard enough to reach everyone, across a very large distance.
Which means Pris is very tired. And she's going to sit down now, with her arms still full of the captured crystal. Done now.
One should always listen to the wisdom of strippers. So when Pris back up Koa's request - Koa is the stripper, right - Mera turns her attention from killing the woman to trying to drench the overheated mob members. Particularly the one up in the rafters abducting males. Judging by the webs, it is probably to feed on them.
Though it would be justice to use the water in the lead baddie to spray the others, there is not enough of it. Mera reaches out to the nearby ocean, as well as what is lying around from both her own and Koa's earlier efforts, to form a water wall that smashes through the girders where Gwen and her prey stand, before gravity has it falling on what is left of the mob below. "I am not a 'highness'!" she reminds Koa as she works. "Lady Mera is sufficient."
Priscilla's psychic solution to the Spider Woman problem coincides with Koa appropriating some nearby brine and bringing it over just in case. It doesn't turn out to be necessary as everyone involved is now either drenched or psyched or both. So he just lets his disperse as a fine mist over the area. Everyone SHOULD be right as rain now except for Steve and Hank. And Keiko but he'll deal with her in a moment. He does stop spritzing her with his fire hose of seawater though.
"Hang on to that until SHIELD gets here." He murmurs to Priscilla. "And good job." Really everyone did a good job even if some got sucker punched at the end. Hard to blame them for that.
Sirens are quite close now and Koa steps outside to interface with arriving Police and SHIELD units. "Someone will be up to get you down in a bit." He calls up. Well, Gwen might let them down or someone else might cut them down. But at least they're safe up there right?
Really it's kind of a miracle that there is as it turns out only one fatality and that was one of the attackers. As things wind down most of the crowd either disperses or sits down and waits for medical assistance. Leaving the remaining heroes to mostly sort themselves out. Hopefully at some point, the ones who were here for a concert will actually get to SEE it.
Gwen fliches as she gets drenched. Seriously, danger-sense? Warnings for the amp and the mind control and all that, but not this? What if someone else gets their hands on… on…
"…Sorry," Gwen mumbles as she turns back to Steve and Hank. "Uhh… I think that… mind-control voodoo really kinda got to me there, at least for a…" she trails off. "For long enough for me to attempt to make off with the two of you."
Webbing is much easier to apply than it is to remove. But, for now, at least she can set about lowering the pair of them to the ground. She helps Steve out with that first, since he seems to have gotten the worst of the webbing. "I can help you two out of the bulk of that," she suggests. "MIght… take me a bit. Or, if anyone down there's got anything sharp…" She pauses, as she lowers Steve a little more, "Or you could wait a few hours! Then it'll dissolve on its own!"
Tired as she is, word of incoming authorities and sounds of sirens are enough to get Priscilla moving, if not all that quickly. She isn't being very ninja-like at all as she ambles over to stick the big crystal to the puddle of webbing that is Steve Rogers, and then ambles off out the back and away from said authorities. She still wants a nap. But maybe she can go catch an Uber home and sleep it off in luxury. That would be nice. A Jonesy to cuddle, maybe even a Sarah if she's off shift by now …
It seems everything is back to the usual level of surface dweller insanity, so Mera will take her leave and move on to more important matters. Polite nods to those she knows, before she heads back to where everyone is sane…ish. The redhead quickly making her way back to the ocean before diving in and quickly disappearing.
"I'm just glad you're feeling better, sorry about lying to you like that." Yes, Hank is apologizing for attempting to turn the effects of the compulsion back on the initiator. Such a goober. "As to sharp…there's a leatherman's tool at my belt, which..um..can't really get to, but if you could, that would be great."
He looks down towards the ground, thinking loudly at Pris, he's no Tepe, but he's betting she'll hear him all the same. «Well done, Miss Frost.»
Mera, sadly, he doesn't know personally, instead he offers the closest approximation he can (considering he's stuck to a girder) of a respectful nod.
Keiko and Koa, however, *them* he knows. "Agent Koa, Agent Kurita—thank you." He does look concernedly at the drenched and rather surly looking demon-Keiko. "I, um, hope you're going to be okay…"
He is quite relieved to see Cap lowered towards the ground, he might even recover some of his appropriated garments!
Steve blinks at the extra webbing's application from Gwen, which now has his hand trapped against the button of his jeans for that touch of extra-embarrassing assistance along with being trussed up like a trapped bird.
Again, the long-suffering sigh, followed by, "Thank you, m'am, that was very thoughtf — "
Then follows the thorough drenching from a sudden tidal surge of extremely unnatural height and proportions. The Captain coughs a few times, pfffting water from his lips. "Buck is never going to believe this," he mutters.
Down he's dropped, a crystal stuck to him, and the man stands there with a patient air of composure despite his current circumstances. To the general populace, he asks, "Does anyone see my motorcycle jacket? Like it a bit too much to part with it."