2013-02-02 YAL: Wild Dogs: Part 3

Twenty minutes ago, a live news segment began. Nothing big, just a piece about a statue being defaced in a park. Fifteen minutes ago, the feed was interrupted when a few young men clad in red and black stormed into the shot and started attacking anyone in sight that didn't fit their ideal of 'a real, pure american'. The Watchdogs. Or at least what was left of them cell that had been behind the kidnapping of the Mayor. And they had one simple demand.
'We want those dirty little freaks calling themselves the Young Allies'.
Now, Axiom is crouching in a tree. In costume, he's waiting. The moment he saw the news report he sent out a message to the team that there was trouble and they were needed. Gathered around the heavily defaced statue, are about two dozen Watchdogs. They've got a few hotages, mostly news crew and bystanders and one of them is ranting and raving at the camera. Typical hyper-right wing bigoted stuff.
Wiccan has missed pretty much all of the fun with the Watchdogs, thank you little brothers and the killer mutant death flu from space. He has been demanding routine updates on all the bits with them from Axiom via text, between sleeping and feeling like he was about to rise as a zombie so at least knows all the team does about them. Now fully, almost, nearly, healed or at least not sick enough to be forced into staying home he has answered the call to action.
Instead of a normal flashy appearance Wiccan has teleported himself onto the top of nearby building, and is in the middle of trying out something new he has been working on. "whispersonthewind,Iwanttocommunicate,Iwanttocommunicate,Iwanttocommunicate." After a second there is a slight breeze and any member of the Young Allies anywhere nearby can hear Wiccan's voice as if he is whispering to them nearby. "Testing, testing? This is Wiccan, and if this worked for the next ten to fifteen minutes we should all be able to hear what each other says. I am on a roof nearby, can anyone hear me?"
|"I'm on the ground; between us,"| Xavin thoughtfully whispers, |"we could incapacitate several of them before they knew we were on them--as long as one of us kept the hostages covered."|
The Skrull is crouched invisibly in the bushes, still save for shallow breath and the bare movement of her lips as she watches the bigots. |"Fewer guns to deal with than the direct approach,"| she quietly adds. |"Sadly little difference otherwise, as far as I can tell; these hostages are, I'm assuming, /quite/ helpless."| The last bit is related with a touch of distaste.
Axiom jumps at the sudden whispering, looking around quickly. It takes him a moment to register that it's just Wiccan's magic at play. "Axiom here. I'm um...in a tree," he says, wincing at the awkwardness of the statement. He listens in to what is said and then bites his lip. "Do you think you c-can put a forcefield around them, Xavin? If you can shield them long enough, I can get over there and get them out of the way while the Watchdogs are d-d-distracted."
Wiccan takes a moment to look at the hostage takers form his vantage point through a pair of binoculars. "I can provide a nice showy distraction, or get up a quick barrier between the hostages and the villians but not sure I could do both right now." While his voice sounds mostly normal it is a bit horse and more whisper like than eityher Axiom's or Xavin's through the magic.
|"They would be vul--"| Xavin begins to protest before pausing to chew on her bottom lip and let her training bubble up to the surface. They'll need to be precise - as soon as she opens the field to let Eddie and the hostages through, they could very well have the Watchdogs' guns to contend with - but that's no reason to shy away from the challenge.
|"It will be a dome,"| she murmurs as she narrows her eyes, presses fingers to her temple, and shapes raw cosmic radiation into a solid shell of invisible energy around the hostages, |"three feet out from the hostages; you'll perhaps want to feel around for it. I will give you an opening when you're in position; I'll try to cover you and the hostages once you're all clear."| After a slow exhale, the fingers pressed to her temple relax some.
|"We are live; Wiccan?"|
"Don't worry. I c-can copy you once I'm in m-motion," Axiom offers, all faith and confidence. "I know you c-c-can pull it off," he adds. There's a quick pause, Eddie making a mental note to worry at Billy later. "Go get 'em, Wiccan," Axiom chimes.
The Watchdogs seem a little on edge, a couple patrolling around in a circle while others stand guard. One fumbles with the camera, not realizing they're not actually on air even if its being reecorded. The hostages meanwhile look a mix of scared and angry. A few are roughed up but nothing too bad. People might notice the smashed remains of cell phones on the ground around them though.
Wiccan's eyes flicker with electric light as he hears the plan forming and starts to set his mind to what needs to be done. "I am live, and ready, and these guys are really going to hate me..." He says the last as he starts to lift off form the top of the building chanting. "Ineedadistraction, Ineedadistraction, Ineedadistraction!" As the spell goes off there is a slight build up of static electricity in the area near the Watch Dogs and a slight vibration in the ground.
There is a second where nothing happens and then, a thirty foot tall blond girl is standing in front of the bad guys wearing a T-shirt that reads 'Look At Me!' on the front and 'A Distraction!' on the back. Of course she is not alone as suddenly the park is filled with baring techno music and a thick crowd of dancing teenagers. Well, mostly dancing. Some are making out, almost all of them are male, and with the exception of a number that look like known alien species, a few species from old SciFi TV shows, and a few obvious mutants the vast majority of them are copies of maybe a half a dozen different teenagers. Distraction in place Wiccan has to take a second to catch his breath before diving at the Watch Dogs getting ready to jump into a fight to keep them busy while the hostages get safe.
When actual(and fictional) /aliens/ begin popping up among Wiccan's holographic rave, Xavin /almost/ turns her attention from the hostages to create a force-field in the brain of a cutoff shorts wearing Khund, but--he's not /real/; once she reminds herself of that a few times - and lets out a brisk, calming breath - she's able to refocus on keeping an eye out for Eddie's movements. As soon as her teammate is in position, she'll hold up her end of things by creating an opening in the field for he and the hostages to run through.
And /then/, once those poor, un-hardened humans are out of the firing line, she'll move on to extracting a little vengeance on their behalf.
"What the fu-" The first Watchdog to see the giant girl opens fire on her. This draws the attention of the others in time to be engulfed in the techno-rave fun pit. Curses and confusion abound from the Watchdogs as they swing and shoot at the holograms. Hostages meanwhile just look scared and confused.
"Here I go," Axiom calls, leaping from his perch and using one of the Watchdogs as a landing pad while he sprints for the hostages. He feels around the forcefield until he finds the opening and slips inside. Eyes glow blue as the meta-that-thinks-he's-a-mutant applies his boosting powers to Xavin. He can't see his teammate but he knows she's there and that's all he needs. Once the boost settles in, Axiom mimicks those powers...mostly so he can have access to the forcefield powers. "I've g-g-got 'em. You can drop the field and take 'em down, guys," he calls, ready to put a field around the hostages and lead them to safety as soon as Xavin's forcefield drops. The Watchdogs have yet to notice they've lost their human shields. The first few will be easy pickings for the young heroes.
Wiccan alas does not know that Xavin is an alien, he might have limited himself to things like Romulens, and Klingons making out with Minbari if he knew that actual enemies of her people like the Khund in cutoffs or a teenaged blue Kree in skinny jeans might make her uncomfortable. Of course all of that should make most people uncomfortable, thats part of the reason it is in there to mess with the hate filled morons.
As the giant girl with the shirt that declares exactly what she is gets fired at she proves to be unaffected by flying lead. She does however open her mouth and let out the same howling screech used by the movie monster Godzilla. As Axiom says that he has the hostages Wiccan grins and starts the second wave of the attack, coming in out of the sky from the direction opposite of where the giant girl was he starts hurling lightning bolts. Keeping up the illusions, flight, and lightning is a little much for Wiccan in his current shape though, so most of the illusions are starting to turn a bit see through and will be vanishing soon...but not quite yet.
"Aah--" Xavin exhales as the increasingly familiar rush of Eddie's power alloying her own surges through her veins. The foliage around her shudders ever so slightly as raw, unformed energy briefly presses at them--until she's able to draw that impromptu field back into herself and keep it under control while Eddie works.
As soon as the boy announces that he's done, Xavin - who by that point is clenching her jaw and trying to ignore the beads of sweat popping up across her brow - loudly exhales, brings slightly trembling hands together in front of herself, then yanks them apart. The invisible field around the hostages doesn't just fall, then: it /explodes/ into a shockwave that should - unless they're tougher than she's giving them credit for - bowl the Watchdogs who were closest to the hostages right over, flattening grass and sending loose foliage flying in the process.
Godzilla roars only add to the confusion and bring about a whole slew of racist slurs from a few of the Watchdogs as four of them start shooting at the giant girl. It's then that one of the Watchdogs notices Axiom herding hostages away. Before he can yell, Wiccan's lightning strikes and sends the man sprawling. Then sudden barrier explosion sends others tumbling onto their faces and rears.
"It's the cape-freaks! Kill 'em!" the Watchdog acting as leader orders, the armed mercs starting to shoot at Xavin and Wiccan now that the illusions are fading.
Wiccan goes into something of a barrel roll as the force field that Xavin had up explodes outwards, looking as if he was buffeted by winds from it. The teen mage is not annoyed by the winds at all though, since they knock him out of the way of a stream of incoming bullets from one of the Watchdogs. That member of the bag guy group that is acting as leader gets a nice large target painted on his back in Wiccan's mind as he starts yelling to kill them. As the illusions fade away revealing only the bad guys on the ground Wiccan starts targeting the leader and those around him with lightning bolts while flying in a manner that is as difficult to follow as possible to avoid getting shot.
When the bullets start flying, Xavin thrusts her right palm forward, and the bushes around her are shoved aside by the shield that accordingly forms just in front of her hand. Maybe fifty percent of her body - her head and shoulders, that extended arm, a leg - is visible behind it, while the rest of her flickers between there and not.
"Yes," she coolly 'encourages' the Watchdogs as bullets are seemingly turned aside by the very air around her, "kill us. Please." To punctuate her taunt, she curls both hands into a 'guns', points at two of the men shooting her, and 'fires'. one after the other; unsurprisingly, there's no smoke, no bang, none of the obvious trappings of firing a gun.
Just a pair of golfball-sized forcefields hurtling at either bigot's head with enough force to knock them unconscious. Dodging the projectiles themselves might be tough - since actually /seeing/ them isn't much of an option - but the way the Skrull arrogantly telegraphs them might give the 'dogs a fighting chance.
That leader's still being filmed by a very nervous thug as he starts taking pot shots at Wiccan with his hand gun. He ends up yelling out as one of Wiccan's bolts strikes its target. The camera-dog yelps as he goes down soon after, camera tumbling to the ground.
The Watchdogs aren't the smartest bigots in the bunch. They seeem to be under the impression that shooting at Xavin enough will break that forcefield. The return fire finds its target too, two Watchdogs yelling out as the projectiles strike. Goggles shatter and a helmet dents as the men go down. Two others take out knives and rush Xavin.
Wiccan does not quite telegraph his attacks as much as Xavin, but since he is tossing lightning bolts at the villians instead of invisible balls of force so it is easier to see them comming...even if they move a lot faster. As the leader of the group, and his personal camera person, go down Wiccan drops out of the air right where they were in the middle of the bad guys where he has opened up a big enough sized space. While dropping unarmed in the middle of agroup of armed and angery men is usually a good way to get shot up from all sides, Wiccan has a plan. "Lightning,Lightning,Lighting!" He calls out before gesturing with his hands and sending a virtual wave of electricity out from himself to take out any Watchdogs near by.
When the knives come out, Xavin's eyes dart around the fray to quickly take stock of the remaining combatants; once she's satisfied, she flicks her wrist and sends the shield rushing out from herself to knock one of the knife wielders over, and then the parts of her that are hidden from the world rather abruptly snap back into view.
There's one in particular that other charging 'dog might want to keep an eye on, though: her fist, as it stretches impossibly across the distance to slam right into his helmet.
"Keep them off-balance!" she encourages Wiccan. "Keep their ridiculous propaganda from spreading any further!"
Watchdogs try to dive out of the way of bolts of lightning but they learn the hard way that electricity is faster than them. Cries of pain and anger are drowned out by the sound of the lightning. When Wiccan lands, one of the 'dogs stumbles back. He lifts his weapon in time to be blasted with that wave along with others. Watchdogs are sent sprawling, several out of the fight completely. One that escaped the blast starts to move up behind Wiccan with a knife only to let out a comically pained noise as a bench is tossed at him. "Got him!" Axiom calls out as he returns to the battle after getting the hostages to safety.
Invisible forcefields continue to prove superior to the Watchdogs' arsenal. The man with the knife goes tumbling head over heels and his knife even breaks. The other lunges at Xavin and just ends up getting a fist to the face. His helmet gets knocked clear off as Xavin scores another point for the heroes. With that man down, only seven Watchdogs remain standing.
Wiccan hears Xavin and shakes his head. He has a much better idea, one that would probably only work on Earth. With a nice wide space around himself cleared of bad guys thanks to his 360 degree electric blast he picks up the dropped camera one of the WatchDogs was using and chants, "Iwantthisrecorded, Iwantthisrecorded, Iwantthisrecorded!" before letting it go and having it...float in air and then around hte area to catch everything on film.
Wiccan dodges to the side guessing that being still that long was enough time for someone to get draw a bead on him and possibly open fire soon. He quickly runs not from an attacker, but at one aiming to use some fo the fighting moves Thor has taught him to take down the armed gunman before hitting him with a tazer like electric touch. "Let them speak, everyone has a right to that in America. But they are a bunch of adults, with handguns, getting taken down by a few of teenagers. Back in the thirties one of the biggest scariest groups in America was the Klan, like these guys they spouted nothing but hate but back then people feared them, even the people that they claimed to be there to protect and elevate. You know what broke them? What showed them for the bunch of pointless losers they are? Not heroes, not police or politicians, a childrens show that broadcast all their secret codes and showing everyone how pathetic and laughable they were. Still are. Forget stopping their propaganda, let the world see how pathetic they are for wanting to hurt people with guns instead of learning what it means to be adults."
The man that gets taken out by a bench before he can knife down Wiccan does not even get noticed, at least not by Wiccan. Who knows, if and when the video gets out it might help some with the whole mutant hate thing. Then again, Wiccan's speach ending up on the evening news might make the teen blush till he bursts into flames.
About halfway through the second iteration of that chant, Xavin finally realizes what it is his teammate is trying to do, prompting her to throw her undistended hand forward and shout, "Wiccan, wait--!" just in time for the camera to levitate before her widening eyes.
Rather than sulk about possible exposure, the soldier heaves a put-upon sigh, momentarily massages her still somewhat elastic left arm as it settles back into place, then sucks in another breath and bursts into actual flame.
No embarassment here, though--at least not for her; the Watchdogs, on the other hand, might be a different story. Especially once she takes to the air to strafe the area around remaining thugs with fireballs, more to convince them to flee than anything; setting anyone - even criminals - on fire might not play too well with Wiccan's message.
And now there's a magic camera. Axiom gives the camera a look before blushing furiously and focusing on the battle instead. He uses a barrier to block a knife slashing his way and follows it up by throwing a hard punch at the Watchdog.
Wiccan's entire speech is recorded along with the fight. His Thor-taught fighting moves prove more effective than a weekend of being yelled at by a guy that watched too many war movies and the Watchdog twitches with the excess electricity as the taser punch takes him down. Xavin's fiery assault helps to contain the remaining five Watchdogs to a tight circle. One of them raises his hands to surrender only to be smacked in the face with the butt of one of his fellow 'dog's rifles. Four left. Axiom glances up and smiles. "Last ones. You r-ready to give up now?" Axiom asks of the Watchdogs. He gets gunfire as an answer, defending himself with a forcefield. The Watchdogs are determined to fight to the end it seems.
Wiccan is getting the fight on film, not for an instant thinking that Xavin might have a good reason to stay hidden. Although, if she says something to him by the time someone takes the camera away at the end of the fight he can make sure she is protected by the same kind of magic that keeps people who he or someone that knows has not told his identity too from recognizing him despite his total lack of mask. Of course the use of three of the 4 powers of the Fantastic Four has not even triggered a taught in Wiccan's head yet. It's still full of making a mockery of the Watchdogs. As one of them opens fires on axiom Wiccan almost growls, "No. More. Guns. For you!" Reaching out a hand that glows for a second with mystic energy he turns the gun fired at Axiom, and anymore near it into a bunch of pink orchids.
By the time the Watchdogs are contained, the immediate vicinity is a scorched mess; even without Axiom's boosting, Xavin would be hard-pressed to avoid causing /some/ lingering damage to the area by throwing fire around, but from her current vantage, she can make out a criss-crossing web of ragged, black scars cutting across the grass and bordering the deeply scorched ring around the Watchdogs themselves.
It's enough to make her linger in mid-air and briefly admire her handiwork before she points her index finger down at the men lucky enough to keep his gun and fires a narrow jet of fire at it; if having a bunch of firearms transformed into flowers is somehow not embarassing enough, fumbling and dropping one might just be the last straw needed.
Three guns go up in flowers leaving flustered and embarrassed Watchdogs. The last remaining weapon is pointed Wiccan's way only to end up dropped, the man holding it shaking his hands quickly and complaining about the metal being too hot. The men look at one another and start reaching for their knives. They don't even unsheathe the weapons all the way before an invisible field smacks the four of them down to the scorched ground. For a few moments, there's little noise except for the pained groans of a few of the Watchdogs. Then there's cheering a few people that had been watching in the distance cheering for the three Young Allies.
Along with the cheers, the sounds of police sirens getting closer can be heard. A few uniformed officers can be seen approaching from the same direction as the crowd, having just arrived.
Wiccan's eyes glow bright for a second as the men reach for their knives and then get smacked down. With a bright grin he throws a thumbs up at Axiom and reaches up to pluck the magiced camera out of the air. Dont want that to fall when the magic runs out, could hurt someone. With hostages free, watchdogs leashed, and his big giant embarrassing speech recorded for posterity Wiccan floats over too stand next to Axiom instead of walking. With sirens coming Wiccan leans in an a little hoarse says, "Can I get a small boost Axiom?" He asks before nodding in the direction of the burnt and broken bits of the park. If he gets the boost he will take a deep breath and chant until everything is put back where it belongs, "Fixtehpark,Fixthepark,Fixthepark!" Say this for the Young Allies, they may be barley trained kids and as undisciplined a group as there is but they at least clean up their messes.
The cheering does a little to wash the anxiety of dealing with cameras away, but Xavin still makes a bee-line towards Earth once the last 'dogs are down for good; as soon as she's on the ground, she looks left, looks right, finds nothing but burned or rent foliage nearby, and settles for just winking out of view with another annoyed sigh.
|"Good job,"| she whispers, her words carried on the wind to her teammates' ears. |"Not that they stood much of a chance; some soldiers /they/ were."|
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