2012-10-02 Getting Bugged

It's a beautiful afternoon in Washington Square. The summer humidity has completely died off, and the autumn crispness hasn't evolved into real cold yet, especially in the early afternoon sunlight.
In the square, a vigorous game of ultimate frisbee is under way, played by shirtless young men (and women in sports bras). Cut to a close up if the frisbee, going long for a hail mary pass... going... going... -SLAP- Swooping into the park are several mutated, humanoid crosses between warrior-women and wasps. Warrior-wasp-women, if you will.
Also, rumbling up from the grass are several ants somewhere between the size of a great dane and small pony. Between each pair of antennae is a continuous, ominous arc of electricity. Frisbee players scatter, and the rest of the folks present get on with the Running and the Screaming.
From across the park, in his art studio overlooking the campus, Professor Aloke Suresh holds a hand up to the student asking him a question. "Call the cops," he says, walking to the studio's balcony, stripping down to his yellow and orange super suit to the applause of his students. "Not on /my/ campus!" And he zooms out over the park to see where he should start blasting.
	Deadpool is staking out the co-ed frisbee game. It'd be ridiculous for him to be on campus- he's very possibly as old as some of the senior professors. And a guy in a death mask and bodysuit stands out.
	So, naturally, Deadpool is front and center in the quad. He's doing it in style- duffel bag, umbrella, folding beach chair. He's swapped out his usual outfit for leggings and a long sleeved athletic shirt under baggy basketball shorts and a jersey. What's visible of his skin is pretty terribly scarred, as if he were badly burned with fire or acid. Still- he's enjoying the show, and the cooler full of 'Free Drinks' is getting him lots of attention from the college girls.
	That is, until the wasps show up. "Aww, c'mon, don't break up the game!" he shouts at no one in particular. Pansies, fleeing in all directions. He takes another long slurp of his mojito and watchs the craziness unfold.
Washington Square Park, one of the most iconic spots in the city. It is a good spot to relax after a few hours dealing with lawyers over some stupid new charter restrictions. So that is what Maxine Maxwell is doing there, parked on a bench, sipping on some unsweet tea and enjoying the frisbee. That's when the insects ruin the people watching. She joins in the general dash for cover, her clothes already ripping off her body as she tries to find a place to change. Eff it! She rushes for the fountain at the middle of the circular cobblestoned area, and dives right in. In moments her clothes are nothing but a memory. She really should have been wearing her suit, but on the lucky side, the black underthings she was wearing amazingly managed to survive the transition to fifteen feet tall. Maybe she should buy more!
Even mercenaries need to stop for food once in a while. For once Domino doesn't have to run like crazy all over the place, kicked back on a park bench with some Chinese food now mostly devoured. Some amount of mental sorting is going on as her time permits, pretty soon it will be back to hunting jobs, people, and anything else she can make a few grand off of. It's an endless pursuit, but one that she's good at.
She's also got a real knack for being in the right place at the right time (or the wrong place at the wrong time,) her afternoon zoning over food interrupted by a peculiar shadow sailing past overhead. "Really..?" she says to no one. "Yesterday it was interdimensional robots, today it's giant, mutated insects. Why the hell did I come back to this part of the planet, again?" With a frustrated sigh she stuffs one more pile of noodles into her mouth then throws the chopsticks back into the carton, barely paying attention as the collective works gets pitched into the nearest garbage. "What this city needs is some hero types, ain't my job to be keeping the streets clean."
The half-dozen members of this bizarre airforce buzz around like mad... well, like mad bees. The women move with incredible speed and grace, and at least two each are charging Deadpool, Domino, and Laser (we list alphabetically here), hands cocked back showing their stingers protruding from the inside of their wrists, dripping with poison. A small army of (really? sigh.) army ants swarms Maxine at the fountain, electrical arcs flashing as they try to shock the giant woman in the pool of water.
Laser becomes a blur of yellow and orange as he twists and turns in his aerial dog fight, beam weapons lashing out to defend himself. Mostly they rake the sky as he tries to be careful, but one scorches the grass right next to Deadpool, coincidentally clipping a wing from one of the warrior-wasp-women dive-bombing him, causing her to crash-land at Deadpool's feet, face first in the grass. She's down, but not out though. Also, who /knows/ where else that laser beam wandered?
	Deadpool screams in agony. He looks down at the path of damage- the scorched earth, the injured bug- and the /drink that is spilled/. Party foul! Epic party foul! "That's it. I am /pissed/." Deadpool gets to his feet and with a casual gesture, stomps on the back of the wasp-woman's neck. He fishes in his backpack and quickly produces an ammo belt and his katanas and straps into them. "All right, let's do this. WHO WANTS TO DANCE?!" Deadpool shouts, brandishing a katana and a KRISS sub-machine gun. One-handed, he starts blasting away, hosing down anything that looks like it has too many legs. Anything that gets too close gets introduced to Mr. Slicey!
	Battleship cries out as she gets zapped by the swarming bugs. She kicks at one, then another before she hops out of the fountain. As her feet slip on the cobbles she backs away from the bugs, trying to asses the best way to pummel them. Kicking seems to work okay, so she dances around trying to avoid them, avoid crushing anything important, like iconic NYC fixtures and not as iconic, but pretty important normal people, while throwing a few kicks with her bare feet. "What the hell! Where did these bugs come from!" She can see that others are there fighting them, maybe they know.
Whoacrap! Bug women incoming! Domino doesn't know they're highly bullet-resistant. Fortunately, they don't know that she's incredibly lucky. With the two sailing for her she doesn't have much time or space to work with. They move quickly going forward, but how quickly can they change direction or back up? Throwing caution into the wind she dives into a forward roll, coming back around with a single pistol filling her hands. Two shots thunder out across the park, the first one barely leaving an impression as it bounces off of toughened chitin. The second bullet doesn't fare any better, except that when it rebounds off of one bee warrior it skips right into the other airborne creature beside it, scoring a critical hit in a very tiny weak spot.
"..Huh." This could be a slight problem if they're armored. Dom can't rely on lucky shots all of the time! What else is there to work with? Well..there's some throwing knives... A few of them are even coated in a high explosive compound. That might leave a lasting impression. Problem is, those stingers might do the same with her! Uh--okay, wait. Who's the really tall chick over by the fountain? A partner in battle, that's who! Time to make a mad dash for the fountain, safety in numbers and really big people!
The wasp-woman under Deadpool's foot crunches with finality, and the other spins as his bullets ricochet off her exoskeleton. Regaining control, she corkscrews to him, planting both stingers in him, gut, and side, before Deadpool's aforementioned katana does its thing.
The ants swarming Maxine seem to run out of juice as their electrical arcs dim. They're also down one in numbers, so the remaining ants rush Maxine with super-strong pincers, any two of them strong enough to pick her up.
The wasp women chasing Domino are thrown completely off, the unhurt one looking back in horror as her partner is plugged from the ricochet off her own armor. She pauses and screams her outrage at Domino's running figure, before changing directions and chasing the pale woman again.
It's not often that Laser comes up against someone as fast and maneuverable as himself, but this pair of wasp women are putting him through his paces. Beams shoot out from the fray, raking the park and many other targets, including Maxine, harmlessly. A faint, "Sorry!" can be heard from the dogfight. Suddenly, the blur of twisting motion explodes in a series of sonic booms as Laser blasts up about 20 feet. One of the women is knocked clean out from the concussion and falls to the torn up grass below, while the other is still getting her bearings back, shaking her head, and trying to find her target. Laser puts his hands together and blasts her with a 4 inch thick, intense beam of light, cutting her in half, but accidentally drifting to Deadpool's spot. The poisoned merc, too groggy to get out of the way, is also struck harmlessly. That is, if by 'harmlessly' we mean, 'arm cleaved from his body to land flapping on the grass, sword still gripped tightly in the fingers'.
	 "Son of a BISCUIT EATING WALRUS!" Deadpool starts hopping around in pain, like a man who's stubbed his toe. "AAARGH. That HURTS!" He doesn't seem slowed down much- he drops a magazine and reloads his firearm with a practiced motion, even one armed. These bullets are armor-piercing. Much more effective than the hollowpoints. "Eat lead!" He targets a few of the other wasps who are buzzing around, hitting them with short, choppy bursts of aimed fire. When one of them gets too close, he lashes out with his feet and kicks her right in the wing nub with a nimble motion. Mr. Rule of Cool shoots her four times in the back of the head, mid-flip, and lands neatly, still laying down fire.
	The miracle fabric in Maxine's bra might have somehow survived the sudden transformation in size (Underwires shooting out like missiles, thank goodness no one was hurt) but getting lasered is definitely not on the warranty! With a burst of steam from her wet body as the laser works across her back, Maxine's bra gives up the ghost. "Yikes!" she claps her left arm to her chest, covering up while still managing to grab one of the bugs biting at her ankle after she yanks her foot up in the air to avoid a nip from another of the beasties. Bug in one hand, boob in the other, she yelps as her other foot gets grabbed on. But then she sees Deadpool getting chopped and stabbed and all sorts of unsavority things and the boobs are forgotten, as is the pain in her ankle. She winds up and throws the big ant at Deadpool's attackers, trying to clear some away before remembering the pain, and the fact that she doesn't want to fall down! She's got a woman underneath her!
Dom can hear that other flying pain in the rear closing in on her. She can keep running but it's not going to end well for her, she's going to have to turn around and face the giant bug. In one motion she jumps, twists about, removes a matte black dagger in her hand with a small helping of high explosives tucked into the skeletonized handle, and gets body-slammed by a ticked off giant bee.
The skirmish is brief but frantic, a stinger cutting the underside of her jaw and a claw tearing through the armor at her side while her blade gets jammed home between the segmented plates behind the bug's neck. With the blade set she tries to kick herself free of the bee before the charge can go off, which gives her all of a few seconds to shove the insect femme back into the air. Simple, right?
With the armor-piercing ammo, and the ant projectile which crashes into someone else, destroying projectile and projectilee, Deadpool is left in a circle of destruction, with a half-pint of poison fighting uselessly against his healing factor, and his ex-arm lying still now in the grass.
Maxine's wardrobe malfunctions not withstanding, she is stomping a swath through the ants, driving them before here, and generally hearing the lamentations of their anty women.
Domino's knife does indeed deliver on the promised pyrotechnics, splattering wasp-woman all over the place, pushed back to a relatively safe distance. Domino's own maneuverability will have to be called into question though. Luckily for her (can you imagine?), the stinger only barely brushed her, leaving her blood burning, and her arms and legs feeling sluggish, but still mobile.
Laser banks around and starts plugging strays now that he has a little distance on the battle, drifting lower as he comes. "Holy shit!" he calls out suddenly, seeing the dismembered man. "Your arm's off! The paramedics should be here any minute!"
	 "You bastard! My arm's off!" Deadpool grabs his severed arm with his remaining hand and jumps into the air right when Laser swoops past and lands on his back, riding him like he's a flying horse. His thick legs wrap tightly around Laser's stomach with a jiujitsu hold, locking him in place. Deadpool promptly starts beating Laser like a red-headed stepchild with his severed arm. "THAT REALLY HURTS!" he screams, bludgeoning the man around his head and shoulders. The ants are temporarily forgotten in the name of vengeance.
Battleship looks down between her legs to catch the last of the scuffle between Domino and the wasp woman. She bends down to grab at the wasp as Domino kicks it away from her, just in time to catch a lot of splatter. Luckily when she's this big she can shrug it off, the explosion that is. The splatter, not so much. "Ugh! I got it in my mouth!" She blechs and wipes at her face, spitting and sputtering, while trying to keep her feet moving to ward off ant bites. She slowly stomps and kicks herself out of ants, and does so without stamping out some Domino-wine in the process. With that done, she slips around on her gooey feet, trying to assess the situation. The sight of DP rodeoing Laser leaves her stumped. She stares at them, then shakes her head, looking for Domino, "Are you okay? And...which one of those two is the good guy?"
Gyauh..! Bug goo! It could have been worse, Domino pulls through in one piece without horrific injury (unlike poor Deadpool over there,) but the explosion made an absolute -mess.- ..She's also feeling kinda worn out. Aw, hell. Yet again her trick works once but works well, and yet again it's not something that she can rely upon as getting run over by a giant bee really..kinda sucks. Best to keep some distance if she can. Two more of those charged blades come out, the monochromed merc standing her ground while looking for another target. Next time she's going to use the blades the right way and -throw- it at the target. "You guys are ruining my lunch hour, what the hell!"
To the question being asked from the big lady above her, Dom's only takes her attention off of the bugs for a second to try and establish eye contact. "I'll be fine! I ..I don't know." That sure looks and sounds like Deadpool, but what the heck is he doing out there, and who's that other guy?
Laser collapses under Deadpool's weight as if Wade were trying to dangle from crepe paper. No beefcake here! Laser is faceplanted into a skidding slide in the grass, which somehow doesn't stain his suit, but does leave his face scraped and nose bloodied. "Oww..." he groans, disoriented, and just working on instinct to try and get out from under his rider. "Wha..."
	 Deadpool is of the mindset that once someone is put down, they should /stay/ put down. He continues to beat Laser until he's satisfied the guy isn't going to get up and give him any trouble. The mercenary jams his severed arm against the stump and holds it there for a few seconds. He spies Domino and the amazonian woman. "Domino! Hey, Dom! What're you doin' here?" he asks, heading her way. He lifts his partially attached arm and flops it at her in a waving motion. "And who's the giant?"
	Battleship winces at the beatdown delivered to Laser while she decides whether or not to interfere. The goop from the wasp-woman runs over her wet body as she carefully steps away from Domino, looking a bit more comfortable once she doesn't have someone under foot. "So was the guy with the lasers controlling these insects?" She hoped so, as it would eliminate any guilt about the armed battery that DP just laid down.
"Wish I knew," Dom admits to Battleship's question. "If he is, I'd like to have a few words with the guy, too." She turns to look at Deadpool when he calls out her name then promptly suppresses a shudder at his limp-armed wave. "I -was- having lunch," she calls back. At least the trench kept most of the goo off of her. The hair's going to be a bit of a problem. Err--who's the big lady? That's a good question! Looking back to Battleship with an impish grin, she says "That's a good question, hi! I'm Domino."
Laser coughs once Deadpool is done with the elbow grease, hauls himself to hands and knees and opens his mouth to let a wad of grass and dirt fall out. Looks like all his teeth survived, at least! He blinks, staggers to his feet and looks around, finally focusing (ish) on the group by the fountain. He squints down on one eye, trying to get either of them to focus and takes a wobbly step toward the group. "Did we win?"
	 "Yup, no thanks to you. My arm was off!" Deadpool says accusingly. He points his (newly) restored arm at Laser, the sleeve of the uniform clearly ruined and revealing the wreck of scar tissue that is Deadpool's skin. "But yes. We won." He checks his magazine in his SMG and with a clicker-clack, reloads and straps it to his bandolier. "Mostly because of me. You're /welcome/."
Battleship keeps an arm across her chest as she is greeted, "Um. Hi. I'm Battleship. Normally out of Metropolis. Normally appearing with a costume." She waves the arm not busy keeping everything covered up. She continues to be dripping wet, though long out of the fountain by this point. She nods to Domino, "Domino I take it?" Right about then, the fabric of her undies starts to rip in the back. The hand not busy with her top flies to her bottom. "Um. I would love to stick around, help with the cleanup, chat and all that...but I feel my modesty calling!" That said, she starts backing away, pausing to snag her shredded clothing from the fountain. Once she's cleared some distance, she turns and starts jogging. This would really be one of the times where flying would come in handy, or teleportation. But she can cover ground pretty fast at this size at least.
Well, that was ..enlightening! "Nice to meet you..!" Dom calls back to the retreating giant woman. (Man, glad I don't have that kind of ability. Looks like a pain!) Now it's down to her and the other merc, and whoever he beat down into the dirt. "You healing alright there, Wade? What's up with the light show over there?" Ugh... Whew. "Not sure what they put in the food around here, but I'm feeling real tired."
Laser looks confusedly between everyone, and his eyes go wide as the giant woman runs away. Unsteady, he flies for home.
	 "You got stung." Deadpool moves towards Domino, putting a hand on her jaw to tilt her head back. "Bad, too. That stinger's gotta come out or you're gonna be in a world of hurt." Wade, ignoring the fact he's still got two stingers in his ribs and his arm only just healed. He flicks a wrist and produces a razor-edged knife. "Hold still, my arm's a bit shaky still," he informs the merc.
Wait, what? "Aah..." Dom starts to protest, suddenly sounding quite nervous. Wade just lost his ARM and he wants to play doctor with a --frack! That's a knife. "Easy there, buddy... I'll be fine, I--don't heal like you do!" While she can pretty well trust Deadpool to put the sharp, pointy implements into the bad guys, she's not so sure about this one!
	 "Don't worry, I am doctor," Wade says with a heavy Russian accent. "I know what I doing. Now, hold still while I do surgery on you." Wade flicks the blade with a precise motion and deftly cuts away the piece of skin that's holding the sharp barbs in place. Once done, he pops the stinger out and holds it up for Domino to see. It's a nasty little spike, and a green blob of poison runs down the stinger when he squeezes it.
"Not sure this is the time for humor," Dom quickly replies. At least she's holding still now, but her eyes are a little on the wide side. Adrenaline should cut down on the worst of the pain but with some of the poison already in her system it causes the fresh wound to burn a tad more than expected, drawing a hiss of breath from her as you remove the offending piece of bug. "Damn," she mutters in a sharp tone, quickly applying pressure to the wound. Being able to see the stinger helps, not that she expected you were lying about it. "Thanks... Might wanna check yourself out next, you look like hell warmed over."
	 "Eh." Deadpool rips out the stingers with a grunt and tosses them aside. "It was just my arm off. I've had worse. Come on, you pansy, let's get out of here." Deadpool finds his spare katana and re-sheathes it, then grabs his duffel bag as well. He leaves his umbrella and chair behind for someone to steal. "Freaking bugs. I was /enjoying/ my day off, you know?" he complains to no one in particular, falling into step next to Domino.
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