2012-08-16 Sewer Monkey Terrorists

While Kyle doesn't have nearly enough to even consider getting a place to stay in the Village, he does tend to enjoy the nightlife. He has to be trendy, after all, he's an artist. A starving one, even. He has, however, muscled up the funds to buy a cup of overpriced coffee to accomapny him down the path he takes across the sidewalk. A paper pad is held in hand, the man scratching lines across it, scribbling things down, not paying attention in the least save when he needs a drink. He's quite a menace to passers by, nearly bumping into several of them, offering quick appologies as he does.
In the dark places--a park, a loading dock, an alley--a small group of beings are assembling their gear. Is it really fair to call them human at this point, given what they're about to do? The cackling that drifts out of the shadows is akin to the laughter of a hyena. As night falls, the dark spreads, and they start to move. Some skitter, some glide, others--ponderous things--lurk.
The first hint that something isn't quite right is a low hum. It could simply be an air conditioner running, but it intensifies until patrons at cafes and passers-by on the streets pause to confer with one another with glances and frowns. The rising murmur doesn't seem to have one source, as though the entire neighbourhood is being stalked by a vast swarm of invisible bees.
Anya is at an age where it's time to start thinking about college. Not that she has the slightest idea of how she'd even begin to afford it, or what she'd choose to study, but... it's What One Does. So, she'd already been in the neighborhood when the first hints of Something Amiss became clear. She may not have a Spider Sense, but she has common sense, and she's quick to scramble her way up a fire escape so she can pull her costume on. Something tells her it's about to become way more necessary than her NYU brochures.
In darkest night! Or, dim and mild evening. Either one requires a Green Lantern. Not that Kyle knows the name, nor the oath, but he's a good samaritan nonetheless. His head slowly tilts upward, searching for the noise as it becomes clearer, one last sip from his cup before it's cast aside into a trashcan nearby. He checks his sights, looking for convenient places to duck into, and keeps alert for now.
When the first possible cause appears, it's almost a relief to the citizens, but only for a moment. A dark figure rides a brilliant disk straight down the street, sending cars swerving and pedestrians scrambling. The wind of its passing is fierce and fouled with something--sulphurous.
"HU-MANS..." the figure cackles, mocking. The voice is anything but human, high and tremulous. With that, the disk goes dark and the only thing left is the hum growing louder.
That doesn't sound good, either. Anya pulls up her mask to complete her transformation and goes looking for higher ground, hitching her backpack tighter to her shoulders before she starts climbing. This isn't the best neighborhood for it, but she needs a clearer look at the street, and pronto.
Well, this isn't good. Kyle does the same trick Anya does, if probably a bit faster. Out of sight, and then a burst of green light floods over the immediate area. Getting suited out is easy, when you can do it with a thought. Out he comes, riding on his own disk of vivid color in the direction of the figure racing down the street. To it he cries out: "Here I am!"
Citizens draw together in clusters, some hurry indoors, others curse at the sky. Still more babble frantically into their cellphones. Sirens rise in the distance. Then, there's a terrible crack and pop somewhere toward the far end of the block, the flare of sparks as a transformer goes out and leaves everyone in the dark.
Creatures lope out of the alleys, knocking over citizens, shattering windows, pounding cars. They move like hunch-backed apes but their forms are outlined by luminous stripes like tigers. One stops on the roof of a car of howls--the light of another disk sweeping through reveals a horrorshow of a face, like a mad baboon.
The view from above is dire. More than half a dozen of the ground creatures, at least that many flying disks ridden by lithe black figures that now carry glowing rods in each hand that they use to raise small explosions from every building or lamp post they strike, and then two larger things coming. The glow of the fires that fuel their rise illuminates arched blades of wings, massive clawed arms, three-toed feet from which the fire erupts. Their heads are heavy and strange, almost elephantine, and set with deep, glowing eyes. Those are the source of the hum.
The figure that Kyle pursues lights up again and turns back toward him with a piercing siren scream that rivals a jet engine's yowl and it shakes out its glowing weapons. "HEEE-ROOO," it mocks.
For a moment, Spider-Girl indulges herself and just... stares. The heck is this? Then, she gives her head a shake, and re-engages her brain. Okay. She's not the only hero here -- obviously, thanks yowly guy -- so she can focus on whatever he doesn't. Good. She bites her lip, bounces on her toes, and then takes a running leap off of her roof, launching a pair of weblines towards the two massive, elephantine heads she can make out in the glow. If they hit, a sharp yank will bring her closer a fair bit faster, and maybe even throw them off-balance.
"Quiet down!" Spider-Girl bellows. "You're violatin' city noise ordinances, like, all /over/ the place!"
Well, Green Lantern didn't really expect an entire invasion force. Even a small one. He's taken aback for a second, doesn't get his quip back until its unfashionably late. "Yeah, that's me. Cease and desist, and whatever." Not that he even gives them a chance. The man reaches down, snagging the disk that's floating under him, lifting it up. Apparently he doesn't need it to float. He does need it, however, for frisbee. It's flung in a sharp arc, expanding as it goes, flying toward the mess of robed figures and their glowy sticks.
He spots Spider-Girl in the process, eyes flicking up, a short cant of his head before he seems to decide that she's probably not with them. Whew!
The chaos unfolds on the ground as the citizens, in their way, become their own worst enemies, fighting to get into shops for safety, knocking each other down into the broken glass or into the streets. The average New Yorker in -those- neighbourhoods may be well-equipped for coping with disaster but a place where coffee costs this much? It's mass hysteria from one end to the other. The baboon things cackle with glee, tearing at people's clothing, shattering more glass.
Spider-Girl's webbing hits one of the two flying creatures squarely in the face, giving her the anchor she needs to swing outward. However, it sweeps an arm awkwardly--not to brush the web aside but to aim--and fires something black, heavy, and fast down the path of the web.
Green Lantern's weapon cuts through the disk riders, knocking them in all directions. Three lose control, their disks shooting off into the night before going dark, and fall. Two hit the pavement, one crashes through an awning. Their shrieks of pain are deafening--oddly, they seem to be howling through something on their chests.
The other flying beast begins its descent into the worst of the panic. In the lights of the remaining disk riders sweeping around it, it looks like something grown in the sewers--hulking, clumsy, shiny, and definitely angry. A swat of its arm crushes a minivan.
Even though Spider-Girl releases her web when she sees the black /thing/ coming, momentum is not on her side. She catches the blob of goop square in the chest and lets out a startled yelp as her /highly cunning scheme/ is so thoroughly derailed, leaving her careening towards the flying creature far less gracefully. With a chorus of "Ew!"s as she goes, she makes a grab for something that does /not/ look like a blade to try and keep herself from sailing past without doing any real good. She and the Green Guy over there need to get these things down before the good people of New York go /completely/ bonkers.
"You ever see Tron!?" Green Latern shouts at his scattered foes, "You know about disc battle!?" Another frisbee is tossed off for good measure at the scattered figures, a whirling hoop of green that poofs out of existance once it gets out of sight and out of mind. There are other things to worry about, after all. "Hey!" This he shouts toward the girl tumbling through the air. "Can you get those things?" He's not touching those flying guys, nope. Attention goes back to the creatures still rampaging on the ground, and he sets to straightening those out. With a snow plow. It just sort of pops into existance, big and green, zooming down to attempt to scoop up as many roving critters as he can.
A young man who's seen too many action movies picks up a broken No Parking sign and--with a roar that's the New York version of "THIS IS SPARTAAAA"--whallops one of the baboon things upside the head as it goes after his girlfriend. It impacts with a cartoonish noise, knocking the baboon thing sideways and vibrating so hard the wielder drops it with a yelp. The baboon thing rolls around on the ground, kicking and hooting, clutching its head in pain. The success emboldens a heavy-set, balding man who grabs a cafe chair to use as a weapon.
Spider-Girl manages to get hold of the beast's knee, just high enough to keep her feet out of the flaming rush that's keeping this thing airborne. Similar heat pours from its back like a fiery cape. Spider-Girl is stuck to this thing with the sticky junk it spewed at her. It's as unpleasant as it sounds, worse when the thing's skin rips in her hands with a noise like parting duct tape. However, the tear reveals not flesh or bone but metal--hydraulics.
Green Lantern's plow move spurs the citizens to more action. The balding fellow knocks a baboon into the path of the plow with his chair. A woman cowering in her car pulls the classic move of popping her door open just as one of the disk riders screams past, dumping him into the street for easy pickup as well. One of the baboons escapes the plow, only to be decapitated by a lamp post. Its head goes bouncing across the street but it stands up nonetheless, staggering around. Only when it bobbles right back in front of the glowing plow is its perfectly human--perfectly stunned--head revealed between its built-up shoulders.
Spider-Girl is used to being stuck to things. It's just usually on purpose. She pauses, however, when the 'skin' crumples in her hands, blinking once, and then lets out a triumphant laugh. "They just got lost on the way to Burning Man!" she calls towards Green Lantern, developing a rather wicked smile as she plunges a fist into the mass of hydraulics so that she can grab a handful, and yank. "This looks important!"
Sure, she's probably about to drop out of the sky glued to a big metal rock, but Spider-Girl is fairly certain that it is /totally worth it/. And maybe if she's lucky, she can get a webline off towards the other flying jerk and give a good, sharp yank.
"Woo!" Green Lantern even cheers when citizens start taking things into their own hands. There's even a little bit of fist-pumping. The fist he's not pointing at his construct, which is happily careening down the street, only grinding to a halt when it slams the collected mess of creatures into a wall. It remains there while he surveys the street for signs of further threat, and turns gaze to the sky to check on Spider-Girl's progress after.
The piece that Anya pulled was, in fact, important. The controls to the thing's right foot fail, the fire goes out... with predictable results. Whatever this machine is, it's now an immensely heavy, sparking, flaming Catherine Wheel. The skin to which Anya's stuck tears away and she's thrown free as the monster careens around the sky.
The other thing, rampaging away down on the ground, is the focus of the wrath of a New York city delivery truck driver. He's got insurance and air bags. Ain't no sewer monkey terrorists gonna get away with this on his watch! He floors it into the back of the mechanical beast, rocking it hard enough that it starts to take off again... possibly involuntarily.
At the moment, Green Lantern is doing these yahoos a favour because they're pinned up against a wall in the middle of a bunch of angry New Yorkers who have been, en masse, separated from their precious, precious coffee. However, there are two remaining disk flyers--they started to go after Anya but even they aren't stupid enough to try and stop that disaster in progress. Green Lantern is their target instead and they bullrush him, crackling stun rods held out like spears.
Spider-Girl lets out a yelp when she's flung away from the out-of-control beastie, struggling to get her bearings /right quick/ so she can get a line off and avoid a very painful landing. But hey. She has chest armor now, kind of, so that's... that's cool.
Once she's safely back on the ground and /not stuck to it/, Spider-Girl starts sprinting up the street, towards Green Lantern and in pursuit of the flyers chasing him. It's awkward with the goop and the metal stuck to her, but noone ever said this was a glamorous job, and at least her backpack has escaped the worst of it. So far. She bounds up the front of a car to get a little more height before she dives towards one of the flyers, trying to grab onto one of the discs themselves. Gimme dat.
Green Lantern isn't exactly prepared to joust. He was paying attention to the creatures he's got captive, mashing them against the wall a few times for good measure. Unfortunately, citizens will have to deal with them now. When he gets clipped by the baton of the flyer that Spider-Girl didn't grab he spins in place, a hiss escaping from the man. The field around him disperses the worst of it, but he doesn't seem to have enjoyed it. As a reward the remaining man on the disk gets a green jousting spear swept in his direction in attempt to knock him from his sweet, circular ride.
The noises of the baboons and disk riders now sound distorted and tinny, their chest-projectors damaged and batteries running low. It's just as well, they're all screaming because they're being set upon by furious citizens. One attempts to surrender, wrenching off his helmet, only to get a fire extinguisher blast in the face from someone's Nana who was helping out in the back of the cafe. Nana is -ticked-, she doesn't even have to speak English for that to come across.
Spider-Girl manages to yoink the disk handily and the rider falls with a shriek, landing in a... no, the dumpster is -closed-. The sound of the impact is that of a badly-tuned gong being struck in the distance. Suddenly, Spider-Girl has a really cool hoverboard in her sticky little hands.
The less-than-lethal stun rods that smack Green Lantern have been jacked up to the point that they might actually have been lethal except for his shielding. The rider is whooping with success, spewing noise and nonsense, when the spear catches him between the legs and flips him right off onto the roof of an apartment building. The stoners there were enjoying the show and rouse themselves enough to take part by pelting the rider with empty beer cans.
There's about to be a big fireworks show. The two mechanical monsters are on a clumsy, fiery collision course above the neighborhood. Whoever's driving these... a dark object falls from each and lands in the streets below... no one's driving them now...
If only she wasn't covered in stickygoop, Spider-Girl would try to get on top of the thing. With her luck, she'd just get stuck to the side of the disk, so she settles for throwing her weight to one side to see if she can't steer the thing in a vaguely ground-like direction. Another time, hoverboard, mark her words.
She doesn't miss the sight in the distance, but that makes her no more capable of catching up to it. "Hey Green!" Spider-Girl calls, pointing towards the imminent collision. "Can you box in that boom?" She has no idea who he is or what the limits of his abilities are, but so far, they seem /pretty dang cool/. Maybe his range is good enough for the task.
Limits are for people without imagination! "Got it!" And the Lantern does. Or, at least, he tries too. He hasn't done explosions before, but he does his best. A sphere of energy closes over the imminent disaster, clamping shut, the man clenching first tight and squinting in concentration. Serious face, all of his effort there.
The police have finally managed to finagle their way through the traffic clogs caused by the power outage and less-noble New Yorkers trying to beat feet by any means necessary. Kudos to the hungry models who hijacked that bus to get clear--y'all put up with enough baboons in your day job, ladies. The police have started arresting... protecting... after a few tries, the four officers on scene back off from trying to arrest the rounded-up yahoos and ask someone to get them a coffee. The people of New York have it well in hand. They'll wait for someone with a bullhorn to show up.
Anya manages to steer that hoverboard down and down. It drops slowly as though it knows it doesn't have a rider on it properly. When she takes her weight on her feet as she lands, it hums happily and shuts down like a good piece of technology should. It deserves better than the kind of owner it had before.
Green Lantern's Green Fist closes around the flying power loaders--that's what they happen to be under all the staging--and while the green shield bulges and releases heat and smoke when the things go boom, he manages to contain the actual shrapnel and falling pieces of twisted steel. With some effort, he can direct the fall of the wreckage toward an empty part of a street. A round of applause breaks out from all directions, New Yorkers showing their appreciation for a job well-done.
"Look at youuuu! Nice catch!" Spider-Girl hoots, throwing an enthusiastic thumbs-up in Green Lantern's direction. Great team-up, or greatest team-up? ...greatest, because Spider-Girl is holding a /hoverboard/, obviously. She gives it a curious looking-over now that she's back on terra firma, trying to keep it at arm's length to avoid any of the goop still clinging to her suit, before she casts a vaguely forlorn look towards the cops. Applause or no, she knows she can't keep the toy. Being a superhero is /hard/.
"Man. I wasn't sure that would work." Pause. "But it was pretty great." Kyle even admits it! The results seem pretty pleasing at the end of the day, especially with the sound of applause to affirm just how cool he is. This ring is great! Of course, credit is given where due: "Nice job, spider lady." He even floats down to offer a brief fist-bump in celebration. "That was awesome." A bright grin, and then he's floating away.
Just like that, citizens are helping each other out, sweeping the streets, even turning these criminal monkeyboys over to the cops like good guys. There's the rise and fall of ambulance sirens sweeping in as first responders arrive to help pick up the pieces.
A cafe owner waves an apron madly at Green Lantern. "Come on in any time, man," he calls.
The citizens of New York are used to their heroes beating feet. Spider-Girl's free to disappear into the shadows as she pleases, hoverboard or no. Already, people are uploading photos from their Starkphones and updating their Twitter feeds. Spider-Girl is flooded with the @ messages tonight.
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