2012-06-16 The Hotness Games

The building is huge; it takes up a gigantic city block and it isn't clear yet what started this massive blaze, but it's clear that there is a terrible danger to all inside. Flames pour over the bottom four floors and those above are beginning to wonder whether or not it's worth it to die in a collapse, die of smoke inhalation, or die from a long jump.

But that's the great thing about this day and age. There are heroes here to help save the day.

The news spreads over the normal channel: A building in New York has seemingly been under some sort of attack. Flames continue to erupt and grow much quicker and much hotter than normal fires. Something's going on, but no one is sure what.

It was the smell that caught Cassie's attention first. The thick smell of smoke, which reached her before it registered that the sirens were louder than normal. She's moving toward it instantly, following both sound and smell until she's close enough to see the bright orange of the flames tinting the sky. And she keeps going into the heat, her eyes scanning the scene for as many details as she can pick up on. "Okay," She mutters to herself, "Burning building, cops on the way, people inside. And if there's anyone else here, I don't see them yet." She looks into one of the windows and scrunches up her face, "Oh who cares if I have to do this alone! People inside, Cassie! Priorities!" And with her self-administered pep talk finished, she flies straight for the nearest window, fist out to punch through any glass(or walls, depending on her aim) that might get in her way!

10 Minutes Ago...

"See, the thing is ladies, that I'm not exactly a man that's ready to settle down. I've got a lot of life ahead of me and when I find that person that I know I don't deserve but can't stop loving..." Tony Stark turns to look at the cameras that are on him and the mostly female studio audience. "... then I'll beg her to spend the rest of her life with me. Even though I'm not worth it."

The entire studio audience echoes with a chorus of AWWWWW, as the five women that surround Tony on the stage are clearly also enamored by the pure presence of Honesty coming from Tony Stark.

"Tony. Do you really expect us to believe that there's not one woman that you've met that you could see yourself with?"

As Tony leans up to answer, there's a ping from his pocket. A very distinctive ping. "Give me one second, Liz." He reaches into his pocket and comes out with his Stark Card. With a quick pressing of it, a holoscreen pops up and on it? The Fire. "What do we got, Jarvis?"

"It appears to be a fire, sir. No known source of origin, as of yet. It's not exactly being contained."

"Sync me with the nearest Armory. I'm on my way." And the holoscreen is folded back down into the Stark Card, which Tony tucks away into his pocket once again. "I have to run, ladies. We'll have to finish this soon. Duty Calls." With a wink, Tony's up and buttoning his jacket, as he turns and heads off the stage of The View.

Now...

"I'm a minute out, Jarvis. Got anything for me?" Tony speaks to the A.I. in the helmet of his suit as he soars over the horizon at an incredible speed and coming in to swoop towards the street and off in the direction of the blazing fire.

"Source identified. Fireball. Center of the building. It continues to burn hotter by the second."

"So I'm dealing with a fire from Cougartown. Perfect."

Enter the Iron Man.

Kara's busy day continues. Not only has the decision been made that she's going to move in with her cousin Kal in Metropolis, she's finished up her heroing costume by altering her formal Kryptonian garb, *and* she faced down her first super-villain and teamed up with another hero. now, she's on her way to New York, flying alongside Superman, in response to the massive fire. "So....what is our plan, Kal?"

Sif was still familiarizing herself with some of the things from Midgard, but she knew enough to get by. For example, paying close attention to the news on television. This is what she had been doing at a little cafe nearby when the fire caught her attention. Hear about on the news? Nope. It was the thick plumes of smoke rising into the air that seemed to catch her attention.

She left the cafe immediately, running full speed and following the smoke to its source. Upon aarrival at the building, it took her a few moment to decide the best course of action. Whatever the cause of this was could be handled after thos etrapped within were gotten to safety.

Unlike other that arrive on the scene, Sif is in street clothes. Thankfully, her teleportation isn't dependant upon the 'armor' from Asgard that she tends to wear or else she'd have a bit of an issue getting people out safely.

Well, our plan is to investigate. Discern. And react. Kind of the same plan as always, Supergirl." Superman flies alongside his cousin and looks towards the approaching tower. Using his X-ray vision, he quickly sees that there are tons, upon tons of potential victims in the high rise. "Supergirl, I want you to focus on getting as many bystanders to the ground as possible. Smoke inhalation will be worst towards the fire, so start at the bottom and work yourself up. There's a park towards the west and you can drop them off then. Don't stop, and don't ask them questions. Just go."

The flames continue to rage as Fireball continues to grow and get hotter and hotter. One of the metal bars that keeps the building upright stands a few feet away and is beginning to glow. That can't be good.

Cassie flies toward the first window she comes to, and manages only to take out a little of the wall when her trajectory proves to be a little off-target. Ducking and rolling to avoid breaking glass, falling bricks, and fumes, she moves as quickly as he hindered sight allows, until she finds some people hiding from the worst of the flames. "Ok people, The first shuttle to a place that is not a burning building has arrived. All aboard." Managing to avoid questions for now mostly because everyone is still to schocked to react, she grabs ahold of a couple of kids and turns back to the window, kicking hard on the ledge to give her enough lift to make it out safely.

"Jarvis, get the plans to this building. I need to know what it is or was and who it belongs to." Tony makes with the diving and hovering in mid-air as he gets close to the scene. His HUD displays some general information at the moment, locking in on the signatures of other non-hostile threats that have entered the scene, but his focus is the building right now. "Dammit. There's people inside. Gonna' clear 'em a path."

Iron Man spins to the right and the shoulders of his suit open up, small missile boxes extending out. The targeting computer locks on some of the more heated sections of fire in the building, based on temperature and within seconds a volley of eight Extinguisher Rockets come swirling forth with a familiar whistle to impact and explode with a highly potent fire extinguishing chemical compound. That should help with some of the fire. Hopefully.

"Right," kara says with a nod to her cousin. At first, whe she sees the armored warrior hovering in the air and launching missiles at the building, her instinct is to attack. But she's already made that mistake today, and the extinguishing foam from the missiles confirms that this person is on the same side. kara uses her X-Ray vision to scan for people needing help starting at the ground floor. She sees a family that's passed out, as well as the source of the fire. "Kal! There is someone in the center. He is the source of the fire..." She plows ahead and breaks through the brick wall of the building to get to the family. Quickly and carefully, she places them on a couch for transport and flies them out into the park and to safety. "Rest easy. you are safe now," she says in a comforting tone.

The glowing beam of the building isn't missed by Sif but despite her strength, there's no way she could support the building itself on her own. That in mind, what she can do is evacuate those inside quickly. In a blink, she's gone from the ground below into one of the lower rooms. The building is searched until a mother and her child are located. With one in each arm, the teleportation is brought into use again, putting Sif and the family of two on the ground outside. "You're safe, now." And, hopefully, it won't be long before some form of medical team shows up to check on those that are being brought out.

Cassie's kids wriggle a bit at first but go stone cold frozen when they go out of the side of the building and take to the air. "Wow!" they say in unison.

Tony's missles swirl as they seek the highest concentrations of temperature. They explode in an expanding foam that helps a little at first. The temperature lowers drastically and the Fireball blinks out suddenly, revealing a charred man standing in the middle of the third floor. He's visible for just a moment, but then he ignites once more and eventually the heat overcomes the compound.

The family nestled on a couch carried by Kara's powerful arms, stir a bit before waking up in a start and coughing uncontrollably. They have smoke inhalation, but they'll be fine. Same for Sif's group, who she sets down. They bellow their thanks before Sif heads back for more.

"I see it, Supergirl." Superman also sees Tony's missiles as they have effect, but are then stamped out by the continual power of this wahoo type. "I'll try to put him out with my breath. Then someone else can knock him out from behind."

As Superman lands on the the floor in question, he walks through the flame as if it were a warm breeze. His eyes peer at the fireball before he takes a deep breath and begins to 'blow out' this gigantic candle.

Cassie, unable to help grinning with pride when she excites the kids who were only moments ago terrified, hurries to drop the kids off at one of the ambulances that wasn't able to get close to the building. She takes off again immediately in her haste to get to the parents next, and its on her way back in that she begins to notice out of the corner of her eyes others, a couple of which cause her to fumble a little in the air. "Is that... and... " She reminds herself quickly though that she doesn't have time to wonder, and resumes her flight only a little distracted. She pauses long enough to call out to the others inside that they should try to get as close to the windows as they safely can in the hopes of making return trips faster.

Iron Man is not at all happy with that report. "Jarvis. Remind me to create better fire extinguishing compound. Since this fire doesn't seem to stay extinguished." Tony's antics have him rolling his eyes, as he takes to assisting with the removal of innocents from the flaming and possible wreckage, all the while information scrolls all over the HUD he's got in his helmet. "And keep an eye on this building, would ya'? I don't think it's structurally sound."

"Really, Sir? I hadn't noticed." Even Tony's A.I.'s have biting sarcasm.

Woosh! Iron Man dips in from dropping off a couple of random patrons, looking and zeroing in thanks to JARVIS on the source of all this madness. "Your sarcasm is not appreciated, Jarvis. Just for that, I'm going to have to take my frustrations out on someone." And that's why Iron Man is zooming towards the Charredmander with some extra speed to stone cold clock this sucker upside his head. There's enough force there to lay him out... and keep his head on his shoulders.

Supergirl also sees Cassie during the rescue op, and looks slightly surprised to see her flying and saving others. Time to talk with her later though. Kara goes back into the breach and grabs another group needing to be evacuated. Building's almost clear now, according to her X-Ray vision....

Sif's makes her way back into the building once more. This time, her teleportation brings her right to the center of the madness. Seeing Superman and then Iron Man there causes her to arch a brow before she teleports to another area of the building since they seemed to be doing no harm but rather trying to help. One more set is taken in her arms and then outside where they're gently set down and her attention is turned on the beam from earlier to check on how it''s holding up.

Fireball, and I named him Fireball because that's what Tony called him and I think it's a swell name, goes flying as he's knocked from behind by Iron Man. Once this metahuman villain is out, Superman quickly begins to cool the temperature of the bending steel with his frozen breath. Superman nods to Sif and then turns to start blowing out the flames. The immediate danger is lifted, it seems.

Cassie spins in midair when she hears Fireball coming out of the building. "Whoa!" Putting on an extra burst of speed she didn't even know she had in her, she rushes the people in her grasp to safety and hurries for more. It doesn't take her long to clear her floor and make sure the firefighters will be able to save the others on her side of the building. Then she's flying toward one of the familiar figures, grinning when she gets close enough to the other blonde girl to call out, "Need any help over here?"

"Excellent shot, sir."

"Eh. A little off on the landing. I'll have to lean left a bit more next time." Stark is smirking as he brings the Iron man armor to a nice landing right above the body of Fireball. "I'll take care of Dragonbreath over here." is robotic-voiced out to the rest of the heroes as he works on binding up the metahuman threat with something that comes out of one of the gauntlets.

Kara starts putting on the speed as well, smiling to the other blonde girl as she brings out another set of evacuees. "I am fine. But help is always appreciated. There are two more sets of families on the second and thrid floors." And Suegirl flies up to the thrid floor to evacuate that group.

With everyone out of the building, so far as she knew, and the threat seeming to be nuetralized by others, Sif teleports herself back to the street and lifts her eyes to the building itself. There's a faint look of surprise as she watches Superman cool things off. Interesting. It passes quickly, however, as she takes in the rest of the heroes gathered. Interesting, indeed. In truth though, there's little else she can do comparetively.

The heroes have gotten the majority of the danger pretty well put to bed. Fireball is handled easily by Tony. Superman is putting out the flames, while Kara and Cassie tag team getting those in danger out. The loud alarms of emergency vehicles approach and the evacuation effort does not take long.

Later it's found that FireBall was a renter at the location. Well, he was soon to be a former renter because his 'super' (not to be confused with the Super Kryptonians also in this story) was about to throw him to the curb over unpaid rent. Such is life at the bottom of the criminal totem pole. Livin' large when the jobs come in, try to torch your building when you can't pay the rent. It's a damn fool life, I tell you. A damn fool life.