2014.03.08 - A Fistful of Insanity

A shockingly warm day for NYC! Over 50 degrees, nice, not freezing cold like usual. Everything seems right in the world.

Or it did.

At the Financial District neighborhood, at the First Bank of..who really cares about bank names, they're doing their routine. Checks, deposits, withdrawals. Or, they were, until things decided to /break/ routine.

Trotting through the streets, just /appearing/, is a band of..outlaws, about 10, on horseback. Any history buff would probably recognize the one in the very front, smashing his horse through the door, the famed Jesse James. The outlaw shouts out, drawing a revolver.

"Alright, tellers! Put the money in bags, toss it out, and nobody gets hurt!"

One of the tellers trips the silent alarm, as the outlaws are riding their horses in, forcing everyone to the ground, and taking all the cash they can get. They..don't seem particularly perplexed about the state of everything being more futuristic than themselves, either.

Things not to do: Mess with Leroy Brown, Tug on Superman's Cape, Pull the Mask on the Lone Ranger...or mess with a bank when the Economy is nearby. No button required. No five alarm fire, only a crook with a wallet in a one mile radius. In a flash, he's into an ally before they even arrive at the bank and back out again in a rediculous set of armor made of pennies with layers of folded bills. He can already feel the extra strength that the building has given him and has not one but TWO invisible Rai stones hovering right above the seeming leader and one of his henchmen...but he's hanging just outside the doors listening, tracking the position of most inside...and waiting. Their lack of shock at the present has him...concerned. Things might not be as they seem.

Spider-Man's spider-sense got super tingly as he started to swing towards the general direction of all this hullabaloo. And he found it. Man, New York was really weird some days. And here he forgot his cowboy hat. Cinque disembarks from the high-speed rail system.

Longshot is not exactly from Earth. And by not exactly that off course means not at all. All he knows of the planet is what he's seen with his own two eyes. And as past girlfriends and current roommates would tell you, what he sees with his own to eyes most of the time is television. So in his warped, often mind wiped, television addled mind the weird thing is not the fact that there are men on horseback robbing a bank. It's the fact that he gets to see it and he's not even in Texas.

The other this Longshot is, is a hero... right down to his DNA. Literally so it takes no time at all for him to break into a run, open his jacket slightly to retrieve a few throwing darts to hold in his four fingered hands and shout, "Not so fast, varmits! I taking you all in to the US Marshalls!"

It's that same sense that draws The Spider. Just swinging through the city, having fun, he gets that sense of danger from the direction of the bank. Spotting the horses charging into the building, he changes directions and swings down towards the doors, letting his momentum carry him right through. One more web once he's through the doors to carry him to the ceiling. "Wow, right out of the history books. Cool idea, but it's not going to work."

The outlaws don't notice the rai stones, which..was probably Economy's intention. But they definitely do look authentic! These costumes..are they even costumes? Who knows?

As Longshot comes busting in, the outlaws..actually seem worried, focusing their guns on him, one of them speaking. "Marshals? The bossman said dere'd be no marshals!".

The leader..who is totally Jesse James, yes, replies, aiming his gun directly at The Spider, who just appeared. "There will be no marshals. We stick to th' plan, and the bossman promises a nice slice of paradise, money, whores, everything we'll ever need, my friend.". And then they're all firing at Longshot and the Spider, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

The Economy is rather surprised at regular guns really. He'd been expecting..worse. He doesn't like publicity but actually invisible actions against these fellows would draw attention in some ways more than the more conventional actions would. There is a reason for the insane costume.

Moving one of the Rai stones between himself and the thieves, he charges in, staff at the ready and attempts to knock one of them off their horse as he extends it to lance length. "Sometimes you don't get what you wish for."

If it impacts, he then says, "But sometimes you get what you need."

"Woa there partner!" A web line come in and lands on the gun firing at his fellow Spider-Bro, and yanks it out of the man's hand, "But no one fires at /my/ partner without permission...wait like I would ever allow it."

Spider-Man himself has come swinging into the scene, and is crawling along the roof, "Now tell me guys, did I walk into some sort of historical reenactment? Not that I've ever gone to those...ok I've been to several. But they tend to not /actually/ rob people."

Longshot smiled and a small scar by his left eye begins to glow white light that fills his eye and then he jumps forward throwing two of his blades at the gun hands at two of the firing outlaws. His heart is pure and his motives are just so his incredible luck should ensure their trajectory as well as making sure... as he flips backwards that those bullets shouldn't hit him either.

He laughs and said, "Actually I don't know the US Marshall. I just assumed that is who I have to take you to. Isn't that who you always have to take guys like you too?" Yeah he has no idea that these people shouldn't be here. See... he thinks everything he sees on TV is actually real. Cultural differences and all that.

He squatted low to the ground, three blades in his hand still, ready to move the second he got fired at again.

The Spider twists out of the way of the first few shots, then flips, and finally drops from the ceiling to dodge bullets coming at him. As he falls, he shoots out webs for some of the 'cowboys', and the instant he lands he tugs on them hard. "Hey Spider-man. I actually think they think they're real." He's quickly leaping and swinging away again, so as not to draw too much fire to ground-level where the civilians are.

The one thing that is painfully clear about these outlaws? They either seem real..or they are real..in some way. A close inspection from a historian THOUGH WE PROBABLY DON'T HAVE ANY will reveal that the ten of them are all almost idential to the members of the James-Younger Gang of the 19th century, from outfits in their pictures, to exact facial detail. Though, I doubt anyone actually..cares about that.

As the Economy dashes forward, one of the riders is knocked straight off his steed, a few others jumping off their manually, rolling behind cover. Jesse James is firing his revolver blindly, as are the others. "I don't know who these guys are..but they're not getting in our way. Fill 'em with lead!". BAMBAMBAMBAM, still blindfire, probably..not hitting at all.

From the combined attacks of the Spider-duo, the Economy, and Longshot, 6 of the outlaws are remaining, including Jesse James.

The Economy let's drop the Rai stone right over the outlaw, slamming down and knocking the wind out of him, maybe cracking a rib or two but not hurting the horse or killing him. Kilroy wheels around with his staff but misses another of the outlaws who dodges out of the way. He's powerful...but not as skilled as he could be.

Spider-Man launches impact webbing at the still unbroken windows and looks to the rest of the people still inside and calls out, "Stay low and mosey on out of here! We'll get these varmints!"

His Spider-sense helped him dodge just out of the way from a hail of bullets He launched another web to one of the other outlaws, and bound him about the arms so that if he fired he might just be shooting himself, "And sorry in advance horsey."

He launched towards a horses legs to hopefully topple it over.

Longshot jump, twisted and flipped through the air as the bullets whizzed by him. His eye still glowing white as the Luck Force helped his actions. As he did so he reached into one of the pouches on his belt and pulled out a metal tube. Hitting it on the bottom it expanded out into a grapping hook and long rope. He said, "I seriously never thought I'd get to do this."

Spinning the grapping hook around his head and said, "Time to lasso some outlaws!" He released it at one of the outlaws intending to wrap him up and yank him off his horse.

The Spider swings back and forth through the building, trying to draw fire that he knows he can dodge. Even mid-air, he twists and turns to avoid bullets. Spider-sense is so cool! After two swings like this, he goes back on the offensive. He swings, legs extended, right for Jesse James. As the bullets flie, and the minions taken down to 3, Jesse James is reaching into his outfit..for a cellphone. Though, he actually has no clue how to work it, pressing buttons until a voice shows up, speaking into it rather loudly. "How the hell do you work this thin- Bossman!".

A voice comes from the other side of the device, crazy in tone. "Yes, yes, Meowth, do you have the stuff? Good? Bad? DO YOU HAVE IT?". Jesse James is shouting into it, his other two cronies still blind firing. "We're outnumbered!".

"Dear..oh dear..not calculated. Let's..improve the odds, shall we?". The phone cuts, as, right outside the bank..five more horseman are materializing, rifles instead of pistols. Thin air. Yes. They're taking aim, firing..at everything, really.

The Economy had expected the unexpected. It seemed too easy...and it was. He is hit by a rifle shot and knocked back, kevlar and pennies protecting him. He is still vulnerable to kinetic energy and has no super dodge energy. However, even prone the two invisible Rai stones can do their work and slam into two of the riflemen, knocking them off of their saddles whilst swinging around and richocheting several bullets that might hit innocencets away from their potential victim.

Well crap. Just when things seemed like they were going to get wrapped into a nice little package things took a turn for the worse. But regardless, to Spider-Man it seemed that maybe if they just took out the leader maybe the rest would fall.

He shot out a thin web and yanked back the phone and launched it towards a wall, "I've got it! We're all in a Star Trek episode right?"

Things were definitely getting a bit more dangerous, but for Longshot this was still far and away from the worst things he had experienced. The arenas of Mojoworld made this seem a little tame honestly.

He leapt over behind one of the little kiosks people use to fill out their checks and deposit slips and ducked down to get him more cover as he opened his jacket and pulled out another three throwing darts. His eye started to glow again as he leapt up from behind the kiosk and threw all six of the darts, the hope was to disarm or disable some of the new coming rifle men.

At Spider-Man's statement about Star Trek he said, "Oh! If it is can it be the one with Good Lincoln so we can fight the forces of evil! I love that one!"

The Spider webs Jesse down on the ground, and another on the gun for good measure, "Stay put." When the new riflemen arrive he says, "Oh, come on! Who is doing this?" He leaps through the air, twisting to avoid some bullets, and shooting some impact webs of his own back at any riflemen the others didn't handle. Jesse's down and out, it's mostly the cavalary left. Which..is quickly left to two, firing their rifles at a fast paced speed now. They're not deterred at all by..anything!

Someone with a keen eye will notice something /happening/. Bullet shells are just vanishing around the area, right now, at a rather quick speed, as are a few of the guns.

The Economy slams two more of them with his staff as he gets up. He doesn't hit them because they're not trying to get out of the way, rather...he freezes them in place subtly by controlling their wallets. A staff to the face each and they're out cold. At this point Kilroy shouts, "Don't slam them too much...they're really from the past!"

Who knows what sort of damage they were doing to the timestream already?!? Ok Spidey has been marathoning Star Trek a little too much lately. He had to focus on the here and now. But he does notice the shells disappearing, however the actual bullets aren't disappearing. Yow! Dodge.

He swings about the room and kicked at one of them from behind, a not too hard kick to the back of the head, as he yanks the riffle out of his hand, "Dang time travel. Always makes things more difficult!"

Longshot did notice the disappearing bullet shells for one reason. This sort of thing happens to him... a lot. He's right now on his second visit to this planet after being teleported to another place first, "Um... Spider People. Money Man? I think someone is trying to take the bandits away before we can round 'em up and call the Marshall."

Since the other enemies seem to be handled, The Spider stops on a wall again. "Wait, so these aren't just costumes?" He looks around, seeming then to notice the shells, "If they're really from the past, do we let them go back?" It seems they don't get to decide that. Now, bullets themselves are disappearing, though anything they hit/affected is..still affected. And then horses. And now the downed outlaws. Only Jesse James remains, webbed up. "you..you..you'll..".

VRORP.

Jesse James is also vanishing, in thin air. Gone. It seems that's over...

Ring! Ring!

The phone is the only thing that /hasn't/ vanished, as it begins playing..Time Warp from Rocky Horror Picture Show. Once this finishes, a message plays. "If you are hearing this, my project failed. Oh well. Time to go back to the cutting board! Outlaws..meh. Let's see..egyptians? Too boring. Dragons? Nah, needs a bigger set-u- OOH! PIRATES! YES!". The phone stops immediately after that..before exploding to bits, stopping any chance of recovering information off it.

Miraculously, no one was injured in the shootings. At all. Property damage, yes, but, the outlaws are gone, and no one was injured.

The Economy says, â€œThat...sounds like someone who is not at all responsible enough to have one has access to a tine machine." To Longshot he answers "Call me the economy."â€

Spider-Man dropped on the ground and placed his hands on his hips, looking majorly confused, "Huh. Well...good work everyone? I think."

Longshot nodded to The Economy and said, "Okay The Economy, I'm Longshot."

He looked at the remaining heroes and said, "So what's this all about time travel? I just saw a show about Jesse James last week, it's not like he's not still around or something."

The Spider, too, jumps down to the ground and says, "No, he died ages ago." He looks to Spider-Man and says, "Well, we stopped the robbery. I think we did ok." He then adds, "But, better get

The Economy says, â€œNot a bad idea. Take that phone to soneone who knows how to analyze it. And nice to meet you Longshot, Spiderman and ...er..other spider person.â€

Spider-Man nods, "Quite right Pinky. We probably should. Thanks for for the random team-up fellow heroes! To the Spider-Cave!"

As the sirens were coming closer Spider-Man launches a web line and swings away.

Longshot gets a confused look on his face, "Died years ago? But I just..." Apparently Longshot seems to think everything on TV was real and still happening. That has to be a wierd way to live.

At the suggestion of leaving however he perked his eyes open, "Oh yeah. I should probably get out of here. She-Hulk says I might still be wanted for that Con-Ed misunderstanding that I apparently did last time I was here."

And with that the attractive leather clad leading man ran out of the bank.