2014.01.22 - Teleportapotty

It's a lovely Wednesday afternoon, particularly for Winter. Light snowfall covers some of the parked-too-long cars (with multiple tickets tacked onto the windshields) and buildings around. This was a typical day up in Greenwich Village, Metropolis. The hipsters were chirping, and fake smiles rang through the people like a bad case of the sillies.

Speaking of silly, Tabitha Smith aka Boom-Boom was also here. But she was here pretty much every other day. Today she was harassing the dude giving out free condoms on the street corner. She'd inflated two of them, and was holding each in one hand, flailing them around wildly, making strange derpy grunts: "Gah gah gah gaaaah!" Even she had no idea what she was doing. The non-profit volunteer standing next was both horrified and amused, somehow, but tried to not let it show. This went on for about four long minutes before there was a rumble on the street... an unnatural rumble.

"Sounds like the citys got gas," Tabby mumbled to herself, momentarily breaking character from her derped-out, gimplord roleplay. Then, what was paced like footsteps, the rumbles got closer. After a minute or so, a seven-foot-tall, purple, hulking dude came stomping down the street. He was dressed in Doc Martins, over-sized Dickies, and a Levi's t-shirt, their logo stained with blood. He let out a roar that sounded like a cartoon Lion, and sent most of the residents of the area fleeing in soundbank-like generic shrieks. The monster stomped down on the ground with fury, responding to all the terrified people, and the ground shook slightly. Tabitha, being against the grain, and perhaps her own sense of mortality, decided it's be a fantastic idea to run straight at the guy. "Freddie!!!!" she yelled out. "FREDDIE!!!!"

Tunnels. Tunnels everywhere. But every one in awhile one must actually surface in order to get those vital components for work and life. Pizza. Wires. Circuit boards. In that order. That's not to mention more mapping and spelunking.

It's the thumping, however, that gains Cable's attention, and deep within the recesses of his tunnels (no one ever said that HE was the one to surface!), he's got his 'crew' on the brainphone.

~ Anomalous readings coming from Bleeker, Dom. Some heavy pounding. Initial scans.. ~ If there could be a psychic facepalm, there is one. A good, hearty *slap*.

The nice thing about such a populated place as Metropolis is that, while serious disasters happen on an almost hourly schedule, people get over it and move on. They have no choice but to keep going, this city never shuts down for anything! The Greenwich Blackout's already behind a lot of people, selectively shut out of their memories, though there's still a collection of religious fanatics blabbing on about the end of days and all that fun stuff. Considering that nothing has happened toward that event thus far, most people stopped listening and..just..moved on.

Out on the surface, running like a madwoman then ducking behind the corner of a building for cover, is a well armored and better armed albino, rifle in hands and headset both in place. The former's up to her shoulder, leveling the longarm with her left arm toward 'Freddie's' back. "Your anomaly's a 'who,' not a 'what.' Got eyes on target, heading west-northwest."

Cable and Domino have dealt with a Hulk before. It wasn't pretty. If this creature's at all connected to the 'breed,' something needs to be done. And Domino's going to need a much bigger rifle. At least the optics on her current weapon of choice offer a visual feed back to ol' Future Boy downstairs, if the headset-mounted lens doesn't do the trick on its own.

Then there's yelling. Yelling, and someone running -toward- the beast. Is that--? "We have a problem," Dom says in a rather grim tone. This..cannot end well.

"So, that's how I warm up Hot Pockets! Keep in mind that Heisenberg Plasmids are not only extremely tough to contain, but also highly theoretical, so you might have to substitute the plasma coils with a superheated crystal array. You can find out how to build one of those in my video from last September, all you'll need is a screwdriver, a soldering iron, several feet of solder, and ten to fifteen medium-sized superheated crystals. You can get everything but the superheated crystals completely legally. Well, that's it for this video. I'm Forge, and this has been 'Building Neat Stuff with Forge. Join me next time to learn how to build a functioning lightsaber using items you've got under your kitchen sink."

Forge picks up the Hot Pocket in question, removing it from the glowing green tray that he's assembled in front of him. The glowing green color comes, obviously, from the Heisenberg Plasmid coils assembled in a row beneath the tray. With the webcam on on his Mobile Command Station still running, he takes a bite of the Hot Pocket, and immediately drops it while spitting out the bite. "Gack! That Pocket is waaaay too Hot! I knew I should have adjusted the... oh god, now what?" A light in the lower right hand corner of his monitor has just started up blinking, which is apparently a Bad Sign. A few taps on the monitor, and a channel is opened to the entire Team. "Hey guys, the red light is blinking. One of your pulses just shot up pretty fast. Neither of you are working out in your Sneaking Suits are you? Because those are just for missions...."

Tabitha Smith is pretty good with faces. She can still remember all the kids in her kidergarden class, for example. And she still remembered Mister Jacobstein The Mailman, who one time gave her somebody else's mail, the day before Christmas, on purpose. Uncoincidentally, this was the same day that her mother taught her the phrase 'Stranger Danger', a phrase that Tabitha promptly forgot. She would even remember Cable and Domino, should she notice them--and not just because they look like damned weirdos. Today, however, Tabitha was wrong about this one.

She raced over to the 7-foot monstery-dude, thinking it was her pal Frederick from Mutant Town (How many big muscley purple dudes are there, anyway?), but stopped about four feet from in front of him, and squinted. "Oh," she started, grinning nervously. "I thought you were somebody else." She held a big smile for a few seconds, and the man-beast blew hot, stinky air at her. Realizing her mistake, she fumbled around her back pocket, and pulled out a small pack of Twizzlers and offered it to the beast, "Hey, want some?" she offered to him like he was a small child she might've been babysitting, had she any patience for a job like that.

"Enough with the YouTube lessons. You've only got 5 subscribers and you haven't hit more than a handful of views. HotPockets isn't going to bring your popularity up. You need to blow something up in a microwave," Cable hits the mic on that one, commenting around. He'll keep the telepathy for the important stuff. "And I bet the edges are burnt and crispy. Stuff gets disgusting quickly."

Though now, with the readouts that Forge is getting as -well- as his own readings, he shakes his head in a physical display of his own thoughts. ~ Nope. Not me, not Dom. She'd have to gain a lot of weight in order to give those kinds of readings. The extra sausage from last night won't cut it. ~ Poor Domino. ~ Oh hey... it's Tabitha up there. Aaand.. okay, Dom? She'll need backup. Coordinates incoming. Forge, do we have eyes from the streets? ~

"Am I the only one that finds it more than a little creepy that my duds are checking my vitals?" Domino half-mutters back into the com. At least it keeps her warm, because warm the city as a whole is not. "Glad you could join us, Forge. In case you nerds haven't noticed--goddamnit Nate stop commenting about my weight, only one of us here weighs as much as a Ford F-one-fifty and we all know it's not me--there's real problems happening up here that require more than a firewall built out of a toaster to counter."

Recognizing the albino femme is pretty damned easy, even with the black patch somewhat obscured by a rifle scope. Most white-skinned people don't focus on all black cosmetics and attire, unless they're goth. In which case only their faces tend to be white. Not many are caught outside in full combat gear, either.

"Yeah, remember that younger blonde chick with the weird sense of humor that we caught floating in a pond in Central Par--yeah, Tabitha." Dom comms back, trying to focus the rifle's optics on a mostly obscured figure around Mister Purple (and largely failing, because Large.) "Yes, she's here, and about three seconds and eighty-five percent odds of becoming a stain on the curb." Dom knows what those odds are like, which means playing interference. (Please let this work.)

-BAM!-

"Ha! Do I have eyes on the streets? You realize you're talking to Uncle Forge, right? Uncle Forge always has eyes on the... actually wait, no I don't. Hang on a sec..."The gloriously-ponytailed mutant mechanic begins messing about with the display of his rig. He'd probably be too distracted to work at the moment, beset by hunger as he is, but fortunately he remembered to leave his Cooling Ray in one of his many 'bigger on the inside' pouches. A couple of seconds, and the Hot Pocket is safe to eat. Which he does with gusto. "Damn... now it's too cold."

From An Undisclosed Location, a small fleet of tiny drone aircraft are released remotely with a few commands from Forge's monitor. "Okay, give it about three minutes, and we'll have the whole picture." Sure, it might be too late for whoever's there, but at least Forge is safely away from the danger. Wherever he is, that is.

Tabitha's Twizzlers-negotiations weren't going so well, as the purple beastoid merely smacked them out of her hands--the bag of red, fake-liquorish flying up and over a nearby truck. "Heh, heh! No reason to get all aggro, buddy," she said, smiling nervously, taking a few steps back. In her own mind, she decided that her charming good looks weren't enough to dissuade this monster from Twizzle-smacking *her* next, and was about to generate one of her custom timebombs and throw it into his over-sized pants, when saw some kinda blast erupt on the beasty's back.

"Wha!.. um, Yeah, yeah!" she started cheering. The hint of confusion in her voice might've disqualified her from the pep squad, but she was pretty happy that this monstery guy was now turning around to face Domino, whom Tabitha still hadn't spotted. What she did spot, unfortunately, was the mighty heinous plumber's crack this purple dude was sporting once he was turned completely around to face Domino.

"Okay, Uncle Forge."

~ Dom, we'll have eyes in the air, and presumably some back up-- right Forge? One of those net drones would be a nice touch. But not the one with the micro-fibres. I saw those rats.. in cubes. ~

Cable's checking his own monitors, muttering and cursing at Metro's Finest. "Why aren't there more CCTV cameras around? Decent enough neighborhood, I'd think they'd put in.. okay, satellite feed time." How does Oracle put up with this?

Domino could have face-palmed, herself. If she didn't happen to be too busy staring down Mister Purple through a wholly inadequate scope, with widened pale blue eyes. "Three minutes is about two minutes fifty seconds too long, Forge. Please just turn on the damned monitor."

Okay, so..shooting the big guy with a thirty caliber rifle turns out to not be a particularly viable option. "Hey Cable, do you remember where I put the Istiglal? You know, the -you-sized fourteen mil? Do me a solid and bring that to my location?" Just what is her location, anyway? "..Which is about to change. Guys--a little more enthusiasm here, the situation is turning pretty fucking critical..! Tabitha, get the hell outta ground zero!" she finally yells out.

As if to help make sure of things turning even further sideways, Dom's now got purple center body mass in the crosshairs. Several more pulls of the trigger launch a handful of large, heavy slugs at a very brisk pace toward the creature. No need to go for the headshot..yet. They don't know who or what this thing is. Incapacitate first. Unfortunately. (I'm about to get mashed into a paste by Barney's older, ornerier brother.)

"This is the problem with you guys: You never give me any warning. It's always just 'Forge we have a crisis! Send us some science immediately!' You've got no idea how long it takes me to make some science. It can take tens of minutes sometimes to make a science that big. And then there are variables. Equations. All sorts of... algebraic notation." A bit of Cold Pocket is taken, and suddenly Forge's words become barely intelligible. "Eht gehts meffy, zall ahm fayin."

Swallow. "I mean, I guess I could just teleport there. But now's not really a good time. Are you sure this is an emergency?"

Tabitha was pretty curious what kinda police officer had anti-monster weapons, and if they had recently become standard issue in Greenwich, so she strafed back into the sidewalk to take a look at who was shooting at Mr. Big Purp. And how'd they know her name?! With a measured jog, safely behind some parked cars, she gazed down the street, and her eyes finally locked onto Domino. "Whoa, hey! It's Dominatrix!" she said aloud to herself. It had been a few months, after all, and Tabitha was only good at faces, not names.

The monster, just like Tabby, had finally figured out where--and who--he was getting shot from. Domino's shots were hitting him, causing minor tears in his flesh, but he seemed able to take the initial gunfire without going down. Then, with one, long, gliding stride, he reached over to a car directly next to Tabitha and picked it up. He looked strained under the weight, but it still didn't take him long to hurl the two-ton vehicle in Domino's general direction. "Oh snap-crackle-shit!" Tabitha announced, jumping up and down.

"You lost it?" Incredulous, thy name is Cable. "You don't know where you- Oh, yeah." Um. "Let me go check. If it's not in the armory..." They may well have lost it.

Rising from his seat, Nate shakes his head as he begins to move through the door of his main lab and into the tunnels towards the armory. "I know all about it. 'Cable, we're in trouble!'.. I'm in the same boat, -Uncle- Forge."


 * Earlier:

Marley the truck driver's day is off to a weird start. The newbie idiot down in loading put the shipment on a flatbed instead of a box container like he was supposed to. Sure, the merchandise was plastic-wrapped and all that, but a -flatbed!- Could he have been any more daft? There's no time to switch over, which means Marley gets to haul things around while keeping a close eye on the mirrors to make sure that nothing flies off the truck while on the way. He'd have to avoid the freeway to minimize the risk, too. Which..means..driving through the city.

He's going to need more coffee today.


 * Now:

"We don't -get- warning in our line of work, you idiot!" Domino yelps back at the comm. "This isn't playtime, here! Screw the science, get up here and get your hands dirty! Oh for the--shut up and get off your ass, Forge!"

Incoming Buick! With a dive, tuck, and roll, Dom throws herself away from the building just before a mighty big vehicle slams down beside her, pulverizing the corner of the building she had been using for cover.

"Yo, Team, wake the hell up, this is Not Going According To Plan!" (Did we even have a plan..?)

Now she's running, and gunning, and she only does that on the weekends, Tabitha, thank you. The car didn't work and Purp's getting shot at. Somewhat irritating, no doubt. There's another growl/shout/bellowing and throwing spit all over the place, then he's rushing toward the tiny woman with a big gun.

"Guys! I'm about t--"

PUNCH! Ever see a Domino fly? Now's your chance! She turns into a rapidly diminishing speck down the street, disappearing into the steel grey sky. Then landing on a flatbed truck full of plastic-wrapped mattresses. Marley's day just got weirder.

"Yeah well... you say that." An audible sigh can be heard on Forge's end of the line. A sudden shimmer of light occurs, and Forge is suddenly right next to Domino. Or... at least he's right next to where Domino was a second ago.

Domino might not get a chance to find out, but she probably couldn't have chosen a worse set of words when calling in Uncle Forge. Get his hands dirty? Already done. Get your ass up? God, let's hope he doesn't take that one to heart soon.

There, several feet away from a big purple rampaging monster, Forge sits on an over-sized, hovering metal toilet. The 'whir' from whatever impossible engine that keeps the contraption in the air is enough to distract the beast, which gives Forge a few seconds to quickly push the 'reverse' button on his... vehicle.

The creature watched Domino's body soar through the air, delighting in her pain like how a baby might enjoy a shiny thing. His pleasure was quickly met with pain, alas, because Tabitha was testing out a theory. Sure, she wasn't much of a scientist, inventor, or technically minded like Cable or Forge, but she did have a clear grasp of scientific method. In this particular case, Tabitha Smith *hypothesized* that this man-like creature still had a pair of testicles. As it so happens, she was correct, and this Noble-like breakthrough (at least in Tabby's mind) was punctuated with a swift kick to the creature's groin via Tabitha's retro pair of red Converse.

"That was a real dick move," she said, while the beast reeled in pain, slumping slowly to his knees. Tabitha had what looked like the start of one of her time bombs, sparkling in her open palm. "Here's your Unhappy Meal, Grimace!" she said, with a surprisingly level of confidence in her voice. In truth, she'd been waiting years to use that line. The creature was furious and looked like he was about to pounce.

In the next second, the displays upon Cable's tables becomes a mass of readouts, all in the red coming from the albino's Sneaky Suit. (Wasn't Domino complaining about all those body readings only moments earlier?) Nate doesn't catch it, however, as he's out of the room, but he does -feel- the hit, the subsequent flying.. and eyes widen.

Domino! But he's relieved when she lands safe, and relatively okay. It's to Tabitha now, and Forge, that he turns some of his attention. "She's okay." Ish. "I've got the area cordoned off," with a telepathic suggestion that perhaps diverting to other streets might be a better option.

Fortunately, nobody seems to be recording this fight yet, so Forge is in the clear. After backing away a safe distance, he cranks up the levitation lever, until the toilet is floating (hopefully) out of the creature's reach. "Hey, you! Teenage girl! Do not engage the large purple monster in fisticuffs! It will end badly for you!" When you're given advice by a gloriously pony-tailed man on a floating metal toilet, it's usually a good idea to listen.

While dispensing advice from his lofty position, Forge is also tapping furiously away at the conveniently-placed tablet on his lap. Off in the distance, unseen by anyone, the whirring of about a half dozen drone craft can be heard as the little contraptions rush toward the battlefield at top speed.

Tabitha, who is about to be pounced upon, fist-first, by a very large, angry, muscle-bound, comma-laden, monstery-fella, hears Forge. Rather than perhaps making the sensible effort to run like hell, she stares at him with great curiosity for a long five seconds. While trying to figure out why a ponytailed man is floating on a toilet, which she considers a pretty awesome idea on principle, she tosses a little bomb at her sparring partner, which crackles with a large, white-flashing 'pop' right into his eyes. He flops backward, landing on his back, and lets out a terrible roar... a roar that vibrates some of the nearby car windows.

"Hey... is there a line for that? I gotta do a quick number one!" she yells up to Forge, smiling coyly. "Not a boom boom."

"Well, I was almost done, but all the bustle and excitement of teleporting into a combat situation has made it all go back in." Forge replies deadpan, while continuing to tap furiously at his tablet. "It's pretty cool though, right? I'm always getting interrupted in the middle of something, so I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone needed me when I was taking a Sir Harrington. Solved that problem."

The large creature in front of Tabitha jumps back to its feet and hisses at her. Tabitha, a pretty fearless lady, has decided that nuh-uh, it's time for this guy to go. Mostly because of his terrible breath.

"Hey," she starts to say, while pantomiming a basketball player dribbling a ball. She scans to her right and left quickly, continuing the act, and then tosses her arms up as if making a three-pointer shot... to which a flickering little ball of energy arcs up and over straight upon the monster-guy's head, quickly exploding and sending him spinning backwards a few feet, looking momentarily stunned. "Got anything up there to shovel-off this unruly street urchin?"

"UGH! It's almost there!" Forge's priorities are clearly not in the right order. But even though this entire emergency mission is interfering with his personal comfort, he's still willing to pitch in, even if it means pinching it off.

With a short sigh, he calls out over the various combat noises "Yeah, about that! You're going to want to get pretty far away from our friend here, because when I'm done with him, there isn't going to be enough left to shovel.

From behind Forge, a swarm of drone aircraft in v-formation suddenly looms on the horizon. None of them are especially large, but all of them have very obvious plasma cannons on their undersides. So much for talking the creature down.

Tabitha, both because this guy seems serious, and also because she's paranoid of any falling 'debris' from his chariot, decides it's high time to high tail it out of there. This flows nicely with her basketball pantomime, and she faux-dribbles an imaginary ball for a few seconds, while booking it at her top running speed around the corner. Once she feels safe enough, after a minute or so, she ducks behind a rectangular card-pay parking meter and watches the show.

Sure, he might look to the untrained eye like a guy with a creeper mustache on a floating toilet. To the connoisseur, however, he clearly a monkey genius who's about to start a light show that would fit right in at a Rush concert. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a round sticky object, which he hurls at the creature. The device, once attached, begins emitting a high-pitched whining. Forge takes this as he cue to speed off as fast as he is able. With another look to make sure there is nobody in harm's way, he presses the button, and the plasma cannons of a half dozen drone craft begin pouring molten green fury down on the poor unsuspecting mook. So great is the precision of the crafts' guns, that even the ground immediately below the beast is left largely untouched.

As Boom-Boom's codename might imply, she is certainly one to enjoy a good explosion and display of blasty-fury. Her eyes open wide, and she hoots and hollers, sputtering off colorful, nonsense-laden exclamations during the robo-plasma assault. After it's over, she strolls back over to the scene, a little skip to her step.

"Hot dang, mang!" she declares, looking upon what's left of the hulky-brute. It ain't pretty: his purple skin full of steaming pus, holes, and blood, as he lay writhing on the asphalt, which was also fairly tore up. "You some kind of time traveler?" she asks innocently at a normal volume level, unware that Forge might not hear her from above.

The distinct sound of 1.6 gallons flushing from several meters away gives a pretty obvious answer to the 'time traveler' question. There is some visible activity above, but fortunately Forge has gotten far enough away that the 'what' of it all is pretty difficult to determine without binoculars. And then, in a flash, the toilet is gone, but the man is standing over near the creature's body.

"Ha! Time travel! Nah, there's plenty to fix right here in the now." Another device is dropped on the creature, this one sending snaking coils all over the creature's body, wrapping him up like a Christmas ham.

Tabitha makes a twitchy little jump with the sudden presence of Forge, and laughs off the nervous energy with a giggle. She looks him over, unconsciously making mental notes for how he can improve his sense of fashion, and visualizes a levitating pair of scissors near his ponytail.

"Sup bro! I take it you're a friend of Dommy," she says, extending her hand with a sudden thrust. After an awkward one-second pause, she continues, "I'm Boom. Boom-BOOM. Um. Also, Tabitha..." she says, her face slightly flush, but friendly enough. "I'm what you might call a big deal superhero," she declares pridefully.

Almost as if sensing a threat, Forge lifts his hand up in order to grab the back of his ponytail. Yep, still there. He seems noticeably relieved. "Aren't you a little short to be a superhero?" He seems to disregard the possibility as unlikely. With a press of a button, the monster disappears. To where, only Forge probably knows. Probably to the same place the toilet went, though.

"I'm Forge, Boom Boom Boom. That bomb thing you did was kind of nifty." He smiles broadly, a genuine twinkle in his eye. "You know, I think you've got potential. Here, take this." He pulls out an old-school notepad, and quickly writes something on it. "When you get home, check that out. It should put you on the right path." And with that he's gone, leaving only the note behind.

The note reads: YouTube channel - NeatStuffWithForge