2012-09-29 Rolly-Polly

It's evening in New York, but of course it isn't particularly dark. The heavy, overcast sky is just reflecting the unsleeping city's lights back down and its rich red glow infuses the Big Apple's Saturday night activities.

Luke Cage has been on another publicity tour around the city. Sure, he doesn't /actually/ have a lot of money, but you have to spend money to make money, especially in a business like his. Most of the money comes in, and goes straight to charities. The rest goes to promoting Heroes for Hire, and maintaining Luke's image around town. Tonight, he's doing a club crawl downtown. He's got a fine black suit on, just missing the tie. Lost that somewhere along the way. He's also just stepping out of a glitzy nightclub, two women on each arm, and a minor posse of hangers-on, just wanting to be part of the Cage experience.

It's a perfect night. Rain is not likely. The air is still warm from summer, but gaining crispness from the fall, and it will definitely /not/ be spoiled by invading giant insects in a few moments.

There's 'not having a lot of money' and there's 'showed up in NYC with the clothes on your back and a two-week advance' levels of being broke. Kyle is much closer to the latter than the former, and the most up-and-coming artistic visionary in the city is not about to wear his brand spankin' new suit out on the town. But, like any former collegian, he is not about to look like the broke starving artist he used to be. Kyle is out bar-crawling as well, wearing ratty jeans and a high-collared silk shirt, French cuffs left undone. Combined with his overlong hair, it gives him the sort of disreputable look that most girls are willing to ignore, given his confident posture and looks that seem stolen right from an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue. He wears little jewelry- a silver necklace and a glittering ring that precisely matches the intense emerald color of his eyes.

Emma Frost is... walking, actually, for a change. She didn't care for the hassles of managing her car tonight, so she left the coupe at home tonight and had one of her people drop her off instead. Somehow, though, she simply completely fails to look like she's anywhere but exactly where she intends to be, and what exactly the socialite in exquisitely tailored Armani and a pair of blindingly white Chuck Taylor All-Stars is doing wandering around alone in this neck of the woods is... well, apparently it's noone's business but her own. Emma goes where Emma pleases. Right now, that's the opposite direction down the sidewalk that Cage is on, perhaps a hundred feet or so away.

Thor is flying low around the city tonight. Patrol? Maybe. That or he's on hiw way for a late night mocha run. Whatever the case is, the armored Asgardian is flying just above everyone's heads, looking at the shop fronts. Why aren't any of the places he's used to seeing open during hte day open right now? A light frown graces his face.

Unfortunately, Luke is so focused on maintaining his little mobile party that he just doesn't pick up on recently transplanted Californian, or even the incredibly beautiful woman down the street from him. The boulevard is packed with women dressed to the nines, after all, and Emma's a football field away. The bit that's pretty darn hard to miss though, is the wind-blast whooshing of Thor skimming overhead. Luckily, Luke's doesn't have any hair to get mussed when the big man goes by but he does stop to look. Because you know, wow. Thor. Luke looks and points along with his posse, talking excitedly.

But then the Asguardian passes, and the sound of rumbling continues on. And then the sound of distant car alarms. And then, it comes in to view. At the high end of the street is a potato bug. Also called a pill bug. Or a roly-poly. Known by many names, this beloved friend of little kids everywhere, is not the one they're familiar with. Our heroes, and many confused people on the street are staring up at a 20 foot tall roly-poly, just getting it's roll on. With a some distance to get started, the thing easily picks up speed, knocking parked cars out of the way left and right. If no one stops this thing, it's going to roll right past and through the T-intersection at the end of the street, and plow through the wall of the... oh. The Jewelry Exchange. Yeah. That probably makes sense now.

"Oh. Well, /that/ can't be good." Kyle's trying the snarky thing now? Ok, sure. He looks around surrepitously, checking if the coast is clear. It very much is, as everyone is staring at the giant freaking pillbug. "To hell with it, RING POWER ACTIVATE!" Kyle shouts. There's a blaring flash of green light that encompasses the whole of his being. The trendy clothing vanishes, replaced by a formfitting black outfit in black and green, a stylized circular icon on his chest. A green domino mask firmly in place, Kyle charges into the way of the pillbug, ring gleaming a spectacular shade of emerald. "Uhh, ok then." Clearly, the youngest of the Green Lanterns hasn't thought this through. His mind spins furiously. "Gotta slow it down. Um... hah!" He makes a series of swift gestures, and incandescent, slightly translucent green webbing whips into existence. And not a little bit of it- he fills at least a hundred-some yards of roadway with the sort of dense, cottony webbing found in really, really old nests. Spider man would probably be at least a little impressed with his results.

It's the terrified minds of the people who see it before her that gets Emma's attention, and the tall blonde turns, arching an eyebrow when she catches sight of the thing. "You *must* be joking," she says, tone nothing so much as exasperated. She leaves her hands in her pockets, and takes one backwards step against the front wall of a building to make sure she's clear.

...and with an irritated sigh, fires a somewhat intense look at one of the panicking younger women who seems to have decided running screaming *into* the street is a logical course of action. The girl goes abruptly silent, freezes mid-step, and walks wide-eyed back onto the sidewalk.

"By Odin's Good Eye! What manner of beast is this," Thor asks of no one in particular, his voice thunderous and booming, as he spies the giant rolly polly. Because these critters must not exist on Asgard or were never played with by a child-sized Thor. But when the bug crashes into a building and the green wonder flies up to net it, Thor launches himself into action.

The cloudy skies above ring out with a crack of thunder. Thor tornado-flings himself at the beast, summoning lightning to Mjolnir as he goes.

"Back with thee, foul beast, to whatever manner of Hel thou dost call 'home'! For I, Midgard's Protector, shall not suffer thy dangers to the realm given unto mine safe keeping!"

Yup. Thor.

The big, bright green web does indeed do the trick, at least initially. It catches the giant roller, but as it bobs around, the webs moorings on the buildings to either side pull free, and it starts to collapse. And then, the enormous things starts to unroll itself.

Emma's bystanders are indeed freaking out. Even with the super heroes present, the vast majority is getting on with the Running and the Screaming. Like mom always said, if you like a thing, and you're good at it, thats what you should do. Go crowd!

Just as Thor is making his approach to the unrolling beast, two more are rolled into view at the top of the street. What is this?! Bowling for diamonds night? This time though, now that everyone's attention is on them, it should be pointed out that the rollies are being put in place by two giant humanoid-mutated dung beetles (1 each), about 10 feet tall.

And, oh what now? What is that /buzzing/ sound? Not totally clear what direction thats even coming from as it bounces around the buildings.

Luke was already in motion, running out into the street to help stop the thing, but is somewhat stymied by the street full of green webbing. "Sweet Christmas! What is this gunk?" he shouts, looking around for the source before making eye contact with the glowing green guy. Suspicious.

Kyle looks around, and realizes the capes are here. Of which he technically is one, now. "Er, sorry! My bad!" Kyle dismisses the webbing with a gesture, just as two more of the armored bugs roll into view. Kyle stamps on the ground once and leaps skyward, propelled by vaguely translucent jet boots. About sixty feet up, he eyes the moving bugs. Mostly momentum at this point. Excellent. He shoots forward, trying to think of a better way to stop the next two pillbugs. "Umm... hah!" Kyle shoots between them with an inspired bit of aerobatics and manifests a chain not /around/ them, but right through the middle of their carapace- the narrow gap at the center of their doughtnuts. He brings the chains around, and at the last moment secures it together into a solid length and locks it firmly in place, binding the two rollers together around their centers by a rapidly shortening rope.

Thor smashes into the pillbug he was aiming for, summoning lightning as he brings Mjolnir down upon the bug's carapice. The full weight of his body, the ffull force of his flying charge, the force of the hammer strike, AND lightning. Poor bug goes squish pretty mightly, and Thor is momentarily lost from sight as he ends up in the middle of bug innerds. The force of his charge having sent him INTO the rolled up bug.

Why can people never simply relax and think a situation through? Mob mentality. Emma despises it. She bends her abilties to the purpose of trying to encourage the panic to recede, lightly suggesting a more measured and effective response than 'run around shrieking'. The noise overhead? Not helping her concentrate on it. She spares a moment to throw a thought out in the general direction of the heroes. |"If we can do this in a fashion that does not cause a tidal wave of additional panic,"| she notes in a highly sarcastic mental tone, |"that might be helpful. Luke,"| she adds in exasperation, |"cut that out-- he is here to help you."| Honestly, you try and go out for a bite to eat and some fresh air out of your normal haunts...

Kyle manages to lasso the two at the top of the street, and chain them up. The two huge rollers are way to big to go down side by side, not even mentioning how ungainly this new arrangement is. The dung beetles start crashing their foreheads into the chains, but it looks like the rolly's best escape will be in unfolding first. But even just unfolding and crawling is going to be a long process. Those mean old superheroes!

Thor does indeed find himself rattling around inside the world's biggest marble. He went clean through (clean is a figure of speech here of course), and the bug is dead, and only half rolled up as its muscles relax. It is now flopped across the road, making the other two pretty useless anyway.

With as vulnerable as the panicking crowd is, they are easily manipulated by Emma's efforts, and most people have started to make their way calmly out of the area, in an orderly fashion.

Luke's head whips around, not a stranger to telepathic abilities, not to mention it being one of his most pronounced weaknesses. Once again, he realizes he won't be able to pick the telepath out of a crowd by looking with his eyes and just gives up, and gives in. "Yeah, yeah, I know." And then he just goes barreling up the street, shoulder checks one of the dung beetles off of trying to free a pill bug, and starts trying to pummel the thing. They seem pretty evenly matched though. He could be a while.

Kyle is new at the superhero thing. He might also be overestimating Thor's abilities. Still- nothing says I love you like a fight on your favored terrain. "Thor!" Kyle bellows. The Green Lantern surges forward, outlines of a mechanized suit of armor limining his body. He gathers length of chain as he does, the links (oddly silent) wrapping several times around the bugs. "Up high!" Kyle whips around in tight circles, gaining momentum, then roars and pulls /hard/ on the chains. The momentum adds to his strength and Kyle hurls both of the pillbugs skywards, high above the immediate rooftops, the green chains gleaming in the night sky and exposing their soft underbellies. "Get them where they're soft!"

Feeling the inside of the bug's exoskeleton against his boots, Thor launches himself skyward once more, the resulting hurricane force winds finishing the job of ensuring this pillbug is good and goo'ed. He is also no stranger to telepathy, but he has no way to respond. He just seeks to end the battle as quickly and as efficiently as possible. People need to leave when the Thunder God starts to battle. Covered from helm to boots, Thor glances at Kyle, nods, and then sets to work.

Mjolnir gleams in his hand as Thor charges it with electricity, waiting for his opening. Soft underbellies come into view, and Thor throws his hammer at the pillbugs.

"Aye, Green One," Thor calls out in response.

"Green LANTERN," Kyle yells back.

For now, the boys seem to be doing just fine tussling with the bugs without her-- and there's a limit to how much she could do physically in this situation. Thus Emma stays put on her patch of sidewalk, settling into a sort of lean against an overturned car while she casts her mind outward in a broad scanning sweep. The civilians are headed in the right directions now, and she hardly needs to continue to babysit them, freeing her to look for a mind controlling the bugs, if there is one to be had. She suspects so. This isn't the sort of theatrics your average supervillain is going to just fire and forget.

Some days she regrets giving up smoking. It's all simply horrid.

It's true. Pill bugs were not really meant for flight. These two would love to roll up and ride out the fall, but they're all tangled up with each other and Kyle's chain. In the sky they're as vulnerable as a couple of skeets in the face of Thor's lightning shotgun. Both explode in a shower of guts and gore, raining both down on the sidewalk along with shards of shell almost as hard as adamantium, it seems.

And then, the buzzing. In a rush, four humanoids crash into Thor, and another four grab Kyle. They move with blinding speed and agility, and try to strike both men with stingers in their wrists, dripping with venom. The stinger weapons would need remarkable luck to pierce the men's defenses, but still. Also worth noting, these humanoids are clearly /womanoids/, and are amalgums of human female and wasp DNA. They are beautiful, and deadly.

And if Emma weren't watching the store, as it were, no one probably would have noticed the two warrior-wasp-women landing outside the jewelry store, smashing in the windows, and stepping through. But perhaps even /more/ interesting, to Emma, at least, is the lone wasp-woman standing atop the ten-story building the jewelry exchange is in, looking over this whole affair with an air of proprietorship. And in fact, her mind is somewhat open to Emma. Much of its workings are so alien, that it's difficult to parse her thoughts, but foremost at the front is the desire to please, the desire to do well, the desire to earn accolades.

Luke keeps pressing his attack and eventually finds an advantage. Yeah, the humanoid version of a dung beetle is all kinds of armored BUT it's stupid spindly legs are just as dumb in this size. And just as spindly. Even accounting for proportions. Never has 'sweep the leg' been more apropos. With a furious series of stomps and knee punches, Luke finally fells the beast, and pounds its stupid head in until it stops twitching. Covered in more 'gunk' than he would have imagined was inside the thing, he climbs to his feet and looks up just as the other beetle charges him, pinning him against the concrete wall of a nearby building.

"Hhhrrrk!" Kyle may have envisioned some armor, but he definitely hasn't started thinking in terms of 'total defense'. He's stung at least twice, and nearly falters. The talons scrape and jab at him, and Kyle definitely gets the worst of it immediately, gaining several new cuts and scrapes. He clenches his right fist and a burst of force explodes out from his skin, forcing away the talons and stingers. Kyle rounds on them and generates a miniature hailstorm of force, aimed at their relatively fragile wings. The reprieve isn't good for long, though, and Kyle's measures are short lived. The Green Lantern shudders in flight and starts descending at an alarming pace, barely able to maintain his flight attitude as he plummets towards the ground, the toxin hitting his system hard.

Thor urks as he's grabbed, right hand having been extended to resummon his hammer. The wasps' grab prevents him from calling to Mjolnir immediately. The talons scrap off armor and flesh alike, but tear into his cloak easily enough. Thor frowns and uses that godly strength to punch and wrestle the wasps in midair, seeming not to worry about falling. He punches one in the temple and sends her plummeting. He grabs another and slams her head into his chest plate, then drops her. The remaining two he ignores as he spots Kyle begin to plummet. Without his hammer, he can only fly as fast as a normal man can run. Thor must resummon the hammer to him before doing anything else. Let the bugs break their stringers upon him.

WELL now. That is terribly interesting indeed. Emma spends a little bit of time getting a feel for the wasp-woman's mind, before deciding on a plan of action. It's difficult to fully grasp a mind this alien, but the base motivations, the parts she can read, are simple enough. And it isn't as if the White Queen doesn't have some experience with the mentality required to pull this off. She reaches out, locates the larcenous wasps' desire to please, and... twists, ever so slightly.

Emma isn't sure precisely where they intend to take the jewels. But she leaves question about where she wants them to end up. It might take a bit too much to alter their orders completely, but bringing whatever they plan to take to her instead of where-ever they're *supposed* to take them... way easier, just as effective.

Two of the warrior-wasp-women shriek as their wings are torn asunder by Kyle's onslaught of green energy. Shorn of their maneuverability, they are further shredded by the same attack, and fall to the ground, slashed and bloody. The other two tussling with him though were close enough to the edge of his blast to only take minor wounds to their legs as they fled the hail of green energy. Interestingly, they are now /racing/ Thor to reach Kyle's body first. What could they possibly want with the fallen warrior? Surely they would move on to another target...

They are not /quite/ as fast as Thor at his best, but they did start closer. This could be very, very close indeed. The two left worrying at his armory, do exactly that, apparently changing tactics when he ignores them, and they begin scrabbling to find the /fastenings/ to Thor's armor, screeching and buzzing all the while.

The wasp-lady on the roof twitches slightly from her statuesque pose when Emma pushes her, and it turns out, it wasn't particularly difficult. The truth becomes clear that these creatures could only barely respect the male that set them forth, so being redirected to a feminine form was almost gratefully accepted. Buzzing down the front of the building, she meets the underlings who are just coming out with four, black, velvet bags full of some clattering stones of some kind. Approaching Emma off to the edge of the battle raging on behind her, the head wasp takes a knee before the mind-bender, and presents the bags to her, head bowed.

Meanwhile, Luke wrestles the other dung beetle. Twisting, rolling, and striking at the thing, this time, enraged as he is, he actually manages to crack it's carapace with his fist. He takes advantage of the bug-man's moment to howl his pain, and rams its head into the concrete wall Luke had been pinned against moments ago.

 Only Kyle can hear his ring's clear, artificial speech patterns, speaking to him with the speed of telepathy. His flight abruptly falls to a tenth of terminal velocity, radically changing his velocity. Kyle groans and struggles to focus.

A brief but intense communion occurs. The ring glitters with a winkglimmer of light that seems a language all its own. Kyle's eyes twitch, as if reading. The ring flares. Kyle roars in pain.

Bare yards from a messy three-way impact, Kyle snaps out of his controlled fall and turns it into a flaring, twisting dive. He spirals along just above the ground, body wreathed in green energy, and surges past Luke. More chains whip into existence, binding the creature low around the joints of its spindly legs, at their weakest point, and binding them together tightly. Kyle rolls and gains elevantion again, smashing through another group of the female wasps. "Thor! Hail, now!" he shouts at the God of Thunder. He looks down at Emma. Yup, Emma's got her end of the fight covered.

Mjolnir leaps to Thor's hand when summoned, Thor having dropped all flight completely to free fall after Kyle. Again, Thor ignores the wasps, until he feels the shoulder piece to his armor start to slip loose.

Let it be stated for the record that Thor had /nothing/ to do with the wasps chosing to undress him!

Thor levels out as Kyle does, reaching up with his left hand to grab a wasp by the hair and fling her away from his pauldron.

"Aye, Green Lantern. If thou wishes for it to hail... Let it hail!" Thor looks up to the sky, his eyes glowing winter-white. He brandishes Mjolnir and summons dark gray and stormy clouds, decrees that the rain contained within them would freeze, and then insisting that fat orange-sized ball of ice fall from the heavens.

Duck and cover. And hope you have good hail insurance.

This is why we can't have nice things.

They can't all be super-brilliant plans!

Emma pushes off of the car to stand, and adjusts herself into an entirely credible regal demeanor as the lead wasp approaches. She accepts the gifts with one hand, and the other actually reaches out to lightly caress what is... more or less a cheek. As she does, she lets her approval bleed into the wasp's mind. She had to admit... she was loathe to simply dismiss them or scramble their minds completely, but she can't simply return them to the one who sent them.

A better option occurs to her. |"I am pleased. Gather your sisters,"| the thoughts are as much images as anything, easy to interpret. Emma constructs an image of wetlands, a feeling of location... the Everglades. Remote, and largely ideal for the need at hand. |"Fly free of this man who set you this task. I reward you this. Fly home and forget this crude place."| It isn't as if a pack of females can form a viable colony, and it isn't really their fault. Sending them off to eventually die off at the end of a peaceful existance is far more... satisfying.

The wounded and slow moving bugs and wasps are viciously pummeled by the falling chunks of ice, leaving Thor and Kyle unharried. But then, they weren't going to get far anyway.

The ones who are unhurt actually seem to have some success /dodging/ the worst of the ice, and arrow through the storm to rejoin their leader after some silent signal is given. The wasp leader gathers them together, and they all duck into a nearby building, seeking the safety of something like a nest, and probably a sewer access tunnel. They know how to travel dangerous terrains, and they'll bide their time as they make their way to the Everglades. A final, beautiful mission.

Cage climbs his way out of the wreckage of his own minor battles, and finds himself battered with massive hunks of ice. It's not that they're injuring him, but they do slow his progress. Also, nobody likes getting hit in the face with a baseball-sized chunk of ice. He begins to trudge his way back down the street, through increasing slurries of ice and bug gunk, to hopefully debrief with the other supers. They should really agree on a statement before the cops get here. And more importantly, the press.

"Any survivors?" Cage asks, once he's in earshot of everyone.

"Thor! The hail! Off! OFF! TURN IT OFF!" Kyle ducks and covers as best he can, finally remembering that he actually doesn't /have/ to take the hit. The Green Lantern turns on a low-powered shield over his person, then throws his hands out in both directions. It takes a bit of inspiration and some willpower, but he makes a squishy, semi-permeable membrane stretch out across the immediate landscape under assault. It emits an immense humming sound, vibrating at a high tempo. Ice sort of 'plops' through, but as it does, it falls from more like ten or fifteen feet, rather than a full descent from low orbit, and with a more snow-like consistency than hard, icey lumps.

"Green Lantern, uh, reporting in, I guess?" Kyle says. He tries to swoop in for a smooth landing next to Luke and mostly manages not to fall over. He thoughtfully throws umbrellas over the four heroes, glancing up at the night sky.

Make it hail. Make it not hail. Make up your mind, puny mortal! Thor grumps faintly, but unsummons the thunder clouds with a bit of a wave of his hand. Turning toward the gathered, Thor alights upon the ground before Emma, blue-gray eyes scanning over the other heroes. And then a grin spreads over his face.

"Well fought, and well met," Thor states, clearly pleased by the battle, his words directed at the menfolk. Look! We saved a damsel.

Always nice when a Lantern is a gentleman and Emma doesn't have to resort to Going Diamond. How nice. Emma certainly doens't need Thor to say anything to know what he's thinking about her involvement, and the roll her eyes pull off makes the Blue Angels look like rank amateurs. She doesn't say anything /specific/ to disabuse him of the notion that she's a damsel for rescue, instead dropping the bags of jewels into Luke's hands as a sleek, silver Maserati pulls up nearby. "I'm sure they'll want these back, Mr. Cage," she notes as she sweeps past towards the car, a driver hopping out. "We should do lunch sometime."

Frost sinks into the driver's seat, closes the door, and the sports car purrs away. The driver? Oh, he'll just hang out waiting for a pickup. It's his job.