2014.01.10 - Hell is Other Moloids

It's late morning in downtown Metropolis. Sun beams streamed through the towering buildings to the streets below, and despite the light snowfall of Winter still coating the ground, it wasn't terribly cold. This was good, because the workforce, who would otherwise be planted inside the buildings in the area had bigger things to worry about. It was about thirteen minutes ago that the tremors started, and what made these tremors particularly odd was that they seemed isolated specifically to this area, only this three-block radius. A disorganized evacuation effort had begun.

Doreen Green, the self-dubbed Squirrel Girl, had spent the morning with one of her new allies, Wolverine... mostly dragging him around between libraries, checking newspaper archives as well as various seemingly-random, abandoned buildings in New York. Doreen's obsession with uncovering the history of The Mole-Man and the recent monsters leaking from Subterranea had reached a quickening fervor. Much of the morning, she wasn't so sure that Logan felt this hunt wasn't totally futile, and she also suspected he wasn't used to playing the role of 'tag-along'. She tried to keep him busy by foisting 'babysitting' duties on him--specifically for her BFF Tippy-Toe, the ebullient, pink-bowed squirrel that she took everywhere. And totally didn't need babysitting at all. After news of the tremors started coming in on Doreen's Google-Alerts, she cross-checked it's source with her make-shift, speculative map of possible Subterranean leads. It was indeed one of the spots she'd highlighted, having been referenced in a conflict with The Fantastic Four years ago. Doreen started hoofing it to the location, not too far away, as fast as her legs could take her.

At the center of the activity were screams. Shrieks. And running people, most dressed in business attire. This was caused not just by the earlier tremor, but by the subsequent appearance of creatures. Smashing and then scrambling out of the windows of a nearby, old, shutdown office building were a pack of seven, nasty-looking lizard-like beasts. Bumpy, scaly, and clawed. They perched up on two legs intermittently, reaching a height of five feet tall, tails flicking to and fro wildly. The lizard monsters didn't seem particularly interested in hurting anyone, oddly enough, and merely looked around the area with a great paranoia, trying to act all intimidating, with hisses and glares. A pretty easy feat in the face of the fleeing office workers.

Booster Gold has a system for tracking crime and natural disasters. This system is called Skeets; the robot processes dozens of information feeds, and when something interesting comes up, he notifies his boss. As a result, not long after the tremors break out, Booster arrives like a golden comet, and hovers to a halt over the lizard beings.

"All right," Booster says, pointing down at the creatures. "Cease and desist your..." he pauses. They don't seem to be attacking people, but they are making a huge mess. "...vandalism. This is not okay."

"That intern's gettin' fired," Logan grunted as he huffed it. During the misadventures with the cute girl with the squirrel tail he saw just how bad S.H.I.E.L.D. dropped the ball with the response to this situation. How this all evolved just from one notification that was disregarded because the source said, "And that's what the squirrels told me." When Logan made it back to the base there was going to be a -long- conversation about animal whisperers need to be investigated as sources, even Squirrel Whisperers.

"Screams say we're gettin' closer darlin'," his eyes went to the squirrel Doreen brought with her, "May get too hairy for you short stuff. Unless you wanna call that army again," he wouldn't know what the little guy chirped back met. All Logan remembered was the tidal wave of squirrels that bit, scratched, clawed and shrieked a demonic looking dog to death. Squirrels were laughable until they were a unified front with numbers nearing or in the triple digits.

Thanks to the misadventures Logan was able to change into street gears and get some semblance of a shower. Now in blue jeans that mostly concealed black boots, a black t-shirt and the bomber coat, he kept moving. "S.H.I.E.L.D.'s got their thumb up their ass. Were gonna need help with the Demon dogs if there's more."

Never is it a good thing when big, lizard scaled, monster dog things, start showing up from somewhere hideous and make a mess of the peace by way of trying to wreck peoples days. All it took was a picture and a few tweets to pop up on Hisako Ichiki's twitter, and a run in with one such monster thing moments later to give her a reason to get on duty with the Hero thing.

It helps that she happens to be IN the Metropolis part of town at the time of the panic arising. When Panicked civvies run by, she stands firm, looking about the area for details and things that she's gonna have to punch as soon as she Armors up, and... Wait, is that Logan?

The rumblings of the Earth had not gone unnoticed by Kay McHenry, the Geomancer who was attuned with the Earth's movements.

And yet when Gilad had been informed of just -what- and why he'd be here... "SQUIRRELS are telling -you- that something's wrong?"

Ten thousand years' worth of disdain might as well have been weighted in his words, but Gilad Anni-Padda was not one to waste further words when the Fist and Steel of the Earth was needed.

And so when he arrives, on a motorcycle, it's with machine guns and battle axes, ready to deal death if the situation were to call for it. But Booster's presence... well, at least the Man of Gold would be best equipped to deal with diplomacy. So let him call first. And if they tried to take a bite out of him... well, then, the Eternal Warrior would intercept.

One of the lizard-men peered his gaze upward and stared coldly at Booster Gold, looking almost like a deer caught in headlights. But then, another three-second shock wave hit the street, and the lizard creatures skittishly clung to the ground instantly, cowering in fear. They didn't seem to know if they were coming or going, their beastly expressions confused and wily. A subtle, crackling sound emanated vaguely from the building they had pulled themselves from, and the sounds of numerous falling, smashing things could be heard from inside of many of the downtown office buildings on this block.

Doreen and Logan only felt the edge of the shockwave, and arrived on the scene immediately after it hit. She made a sudden, full stop in her tracks, about forty feet from the scene. Taking a moment to eyeball the situation, she looked back to Logan and Tippy-Toe.

"I was right, alright!" Doreen proclaimed smugly, "This has gotta be the spot they're coming up from! Hurry... SHIELD isn't even on the scene yet." Turning back to face the leapin' lizardly lingerers, she began to take steps closer. "Hey!" Doreen announced to the unhuman beasts, trying to get their attention, "We come in peace!" Doreen was trying her idea of diplomacy first, albeit awkward. One of the monsters, who in all liklihood were barely sentient, and most certainly not an English speaker, looked at her with a instagram-worthy 'the heck?' sort of expression.

"Oh, uh. Hmm." Booster Gold rubs his chin, thoughtfully. He drops from the sky, landing lightly on his feet near the lizard creatures, clearly not worried about being attacked. His hand lifts in an acknowledgement of Anni-Padda's arrival, as he greets him with a distracted, "Hey, Gilad."

Turning slowly, as he scans the area courtesy of the technology embedded in his goggles, Booster wonders of Logan and Doreen, "Are you guys from SHIELD?" He heard them bring it up a few times, but was not really paying attention to details.

Logan looked at everything from the lizard men to the Man of Gold. A "shnkt" cuts through the air and he looked back to Doreen, "You've been trackin' Bastards. You lead," he said nodding to Squirrel Girl. Seeing the barely registering looks among the creatures Logan gave a soft but ferocious smile. One thing about this whole misadventure there was no shortage of fighting weird, messed up crap. His blue eyes darted over the creatures waiting for them to attack. "We gotta get to these things master, right?" slowly he stepped closer to the creatures. Hearing Booster Gold cry out about S.H.I.E.L.D. Logan answered, "I am. She's just the brains that did the work the brass refused and dropped the ball on this one."

Having spotted Logan, Hisako makes a Bee-Line straight for him, because he's good at taking charge and knowing what to do at times of crisis like this. She's also his Tag-along sidekick, so she's GOT to be there! The X-Girl slips past the panicking civies, and once she gets about 20 feet from him calls out for him, "Logan!"

Once she gets closer, she notices more than a couple of other people around, and says, "We've got Bad-Dudes galore, huh?" She eyes Doreen and Gilad, looking them over, "Is this a Team-up? Looks like a Team-up..." Her attention is drawn to Future man, and she blinks at his whole get up, "Wait, are you Green Lantern?"

"Gold," Gilad responds, nodding his head as he regards the others. Unstraddling the motorcycle, the Eternal Warrior surveys the spot, regarding the lizard creatures with a jaundiced eye. "Those are not fighters, are they...? What are they..."

Doreen's proclamation has Gilad frowning, as he shifts his stance to kneel at the ground, trying to get a feel for the vibrations down below, an assessment of just what was coming. What is going on...?

There was creepy, low-toned deafening rumble that was unignorable. It echoed from below the gathered lizards and heroes. Then came the moment. The moment you remember that the sidewalks of large city streets are in fact just hollow shells covering horizontal tunnels, designed for the placement of pipes, cables, and such. That shell had at once given in, and the concrete sidewalk began to simultaneously crackle, slide, and collapse without much warning.

Doreen stomach dropped like she were on a roller-coaster, and she gave out a panicked little squeak: "The ground... is caving in!" -- indeed, it was mere seconds before the entire sidewalk shell had fallen. And kept falling into a gigantic, dark, hole below, approximately fifty feet diameter across. Squirrel Girl was one of the unlucky ones, along with six of the seven lizard beasts, who didn't have any sudden means of flight. She plummeted down, screeching in terror, while her night vision kicked in, her eyes giving off a subtle, red glow. Little did she know that the real terror wasn't falling, it was what was coming up. Those who could manage to look downward would undoubtedly see a huge, possibly 25-foot-tall, green-skinned bear-like beast lingering about 100 feet below, clumsily holding up all of its weight against the side of the tunnel with one of its mighty arms while the falling debris and concrete barely phased him, as it wooshed further below. It's giant, clawed hand reached up slowly to yoink a falling Doreen from the air, like someone had just offered it a snack. By all logical accounts, this was probably the source of the cave-in.

"Booster Gold," Booster tells Hisako, but without rancor. "These little guys just seem scared, I guess they were trying to get away from whatever was--" when the ground gives way, Booster starts to fall with it, but only for a few feet. He ends up floating in mid-air, and this time he does not bother with trying to get the huge creature to talk about its feelings. Flying downwards and leading with his fist, he attempts to grapple with the green bear-thing's wrist, trying to free Doreen. Booster calls up, "I don't suppose someone could see to getting some of that yellow caution tape around the perimeter before we have people falling into this pit..."

Falling down Logan began yelling, "HISAKO ARMOR UP! GREEN LANTERN," the intentional jab had to happen at least once, "GRAB SQUIRREL GIRL! ARMORY USE A BLADE TO SLOW YOUR DECENT LIKE THIS!" With the claws extended Logan fell down feeling himself slow. When blue eyes spotted the giant green creature Logan pushed off a wall then went for it with all six claws baring themselves and they were ready to pierce flesh. "You're the only one with flight Booster! Unless you gotta an assistant that can do that it's gotta be you!" Logan had regret in his voice. Booster was a good fighter when it came down to it so to lose to something important yet tethering like crowd control was a bit of a letdown. And Logan had no clue or idea about skeets.

Hisako doesn't need to be told twice. Logan says the word, though it's a moment before Armor reacts to him, and more to the ground beneath her suddenly giving out, in response to which she eeps and begins falling! However, her survival instincts, and Logan's word, convinces her to reflexively manifest her armor, which would protect her from anything that could happen. Like falling to the underground with no idea what's beneath!

Hisako shrieks for a a moment, and calls out, "I'll be fine! Just crashing to the underground! This shouldn't hurt! ... I think...!" And a few moments later she crashes into the ground with a THUD. She groans, gritting her teeth, "Ow... I'm okay.."

The ground giving way beneath Gilad... well, the years of experience with pitfalls causes Gilad to grab at his battle axe. Whipping it out, the Eternal Warrior slams the axe at whatever he can impact to slwo his own descent. It's imperfect, as the ancient Sumerian practically bounces off debris, until at last he lands, on feet and knees, the ground splintering beneath him as his hardy physique leaves a crater around him.

Dark eyes shift towards Logan. "We've met before, haven't we, years ago...?" Gilad asks, before his eyes traverse the area. Good. One of the young girls was okay. The other... Booster had her in hand, it seemed, but he would require help. But a beast like that could not create a cave-in -this- big, from immediate observation, and so Gilad asseses the cave-in. "You get the girl, Gold. This cave-in is -much- bigger than could be by -that- thing..." he remarks, as he examines the markings quickly, trying to get a feel for what constructed -this- pit... Gilad Anni-Padda pages: There, close enough [Public] Hisako Ichiki has left this channel.

The huge beast, not expecting anything like a Booster Gold to appear suddenly at it's hand, drops Doreen, who using her Squirrel-Agility(tm), nimbly bounces off the creatures bended arm, and leaps sideways onto a small ledge dense dirt along the tunnel. She takes a moment to breath out her sudden panicked state. She darted her eyes around the area to make sure the suddenly gathered heroes weren't about to die, and that's when she caught the glimpse of Wolverine's claw-filled launch at the beast. For a moment she considered yelling out for Logan to spare the creature, but she remembered her encounter with monsters like this in Central Park. Those were so vicious.

The bear-like Beast, not being the sharpest knife in the drawer (and speaking of sharp things), didn't even notice Wolverine, and gave all its attention to Booster Gold, as it flung its fist at him in a crude attempt to smack him out of the air.

As the rubble settled below, the bright daylight of the morning sun shot down into the pit below. What was revealed about 30 feet deeper down was about a dozen or so tunnel openings, most wide enough for a person to crawl through. One opening, which was directly in front of where Hisako landed, was supremely wider than the rest, and showed evidence of being recently pushed wider, presumably by the massive creature above. Around her lay the six fallen lizard men's bodies--it was unclear if they'd survived the fall or not, but there was blood, they weren't moving, so probably not. As Gilad arrives and looks over the area, he'd detect that the majority of this cave and tunneled area had been created even before this current event, and this recent event was merely the straw the broke the...sidewalk's back.

"As a matter of fact," Booster replies to Wolverine's comment, as he beast-wrangles. "Skeets! Keep people away from this area until we can assess its stability." Doreen is just close enough that she might hear the response of, 'yes, sir' coming through Booster's communicator. After the girl springs away, Booster turns to deal with the huge creature, only to be met by a fist nearly as big as his body.

Booster ends up smashing into the pit wall, further cracking it and dislodging debris. He gives his head a shake, and as the dust clears, he does not seem the least bit scuffed. Even his hair still looks fine. These are the benefits of having a forcefield. "Important safety tip," he remarks, "Don't let that thing hit you." Launching himself towards the big beast again, he tries to grab at it in an attempt to peel it away from the wall, because knocking it down will at least get it within easier reach of those who cannot fly.

Skin, muscle and even bone gave away as Logan felt the familiar sensation of what happened when someone got stabbed with adamanitum. There was nothing quite like the blade sinking inside and finding their marks. The beast howled in pain but Logan was just a fury of stabs. If the beast decided to crush Logan with a swipe the Canadian would have taken it, groaned, but let the beast deal with dragging a three hundred pound weight downward when said weight literally had its claws inside you. Sometimes being made freakishly heavy thanks to the metal in your bones was a merit. As Logan kept working he cried out, "Is everyone okay?!"

"These guys aren't..." Hisako says with a bit of a grunt, as she picks herself up and lets her armor disappear. She glances about and comments, "Either these guys died in the fall or something else got them, I think... Either way, I'm happy they're not jumping me.." She then turns about and eyes the tunnel, whistling a little, "Wow, I didn't think the Tunnels were this wide..."

An answering grunt is all the response about how 'okay' Gilad is.

"GOLD. When you're done playing, I need you down here," Gilad comments absentmindedly, as he regards the situation. It's only when Booster is still assaulting the bear that Gilad looks up, glowering. Tugging free his machine guns, Gilad aims at the giant bear, opening fire...

BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA. As the bear falls, Gilad glowers at Booster. "Now."

Doreen made two rapid, surprisingly graceful leaps downward along the edge of the pit's wall, into the darker area below, landing next to Hisako. She didn't seem to give any attention to the falling, probably-dead beast that just got slain by Logan and Gilad.

"Hey, wow," Doreen yipped, as her red, glowy eyes gazing around to look. "These could be entrances... to Subterranea!" Doreen spoke the word almost as if it had magical properties (like she were about to step into a mythical world of faries and unicorns) as she stared into the darkened tunnels ahead. She took one excited step forward, but jerked her leg back, stopping herself. She made a double-take on Hisako, observing her powers. "Cool trick," she commented. She smiled at her, and looked over to Gilad. "I'm Squirrel Girl," she proclaimed. "Looks like we're going underground... literally!" she chortled at her own dorky joke, and in a blink had scampered ahead into the largest opening, calling back to the group, "I'm going in! Hurry!" she yelled, not realizing in her excitement that she was being uncharacteristically and unintentionally bossy.

Forcefield or not, Booster reflexively turns his head aside as various fluids and flesh gobbets get rent from the big bear-monster. It's still unpleasant, getting splashed by that kind of thing, even if it's not going to stick. "Hey," Booster floats downwards, gesturing to Gilad. "You're a friend, Gilad, but you're not my boss." He does not seem angry when he says this, more of a genial kind of cautioning. To the others, he says, "Skeets... he's my assistant... is above, trying to keep things under control. The last thing we need are civilians peeking in and falling down here. Aw..." He finally notices the lizard beings, and says, "That's sad. They just seemed scared and trying to get to safety."

Seeing how the lizards scattered, after the bear fell, "Spare who you can. They're scared. When they fight back then hit em' back," Logan said. Spending a lot of time in the wilderness made him realize when an animal was just scared and when they were being territorial. The bear like creature was territorial. The lizards were just scared. Moving down the path his blue eyes finally looked at Gilad. How the man said they knew each other before Logan was going to disagree, but then it started to kick in. Old memories from a time that had gone by from a life that was forgotten came to the front. On top of the rumbling noises from the cave and the lizards he heard gunfire overhead, bombs and explosions in the distance. The latter two were in his head, ghosts from those days. Shaking his head trying to push away the thoughts Logan said in a low grunt, "We haven't met before bub."

Hisako takes a little backstep at Squirrel Girl's landing, and tilts her head, not entirely sure if she can take this girl that seriously. Squirrel Girl? Is that an actual gimmick? She looks Doreen over up and down, hmming at the costume choice, and Tippy Toes, before just sort of nodding at Doreen's observation of her powers. "Yeah the armor's pretty cool. It can take pretty much anything coming at it short of Logan's claws." She gestures to Wolverine pointedly. "Name's Armor.... Can't say it was my first choice for a codename..." She lies, it was right off the top of her head when she chose it.

She glances about, "So, mission is in there, Wolverine?" Switching to Code Names, just to get into business mode.

"Fine, Gold," Gilad briefly acknowledges. "We'll leave them be. We're going to find the cause."

Wolverine's denial is met with a studious glance, but Gilad says nothing, his attention shifting to the student with Logan. "Armor that can take anything?" he notes, before those dark eyes that had seen millennia shift towards Doreen, and a slight derisive smirk crosses his face, but it is quickly removed once the girl scamper ahead.

Shaking his head briefly at the others, Gilad smiles darkly. "Well. What -Squirrel Girl- said, then." And after Squirrel Girl Gilad runs, axes and swords attached to him, guns at ready.

Once our group headed deeper into the tunnel, the feint sound of commotion could be heard. It was distant, echoey, but unmistakable: a whole lot of *something somewhere* was yowling, and moving. The tunnels ahead twisted and turned, splitting off randomly, so finding the best direction was going to take luck. Even Squirrel Girl's enhanced smelling didn't reveal any clues, and she rejoined the group so they could travel together. She tried to pass the time through these entryways by offering up awkward chit-chat about how difficult her NYU finals were, and how most people didn't realize that squirrels totally loved ice cream.

After about what would feel like a half mile of tunnel-crawling together, as the noises got..noisier... the tunnel finally emptied out into a very large cavern. Around the caverns's walls were large, flat, semi-carved gemstones of a myriad of colors, each giving off their own shimmering glow of light. Here was both the source of all the cacophonous bellowing that'd been careening through the tunnels, but this area also gave witness to quite a frantic, unbridled sight to behold indeed. Inside was what could only be described as a full-on, frenzied *riot* scene that looked like a cross between an overcrowded, unpatrolled nut-house (squirrel pun unintended) and a gathering of Tolkein-esque 'Gollums'. Here was a ramshackle, barely-dressed army of perhaps two hundred or so humanoid creatures that were making an unfathomable amount of aimless, localized, and utterly chaotic mayhem.

These were Moloids, though it's entirely possible no one here had ever seen one before. They were extremely pale, humanoid creatures, with dim eyes, feeble physiques, standing at about five feet tall. In this particular case, each Moloid seemed to be having their own personal cranial short-circuit, and virtually every one was acting highly animated. Even by Moloid standards. If one were to observe any single one of these guys, they'd be relentlessly, actively engaging in any one or combination of the following: grunting uncontrollably, pointing, punching themselves, punching closest other-Moloid, jumping ontop of the closest, prone other-Moliod, hopping up and down like they were doing the peepee-dance, twitching like a spun-out druggie, spinning while lying on the ground, or flailing their bodies wildly against the walls and floors. Yeah... complete and utter madness.

Despite the scene, Doreen at least felt a sense of luck that, so far, her group had been undetected by this freakish horde.

Booster Gold has only a vague understanding of what squirrels are; they don't exist when he's from, at least not in their current-era form. He listens to Doreen's chatter with a faint frown, mostly coming away with the idea that squirrels are a kind of softer, less-horrible rat. When the group comes upon the chaotic scene, Booster says, "Okay, clearly these little dudes have some issues going on. Reminds me of the way those lizards were acting... if they attack, try not to hurt them. I'm going to take a look."

With that said, Booster flies up into the air, trying to get the highest possible vantage point he can get in the cavern. His head is turning this way and that as he looks around, his visor flicking through various modes of vision as he collects data on the situation.

Logan moved through the caves sniffing. The smell was stale, rocky and mixed with a slew of other scents that didn't mix well. Looking over the group when the Moloids were freaking out he said low, "Leave em' if you can." Taking more sniffs he tried to figure out where they could go. Why these creatures were going nuts had to have a source. He was just trying to get to the bottom of it. "Keep yer guards up," he continued in low tones. His eyes went to the streaking gold figure and he hoped that the scans gave everyone something to work with.

It's kind of hard to keep up a casual conversation while on what is basically a mission, so Hisako just goes quiet, keeping not far behind Logan and the others, and keeping her eyes peeled for things that go bump in the dark. Her armor is currently down for however long it takes for monsters and Moloids to decide to jump them.

Moving along quickly, Gilad assesses the situation, the numerous swarm catching his attention. "... Guard up. I've been doing this too long. Though they seem... nervous." Kneeling down, Gilad prepares to watch, his eyes shifting from Moloid to Moloid, trying to assemble the situation into something comprehensible. Were they preparing for invasion? If so, it looked more like a lemming invasion.

Surprisingly or not, the majority of the Moloids seemed so deeply involved in whatever what was upsetting them that they barely gave our newcomers any mind. A few of them jumped towards the group (closest to Gilad) with a panicked expression, but quickly lept back in some reflexive fear. One Moloid stepped in front of Hisako and just stared, drooling.

With Booster Gold's scans of the area from overhead, he noticed something un-Moloid-like behind the edge of one of the larger, blue gemstones lighting the cavern. It was a short, stocky human with his back facing outward, holding a staff. When approached, the filthy green robes that draped over his form smelled terrible. He was wearing some sort of customized sunglasses. With a head twitch, he seemed to notice the heroes, at first not saying a word. Instead, he seemed very preoccupied with hurling a large, ten-foot-long staff repeatedly against a small desktop CPU that lie on the ground in front of him. Attached to it was a rather out-of-place, completely futuristic-looking speaker-like gizmo. Despite the man's unending assault on the machine, he couldn't seem to even render a dent on it.

"Don't just stand there!" he shouted in a tone that an impatient, disappointed school teacher might carry. "Help me smash this thing!"

Doreen, who was carefully following after Booster Gold from below, knew this guy. Well, not really, of course, but she'd read what she could find about him. She saw his photo in an old newspaper. "Mole-Man," she said, quietly at first. "It's the Mole-Man!" she then announced to her friends, also attracting the attention of some of the frenzied Moloids nearby, who stumbled in her general direction. Now, in Doreen's imagination, she'd thought of the Mole-Man kind of like Doctor Doom: powerful, vengeful; an overlord. But in person, standing close by, watching him pathetically flail his staff, he seemed far more like her grumpy grandpa than an evil mastermind.

Mole-Man didn't recognize any of the heroes assembled, but in his mind most of them were all the same, and he addressed them as such, crying out in a sad, wailing tone, "Whhhhhy!" he yowled, attracting even more Moloids their way. "Whhhhhhhhy would someone do this to my home? My people?! They've been destroying everything!"

"Gosh," remarks Booster Gold, as realization begins to dawn for him. He drops straight down, landing by the Mole-Man, saying, "Where did this thing come from?" Reaching for the speaker, he moves to try to rip its connection apart. As he tends to this, he says to the dismayed man, "You know, there's a huge sinkhole up there, now... I mention this as a point of interest, because someone made that, and something is going to need to be done about it. I'm not trying to point fingers, here."

Logan was about to do something shocking. He looked at the Mole-Man and asked, "What's makin' your people crazy? They're headin' to the surface world wild and feral?" Diplomacy was something many probably never expected wolverine to do. His eyes looked to the short and stout man. If Mole-Man seemed confused about what was making everyone haywire that probably meant he wasn't the source. This wasn't a sure fire assessment, but one that had some ground. Logan waited for the reply. More Molemen were coming toward the man's shrieks and the x-man seemed unmoved. Keeping the guy in green calm probably would have ended the push of his mindless minions.

Hisako stares at the old Mole Man, having never seen such a guy before. She's seen mutants and heroes, and villains and monsters, but this one was just kind of something else. She watches Logan do the talking, and commenting, "They're not going berserk on purpose? That's... Different..." She looks at the machine that Mole Man is working at, before asking, "Should we break it then, Wolverine?"

The Moloids who came close to Gilad were warned back by a wave of the machine guns, the Eternal Warrior's attention mainly focused on the Mole-Man that Doreen was telling about. He seemed to be much like a victim. Abruptly, Gilad turns towards Wolverine and Armor. "I'm going to do what he asks. Be prepared afterwards, in case." Gilad responds, as he crosses the area, shoving the Moloids in his way to join Booster. As soon as Booster has part of the CPU open, Gilad pulls a grenade from his jacket, rips the pin out with his teeth, and thrusts the explosive into the CPU. "Force field, Gold."

The cable that Booster pulled at seemed surprisingly durable, and was wasn't severing very quickly easily. It did slowly loosen up, but when Gilad started pulling open up the CPU, it brought the brightest of smiles to Mole-Man, as he revealed several missing teeth in an oddly silent, cheerful expression. Then Mole-Man just stood there for a second, but then turned to look at Wolverine, in something resembling a response to what he and Booster Gold had said.

"I've no idea who put this here," he snarled, trying to get under some expectant forcefield that Gilad had spoken of. "Take it away! I hate you people!" he decried.

"Hey. No need to be rude," Booster Gold tells Mole-Man, in a mild tone. After Gilad jams in the explosive, Booster seems to consider the situation, and then gestures towards the casing. A translucent golden bubble forms around it, because it is easier to contain the explosion than try to shield everyone nearby. "But still, stand back."

"Call off your goons when it goes, Logan said to Mole-Man. When Booster was shielding the PC his blue eyes looked over Mole-Man's broken smile. "If you send em' up again I'll make sure you wind up worse than the computer. Got it?" his eyes narrowed and growl could be heard under his voice. Those were his terms.

Hisako justs manifests her armor, independently of the forcefield, though she doesn't mind the extra protection, she'll probably be fine once the thing goes boom. "Okay, boom goes the bad box. Armored up."

After the explosion, Mole-Man began to storm off like an angry child into a previously hidden, small tunnel beyond, giving not even the slightest concern over property damage or clean-up.

From behind the army Moloids were all standing around, gawking at each other with the most confused expressions they could muster. Their manic frenzy had at once ceased, and they clearly didn't know what to do. But some of them noticed Mole-Man's attempt to exit, and they began lining-up, in a single-file line. More noticed the line forming, and indeed like lemmings, in a matter of minutes the entire horde of Moloids had formed a giant line, and were following after Mole-Man like obedient soliders.

Squirrel Girl didn't know what to say about any of this, and the whole scene had taken her off-guard. She was happy things seemed to be getting resolved, at least. "Logan... should we follow him?" she asked quietly, watching the the underworlders make their retreat, "'Cause I kind of have a babysitting appointment in an hour," she admitted, looking a little embarrassed.

Shielding his eyes from the box, Gilad watches the box go off with a boom. Not that it did anything, thanks to Booster's force field. With the box settled, Gilad glances towards Logan, and then at the Mole Man. "Leave them be. Whatever caused this, it wasn't these people. We'd be better off focusing our attention on what this box is from. Gold, we're taking the remains back. Let us see what Wisdom and Strange have to say about this. If you two would like to find out what happened..." And here Gilad glowers at Logan. "... then find Gold. And you and I will speak again."