2013.03.16 - You Will Kneel, Part 1

You will kneel. Part 1

"If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?" -- William Shakespeare

KRYPTON 56a - A LONG TIME AGO

Dru-Zod stands alone upon a pillar of remarkable crystal in a cavernous black room. In the foreground, on a matching dais, sit seven members of Krypton's Scientific Council.

Jin-Dor reads the verdict. To no one's shock, it is guilty.

"Dru-Zod," a booming voice echoes throughout the hall. "Do you have any final words before your sentencing?"

Zod stares at the council with a smug defiance. "I expect no less from this so called council. Your sloth, lunacy, and desire to protect your fiefdom will bring ruin upon this planet. No, I expect this from this council, all except for Jor-El. He who, as we speak, is developing plans to leave this planet before its impending doom. The council has been clear, yet he persists. If anyone is guilty of sedition, it is my old friend Jor-El."

"With all due respect, Zod," Jor-El chimes from his position on the dais. "It was you who did not deny using military force at the valley or Kor-zan. It was you who hatched a plan to assassinate members of this council as well as military leaders in your shabby excuse for a coup. True, Zod, we were once friends. But I am no traitor. While I may disagree with the council on certain key issues regarding the future of Krypton, comparing us is asi-"

"I have done, what I have done in the best interest of this world, Jor-El. History, if there is one, will smile upon me as one who stood up to the corruption of the council. And I promise you this, Jor-El, you will rue the day you made this decision. Generations and generations of your House will shed tears of despair. I will have my vengeance.

_____

EARTH ONE - PRESENT DAY

PORT JERVIS, NEW YORK

It's a lazy afternoon in the small town in upstate New York. Persons mill about the main street area, doing some shopping or eating at cafes that look out over the river.

A man wearing flannel and some ratty blue jeans exits a gas station after paying for his fill. A blinding light forces him to look up, just as an object from above smashes the gas station sign into a million pieces. The shockwave sends the man sprawling and sliding against the wet pavement, while the vehicles at the hoses slide away from the impact site.

The man looks up to see what look like hundreds more where that came from. A meteor shower? An alien attack?

The second meteorite slams into a house just south of downtown, flattening it immediately, and taking anyone who might have been inside into oblivion. Elsewhere, another slams into a road, sending a nearby car veering off into the ditch.

All around town, people are screaming as though they are under attack. An explosion at the old tool and die plant has smoke billow up into the sky, just as the three floor office building erupts in a shower of glass as the roof caves in.

As more and more come in, the count of injured and dead is staggering. Why didn't astronomers see this coming? Why weren't superhumans able to stop it before it arrived?

A little girl is crying in the middle of the road. She, perhaps four years old, has been separated from her parents in the chaos and destruction. From above, another meteor looks to have a bead straight on her. Just before it's about to hit, however, a blue and red streak whooshes by, pulling the child away before she was to meet her doom. As Superman slows, the girl's red eyes look to him. "I want my mommy and daddy!"

"I'm sorry, honey," Superman says as he looks back down at her, cradling her in his arms. "I'll find your parents." He looks skywards as still more and more of these cosmic beings rain down. Where can he keep her safe? Superman whooshes away, only to return a short time later, looking for people to help.

It's a nice diner, really. The fries came out perfect. The chicken deluxe sandwich is turning out to be just as refined. The company ..well, Jocelyn's a good kid, but she's got some issues to work through. Everyone at the Institute does. Some more than others, like Domino! Issues aplenty, right here. After the main course of their conversation things have begun to drift in favor of enjoying lunch, the two having come to an understanding.

"Gonna have to come back this way after the trip, did you check out the dessert offerings? Don't know about you but that carrot cake is calling to m--"

Tremors. In New York City? Gas explosions in the tunnels, maybe? No, not that... Dom watches as circular ripples vibrate in the surface of her murky black coffee, looking every bit like the seismic patterns seen in Jurassic Park. She leans in closer, squints, and lightly taps the side of her mug before looking back to Jocelyn.

"I think we may have a problem."

Dom swings her feet back to the floor and hops out of the booth, tossing a wad of bills on the table and quickly stepping away only to jump back and nab her sandwich, taking another chomp out of it. She's about to toss it back onto the tray when she glances at it once more, taking it with her instead.

The Emergency Response Service call came as soon as the meteors became known - which was far too late. Traditional weather and satellite systems missed them. NASA, SETI, everyone. But the Quinjet still streaks into view carrying the Avengers. On board Captain America prepares to open the back hatch as he looks back to Pepper Potts, Wasp, Doctor Banner, and the SHIELD support pilot who is flying the thing - tryingto avoid meteors and fend off Pepper who is insisting she can fly the thing herself.

Cap looks out the window both at the falling meteors at at Iron Man, flying under his own power. "Tony, if you see any of the JLA or our oher allies out there,let them know and patch us in. I'll coordinate evacutaion and protection on the ground with Wasp, you analyze and destroy those things from the air. Bruce, when He comes out to play, see if he can outscore Tony with the wrecking. Everyone stay in touch."

Cap opens the hatch and bails out. With no parachute. Instead he tumbles, sommersault after sommersualt. He slipps his feet into the shield's straps, and lets it hit the ground, absorbing the impact. Standing up unharmed, the Sentinal of Liberty flings the shield at some debris, keeping it from hitting fleeing people. He runs toward the most affected area, catching it on the rebound

"Avengers - ASSEMBLE!"

It was a very tasty meal, and the fact that Jocelyn, err Veronica, err Channel, err...let's go with Channel, wasn't having to pay for it, made it even better. Looking up, Jocelyn's eyes widen. "Yeah. We got a problem". She's up and out the door in a flash, taking that emergency exit, only to see the chaos that's happening. "Meteor shower? Here?"

The Young X-Man turns and looks at Domino, pulling out a comlink she'd borrowed and deactivated before leaving the mansion. Yeah, she lied to Laura. Deal with it. She flips it on and sticks it in her ear. "Domino. City Hall is about three blocks that way. Get people there. I'm going to try and keep it safe. Otherwise these people are playing a game of chance that I don't think any of us want to play. These things got propulsion, not just gravity, on their side". Yes, she realizes the irony of her saying that to Domino. However, she doesn't stick around to chat, as the girl fully charges and takes off into the air, blasting towards city hall. Once she arrives there, she parks herself right on top of the roof and takes a deep breath. This...was going to be tricky. Drawing in gravimetric and magnetic energy for flight was one thing. For this...it would be another. She lifts her arms straight up, palms facing skywards, and starts launching a series of bursts straight up. Purple blasts about 20 feet above city hall appear about every five seconds or whenever a meteorite comes near city hall in an attempt to shove the meteorite away and towards an area where a metorite has already struck. She figures if she can create a safe haven, the people can be safe until this is over or someone else comes to rescue them.

The rest of the buildings...eh, none of them are big enough to house a large number of people.

Janet was in the middle of relaxing while trying to do some new sketches when the call came in, making it necessary for her to put work away so she can do her /other/, more important job. Costume donned and head brought into the game, she ran to the jet and took off, watching and listening intently.

Once they've arrived she's shrinking down and taking to wing, the now-tiny Wasp flying as fast as she can to keep up with Cap. "This is going to be fun," she calls out while pulling some fancy aerobatics when a hunk of concrete flies up, almost hitting her. Thank the stars she's on the ball. "Call out if you guys see anyone who needs help," Wasp then announces to her teammates. This is going to be a team effort, here.

Tony Stark is cruising the Topanga Canyons on the west coast when the call comes in from the Captain just as JARVIS crackles in his ear that a massive meteor shower is pounding the town of Port Jervis, New York and Superman is calling as many on deck as he can. Well if Superman AND Captain America are putting the call out..then he hears the call.

"Avengers - ASSEMBLE!"

"Well, since Cap is making this a formal meeting of the club, let's dress for the occasion, JARVIS: Deploy the Mark VIII."

"But sir--"

"Shut up JARVIS, we're tanned, rested, and ready. It's time to go to work. Deploy."

A wry sigh from the AI, "Yes, sir."

The sleek racing cycle immediately begins to shift under Tony's straddling legs, wrapping around from the feet up, encasing calves, thighs, superstructure around the waist. The repulsors kick in on the boots, as the rest of the bike shifts to wrap itself around the rest of the CEO's body, fuel tank seperating to slide up and assuming the chestpiece, interfacing with the reactor and glowing, the hands glowing as the Repulsors come online, and at last, the helmet fully engagees and forms around Tony's face, the recognizeable clanging into place with a metallic "THUNK" and within seconds JARVIS is in flight mode. What would've been a bike flying off a cliff turns into Iron Man burning like a runaway fighter jet towards the East Coast, reaching Mach 4 within 8 seconds. "Gawwwwd we gotta recalibrate that inertial dampener.."

"But sir..I told you.."JARVIS protests

"Shut up and fly, JARVIS, we got lives to save. Radio anyone on the JLA open bands and let 'em know Superman needs a hand."

Over which, any frequencies that share Iron Man's comm signal now get the full pleasure of AC/DC's "Shoot To Thrill" playing in the background of their chatter.


 * 8

"This can't be a natural phenomenon," Bruce says, clutching at the harness keeping him in his seat. With one hand, at least. The other is trying to scroll through a datapad. The readouts he's looking at are definitely abnormal, though so far there isn't enough info coming in to make any kind of determination as to what the cause is. And they really don't have the time to spare for waiting, either.

Looks like Tony's going to have to shoulder the egghead burden for a while. Bruce slips out from underneath the harness with only a little trepidation, and after a moment of pause, takes his glasses off his face and folds them before offering them to Pepper. "Could you, ah, hold these for me? They're new."

He's the last one to approach the open hatch. This is the part he hates the most, but people are dying out there, and Bruce is a good guy, so that pisses him off. As does loud music, and Tony's is currently blaring out the Quinjet's speakers. His skin is starting to turn green at the fingertips as he toes the edge, then with a deep breath, he lets himself fall. There's no flying or cool maneuvers to save him, just a large crater on a (thankfully unoccupied) street corner. Seconds later, the Hulk is climbing from it, shrugging concrete dust and debris from his shoulder as he lets out a feral roar before leaping back up into the sky, right into an oncoming meteor. The impact pulverizes it into dust, and then Hulk is rebounding off a roof into another.

Pepper Potts takes Bruce's glasses readily, tucking them into a pocket on the inside of her ever-present shoulder bag. Unlike all of the others, she doesn't jump out of a perfectly serviceable Quinjet. "Be careful," she calls after the seemingly unassuming man, then after a moment of feeling like a child left in the car while the adults go work on something important, she pulls her tablet out of her bag as well as her bluetooth earpiece. "JARVIS, please patch me in to Tony's communica... GOD, Tony, turn that down for heaven's sake. I'm here with Steve's Quinjet -- don't ask -- and I can coordinate with JARVIS to try and figure out what's going on if that'll help." At the same as tapping at her bluetooth with one hand to lower the volume, she is tapping passwords into her tablet and linking the unit to the main Stark servers to boost the small device's computer power... or something like that. She's seen Tony do this before, anyway.

As Domino gets up from the table, the reflection of the window outside shows a meteor coming straight forward the diner, about to make impact! From her vantage point, it looks like a large fireball. It gets closer, closer, and closer still.

The good Captain's shield pings and pangs around, blocking debris in its wake, even as it slams off a car to a new trajectory not unlike a pinball. A teenager, wide eyed and frightened, is saved from certain death as the shield rips over his head and intercepts a piece of space debris.

Channel's powers do in fact let her know that the meteors are being propelled; they are not simply falling to the earth. Not only do they impact with more force that way. They also seem not to be meteors at all. Indeed, something is very strange here. Lucky for Jocelyn she departs the diner before even seeing the large ball of fire coming towards her. When she reaches the roof, Channel goes on the offensive, blasting away at the hundreds of approaching space bodies, several explode.

Once Tony arrives, he'll be able to view the destruction from above. 30 to 40 percent of the town is leveled, and people are beginning to use City Hall as a shelter at the beckoning of Domino and Jocelyn.

This writer isn't sure how much Hulk recognizes when he's big, green, and nasty, but the large monster may gather that what he pulverizes is not infact rock at all, but metal. A craft of some sort. When he bashes through it, he causes a gigantic explosion in the sky that lights everything up, even though it's around noon.

From Pep's vantage point she too can see the destruction as she flies overhead. Large plumes of smoke come from everywhere in the city.

Superman drops the young girl off at City Hall and it just so happens that her parents have been ushered there as well. There's tears of joy from the mother and the young gir is buried in hugs. Superman pauses enough to give the father a nod, and then shoots upward. Up, up, and away, up into space. Once he gets closer to the source, using his heat vision to blast meteors from the sky, he notices something very peculiar. The meteors simply 'appear' after a flash of green electricity. No one saw it coming because there was simply no time.

Meanwhile, down below, the meteors that have crashed landed begin to emit a mechanical sound. Eventually, four legged robots emerge from the wreckage and begin walking around. There's a large blue eye at the top, which shoots out a blue ray of some sort at each of the heroes down on the ground.. It doesn't hurt, not at all. It seems to be a scanner of some sort.

Meteor. Cafe. -Crud.- So much for going back there after a certain roadtrip.

Did..did Jocelyn really just tell Domino what to do..? In a potential combat situation? As the girl's rattling things off Domino stops and stares at her, momentarily unable to continue working over a mouthful of sandwich. By the time she can respond, Joce is gone. "..The hell just happened here?" Ah, -frig.- She's gone, so much for trying to keep her safe. X-Men - Disassemble!

There's things falling from the sky and a whole lot of people (understandably) freaking out. How is she supposed to get them to go -toward- ground zero? "Yeah, and if you can't keep it safe we've got everyone rounded up for the slaughter."

This feels wrong. In any disaster situation, rounding up people can very quickly turn into an even bigger disaster. These falling objects don't seem to be targeting anything in particular. People on foot should have an easier shot of survival as a whole, right? They're all running away, she's not going to be able to reverse that tide.

Frankly, she wouldn't want to try. Channel's going to have to do most of the work on that front.

Instead, Dom jams another wad of sandwich into her mouth before throwing the rest away in the nearest bin, flicking her matched sidearms out of hiding and rolling them forward, thumbing back the hammers along the way. "Thih ith juth greath."

Okay, run into the field of falling meteorites and follow the sounds of AC/DC and the enraged scream. Right. There's no part about this plan which strikes her as being questionable. Or better yet, figure out what to do with the robots that are starting to come out of those impact craters

"What the heck is -that!- Can I shoot that? I'm gonna shoot that."

Leaping, ducking, running, Captain America crosses the battlefield as he stops the smaller debris from hitting felleing people. He leaps on to a parked car. "EVERYONE! Stay out of the open, stay close to buildings but DO NOT go inside until you can find a basement of a large sturdy building!"

Cap stops a police officer, "Use your cars and riot baracades to make a path for people to follow. Herd them to safety."

As Captain America runs toward City Hall, he sees the oddities occuring, and then the robots. "Tony, where's my scientific strategy? I have robots here. I feel like I'm in an H.G. Wells novel." Yeah, novel. Steve probably didn't see any of the movie adaptations. "Wasp let's blow some of these up." Steve looks and sees a woman on the roof of City Hall using energy powers. He flips the frequency of the communicator to the BSA registererd hero one. "This is Captain America to all avaible heroes, we have a crisis in Port Jervis, New York. If any of you are here on site and can see or hear me please respond."

Cap runs up to a robot and crouches. He swings his shield in an arc at the thing's kneww joint.

Channel notices all sorts of transmissions go out with her energy sight, and then there's that robot smacking at her with some nasty beam. Her natural energy shield flares up, surrounding her. Did some of it get through and she get scanned? She can't actually be sure. She doesn't absorb the energy though, just lets it filter off.

Continuing to blast and keep city hall safe, Channel speaks into her X-Link. "I can keep it safe. And shoot those damn robots. They're a scouting party, and they're sending information up. I can't stop them all. They must have one hell of a router up there". Stupid cosmic robots. The one that is scanning her annoys her, so she pulls in a touch of electrical energy and blasts an electric bolt down at it, overloading the thing with fizzle and bang.

Noticing the transmission signals coming from Captain America, Channel gets an idea. "Blahblahblahblahblahblahblah...". Watching her own transmission's output, she waits for the waves to match up with the registered hero one that he's using. "...blahblah There we go. Call me Channel. That's how I found this signal. These bots are scouts, and they're sending some sort of info out somewhere. If any of you can jam it or make their job more difficult, I'd suggest it".

"Right, Cap! On it!"

To quote Shakespeare, 'she may be but little but she is fierce' a quote that can definitely apply to Janet, especially now when she tops out at a very petite four inches tall. Flitterflying ahead of the soldier she holds her hands out in front of her, palms facing the first robot she comes across.


 * PEWPEWPEW*

Those Wasp's Stings of hers sparkle and glitter just about as they are shot at her target, the potent bolts of energry hopefully strong enough to cause some damge or, at the very least, are enough of a distraction so that the others can come in and take it out.

"Stupid walking trash compactor," she squeaks out in mid-attack. "Go back to... wherever it is you came from and leave these nice people alone!"

Shoot To Thrill is five minutes, seventeen seconds long. Tony had a sonic boom before the end of the opening riff.

He's entering The City's greater metropolitan airspace by the time he hits the guitar solo halfway through. There's still enough Angus for everybody when Pepper admonishes him to turn it down. He does so with simple eye commands, and then orders JARVIS to patch Pepper's tablet through to his HUD. It gives her exactly what Tony's seeing complete with the targets locking onto the falling meteorites. "You two place nice and tell me what their composition is, and patch the findings through to everyone's comm feeds...oh HELL no. Robots? Really? versus THIS Squad?" The sound of motorized knuckles getting cracked can be heard as he comes fully on station to see the first sets of robots emerge. "Game. On." Tony says as he interfaces with his technology the only way he can. "Double time on the composition. I wanna know what best to kill 'em with before I start ripping off legs and using them as bats." -- There's an offended sound to Tony's voice. Somone sent ROBOTS. ROBOTS. TO HIS PLANET. Let's show these glorified tin cans how we do things on the East Coast.

Meanwhile, the music changes.

It's now Highway to Hell.

Does it smash? If it smashes, Hulk doesn't particularly care what it is. So when it turns out to be metal, the only thing that he notices is the sudden bright explosion he's suddenly /in the middle of/ and that just makes him angrier. Another teeth-rattling roar and Hulk comes to land on top of one of the robots that have already fallen to the ground and begun to boot up. It doesn't look like he even notices the pile of scrap he's standing on top of. Another one sends a wave of blue light over the Hulk and while it doesn't hurt, it's like a matador with a cape. The 'bot gets smashed for its troubles.

Pepper Potts blinks and watches her tablet's display change to ... wow, is THIS what Tony looks at every time he wears the Iron Man suit? How does he not end up with veritgo? She takes a few moments to parse the incoming data and learn to make sense of it while the Quinjet she's still in banks to start flying the perimeter of the area affected by the meteors and gasps and clutches at her bag and tablet when the pilot has to do some abrupt evasive maneuvers. Seeing the robots starting to emerge from the fallen space debris via Tony's HUD readouts, her mind goes to the same place Captain America's did regarding 'War of the Worlds', though she has yet to get a communication link to anyone other than Tony, because civilian bluetooth SHIELD comm channels = shyeah, no. Well, unless JARVIS does the cross-linking for her instead of the SHIELD systems. "Tony, is there a way for me ... oh. Okay. Robots. Has anyone tried shocking them with electricity yet? That usually seems to work on the toaster."

When Thor felt the danger to Midgard and when he began to receive the com chatter from his Avengers comlink, he flew in toward the back of the incoming meteor shower. Lightning crackling in the upper atmosphere heralds his arrival to the ground below.

Oh, lightning and the deep, chest shaking rumble of thunder. Are you fond of what follows?

Domino kneels for a better shot, lines up, and does what she does best. She shoots one directly in the scanner. It fizzes and pops and eventually comes to a halt. Looks as though they're not that tough. They don't appear to be attacking anyone either. Other than crushing people.

"Captain, this is Superman," the Man of Steel calls to him via his own communicator now that he's back in the Earth's atmosphere. "I took a view to space, these things are invoking some sort of-hyper-travel or something. I've never seen it before. They simply appear just outside the Earth's atmosphere. The good news is they seem to be stopping. I'll be back momentarily."

The knee joint explodes as the shield slides neatly through it. The force causes the robot to fall upon its 'face' and it looks as though it's not designed to get back up once having fallen.

Channel's blast causes the robot to malfunction and smoke. Within a moment, the blue light falters and the robot stops moving.

Wasp's attacks are indeed good enough to pierce the rather weak hull of these scan bots. Her shots penetrate and she blasts the robot into whole host of shards.

The friends of the smashed Robot seem afraid of the Hulk. A half dozen of them all skitter away from him, hoping not to be next.

Thor will see the small town of Port Jervis, mostly destroyed with large plumes of smoke billowing at different points throughout what was once the tiny city.

Meanwhile, Superman lands next to Captain America. Before he regards the leader of the Avengers, he sends out a blistering amount of heat vision that melts 4 robots where they stand.

As one from behind scans him, Superman can feel the energy against the back of his neck. He whirls around, about to blast that one two, but stops for a moment when using his telescopic vision.

"Oh no," Superman says solemnly. "This. . .this is Kryptonian technology, Captain." The Man of Steel looks to be crestfallen.

"Hey, these guys go down real easy!" - BlamBlam! - "I'm thrilled that you're enjoying yourself, Joce, but would you do me a favor?" - BlamBlamBlam! - "Stop trying to give me orders." - Blam-Blam! - "You got something that works, stick to it. Though perhaps worth noting-" Blam-BlamBlam! "-their scanner thinguses are pretty weak. Feel free to share it with the rest of the class."

Spotting the good guys in this mess is surprisingly easy. Domino spies Wasp's peculiar energy projectiles, and even an underground vagrant like herself recognizes Captain America and Superman when she sees them. "Cripes, this just got real." She also happens to catch a few glimpses of the Hulk at work (or is it play..? She's honestly not sure,) and suppresses a cringe at all of the screaming. So long as it's happening over -there- and she's still over -here,- crossing paths is not in her current or future agenda.

"And now the weather's starting to turn. Today sucks, I want a refund!" Keep it together, girl. It's time to do something unexpected and crazy. It's time to make introductions with The Captain. And Superman. Sheesh, could this week possibly get any crazier? At least she doesn't need to pull any fancy moves to drop these robots, her confidence is only continuing to grow as she reaches out to targets progressively further out.

"Hey. You guys don't know me but I'm real good at wrecking things. We should wreck things together for a while." Simple! What's next on the agenda?

"Glad to have on board, Channel," Captain America replies. "Iron Man, you heard the lady - give them something to listen to instead of each other." He throws his shield again bouncing it off more robots. When the thunder starts he looks up, shading his eyes with one hand and catching the shield with the other, not even looking at it.

"Thor, Pepper says these things need a good shocking, can you oblige?"

Cap turns to acknowlege the woman with the guns when Superman returns and makes his pronouncement. "They're WHAT! Quickly, man, if you need to get away, go!" He steps in front of Superman and raises his shield at the rtobot that was scanning the Man of Steel to block any Kryptonian beam that might actually hurt Superman.

"Wasp! Fly inside one and find anything that tells us who made thjem! Hulk! I need you to bring as much concrete and lead doen on these things as you can!" He hopes Hulk understands 'lead'.

Wow. She just made a suggestion to Captain America, who took it and sent it to Iron Man. This...was a day. Channel usually didn't work with such big names. She flips back to the X-Link briefly. "Well, don't ask the question then, Dom. Just a friendly suggestion". Domino did ask if she should shoot the robots. Flipping back to the BSA channel, Channel continues to listen in as she works on deflecting what remains of the meteorites into her designated drop zones. May as well just sacrifice one or two spots instead of a bunch of spots. There aren't very many left though.

That's when Thor makes his entrance. Oh. Crap. She knows him. That's not good.

However, more electrical energy is good, so with some of the random electrical energy floating around, she starts using her vantage point to send energy blasts at random robots she sees. She's pretty safe up on the roof, so she's feeling pretty good about sniping, and is now only deflecting meteorites when she sees them coming instead of keeping up a constant shield.

Iron Man hears the words "Kryptonian Tech" and asks in reflex, ""If it's Kryptonian tech, does that make it harder to wreck?" and a moment later gets his answer from Superman himself, "Under normal circumstances it could be. But these things look designed to scan and don't seem to be built for combat."

Tony smiles inside the helmet of the armor.

"JARVIS, lock on to their scanner frequencies, scramble 'em up like eggs and exploit their communication channels, either explicit or covert with playlist B."

"It might take a moment, sir, but working..and transmitting playlist B."

Iron Man starts to go to work living up to his name. Repulsors start going off like fireworks, mini-missiles start pulverizing whatever he himself isn't flying through or punching into scrap. If you didn't know Stark was on the scene before, it's sure as hell apparent now.

Playlist B starts with Metallica's "For Whom The Bell Tolls."

At some point Hulk managed to grab a robot by one of its legs and is swinging it around like a morning star, swatting other bots into buildings and the ground left and right. Eventually the one in his hand crackles with electricity and explodes, and Hulk roars as he smashes it into the concrete a few times until it's mostly just the one leg left. At some point the fact that he's being yelled at penetrates through the rage and he stares at the Captain for a moment, snorting in a breath, and then he launches himself across the street.

Message received, though, because Hulk's tactics change from plain ol' destruction to burying as many robots as possible in as much debris as he can get his big green hands on.

He stops with a big chunk of concrete in rebar lifted above his head because there's something in the way. Hulk stares down at the young boy in front of him, before eventually demolishing a fleeing robot with a perfect throw and then stomping away.

The kid's "Dude that was so cool!" is mostly lost on the Hulk, but maybe he's smirking a little bit as he leaps towards the next thing to smash.

"JARVIS, can you route satellite and traffic camera images to my phone?" Pepper pulls her phone from her bag and uses its smaller screen to get a different view of the goings-on than what Tony's HUD offers, now that he's moving fast enough to make her actually feel a little motion-sick. She looks up from the screens toward the Quinjet's pilot and calls out, "I think it's safe to go in for a landing now if you'd be so kind, Agent." She feels bad that she doesn't know this particular pilot's name already, but gets over it quickly. "Steve? Where do you want this plane to set down?" Yes, the pilot is fully capable of deciding for himself, but no. Not taking any chances with the back seat driving here.

As the sight of the ruined Port Jervis comes into view of his senses, Thor God of Thunder frowns darkly. His eyes flicker electric blue as Mjolnir crackles to life in his hand.

"Aye, Captain! Verily shall I oblige good Pepper's request," comes Thor's booming voice. He flies in from above, bringing rain, thunder, and more than a little lightning. A good half dozen blue-white bolts of electricity arc down from him and his relic as he blasts as many targets as he can. He seeks to clear some space around any mortals that might be in the area and must physically land on one robot from his several hundred feet up to keep a gawking innocent bystander from getting attacked.

"Thou should run, mortal," says Thor, blues eyes seeming to crackle as he twirls Mjolnir in his right hand once.

Janet goes even smaller than she was just a second ago and flies into the robot via a rend in its metal housing, the small heroine quiet until the time she finds the manufactoring markings. "Bad news, Cap," comes Wasp's voice into the coms. "This might as well be Latin to me." Pause. "Or Klingon. I bet it's Klingon! Evil Klingons!" Ahem. "Sorry. Still. No clue!"

Domino's there. And a flying --no wait, it's Wasp, right? Wow, she can get tiny. And ..Hulk. Gettin' just a -little- close to her personal space there, big guy. ..Right. These guys are in their comfort zone, and she's -way- outside of hers. "Yeeeah, I'm just gonna ..." she trails off, motioning with the barrel of one of her pistols before heading off. More robot dudes to shoot at over this way! May as well try to enjoy herself.

Meteorites done. That's good. And then Iron Man does his thing. That wasn't good. She was doing alright with the Hulk and his gamma radiation. And Superman. And her own work. But then there was Thor now too, and he gave off a HUGE amount of energy too. She just can't help it. Her eyes go white, and her body starts to crackle, sparks starting to fly off it.

"Oh no..." is all that's said.

She crouches down briefly, and then realizes where she is. She can't be here. So, she does the only logical thing she can do. She launches straight up, flying as fast as she can straight into the air. Ten seconds pass. Fifteen. Seventeen.

BOOM!

There's an explosion of at least a hundred different colors way up in the sky, safely away from anyone else, like a giant firework at the end of the Fourth of July.

And then there's her body, falling back towards the ground, unmoving.

Iron Man finishes wrecking robots, and doing everything but leaking lubricant all over them to assert his superiority. The dust clears, and he looks for his fellow avengers, the face plate popping up and retracting into the upper portion of the helmet. He looks around to those that have been on the ground, as those that fly continue to do so or land. Almost immediately his eyes are looking around and towards the quinjet ascertaining Pepper's safety overall first. Then looking around, "Well, this is definitely a different take on a mixer.." he says, a thin sheen of persperation on his forehead.

Pepper Potts is getting ready to stow her phone in her bag again when the screen flares with the display from Channel's way up in the air reaction to too much input. "Holy... what was that explosion? Can anyone che... oh god, there's a PERSON falling out of it!" Thor, you're up, buddy.

In the midst of hammer time, Thor feels a tug: Mortal, in danger; you know her. The diety looks up as the explosion fireworks in the sky above. A split second more as his eyes focus on the falling body of Channel.. Jocelyn, Eddie's friend, and the Thunderer moves. He launches himself into the sky, kicking one last robot on his way. His arms catch her gently, hold her to his chest as if she were no heavier than a child, and Thor alights delicately upon the street near the quinjet's landing spot.

"I have her," entones the Thunderer with a gentle rumble making his voice soft and velvet. He lowers to a knee, Mjolnir set to the ground at his feet to free his hand to check for life.

Waiting to see if Superman is in any danger, Cap assess the battlefield. Everyone has come together and the assault momentarily halted. Now they have time to breathe, to do more than react.

"Wasp, bring anything with a marking on it out here, we;ll compare itto whatever data Iron Man has --" Pepper cuts in about Channel falling and Thor beats him to the next order. Teamwork. "Land the Qunijaet wherever Thor sets down," he adjusts, "Channel may need medical attention." Raising an eyebrow to the fading away markswoman, the Avenger turns hisd attention back top Supermsn.

Such a petite gal, such destruction that follows in her wake. Domino's pot shots drop Robots like it's going out of style and Domino is at the clearance rack. Her shots explode robots left in right, leaving them smoking.

Superman shakes his head as Cap valiantly steps between him and the robot, "No, I don't think so. I fear whoever this is wanted to flush us out." With a grit of his teeth he walks up to one and puts his fist through it like it was barely there. "The scans, if I'm reading them right, are sending information about us via link. Where it's sending though is a mystery. Even though I have access to a great amount of the technology, I've never seen anything like this."

Superman nods to Domino, "I don't know who you are, ma'am, but keep doing what you're doin."

In a coordinated attack, Channel sends out electricity blasts out at 8 robots, incinerating them all in one fell swoop.

Tony brings the pain, so to speak, and robots begin to spazzle and burst everywhere at the death from above. Superman turns to Captain America with a winced look. "What /is/ that noise on the coms?"

What few robots escape Hulk's wake continue to try to get away from the giant green monster. Most are not so lucky as the Hulk smashes them to bits and bits everywhere.

Thor makes his presence with a resounding crunch on top of one of the robots. The 'mortal' nods slowly at the God and then begins running in the opposite direction. When Channel falls from the sky, Superman looks as though he's about to fly up to save her, but stops when he sees Thor's already on the mission.

The quinjet, meanwhile, begins its descent, waiting for Captain America to direct it where to land.

Superman bites his lip in anger as it dawns on him, stealing a glance to Cap. Only one Kryptonian he knows of would have the ability, the acumen, but how did he get the access to the technology?

"Zod," Superman says forlornly.

_____

ABOARD ZOD'S SHIP

JUST OUTSIDE OF EARTH-77

"That seems to be it, General Zod," a plastic looking officer reports in after the battle looks to be over with. "Are we set to continue on to the next target?"

"Indeed Dlo-Sa. Indeed." Zod crosses his hands behind his back and looks out over the planet that looks extremely similar to our own. "We have already sent the first wave of reconnaissance with fantastic results. We will plan our invasion for a week's time. Summon your clones and prepare them for battle. Our invasion will begin once the scans are analyzed."

The officer gives a short nod, and departs immediately, leaving Zod. As the latter remains, something in his thoughts seems to be gripping him. He grits his teeth in anger and turns abruptly to walk down a long corridor on the ship towards his personal quarters. Just outside his door, in glass cases on both sides of the hallway, a dozen heads look to have been severed from bodies and placed upon skewers. The heads all look to be of the same person. Pained faces are evident on them all, but more importantly, they all have the same black hair with a bit of a spit curl that hangs in front.

"Kal-El of Earth One. You are next."

You will kneel. Part One.