2014.03.23 - Street Legal

Let's face facts: 'Static' isn't exactly a /natural/ at this hero thing.

It's around night-fall when the young teenage hero-wannabe explodes out the sixth floor of what appears to be a recently re-tooled vegan diner entitled 'Veggie Galaxy'. Blue light and glass belch outward, the latter raining down on the heads of the unwary below -- soon followed by a black kid in a dark black hoodie, jeans, and sneakers. The hoodie is up; his arms are fluttering over his head -- and he is dropping, at this very moment, like a rock.

By the looks of the swirling blue corona that begins to coalesce around him, a thoroughly /electrified/ rock.

"--$@#$--you /morons/," a voice howls from behind the now-exploded window. "You threw him out the--you realize this city is cape-$@$#in'-/central/?! GET him before some namby pamby boyscout in red-and-blue tights--"

Whoever that voice belongs to, he's cut off by the sudden rush of darkness as a seven-foot-and-change man covered in what looks like /charcoal briquettes/, his eyes burning like two smoldering orange fires -- clad in tattered denim. A head shaved as smooth as glass, he's /ripped/ -- he looks like some sort of heavy-duty weight-lifter -- and by the clench of his jaw, he looks like he means to do some egrerious harm in the descending Static's direction. Both of them are now sailing toward the earth.

Below, late-night dinner-goers begin screaming, yelling, and /clearing/ the hell out -- moving in a rush to escape the two descending figures.

Captain Marvel is having one of those rare days. He'd decided to get in a bit more practice in his superhuman form, and so he's flying over the city. He's no boy scout, nor does he wear blue, but he does wear red, and the Champion of the Wizard Shazam is in motion as he sees the falling would-be superhero, intending to keep him from going splat on the pavement.

Keith O'Neil sighs. He couldn't jut have a little cup o' something, now, could he? Among the confusion, the Cheshire cat becomes invisible.

"Didn't your mother tell you it was bad etiquette to come in through the door and leave through the window?" in the air, next to the descending musclebound thug, a Cheshire cat appears out of thin air, the illusion being a perfect facsimile of Vorpal, except that he is plummeting towards the earth without seeming to care about it. He's even in a reclined position, cheek on hand and elbow propped on an invisible surface. "Here, let me help ya, doc."

An enormous, purple and glowing trampoline appears in mid-air in front of the bruiser. The bounce is prone to being rather spectacular. He also may have angled it to point directly at the building wall... totally by accident. Really.

Joseph's dinner, just on the other side of the road, gets disturbed by the chaos, as waitresses and other people react to the sound of chaos by creating more of their own. The clone sighs, and leaves a check on the table to pay for his dinner as he heads out in an orderly manner to at least get a sense of what's going on. Since it does sound like chaos, he forces the magnetic fields of the area to form a protective field around him, a fairly easy protective maneuver for him, but it's effective. Then, once outside, he looks around, and asks, "What is the problem?"

"--unhh--" Static is pretty easy to catch, all things said and done. But he's also /hot/ -- in the electric sense. At this precise moment, he's outputting enough electricity to successfully tazer an elephant -- though for Captain Marvel, it's likely little more than a tiny bit of a buzz. "--uh oh hi you should -- watch out --"

The man made out of charcoal briquettes -- let's call him 'Bedrock', because that's what he calls himself -- is descending like an anvil straight for the duo. As his fist takes a swing straight for Marvel's face, it starts to glow. A pulsing orange light that extends from his fingers down his knuckles and nearly to the tip of his elbow, it leaves his arms superheated -- hot enough to melt steel. Thing is, though, he never gets a chance to land the hit -- because suddenly there is a Cheshire Cat next to him, floating like a bit straight out of Loony Tunes. "What--" Bedrock grunts, eyes popping open wide, right before he hits the trampoline -- and -- SPROOOING! Back he goes, right into the wall behind him.

Bedrock hits hard enough to buckle stone; it gives beneath him, along with the window beside him -- shattering with a crash. There are more screams below; Joseph finds himself having to wade through a crowd of citizens charging out of the way of what appears to be yet /another/ metahuman brawl right in the middle of New York City. But the crowd is starting to fade, only a few stragglers watching from the sidelines -- some with cameras.

Luckily, the electrical charge isn't enough to harm Cap, or force his transformation to revert. He lands, setting Static down. Then looks up as Bedrock goes flying into the walla and turns back to the electrical hero.

"What exactly did you get into here, anyway?" he asks.

"Or is this some new reality TV show I didn't hear about?" he jokes.

"Oh, hey, Captain!" Vorpal appears out of thin air next to him. "Name's Vorpal. Huge fan of yours." He looks at Static "Oh hey....and electric dude." He seems oddly familiar. He was about to ask him 'Didn't we avert a Demon Monstrosity from coming into the world together?' when he realizes that the kid never saw him at all. "Why's this guy after you?"

The cat has great regard for the citizens of this great city. It's why he doesn't let them be squished by the descending bruiser. There's another trampoline for when he falls down, because Vorpal is generous to a fault. He's the Oprah of superheroes. "And more importantly, are there more of him up there?" He points to the window on the sixth floor.

And thus, Joseph heads over. He recognizes Vorpal, but not the others, and decides to help out. Maybe that deserves scare quotes, as he grabs a telephone pole with his magnetic powers, and pulls it out of the ground, then decides to use the guy bouncing off the trampoline as the baseball to his metal bat. "Can you ever enjoy a nice bit of peace and quiet in this town?"

"I, uh--" Static begins, sat down on his feet. "--thanks, I..." The crash from above causes his head to tilt up; along with the hoodie, he's wearing a ridiculous set of ski-goggles that give him a bug-eyed look -- hiding all but his lower face. "--think they were trying to... recruit me? It didn't go -- uh, like they thought it would." He blinks at Vorpal, eyebrows zooming up underneath the goggles, before: "Dude, are you -- are you a furry?"

"#$#@! #$#@in' #$#@!" Here's the funny thing: Somehow, when Morticus curses, it comes out as nothing but ampersands, percent-signs, and pound symbols. Nevermind that there's no way to /say/ those symbols; somehow, the brain registers them as what they are -- as if there was some sort of magical censor in the way of him actually getting a curse off. Morticus /looks/ like a normal man -- six feet tall, Caucasian, dark, short hair, clad in a very respectable white suit with white tie and a matching white trilby hat. But something about his eyes -- blood red. Anyone with any sort of unusual sensory apparatus would find their hackles raising; whoever this guy is, /whatever/ he is, he belongs very squarely inside the set of Things That Should Not Be.

"--$#@&in' superheroes," Morticus growls. "Figures. Awright, boys -- show's over." He snatches off his hat, waving it down to Marvel, Vorpal, and Joseph. "--Bedrock, buy us some time to--"

At that precise moment, Bedrock has choosen to leap back /out/ of the hole Vorpal threw him in. Which coincides precisely with the moment where Joseph swings the telephone pole about like a baseball bat -- smashing into him, sending him crashing back to make a /second/ hole just five yards to the left of the first one.

Morticus groans, rubbing at his brow. "$#@&. Good help is /so/ hard to find."

"In New York?" Cap says to Joseph with an amused snort. "Quiet isn't exactly part of what gives the Big Apple its charm." he says with a laugh. He alsoi gives the cat a curious look.

"Uh...thanks?" he says in complete confusion. This is a new one on him.

Then he turns to the shouting from Morticus. He can tell there's something generally wrong about the guy. Maybe it's something to do with the nature of his own powers. Maybe it's to do with the Wisdom of Solomon. But whatever it is, Morticus just comes off as different and in a BAD way. "Recruit you to what?" he asks Static, still looking at the odd swearing being.

"I haven't had a complete meal in three years!" Vorpal quips. An exaggeration, since he's only been doing this for about eight months. At Static's quip, the cat gives him the Death Glare. "You say that again and I'll shove an anvil where the sun don't shine."

He's seen the websites. He's seen /himself/ on the websites. He spent an entire afternoon curled up around Patrick asking why, why did they have him do THAT to Pikachu. It wasn't as if they had ever met.

Wait, was Pikachu real? It was wasy to lose track, sometimes.

Morticus' little spiel, however, grabs the cat's attention. He narrows his eyes and floats over to him, staying within at least some distance.

"My my my... you're not from around here, are you?" the cat says, his own being reeking of Chaos magic, most likely perceptible to... whatever Morbius was.

"Let's make a deal. You go back to wherever you came from and we won't kick your sorry ass through the rabbit hole, hmm?"

When Joey looks at Morticus, he narrows his eyes, he squints, and Vorpal's comment makes a lot of sense, all of a sudden. "I could give you some pointers on getting good help, but I'm feeling quite annoyed with you right now, so why don't you go back home?" The statement is said with a hard look, and he punctuates it by moving a car on top of the hole Bedrock has found himself in, "There is nothing to be gained by challenging me, and I doubt these other fellows would be any more inclined to keep you around."

"--something to do with -- portals, I didn't -- I told him to fly off but he--" Static seems a little out of it; swirls of smoke are still rising from his skin -- he's /thrumming/ with electric power, as if he was recently exerting himself intensely. Either way, whatever he was about to say next is interrupted by Morticus' sudden bout of hacking. It sounds like the guy's got a serious hairball going on.

"Hrk--*HRK!*--urrrk... *HRK!*" Morticus' chest heaves; his whole body spasms with the force of his retching. And then... something wet and ugly swells up in his throat, bulging it out -- before splurching out from his mouth, landing in his outstretched hand. It looks like... a really ugly looking bone chip. Covered in slimey, thick ichor. Morticus rolls his hat back on his head, then wipes his mouth clean with the back of his fist -- grinning up at Vorpal. "Better idea, Meowth. Why don't you make like Team Rocket..."

Morticus soft-lobs the bone chip into the air, letting it tumble toward the ground -- landing with a lurid little *splurt*. Right smack-dab in the middle of a small grove of friendly city-trees outside Veggie Galaxy. Like a squirming maggot, said bone immediately begins to burrow its way into the ground.

"...and blast off again. I choose /you/, Bone-Golgotha!"

As the massive car WHUMPS against the hole made by Bedrock, there's a crunching sound -- followed by a steady 'tsssss' as the car's temperature... rapidly climbs. Funny thing about magnetic fields: They grow less powerful the hotter things get. Which means that as Bedrock's white-hot magma fists begin to melt their way through that car, it's probably going to become harder and harder to keep up in that spot -- as the briquette-looking rock-man pushes forward and seeks to simply /melt/ his way through it. At least he has the good sense to mind the gas-tank.

"Dear God." Captain Marvel says, shaking his head. "He did not just do a Pokemon bit." he says, sounding somewhere between offended and annoyed. Then he sees the car being melted through even as the thing in the park starts wriggling around.

"Someone get that thing out of the ground before it finds something to mess around with. I'll handle Lava-hand here." he says, moving to intercept Bedrock. Heat doesn't bother him. He's as durable as Superman himself after all. Or at least pretty close to it, anyway.

"That'll be you," Vorpal says to Joseph when talking about the maggot. "I've got to teach some people manners." He raises a hand. "Enormously frickin' big anvil, I choose you!"

And that's when Vorpal summons a 15 foot construct of an anvil, and drops it towards the man. He's not worried about killing him- being some sort of Outsider, that body is just a means to a manifestation. Zatanna has been a very good source of information on dimensional abominations, since they seem to happen to her so often.

"Tone it down with the chunky bits, dude, nobody's impressed."

Fun fact about giving a electromagnetic manipulator of Joseph's strength molten metals, he has no issue using them. /Unlike/ Bedrock, he doesn't mind the gas tank, pushing some of that molten metal into the gas tank. The car is already destroyed anyway. The remainder of the molten metal is collected into a floating ball, leftover magnetic fields normalized beyond the range of the fight, to avoid backlash towards unintended consequences more than concern about the unintended consequences themselves. "Thank you for melting this for me, much appreciated."

The blistering heat of the car is rapidly increasing as Bedrock approaches the other side of it, a low, feral growl building in his throat. His hands are emerging from the undercarriage -- just as Captain Marvel arrives. Coated with a mixture of liquifying aluminum and other metals, both hands reach out -- smoldering as white-hot liquid metal dribbles from them -- to attempt and seize hold of Marvel and /pull/ him into the car. Possibly with the intent of pummeling him inside of the building.

Meanwhile, Morticus raises an eyebrow at Vorpal, just in time to... look a bit higher up. At the anvil. Most people might expect to see horror, or shock, or even /disapproval/; all that registers on Morticus' face is disgust. Disgust, and a certain level of surrender -- like this was just inevitable.

"$@#@," he sighs.

KERSPLAT.

When it hits, Morticus collapses -- right through the floor. And the floor under that. All that's left of him seems to be a large, lumpy pile of skin and crushed clothes.

At the same moment that Bedrock is attempting to yank Captain Marvel into the car, Joseph is attempting to /ignite/ said car -- there is a soft 'fsst', a flash of heat, and then -- KAFWOOM! The explosion that rocks out from the side of that building is relatively large, a flashing gout of flame that consumes Bedrock and anyone in his immediate vicinity -- that would include Morticus, who just fell down somewhere behind him.

Static, meanwhile, has scrambled up to his feet -- staring up at the scene with wide-eyed shock and terror. "...holycrap." That arcing corona of lightning begins to build around him again.

BOOM!

Exploding cars aren't entirely new for Captain Marvel. Or rather, explosions in general aren't. He's survived more than his fair share in his short career thus far as a superhero. The heat of Bedrock's hands and the metal and the car itself doesn't do much than muss his hair.

"Let's cool you off, big boy."

That said, he grabs Bedrock, and launches straight up into the air. The guy's body is capable of using incredible heat. But that means he needs oxygen to fuel the power he uses. Both to burn, and to breathe. So he takes the guy up. WAY up. Intending to put him out through lack of breathable air, so as to put him out with as little injury to teh guy as possible without actually killing him.

The cat sees that explosion coming and encases himself in one of his constructs, as thick as he can make it. When the explosion passes, he dismisses it entirely... only to notice that he hadn't been fast enough and parts of his uniform are singed.

"Damnit, do you know how much it costs to get a repaired Edna Mode? Geez." He should have gone for the fireproof option. There goes two more Avenger paychecks.

The explosion and anvil seem to handled Morticus, but Joseph doesn't let go of his ball of molten aluminum quite yet. Just in case, instead he looks at Static and heads over, with a somewhat faint smile. "Hello, thank you for helping out. I hope you do not feel insulted by the fact I or these others stepped in, are you doing alright?" Static looks rather young to Joseph, and somewhat afraid of what's been doing on.

Morticus is as good as gone. The heat of the flame -- the rupturing shrapnel, of stone and metal -- the portions of the building continuing to collapse... together, they seem to have consumed every last trace of the white-hatted villain.

Bedrock, meanwhile, grunts -- bits of still-hot metal clinging to him, whorls of smoke following in his wake as he's seized by Marvel and dragged up into the air. They spear up through the atmosphere -- all the while, Bedrock's massive hands are clutching at Marvel's, trying to break his grip as he squirms and writhes... but as indestructible as the rock-man seems to be, he still needs to breathe -- which means it isn't long before he's gasping, gulping -- burning eyes flickering out as the lack of oxygen causes him to black out. Soon, he drops limp in Marvel's grip.

Meanwhile, Static is backing away from the sheer chaos before him. The metal from the exploding car seems to have been addressed; there's nothing left here except clean up -- and the boy's not going to stick around for that end of it. He's already starting to sneak off as Joseph approaches him, his hand extending to 'seize' a nearby manhole with a whip of lightning, yanking it up and toward him with a spurt of electromagnetic energy. When Joseph speaks, Static is given a start; the boy -- clad in his hoodie (hood up!) and ski goggles blinks, having just climbed up atop of the hovering manhole, and...

"I... h-huh? Oh -- no, I..." Blink, blink -- "I'm, uh, fine, I wasn't --" Static pauses, before looking up past Joseph toward the now nearly invisible dot of Captain Marvel -- and then toward Vorpal's hovering figure -- before dropping his eyes back down to the man in front of him. He adds, much more quietly, as if this was a matter of a deep, important conspiracy: "...are you... super-heroes?"

Once he's sure Bedrock isn't going to reawaken anytime soon, Marvel flies back to the ground, setting the odd heat-producing villain down after wrapping him in a mix of metal and loose concrete (which has a greater resistance to heat than metal, depending on its construction, and then moves to rejoin the others. "What'd I miss?" he asks as he gets close enough to be heard without having to shout.

"Not much, Cap. Just things going boom and cleanup." The cat says, looking mounrfully at his singed band jacket. "Superheroes? I don't know. I'm an Avenger, if that helps. Also member of the JLA, but I'm sure that was a clerical mistake." He jokes, looking at Static. "What do you go by, Sparky?"

The guy who is talking to Static replies, "I can't speak for them. I mostly just reacted because this business interrupted my dinner, and I can't fault you for responding." He finally lets go of the molten metal, dropping it in one of the pits Bedrock created, "My name is Erik Lensherr, I'm the Imperator of Genosha." Which, if that claim is correct, squarely puts him in the 'supervillain' camp.

Bedrock's not going anywhere; not any time soon, at least. Whatever particular police force handles the containment of metahumans and their ilk are soon on their way; in fact, the sound of sirens is incoming -- and with that sound, Static proceeds to tense up, shoulders cinching even as Captain Marvel and Vorpal arrive.

"--oh, uh," Static begins, blinking owlishly behind his goggles at Vorpal -- straightening just a little. "Static," he says, with just a /bit/ more confidence than he feels. But the sound of those sirens is causing him to edge back, the manhole he's on top of humming as he subconsciously begins to direct it away from the group. The swirling aura of energy extends out from around his feet and legs to engulf the manhole, keeping it levitating. At Joseph's comment of being the Imperator of Genosha... Static's eyebrows /zoom/ up. His mouth pops open, and: "...Oh. /Oh/. Uh... thanks. Sir. Imperator?"

And then -- there are flashing red-and-blue lights coming down the avenue. Static's head turns, and... "I should -- go. I think. I'm not --" He looks back to the group. "--street legal." SWOOSH. Unless someone stops him, the manhole cover is zooming him away, back down the street -- into the night.

"Street Legal?" Cap repeats. "Did I miss something?" he asks Vorpal and Joseph. Then turns to Vorpal. "Fellow JLA'er huh. Nice to meet you." he adds, offering teh feline hero a hand to shake.

The cat's eyes quickly narrow and look at the 'Imperator'. "Who just invaded Serbia. I'd get out of here if I were you, -fast-, before I forget I'm supposed to be the nice one." The cat hisses, looking at Joseph. He lets Static flee- he remembers when he wasn't 'street legal' himself. "A pleasure, Captain" he says, shaking Marvel's hand while giving Joseph a death glare Anjelica Houston would have wanted to bottle and sell.

Of course, Joseph had heard about the invasion of Serbia, and that comment draws an equivalent narrowing of eyes, "I am not responsible for the actions of impersonators who cut me off from my resources." He replies, and then adds, "I don't know what this imperson thinks he is doing, but I will kill him, if you have a bone to pick with his actions, I will welcome your assistance."

"Nobody's killing anyone today." Captain Marvel says firmly. Hoping that he's doing better at projecting dignity and authority. "We stopped God only knows what today and that's something to be proud of. So let's not ruin it with talk of killing, hmm?"

"I wasn't talking of killing, Captain. Just beating up." Kitty don't kill. No siree. Not after seeing what he'd turn into thanks to Damian Wayne as Robin.

Eyes narrow in distrust. Was the 'imperator' playing him? Claiming innocent?

Still. If it WAS an impostor, the Avengers would want to hear of this.

He flips out a card in Joseph's direction. "If this is all really the work of an impostor, then here. Contact me and I'll arrange a meeting with people you can talk to." And verify his claims. The Avengers will be -very- interested in this.

"I'll go contact them now, in fact. Sorry to leave you so soon, Captain... but if this is true, then there's something rotten in the state of Denmark. Genosha. What have you." The Captain tips a hat at Marvel - a purple, glowing hat that appears only for that purpose- and vanishes into thin air, levitating invisibly as fast as he could towards the Stark Tower.