2014.02.07 - Overnerd's Demolition Derby

Brooklyn's shopping district has expanded and contracted considerably over the years, with the rise and fall of the economy and neighborhood changes. And, while not every store is particularly fancy, the heart of the area is quite posh. The whole strip stretching out over possibly twenty blocks or so. It was a bustling day, full of hordes of shoppers, all gathering up supplies to nestle into a winter weekend. The roads had been plowed quite nicely in this area, but all the snow that's been hitting New York City lately had gotten the residents anxious about weather.

The first thing to break the peace was a distant crashing sound. Ten seconds later, it was the distant shrieks of people. Something far from this location was going on, and it didn't sound good. Many of the shoppers moved quickly, knowing that they lived in CrazyTown, USA, and pre-emptively assuming some horrible super-villain monstrosity was probably On The Loose...Again.

Zen steps out of one of the only smoothie places that won't kick him out just being blue and not having much of a face. He's got a yellow and pink swirled smoothie with boba balls in the bottom, and glances around when he hears the sound and everyone starts panicking. |"Hey,"| he says as one guy sprints past him from the direction of the disturbance. |"What's going on?"| But the guy just frowns at the mental intrusion and continues on. Without much apparent effort, Zen casually leaps to the top of the building he's next to, to get a better look, and walking along the edge in the direction of all the commotion.

Well, Kwabena Odame had decided a trip shopping wasn't a bad idea after all, and he'd come out on his Harley Davidson Iron 883. He was a stubborn type, after all, and wouldn't give it up as his primary mode of transportation unless Snowmaggeddon 2014 had finally struck. He's also hanging out with Jocelyn, because X-Men stick together. He's just coming to meet her near where his bike is parked. "Okay, so, I think I found a new--"

The crashing sound draws his eye. He looks that way, then back to Jocelyn with a frown.

Jocelyn really was just out doing a little bit of shopping. It was a rare treat for the woman, honestly, and she'd been looking forward to this all day. She was just looking over one of the display of old records when the shrieking starts. The woman turns to look in that direction and blinks as she focuses her sight. The woman immediately starts running through her options. Stopping the cars by draining their batteries would just result in a massive car accident that would kill a whole lot of people. Bad plan. Maybe when they got out of the shopping area that would work.

"Kwabena. We've got incoming cars. Lots of them". The statement is said quietly to the other member of the X-Men as she arrives next to him, leaving the display as all the screaming happens. The girl will, if Shift gets on his bike, join him on it. Because she suspects he'll be interested in following.

Lunair is shopping. Even a mercenary needs clothes, books, tea, and a few other things. Especially bath stuff because unwinding was important, lest she go level something out of annoyance. And considering the arsenal she could pull, it's not an unlikely situation. She probably smells like flowers just from walking into one of those places. Woe be unto Killer Bee. But happily, there's no such villain.

She's heading towards her car, a rather beautiful high end European car that - seems suspiciously sleek and understated. Apparently most of her money went under the frame and hood. She looks surprised as people start freaking out around her. She's going to hustle towards her car, then. Right, time to see where this is going. That is one loud noise and it probably wasn't a Biebertron 3000. Though, it'd be totes a great resume builder to blow one up.

Johnny is just out driving around in one of his cars, this one a Porsche. Normally when he needs to get somewhere fast, he just flies, but he's got have a good excuse for keeping all those cars other than for the sake of just, well, keeping them. Some of them he fixes up himself, though, so that's at least one reason. They're kind of like works of art to him.

He rolls down the window and pokes his blond head out of the driver's side window upon hearing the commotion and seeing everyone starting to panic and seek shelter. What could it be this time?

When you are on the run, the flat countryside has its up's and downs. The biggest down is - you can only hide there so long when you have a vehicle that no one looks after. Which was the reason why Robyn Locksley had come to the shopping center, even if it was more easy to get recognized in the close area of the metropolis. She had just parked the stolen dark green Mustang in a parking lot, the key in the ignition and gathered her stuff in the two travel bags - when the crazy started and people rushed by. Tossing the bags back into the back of the car, she grabbed for the keys again and ripped open one of the bags. Just a few seconds she needed to string her bow and toss a quiver over her shoulder. Panic was never good, so especially don't get into a panicking crowd unarmed.

The sounds of crashing became louder and louder with each passing minute, and after five minutes, it had appeared whatever was going on was about to hit the main shopping district. Crashing glass became a constant--almost like a predictable drum beat. Soon, what was happening had entered the area. Thankfully, the majority of random shoppers had already fleed the scene, leaving only a few confused, stupefied bystanders standing around.

About twelve cars, all of various make and models, were moving fast along the strip. Their bodies looked thick and chrome--they'd been modified to be *tough*, possibly bullet-proof. Tinted windows. The cars were literally crashing into EVERY SINGLE parked car on both sides of the street, one by one. Like noisy, damage-inducing, chaos machines... it seemed almost like they were clearing a path.

Tabitha Smith was minding her own business. Ahaha, okay, who are we kidding? She was harassing some random, burly, biker dude who had a huge bag from BED, BATH, and BEYOND. For whatever reason, she was oblivious to the horrible sounds and cars approaching... but what did catch her attention was Shift.

Kwabena Odame felt a tap on his shoulder. Suddenly, standing between him and Jocelyn... it was Tabitha Smith! Ohai! "Shifty, shifty! Every time I see you, something terrible happens." It was then that Tabitha turned to see the cars smashing into everything.

Zen's eye membranes widen slightly when the cars swing into view, and then he spots a couple of the last bystanders being caught totally unawares. He bounds off the building's roof in an arc to intercept the dad and daughter just standing there. He tosses his smoothie cup with a pang of regret to splash onto the windshield of the car careening in their direction. A terrific weapon, if they forgot to install windshield wipers!

Landing, he scoops up dad and daughter, one in each arm, and jumps again, turning to smash his body against the plate glass of the nearest shop, depositing the innocents out of harm's way. |"Stay down!"|

"Right." Kwabena turns and tosses his shopping bag toward a building, where it strikes the wall and falls behind a trash receptacle. He's up on his bike, revving it to life while glancing about his shoulder to see if Jocelyn's joining. It's worth noting, he doesn't put on a helmet, instead letting her use his should she deem it necessary.

Once Jocelyn is aboard, he peels out of the parking space, a certain rueful smirk growing. "Bit top heavy," he remarks, referencing Jocelyn's rather impressive height. When the cars show, he growls slightly under his breath, before turning tail and taking up the chase.

Jocelyn slips a helmet on, not so much for the protection but because it conceals her face a bit. She also draws in some energy to boost her physical capabilities, so that in the event she falls over or something, she doesn't get hurt badly. "Not my fault you can't balance me out," Jocelyn says with a wink. Tabitha is noted, but as they're on their way so quickly, Jocelyn instead glances at the man. "Which of your ladies was that?" she teases lightly before turning to focus on the cars ahead of them. "It's actually like they're clearing a path. Whatever they're looking for is going to be behind us," Jocelyn points out, glancing behind her. "There they are. Two big ones. Going to go check it out. I'll be on comms".

The tall woman then leaps off Shift's bike, still wearing the helmet (safety first, kids!) and flies up and towards the vehicles her sight let her pick up on. She fully intends to land on top of the one furthest behind and see what she can see from there.

Cars inbound to crash the parked ones were a good way to dispose of the car Robyn had stolen, but people inbound to start trouble were not what she had hoped to do. Eying the vehicles inbound, she put an arrow to the string and aligned it roughly to the left lead car as she pulled back the string. The aim was by far not the vehicle's Driver, but the tire, holding up to the speed of the vehicle a half second before speeding a tad ahead to get the aim at the point where the wheel would be when the arrow passes it. It was almost as if the most known Survivor riff was getting reenacted once more, just that the vehicles did the bass and their engines the drums Bam... (d'd'd') Bam ba Bam... (d'd'd') Bam ba Bam... (d'd'd') Bam ba Bam...

Eventually Robyn did let the arrow go, the three edges of the hunting broadhead rotating just a degree or two as the arrow stabilized itself just before it should hit the car's tire

Whoa, a bunch of cars? A high-speed car chase?! That would totally make Johnny's day and he SO wants to start chasing them in his car, but then he realizes that would probably be a lot more dangerous to those unfortunately shell-shocked bystanders. Sigh. Sometimes he wishes he weren't so good at flying. Hahahaha...really?

Eh, whatever. As the mysterious vehicles speed by, he jumps out of the Porsche. Flames envelop his body as he takes to the sky and rockets after them, easily catching up to them in the air. Frowning, he maintains an altitude just above the street and focuses on their tires, attempting to slowly elevate the temperature of the air inside of them by pushing a bunch of excess heat from his own body into the limited airspace inside. Hopefully he can take it slowly enough to simply flatten the tires and bring them to a stop instead of causing them to explode, potentially resulting in a fatal car crash.

Lunair might feel for poor Zen. She hates destroying good drinks, alas. And now the crashing and smashing gets closer, more rhythmic. What are they clearing a path for? Fortunately, Lunair's car is - nearly bulletproof (civilian issue, alas), but she's not going to want to be in the way of their path. Happily, she has a remote starter and is able to clamber in quickly.

There's time for Zen to hop in or ask for a ride (or someone near needing a ride, perhaps) after she chucks her bags in. But soon she's going to join those moving around and towards the smashing to investigate. Sadly, Lunair can't fly. Or, well, she can, but it involves rocket jumps.

Indeed, there was considerably more trouble on its way. Coming up onto the central location was a garbage truck... or, it looked like it *USED* to be a garbage truck. The whole thing was modified and now looked more like a TANK. But way, way different. For starters, aside from the numerous cannons mounted on the top, there were about twenty or thirty, thin, metallic, seemingly prehensile-looking... tentacle-like cables working busily doing numerous tasks---some were putting their tentacles on top of parked cars... some were pushing their way through the brick walls of local shops... others were flailing defensively. Whatever this vehicle was, it was a force to be reckoned with--and it seemed to be moving fast, too.

When one of these metallic-cables touched a parked car, the car began to instantly start physically reshaping itself--repairing damage, becoming bulky-and-chrome like the wrecking-cars that'd already passed. It was instantly building its own army. One of the cars that completed its transformation tore out, rocketing ahead of the Garbage Tank at 100mph. And... no driver required! Yikes!

The twelve original cars seemed determined to keep going--they were on a mission, and whatever that was, it was beyond this shopping area--they moved on, the direction of the interstate highway. Robyn Locksley's arrows hit their targets, but most of them seemed to bounce off--these tires were made of thicker stuff! But one arrow made its target, and with a blown tire, the car spun out and crashed into a nearby WALLGREENS. Johnny Storm's fire manages to take out another of the original twelve, and it slides into an embankment of parked cars.

Tabitha Smith was basically one of those confused, hapless bystanders. She'd never seen anything like this before. "The hell-ball's dangalang?" she asked herself. Then her eyes lit up when she saw the Garbage Tank approach.

Did Kwabena notice Tabitha? Did he? Well, who knows! The man seemed to be in an awful hurry. He does look over his shoulder as they get going, eyeing where Tabitha stands in the distance. "Hell," he grumps just a bit. Hate to leave a good fighter behind like that. He listens to Jocelyn though, and forms a smirk. "Got it," he quips, waiting for her to leap off his bike.

Suddenly, the bike goes tearing sideways, pulling a fast U-Turn. It speeds right up toward Tabitha, looking as if it's about to hit her. As it comes closer, it slows just so, and he hooks a gloved hand to the exposed seat behind him while scooting up a bit. Assuming she'll take the bait, he's not going to stop completely. There's no time! But, hopefully he's going slow enough that she'll be able to make a good leap and board shotgun, so to speak.

"Got your boomers ready?" he asks. "Big tahgets up ahead."

There's Garbage Tank. Jocelyn really doesn't want to think about what or why this thing is around. She flips on comms. "Garbage Tank is electrified. I advise not landing on it. Something bigger is beyond a hill," Jocelyn reports into the X-Comm. Then she spots Johnny Storm. "And I got no life signs that I'm picking up on yet. Don't know if it's shielded from me or not. I'm going to try and shut this thing down".

With that, Jocelyn decides to continue flying above the Garbage Tank and opens up with her energy absorption powers, trying to drain all the electricity and...whatever other energy is powering that thing and make the thing just STOP MOVING. And hopefully keep it from shooting at people.

"Hey Torch!" Jocelyn calls out to the Human Torch. Her voice is muffled by the helmet, but it might sound sort of familiar to Johnny. "Think you can melt that thing's guns in case I can't shut it down? It's big brother is already on it's way, and I don't think we want to have two here at once, know what I mean?"

Zen sprints out of the building after making sure the two were headed in the right direction - AWAY. He draws his photon staff but only one end starts to glow with an intense, yellow-green light. He flips over the brand new car Truckathulu just made, smashes the glowing end down through the hood and hopefully the engine, and ends his flip by landing on Lunair's roof. Apparently he's switching the Teen-Wolf style! |"Go-go-go! Can you get us next to that thing?"| His mental voice projects all around, similar to how a real voice would, except directly into people's minds, and bypassing all the noise.

Johnny keeps flying after those paving the way for this...garbage truck tank, now 10 instead of 12. He was working on the remaining ones when he caught sight of the tentacle truck.

Oh-kay.

But honestly it doesn't rattle him -that- much. He lives with Reed Richards, of course he's seen weirder. And--ugh, it's creating an army of those wrecking cars! He turns around, deciding to focus his efforts on the big boss instead. A woman in a motorcycle helmet is shouting something at him. Right, melt the guns, that's what he was thinking already. "Wha--big brother? Are you kidding me?!" So this wasn't all, was it. As requested he aims several streams of white-hot fiery plasma at the guns and tentacles, hoping the overall heat of the blast would also cause the tires to blow!

What a waste - It took Robyn four arrows for a flat tire and that would empty the quiver in no time, especially as the lead car was inbound to crash the stolen Mustang away. Holding the bow in her right, she jumped to land onto the armored hulk of vehicle and surf on it while trying to get an aim at whatever the vehicle's were clearing the street for. Great - Frogger in real life. To a degree it would fit, as Robyn wore green, just that the 'frog' was armed with B&A in two ways.

A tank? What the noodles is going on and why are cars ... yikes. Lunair has no idea what to make of this. Walgreens totally gets it in the face though, and Lunair seems concerned. "... I did not consume any drugs," Grump. She has this car thing down. Then blinks, hearing a mental voice in her head and there's a gentleman on the roof. She speaks, but thinks back "Yeah, sure." And Lunair is going to try to maneuver the sleek, nimble car near enough for Zen.

Alarmingly, despite all of her shortcomings (and her awesome points! She has some!), Lunair is a very, very good driver (O how she misses some of her old sheet. Or whatever a sheet is, because sometimes Deadpool references it and she just assumes he's INCREDIBLY SMART). Either way, they are working towards it, dodging debris and hostile cars. Lunair was good at Frogger as a kid. One of the few games the hospital let them have. RIBBIT RIBBIT MOTHER TRUCKERS.

Tabitha squees cheerfully as Shift grabs her up onto his bike. "Shiftyyyy!! I was ready before I was born...ready," she says assuredly, her hand already sparkling with a pre-emptive little time bomb. "Dude, that thing looks like it drove out of Hell. Or some union worker's hentai fanfic."

Zen had managed to take out another two cars from the original pack, leaving still eight that were now speeding off to wreck more stuff beyond. Johnny Storm's fire-blasts onto the cannons seemed be working, as they began to warp in shape. But it was happening a bit slow.

The Garbage Tank slowed its speed instantly when Jocelyn used her powers on it--it's response? twenty of it's cable-like tentacles moved towards her in a whip-like lash to strike her... as they got closer, their texture revealed thousands of micro-barb like edges. If those hit, it was gonna be bloody! The other twenty tentacles latched themselves onto parked cars nearby--those cars began transforming into more car-drones. Whatever Jocelyn was doing was clearly a threat, and the machine was directing all of its attention onto her.

You know, it's funny that Lunair was thinking about Monster Trucks, because that's exactly what was coming up behind the hill. It was the vehicle that Jocelyn was warning Johnny about. It was a Monster Truck indeed: about the size of a house, it's enormous tires lined with titanium spikes, it's engine roaring like a lion. Like all the other vehicles, it's windows were tinted, and it looked well armored. Dozens of small cannons were mounted all over the vehicle... and while none of them were firing, they twitched about at fast speeds.

Suddenly, there are a whole hell of a lot more targets on the road. Shift leans forward, his eyes fixed on the steadily growing obstacle course ahead while keeping an ear trained to the X-Comm. "Yeah, it's also electrified," he calls to Tabitha. "Don't touch it unless you like fried Shift. Got a biggah bogey just beyond." Then he punches a small button on his bike's panel, activating his X-Comm so that Jocelyn can hear. "We'll take de biggah tahget."

Of course they will.

"Boomer," he says to the girl behind. "I know we don't know each oddah dat well, but--" He pauses in order to lay the bike down low, avoiding one of those whipping tentacles as they soar overhead. He pulls the bike back up and angles it to the side just before colliding with a recently parked car that's now... alive, and trying to ram them.

The bike, and undoubtedly each of their legs, come within inches of striking chrome.

"--but I fucking hate tentacles, even metal ones!" The bike's a high performance vehicle, but if they can just get through that obstacle course, which is closing in. "Boomer, clear us a path!"

Lets hope this works. Still, just in case it doesn't, Shift's eyes are dancing about, searching for any other pathway through the obstacle course should Tabitha's bombs not clear a way through.

Ugh, this thing is tough! Johnny wonders if there's actually anyone inside, because if not then he doesn't have to hold back so much! "Hey! Helmet...lady!" He doesn't know her name, okay? "Look out!" He sends a hot flame jet at the barbed tentacles headed Jocelyn's way, hoping to melt them and divert the danger

At the same time, he also tries to focus his thermokinetic detection abilities and see if he can detect any human-like heat signatures inside of any of the cars or trucks.

The Monster Truck is noted, but honestly, Jocelyn is a little busy with OMG TENTACLE TRUCK. Ahem. "I think I pissed it off. By the way, driver in the Monster Truck. Don't completely smash it up," Jocelyn comments, both loudly enough for Johnny to hear and for it to travel across the X-Comm. She continues absorbing energy as she starts using some of that aerial acrobatics she learned from Carol. Tentacle 1, dodged. Two, dodge. Three, four, five, and six. Neatly dodged. Seven, eight, nine, te...where's ten?

Oh, there it is. Coming up for her arm and wrapping around it. Despite Johnny's attempt to save her, one of them manages to catch her arm. The teen lets out a curse as the tentacle draws blood from her arm. Gritting her teeth, she initiates her Stargate Maneuver, opening up a vertical burst similar to the iconic gate directly between the cab and the rest of the truck. Then?

KA-WOOSH! A white burst of raw energy bursts out towards the rear end of the Garbage Truck, not actually going all that far, but with the vehicle moving, it should hopefully do some serious damage.

"Sure thing!" Tabitha said in response to Shift, and she started flicking out time bombs like she were throwing snowballs--the little blasts of light sending various cars into explosions. She wasn't taking any chances, and had opted to explode virtually every car she could see, damaged, parked, armored, fahrvergnügen--they all got the treatment. And the treatment, as a doctor might say, was effective. Each car exploding into chunks, pieces flopping over every which way--sending off blasts of heat with each explosion. "Woohoo! I've always wanted to do this!"

Robyn eyed the vehicle under her, trying to pull open the door to get into the vehicle so she could try to mount the drivers seat. Smirking a bit she fought the door open against the wind and then herself into the vehicle, tossing the bow to the co-drivers seat. At least it was still driving by itself - so long she did not interact with the controls - which was just what she tried! Pulling the steering wheel and pressing onto the break just a second later just when she pulled the handbrake she tried to force the car to do a 180 and shift into the rear gear till she hit anything on the driver side to break off the driver's door she had entered through and make it a one-door-less variant. Hoping that she hit the radio controls she turned a button on the middle console and shifted back to forward, getting a rewarding sound from speakers - 'Firestorm'? Really? Was the Garbage truck a Sabaton fan?

Hmm...no one inside the garbage truck. Okay, time to cut loose. Well, not -that- loose, because this is still a shopping district and there could still be innocent bystanders nearby or people who are trying to help who are not immune to explosions. You -really- wouldn't want Johnny to cut -completely- loose. Not on Earth, at least.

The Torch aims for the hood of the vehicle this time, shooting another superheated burst right at it, hoping to melt through the metal and cook the engine. If that would even do anything to stop the crazy tentacles and guns. Gah, he kind of wishes Reed were here because then he could tell everyone what exactly was powering this crazy thing or causing it to turn into a monstrosity. He glances up at Jocelyn's comment. "Uhm, actually there's no one in there. Whoever's doing this is doing it from somewhere else."

The Garbage Tank was flanked on both sides by newly formed creations--the ones to its right were getting rapidly destroyed by Boom-Boom, who was clinging to Shift, who was clinging to his motorcycle. The ones on its left, however, were formed with large cannons atop them. All five of these new creations pointed at Jocelyn, trying target and fix onto her location as she dodged and weaved through the air, preparing to fire.

The Monster Tank got hit by her attack, and it's back-end lit up popping burst of fire, metal squealing. This fire only grew with Johnny Storm's assault--clearly also having an effect--and the Garbage Tank flung three of it's barb-laden tentacles at him, attempting to fend him off. The vehicle that Robyn hijacked struggled against her mounting its controls, but she managed to be able to direct it, but it continued to attempt to meekly resist her driving...almost like an unruly child.

About 100 feet behind all of this, The Monster Truck had halted to a complete stop and fell silent.

Zen waits for Lunair to get them closer to Truckathulu, and therefor the monster truck. He crouches on the swerving roof, says, |"Thanks for the ride!"| And he launches himself into the arm, twisting in an arc that take fifty yards into the air, attempting to clear the flailing of the tentacles and time his landing to drop onto the roof of monster truck's cab, spearing his photon staff down through the metal, trying to work it open like a can-opener.

Pressing the gas down to the floor, the motor of the hijacked cruiser roared up, the thick tires wheeling and producing clouds of burnt rubber before it sped up to some 80 or so, heading directly for the garbage truck, Robyn fighting with the steering to keep the vehicle under control, not crash into one of the other cruisers AND get the autopilot off long enough. Still she managed to spare a second or two to grab the bow from the co-driver's seat where she had dropped it and pass it to the way out, then she sacrificed two arrows to pin the steering wheel and the gas in their positions - which let her with less than a second to un-mount the cruiser for the street, the bow in her left, and at least try to lessen her impact to the street by doing a few barrel rolls out of the way of the garbage truck - which however would bring her into the way of Boom-Boom, Shift and the motorcycle... "come on..."

"No. The person is in the Monster Truck. Not this...monster truck. By the way, call me Channel. Friends with Scarlet". Maybe Johnny would recognize that bit, given she knew that Ben worked with the Four. Jocelyn gestures at the one the driver is actually in as she speaks with her free hand. Then she spots more cars about to shoot at her.

"Wonder if the Geico covers this?" Jocelyn asks as she dives down towards the Garbage Truck of Doom. Diving down into the flames of the thing, Jocelyn attempts to punch through with her super strength. She'd been absorbing this thing's energy plenty long. Then she just attempts to rip the part with the guns and tentacles and, in theory, the garbage storage area, off from the cab while continuing to try and drain it's power. The flames also get absorbed around her as the energy absorber works to try and just wreck the day of this garbage truck.

"Whoever is doing this totally owes me a new outfit after this," Jocelyn comments. Because EW.

Lunair has brought Zen in range. And shooting while driving seems a dangerous proposition. Dying to getting run over is not in her plan. So it's time for vehicular homici-- vehiclecide? Happily, her car is strong (pretty armored for a civilian one, really - is she that paranoid?) and she's going to smack one of the other cars into hopefully hitting a wall. Simple an direct, it also beats risking hitting someone with a plasma cannon or rocket launcher. And she does seem good at driving that nimble car of hers.

Suddenly, there's a cacophony of carnage! Shift barrels down, pulling the throttle and driving the machine through the flames and wreckage. A few pieces of shrapnel strike him, leaving holes in his clothes as they otherwise trigger his mutation and pass through the living smoke harmlessly. "You alright back dere?" he checks. Hopefully Boom-Boom didn't lose any limbs.

"Monstah Truck's got a drivah inside." Shift is echoing Jocelyn's report for Tabitha's benefit. He's also stressing the word 'driver' for a good reason. Take the sucker alive, and find out what he was doing, and how. The means aren't nearly as important as the result.

Now clear of the mayhem, Shift guns the throttle, eyeballing the gigantic monstrosity while taking aim. "Boomer... evah done a live swap?" He's still accelerating, even though the Monster Truck seems to have ground to a halt. And his entire body seems to be growing harder, as if his flesh were taking on a state of matter much, much stronger than flesh. He's not going to ditch the motorcycle into her possession unless she claims she can handle it.

Then, there's Robyn. "Too late! Grab it!" Shift throws the bike to the left so that it won't hit Robyn, while simultaneously leaping free. Forward momentum carries him toward the Monster struck while his body attains it's hardest state, turning him into a well aimed, living, armor piercing, Shift-sized bullet.

What! How is the thing's engine not cooked by now?! Johnny thinks. Or...maybe it is, but it's got some other source of power keeping it going. Not only that, but three tentacles come flying at him as he keeps trying to blast the engine with fire. Elevating the temperature of the plasma around his body he lets himself slip into his pure plasma form instead of dodging, as the the barbed monstrosities come toward him. If they're not built to withstand extremely hot temperatures, they'll just melt upon coming within a few inches of his body.

Hmm...wait a minute, it looks like someone is in one of those minion-cars, and is actually having some success with controlling it. Maybe it'll work with the trucks. Johnny stops blasting at the engine then and flies up to the windshield, aiming a superheated punch through the glass so that he might endeavor to get into the cab and behind the wheel. Whatever he finds there...is whatever he finds there. They've already tried stopping it from the outside, so now it's time to try the same from the INside.

The impact of the car Robyn Locksley had sent careening into the Monster Tank was felt, the painful, loud crash of steel resounding everywhere close to it. The front of the Garbage Tank had now sustained considerable damage: It's back and much of it's roof on fire, half of it's cabled-tentacles melted away, and it's driverless-driver's compartment dented severely. Still, it whipped its remaining tentacles in the air, attempting to strike blows airborne Johnny Storm, despite their aerial dexterity. Before Johnny's attempt to take control were even necessary, the entire machine fell silent; its cables soon limp. Garbage Tank was completely shut down thanks to Jocelyn's absorption. It was still and quiet, with some small patches of gnarly black smoke rising from it.

Tabitha yells, "No but yes but no! Just do--" but before she can finish, with all the chaos, she finds herself driving his motorcycle. "Heck yeah!" she belts out, and passes the Monster Truck, enjoying the ride. Realizing that she may as well continue the fight, she U-Turns and heads back to face the backside of the giant vehicle. Some of the small cannons point at her, but haven't fired.

On top of the the truck, Zen had thrown his weapon into the driver's compartment--a feat that was difficult due to the armor, but not impossible. He was slowly pushing the metal open, and a raspy voice started shouting: "Nice try." This was followed by the barrel of a gun pointing out of the opening Zen had made, and it began to fire at him.

"I hate garbage day," Jocelyn comments as she emerges from the innards of the Garbage Truck, removing the barbed tentacle from her arm and carrying it in one of her hands. It might come in useful someday! She looks around and spots the Monster Tank. Jocelyn stays right where she is and starts absorbing energy from that vehicle now, trying to shut it down. She didn't think it would last as long as Garbage Truck did, simply because now everyone was going to converge on it. But it was worth trying to do, and Jocelyn didn't need to get into that entire mess with everyone else. Better to absorb from afar.

Though with her luck, that would make her the target of all of it's attacks again. That was just what Jocelyn needed. Her outfit was already scorched and her jacket has been shredded, not that it was particularly cold where she was standing, thanks to the work of the Human Torch.

Zen was not surprised by the driver's tactic, given his psionic sixth sense, and easily avoids the gunshots with a quick twist of his body. In fact, he takes advantage of the extra shots to further weaken the roof and try to pry it even further open, blinking himself in and out of the driver's perception, making a confusing blur for him to focus on. Then Zen 'shouts' loud enough for everyone to hear, because distance apparently effects his mental voice, |"We got a live one in here, and none to friendly! Anyone bring handcuffs?"| His mental voice chuckles, and he yanks his weapon out of the roof to stab it in elsewhere, trying to perforate it for a proper opening.

Johnny smash-melts the windshield, but by then the mutated garbage truck has already been successfully taken down. "Well." He says, pulling back finally and hovering in the air near Jocelyn. "That was fun. Oh--sorry about earlier. It's nice to meet you, Channel. I would introduce myself but...you already know who I am." Wink. Glancing over at Zen and the other truck, it looks like they've got the situation handled, but he calls over there just in case. "You guys got it handled or do you need me to set something else on fire?"

Evading the truck was relatively easy - considering that Robyn knew where the truck was heading - but evading the incoming motorcycle with Boom-Boom on it was less easy. But she made it just in time on the cost of half her quiver's filling. Then the Motorcycle turned around and was about to pass her again and this time Robyn took the chance to try to conquer the backseat with a grab to Boom-Boom's shoulder and a step onto the exhaust "'xcuse me... need a ride to that thing!" she claimed, as she tried to swing her leg over the socius to knock on another arrow to lay aim at the Monster Truck, keeping herself on the cycle with her legs only.

Lunair might be missed sometimes, but that happens. It's a handy skill to have in some circumstances. And on hearing that apparently there's a dude in the monster truck, Lunair interrupts her minion swatting to risk taking a pot shot at a wheel, pulling a freaking plasma cannon outta nowhere and propping it up out the window. She just totally did that. Her car is nimble, moving out of the way of this and that. It wobbles briefly as she takes her potshot, and the gun disappears. She's just going to do her thing and try not to run anyone over. Burnout totally doesn't reward points for that.

Superdense and... shrinking? That's a decent way to describe Shift as he flies through the air. Molecular structure is an interesting thing after all, and the denser he grows, well, his size reduces. Yeah, science, bitch!

Shift tears a smaller-than-his-usual-self hole into the side of the Monster Truck, and comes to a thudding rest just next to the fellow pointing a gun up at Zen by smashing right into the driver's chair.

About ten cannons on the roof of the Monster Truck turn towards Zen and begin firing... he'd better be heck of quick, because laser cannons started their assault! The driver's voice, an almost serpentine-like male, began ranting in a flustered tone: "Knew some of you punks would show up, but didn't expect ya to take out the Garbage Truck so quick. Ughhhh, best laid plans.. next time..." There were beeping sounds coming from inside--the sounds of machinery and computers.

Tabitha Smith accepted her sudden green-clad passenger without so much as a flinch. One of the cannons fired at the motorcycle, its first shot missing. "We're gonna ram that thing!!!" Tabitha shouts, revving the engine. Then she turns her head back... "Just kidding." She scoots the bike to the right side of the monster truck, and tells her friend: "Jump on that, kill the bad guy, save the cheerleader."

Suddenly! The entire roof of the monster truck flaps open, numerous metal panels moving in synchronized, quick movements, and a small, aerial vehicle emerges from within. It looks like a hover bike, with MOAR CANNONZ mounted on it. The driver of the car is riding on it: it's a humanoid person, and he's wearing sleek, black body armor from head to toe, his face completely covered. A wise person might suspect he was making his escape. The man, however, so busy with getting situated into his vehicle, hadn't noticed that sitting right next to him... was Shift. In fact, someone who didn't know Shift might suspect Shift was his co-pilot.

"Did he just...?" Johnny totally saw someone just slam into the driver's compartment, and now the guy is sitting in the getaway vehicle next to the perpetrator of this strange crime. Is he getting kidnapped? Or did the guy just not even notice someone punch a hole in the side of the cab with his -body-?

Frowning, Johnny starts flying tentatively after the escape vehicle, not sure exactly what's going on. He glances down at Jocelyn. "Uh, Channel? Is your friend going to be okay?"

Jocelyn sees Shift totally has this covered, and can tell there are still some more injured. "He'll be alright. I suspect he has a plan. There are some people who need some healing from all the chaos though, and medics won't get there in time, so pardon me". And Channel will dash off to heal some civilians.

Somehow, motorcycle ramming seems less effective. Surely, Tabitha isn't a jouster? Lunair sees no lance, nor helmet or - something. According to youtube, these things usually happen with office chairs, buckets and teenagers. And now there's some sort of - did that dude get kidnapped? Lunair's not sure what the heck is going on. At least her plasma cannon should've hopefully bothered the monster truck's tires as she - hesitates to see what's going to happen next. Oh wait, ram a minion! Woot!

Unfortunately for Zen, this new volley of attacks is completely automated. With no live-mind directing the shots, his sixth sense has nothing to track. His first warning is a cannon blast which barely misses him. He whips around to face the incoming volley and twists and flips his way past most of the half-dozen shots on pure moxie, but it's always the last one that get's you. He finally zigs when he should zagged and takes a laser blast full on in the upper left part of his chest. He spins off the roof of the truck and lands on his back on the ground, groaning mentally. It doesn't look like it broke the skin, but there /is/ a big round burn on the skin there. |"Errrgghh. Did anyone. Get the number. Of that space freighter?"| He's dazed, and fairly out of it for the moment.

Sitting on the rear of a Motorcycle with an arrow and bow in her hand was just as lunatic as turning a vehicle into a battering ram to stop a ravaging garbage truck. As Boom-Boom told she was going to crash into the machine, she nodded, then snorting as she got told it was a joke. Raising the bow as she pressed herself up somewhat to get free space under the bow she muttered "Gimmie a good shot at the vehicles heat exchanger." Then she let the arrow loose and slipped back to the seat.

Then Boom gave of that snarky comment when circling to the car's right. Two can play that game, so Robyn added just a line. "Make that a plural. Save the cheerleaders."

Oh, Shift has a plan alright. And for once, he hasn't completely shredded his clothing. What parts are shredded however, reveal a gunmetal gray uniform underneath that could be mistaken as a matching body armor.

His body de-shrinks, but has still maintained much of it's density. That's why, when his arm comes out to strike the driver in the armored face with a super-solidified elbow, it makes a resounding crack. That's tough armor though!

Crack! "Word of advice--" Crack! "--don't fuck around--" Crack! "--with BROOKLYN!" Crack, Crack!

Shift's plan, for the moment, involved repeatedly striking the bastard in his face.

Then he dives for the controls, hoping to wrestle them from the driver's hands.

Tabitha wasn't exactly sure what Robyn meant, but not knowing what people mean is typical for her. She hears the word 'cheerleaders' echoed back, and that was the only prompt she needed. "Rah, rah, rah! Sis-coom-bah!" She wasn't sure what that meant, either, even though she was saying it. She tossed up her arms, letting two little sparkly time-bombs out of her hands, them landing on the housing of the monster truck, exploding large holes in its side--destroying a strip of the cannons. Then she saw Zen hit the ground. "Another one bites the dust," she says mournfully. If only she had a 40oz to pour in his honor.

"Urngh!" The black-armored driver shouts, he whips his arm around to strike Shift--his forearm's armor was indeed quite dense. Sensing his pilot-status threatened, he slammed his other hand onto some sort of control panel, and it sent numerous blasts from the front of the bike, it's targeting mechanism had auto-selected Johnny Storm, being that he was right there. "Son of a bitch," he snarls, struggling with Shift, "You haven't bested me. OVERDRIVE will fight another day!" He tugs his free hand into an awkward position, trying to reach for another panel, presumably to do more computery-stuff.

Noticing poor Zen get knocked down, and feeling a bit lost amidst all of this (She is pretty sure that plasma cannon shot landed...), she decides to go scoop up the poor alien. Lunair angles the car sharply, which tilts alarmingly on its side past one of the other car minions. Swerving neatly around, she brings it to a screeching halt by Zen. And one of the doors pops open. "Please hurry, don't sit on my chocolates."

Robyn grunts as the driver is still fighting, pulling out not one but two arrows to aim at the hand of him - and the neckline with the other. He just needs to hold still a second, and what is better than distracting him? "Hey, Low Range!" she yelled up, waiting just for the split second in which he was stopped by the insult to release the twin shot - the one cruising in to nail the bloody hand to the roof of the car and into the electronics he was about to touch while the other tried to give a nice, deep cut at the neckline of the driver, eventually even cutting open the neckline vein.

Johnny nods as Jocelyn informs him that her friend probably has a plan. But just to make the job easier, he aims a fiery blast at the getaway vehicle's engines in an attempt to bring it down without really hurting anyone too badly.

But then it shoots at him! He darts out of the way quickly, dodging as many of the shots as he can. Thankfully he's quite fast in the air.

Kwabena takes the strike with grace, his head cracking backward and letting a couple tiny flecks of super-hardened skin go flying. They struggle for a few moments, Shift's eyes going wide as he recognizes what the driver is trying to do. This isn't going to go anywhere quickly.

"Sure you will." Shift backs off, and takes a very deep breath. He's taking a pretty big chance here. Flesh and bone relaxes its solidified state, and for a moment, he's as flesh and bone as he'll ever be, and completely open to a debilitating strike should the driver take one.

Then, he dives forward, trying to wrap his arms around the driver's face. Just as this happens, his hands search for a mouthpiece, and dissolve into thick tendrils of black smoke. Assuming the guy breathes, and somehow air gets into his mouth, that's where Shift's hands will go. Some of the smoke is fighting the wind, but it tends to stick together, such as biomatter does.

With a growl, Kwabena works at forcing his gassed out hands down the guy's mouth, through his nose, any path he can find to get into his lungs and fill them. The chain reaction works up his arms, letting the jacket go slack as it does.

The Shift Choke. A cult classic.

Zen looks hardly capable of moving, and his left arm is essentially immobilized. He chucks his staff into the backseat and uses his right arm to haul himself into the seat, unfortunately not careful for the possible presence of chocolates. He may end up owing Luna some replacements. He directs his mind-talking just to her this time, explaining where they need to go to retrieve his travel-pod, and then slumps back in the seat, only semi-conscious.

Well, it's more that Zen's gonna have some odd brown stains in the worst possible places for sitting on chocolates. But Lunair would never make fun of that. They can deal with it later. And Lunair would probably totally be sad to see some dude missing out on huffing Shift. Do people really do that? She thought it was up there with Jenkem for 'weird things people might try because they saw it on the internet.'

She seems concerned for her alien pal and will take him where he directs. "I am sorry. I am not nearly angry enough or Brooklyn enough to be a true cabbie." But she'll take him there.

Robyn's neck-aimed arrow simply bounces off the body armor of 'Overdrive', but her control panel shot strikes, sending the interface into electrified sizzles. Overdrive pulled his hand away, mumbling exasperated, colorful phrases, only to be surprised by Shift's sudden attack. This was something completely unexpected, and he flails helplessly for a slow ten seconds, eventually slumping down into unconsciousness.

"Nice Job, Shifty," a voice says from behind. It's Tabitha smith, and her outfit is covered in grease stains from climbing up the side of the Monster Truck. She looked up to the hovering vehicle where Shift and now-unconscious-Overdrive loomed. "I totally wrote down his license plate number."

The scene around the shopping area was total chaos, but every single drone-car had ceased operation. It seemed the conflict was over.

In the distance, police sirens wailed their arrival.

As soon as he 'feels' Overdrive's lungs go slack, Shift is quick to withdraw. Tendrils of finger-smoke go flailing about in the wind, but they're quickly reformed into flesh again. "Sweet dreams, f--k face."

Now, for the controls! We wouldn't want this puppy crash landing into some poor helpless Brooklyn hipsters, even if it would prove that YOLO is, in fact, truthful. He studies them for a moment, vaguely recalling which ones the guy was using to drive, and pushes them down. The flying vehicle goes UP instead. "GAH!

Shift must not invert his video game controls.

Pulling the levers UP instead, the vehicle now goes DOWN. With a scowl, Shift drives the thing into a particularly unimpressive landing back on the Monster Truck, leaping off and onto the roof of the thing. His clothes are in absolute shreds, and there are a couple of unfortunate holes in his favorite leather jacket.

Looking over toward Tabitha, he smirks ruefully. "Thanks, Boomer. Now what de hell did you do with my bike?"

Finally Shift seems to have dealt with the situation as he brings the craft back down on top of the monster truck. Johnny's met the mutant a couple of times before, but doesn't know him too well. "Shift, right? You okay? Well, other than your clothes, that is..."

He lands on the ground and turns off his flames. "Who was that guy, anyway?"

Jocelyn had been busy tending to the wounded, those that the medics couldn't get to. This was likely due to the unsurprising traffic problems that crazy out of control cars cause. Still, having gotten people healed and fixed up, Jocelyn makes her way back towards where the rest of the group is now, still wearing Shift's now horribly scuffed and burnt motorcycle helmet. "You clear things up? Had a bunch of wounded who needed immediate attention," Jocelyn explains. It's the medic in her. Blame Shift, it's all her fault! "You need a lift, or the bike still functional?" she asks.

"His bike is just over here," Tabitha said, idly pointing somewhere, probably not even in the right direction. She stepped over to Jocelyn, offering up a little wave. "I'm... Tabitha. The Boom-Boom!" she announces enthusiastically. She punctuates this with a zealous twirl, and then waves over to Johnny Storm, in turn. She assumes that this is Shift's 'team', and now she's on it. "Let's call ourselves... The Starship Troopers," she says, "We can make that name cool again."

"Johnny Storm." Kwabena glances toward the fellow, recognition setting in. For a moment, he thinks back to the combat -- he's always so hyper focused when one of these incidents is going down -- but as he rifles through the events, he starts to pick out Johnny in the fray, and recalls some of the guy's tricks. At that, his eyes brighten. "Hell of a job out dere, boss." There's a disdainful smirk when his clothes are mentioned. They're always getting ruined. "Eh. I'm gonna hurt later, but dat's what whiskey and Tylenol ah for." He walks over to Johnny, clapping the guy on his shoulder, and then he keeps walking.

Once past Johnny, he lets out a delayed wince, and pulls his arm backward. There's an ugly cracking and popping sound.

To Jocelyn, he says, "You want to call dis in to JLA or something? Dere ah cops coming, which means it's time for me to bolt." He looks where Tabitha points, but his bike's not there. Scanning... scanning... THERE it is.

"Boomer, you owe me a shot for every dent I didn't put dere." He flashes the girl a grin, before jogging across the way toward his bike.

The rear cargo pouch is unzipped. Out comes a flask. A good snort is taken, then it's stowed away before he hops on his bike. Those cop sirens are getting louder, and it doesn't make him very happy.

Johnny looks a little confused at the response he got to his question. "Overhead? Or Overnerd?" He waves to Shift as the mutant leaves. "Thanks, I'm far from your boss, though." he chuckles, then nods at Channel once she's returned. "Yeah, looks like it. Still not sure exactly who it was, but I think he was called 'Over' something. How's the damage looking? Anything severe?"

"No. You're going to let me fix you up this time, or I'm going to make sure a certain somebody knows about your choice and makes you pay for it," Jocelyn responds to Shift with a frown that can be felt from behind her helmet. "I'm Channel," Jocelyn adds to Boomer. "Good to meet you". Real names? That's something for other people to give out. She pulls out her phone and sends a couple texts, hopping it through some secure channels. "JLA has been notified. Though if they didn't already know, well, then I'd say they weren't paying much attention". She doesn't mention that they won't appear on the official report, which was just fine with her.

"Good work everyone," the woman adds. "Mostly the damage seems to be to the road itself, the Walgreen's is going to have to be rebuilt I'm guessing. I got the worst of the injuries fixed up," Jocelyn tells him. "Ambulances are getting on the scene to deal with the ones that aren't life-threatening. You mind being the face for this? People don't like us mutants all that much still, you know."

"Yeah, yeah...sure." Johnny smirks. Did she really just ask the Human Torch if he minded taking all the credit for this? Haha. "I'll take all the aggro from the media for you." He winks and turns to await the incoming hordes of journalists and cameramen.

And then on come the interviewers with their mics and cameras. "Storm!" "Johnny!" "Torch!" Multiple individuals are calling out, all clamoring for a few questions answered about the situation. Johnny just kind of...tells them it was some crazy dude named 'Overnerd' that he'd never heard of (I mean dude who names themselves 'Overnerd') and also that he had to melt the engines of the monster trucks and shoot down the getaway craft with fire in order to make sure the perpetrator didn't get away.

Well, if one lets the Human Torch talk to the public, one has to be fine with letting him take all the credit.