| Act of God | |||||
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| What: Thor meets Bloody Rose. That poor car.. | |||||
Nine times out of every ten, things proceed relatively smoothly where Bloody Rose is concerned. She tends to make sure that all decks are stacked firmly in her favor. That, after all, is only sensible. But every now and then, something goes horribly wrong.
Today, for instance. The woman is not dressed in her civilian clothing, but instead a black, form-fitting bodysuit. Her hair let down, her glasses left behind. She is also currently swearing to herself.
A rather desperate-looking figure, scrawny, young, with too much acne and too little eyesight, bursts from his apartment onto the Brooklyn streets. Ordinarily, Bloody Rose would be willing to leave it at that; he had spotted her, he had run, and thanks to dumb luck, he had actually managed to make it to the relative safety of the street.
But it is a dark and gloomy night, and there doesn't seem to be anyone else immediately in view. So, just a few seconds after the desperate young man had made it, she too bursts into the open, pistol in hand, and steadies her shot.
"I suppose he knew someone would come for him..." She murmurs to herself.
Floating above the area, Thor hovers. The wind tugs at cape and hair. Mjolnir rests comfortably in his right hand.
"Oh dear God; don't kill me," Rose's target is blubbering as he scrambles away from the gun-toting girl. The feel of the man's desperation draws Thor's stormy blue-gray gaze. He turns his head, narrows his eyes, and frowns.
The sky darkens. A crack of thunder rings out. Thor rockets to Earth, and lands with a dull crunch of concrete directly in front of Bloody Rose. His left foot rests on the curb near hear, his right hand, and therefore his hammer, slightly behind him and off to the side. His armor, now repolished back to its normal glossly state aftr the battle at the White House, gleams faintly before the barrel of the gun. Either, he's unconcerned or ignornant of the weapon's capabilities.
"Halt, mortal. Stay thy hand lest the Odinson needs stay it for thee," Thor rumbles softly, eyes glinting with the threat of lightning. Overhead, the clouds linger -- waiting.
Rose is taken aback by the sudden appearance of the God of Thunder - as indeed, most sane people would be. She eyes the way his impact has cracked the pavement, and looks over his shoulder. Her target - a rather unfortunate young man on many levels, known as Edgar Neesbury - is starting to run again, getting away whilst the getting is good.
"You do not want to get in my way." She says, her voice lightly accented in French, though she's going with English because that, was the language she was (sort of) addressed in. Remarkably calm given the circumstances.
She adjusts her aim, covering Thor with the weapon, for all the good it is likely to do. "Friendly warning, because I am not getting paid enough to kill you as well. Please lets not do this?"
Well, at least she's asking... nicely?
Thor quirks a brow at Rose as she informs him of what he does and does not wish. A faint smirk forms. The smirk, almost warm, breaks into an easy sort of smile as Rose so sweetly asks him not to get involved. It's the smile of a being with no fear of death.
"Nay, child. I dare say thou hasn't the means to do it, and thus doth I implore thee: let go thine weapon and stand away from this most ill-convinced of actions," says the Storm Lord, giving his battle hammer a single twirl at his side to adjust his grip. Not that he adjusts it very far, for it rests in much the same direction as it did previously. The runes gleam in the night, and the clouds shift slightly. The sense of being needed, that call to action Midgard's children often inflect upon him is fading now that Mr. Neesbury is getting further away from harm. The perseptive would note it in the subtle downward shift of his right shoulder.
This guy has pulverised the pavement, and, well. She can tell from the stance he's holding that he knows how to use that hammer of his. She might not know exactly who Thor is or what he's capable of, but she can guess enough to know that in a straight fight, she is not going to come out on top. As tempting as it is to try and put a couple of rounds in him anyway, on general principles.
So the pistol is lowered, and she nods. But... if Thor believes that it is going to end there, he is a fool indeed. "Very well." She murmurs, but, her voice is quiet, distant.
And some way up the street, a car rumbles into life. The sedan's high beams snap on, and the woman's eyes lock on it. To reach out and touch it is easy, to direct it is... a touch more of a challenge, but not a huge one.
Whether even a car hurtling towards Thor as fast as it can gather momentum will be enough to dislodge this nuisance in her schemes? Well, that's something that she'll just have to find out herself.
Thor's no fool, and yet, he is a trusting sort of fool, and one that oft finds himself not able to see through the cloak of trickery and misdirection that are his brother's ilk. When Rose lowers the pistol, and grows soft and quiet, the Thunder God nods and starts to turn away. It is the sound of the car that calls him back, and Thor turns toward the machine to look at it.
He's seen these things, surely, and though he has fought some that could shift into giant killer robots, he's been told that as a general thumb, most of them do not. And so, standing there, much like a deer in headlights, Thor watch as the car approaches, seeming to just be curiously observing the thing until it's very clear the creature will NOT be stopping.
"Back away mortal," he warns Rose, turning to face the vehicle fully; his left foot steps from the curb to the street.
"These constructs I have faced before. Thou art no match for them. Run," he demands of the girl near him even as he steps into the car's charge, bracing himself against it. (
'Yes, silly beast,') his mind is ringing. ('Come into range of Mjolnir, mine hammer!')
Now that the car is sent careening towards Thor, Rose's mind can return back to the moment. Thor, actually warning her and raising his hammer... well, that's nice of him! Now that he's got his back to her, the next course of action seems pretty clear to her.
The car continues its terrifying, out of control course. With no driver, if Thor is used to the way these things are supposed to work, that might stand out as odd... on the other hand, he probably isn't, and it probably doesn't.
The fact that Rose raises her gun, and pops off two neat shots aimed to plug right into Thor's broad back, well, that might just strike him as /more/ peculiar. The silenced weapon barely makes a whisper of noise. She's not holding out much hope for its stopping power in this case, either. But who knows? She has to try.
The lack of a driver further instills into Thor that this is no ordinary vehicle, but a golem shaped to look like one. Eyes crackling a ferce electric blue, Thor bends at the knees, the cement cracking slightly again as Jord's Son puts pressure against Her, draws from Her strength, and then with a mighty over hand swing, imparts the full weight of that force, his own nearly seven hundred pounds of bone, sinew, and muscle, the weight and jugdgement of the hammer Mjolnir, and a single, air-scorching fork of blue-white lightning from the sky above into the engine of this poor poor car.
The sound of the two whisper quiet shots are drowned out by the crack of thunder that accompanies the summoned lightning bolt, and aside from the two new round holes in his bright red cape, it's entirely possible Thor didn't even notice the bullets strike the back plate of his uru metal armor. Durn it! Now he's going to have to repolish that piece - AGAIN!
Yup, that about seals it.
The summoned bolt of lightning brings a muffled french curse from behind Thor, and reduces the front of the vehicle to so much molten slag, melting the rubber tired into the earth and utterly ruining some poor soul's day. Not much one can do about an Act of God, after all.
Rose had not been expecting that, and now her vision has erupted into useless spots and her ears are ringing from the deafening roar of thunder. She stumbles back a few steps, blinking and trying to clear her vision. It is ... probably a good thing Thor hasn't noticed she shot him, she's sure in no position to do much more than swear bitterly right this second.
The soft swears from the girl behind him brings Thor away from the beast, left hand reaching out to steady her even as his steps take him to her side and keep him between her and the melted twisted hunk of scrap metal that once was a car.
"Steady, child. Steady. Thou art whole and safe. My apologies to thee, for the fright of mine lightning," Thor is saying, seeking to guide Rose to where she might sit and recover, should she allow.
Bloody Rose isn't exactly used to men she just tried to kill helping her out, but it is rapidly becoming clear that she /wasn't/ a threat to Thor. She's not so arrogant as to continue to push her luck, so she allows him to guide her to somewhere safe.
Her gun is surreptitiously slid about her person, and she clears her throat. "That was, unpleasant." She concludes, at last. "Lets, give some warning before you try that again next time, yes?"
Thor is giving the car a few glances, but once he's certain the beast no longer moves, he clips his hammer to his belt to finish leading the girl from 'harm'; it's perhaps endearing that the Asgardian Prince doesn't realize /she/ was the one causing the harm.
"My apologies, m'lady. In the protection of Midgard and her children, I act first. But, as thou wishes, let mine name be warning and conformation of that that I am and all that I can do, that should I be called to stand as your shielf, thou whilst always know what shall occur: I am Thor Odinson, Child of Jord, Son of Frigga, Scion and Prince of Asgard, known as Donar the Mighty and Wielder of Mjolnir; Verly I say unto thee, the mortals of Midgard hath named me the Lord of Storms, God of Thunder, Bringer of Lightning and Rain, and the Protector of this realm, Midgard, which thou now calleth Earth," Thor says by way of introduction, even giving a slight quarter step back from Rose in order to bow at the waist, right hand coming to rest upon the breatplate of his armor over his heart; all as is proper and polite for the child of the All Father.
Bloody Rose can, at least, see again. Which is good, the last thing she needed was to wind up blinded by pure chance. "Nngh." She says, articulate as ever. She only understood perhaps, half, of Thor's introduction. But she understood enough. Given that she'd tried her level best to squash him, it is hard to be too upset by any response which isn't 'crush your skull with my hammer'.
"Well, God of Thunder, Bringer of Lightning and Rain, you... have managed to cost me an easy fifteen thousand dollars. So, thank you for that." Stumbling back up to her feet, she sighs. "And you have given me, one 'ell of an eadache to boot."
Thor blinks twice at Rose. His hands once more move out to help the unsteady Rose to her feet. "Thou art welcome, and... my apologies," is all he says, tone carrying a note of 'huh?' to it.
Rose steadies herself quickly, and looks once more at the slag-heap that had been her assault, and the space where her mark had been, before being granted the miracle of divine intervention. "Well, it is no matter." She decides, "Nobody can blame me for intervention by the Gods themselves, I suppose." She moves to clap Thor, cheerfully, on the shoulder. "Thank you for saving me from the flying car, good man. It was, timely, I suppose."
Thor smiles, in the now only partly cloudly night, while nodding merrily. "Aye. It doth warm my heart to have so been here to stand before thee and offer mine protection," states he with that old-timey feel of a knight in shining armor riding about the country side slaying windmills and rescuing not-so-fair tavern wenches from their shrewness.
Rose sighs softly, and shakes her head. She... can't really believe that this has ended in this way, but, reality stubbornly refuses to budge to her disbelief. She smiles a slightly, dazed smile and nods her head. "Well, my sweet Thunder God." She says, brushing her hands back through her hair. "I should... probably go home, I suppose. The night is dark, after all. There are all sorts of dangerous fellows around."
"Aye, and thus shall I escourt thee, to ensure thy safety," Thor declares as he holds out his left elbow. It's so innocently said that there can't be anyway Thor means anything but wanting to make sure Rose gets home safe. It's like an overzealous ren-faire actor.
Rose shakes her head a little, and holds up her hands with a weak smile, "That is fine, honestly. Thank you for the kind offer, but, it is not far, and I would rather... ah... well, my neighbors would talk, bringing a large gentleman such as yourself home."
Thor chuckles lightly at that, head shaking. He didn't TRY this time! Honest he wasn't! But, given that his goddess is not here to banter with him wordlessly about getting another girl's number, Thor bows and steps back.
"Then I shall away, and listen for thee should my presence once more be required at your side," says the prince softly before he lifts himself from the ground with gentle an practiced ease.