El!
El has been with the site for nearly two years now and has continued to prove her value. Currently, she is heading up our site event, Battle for Liberterram, on top of keeping up with her own personal plots.
CHARACTER
SPOTLIGHT
Peggy Carter!
Lux's posts are all wonderful to read. She has done a wonderful job of grasping the new universe and incorporating Peggy into it.
CHARACTER
SPOTLIGHT
Peter Parker!
It's good to see Spidey back on the site. Watching him deal with the universe shift in his own snarky way has been nothing short of entertaining.
THREAD
SPOTLIGHT
Eight O'Clock on the Dot!
El and Lux are making magic in this thread. Straight up fireworks, and the way they've played with drawing out the reveal is top class.
As the West Coast attack hits its stride, Chitauri have begun an assault on the East Coast as well. With SHIELD having focused the brunt of their strength on the West Coast, it is the heroes left on the East Coast that must take up arms against these forces.
The few SHIELD Agents on this coast are also armed with bullets that contain nanites that should be able to shut down both the biological and electronic systems of the Chitauri at once, they are more prepared for that threat than before, but the Chitauri have brought with them beasts that Earth has not seen before.
Guidelines:
Posting Order: @bengrimm , @jubilee , Kayley Ryan , @mirage
Official Occurrence: May 16th; mid-morning.
You are allowed to control as many enemies, allies, and civilians in your posts as you need to.
Event thread should take priority over other threads.
You will have three days to post once its your turn. If you miss, the next person can post. If you miss twice, your character may receive a more serious injury that will disqualify them from further phases.
Available Enemies:
Chitauri: Garden-variety Chitauri soldiers; the bioweapon crafted by Tony Stark and Bobbi Morse will work to shut them down. They are hive-minded. Armed with Chitauri guns or spears. (Approx. 300)
Leviathan: Large, flying, whale-like creatures built for destruction, the bioweapon is not effective on them due to their size. Armed with teeth and size. (Approx. 3)
Chitlian: Bulked-up Chitauri soldiers that are more machine than biological. The bioweapon will take them down for brief periods, but they do reboot the system. Stronger than regular Chitauri and exempt from the hive-mind. Armed with Chitauri guns and spears. (Approx. 150)
Available Allies:
New York Police: Armed only with their issued weapons, the police will mainly handle crowd control.
National Guard: Armed with the weapons of their trade, the National Guard is attempting to hold down the fort in DC, but could use assistance.
SHIELD Academy Members: With only basic training, they are not the most efficient agents, but they want to help.
The attack on the West Coast did its trick. With SHIELD's eye drawn away from home and the Avengers dispatched on the other end of the country, the nation was barely prepared for the attack on the East Coast. Though some of the National Guard was already mobilized for defense purposes, the military is less effectively outfitted for the threat it faces.
Emergency sirens wail throughout the entirety of New York City as the armies of Thanos move in. In a metropolis as sprawling and filled to the brim with people as the Big Apple, getting people off the street isn’t easy, but the men and women of the NYPD are certainly doing their best. It certainly helps that some of them have been through this exact scenario before. Members of the National Guard stationed in the city also help, bringing military-grade weapons to the fight. The last leg of defense in the city are the young men and women of the SHIELD Academy, and any remaining Agents left in range, bringing with them top-of-the line tech and weapons, as well as some of the best training around.
A second attack hits Staten Island. Most of the aliens spread evenly throughout the borough, making use of its many parks. While the Chitauri use their sheer numbers to gain an advantage, some of the armed forces have begun to utilize Guerilla warfare. It seems to be working in some areas; in others, the energy blasts from the enemy have started small forest fires, giving them yet another issue to deal with.
The National Guard, NYPD, and the remnants of SHIELD are doing all that they can, but it’s quickly clear that it’s not enough…
Aliens - of friggen' course it would be aliens. The sirens going off in the city meant something was going to draw Ben away from a nice walk in the park - or, at least, as nice as the walk could be, considering how "recognizable" he'd gotten lately. If it weren't enough that he was on the Fantastic Four, he also had the crummy luck to be the one with the rocks for skin. He couldn't "rock off" or turn invisible, and he'd be an idiot if he thought that anything would make him completely unrecognizable.
But that was Ben's problem - or one of them, anyway, considering the friggen' sky was falling all around him. He knew these things from the news reports, back when the Avengers first started punching things together instead of separately - Chit-something-Reed-would-know. All Ben knew - all he had to know - was that they were attacking his city. They had the brass ones to try this crap again, just 'cause the Avengers were off dealing with the same thing in Seattle. Well, that was their mistake - Cap and Widow had come to the Four a while back, even before the whole Atlantis business, about having some folks on reserve in case they were needed. The way Ben figured it, that meant they saw him as being good enough to fight with 'em - and if they weren't here to fight with him, he'd fight for them.
The aliens were already all over, but Ben could cover a lot of ground, in not a lot of time. He leapt through the streets, aiming each time to land on one of the ugly jerks who were messing up his streets. On one good landing, he started off charging - knocking away a good amount of the littler jerks that thought they could shoot him down. A pair of bigger ones were up ahead - Ben didn't know much about aliens, but he knew war, and the folks that stood out were usually the folks in charge. He picked up his pace, grabbing some unfortunate somebody's motorcycle from the side of the road and tossing it at one of the big fellas, before running up and grabbing the second by the neck. In one motion, Ben lifted the Chitlian up, and then slammed it down with enough force to leave a dent in the street that had the shape of his clenched fist.
He stood up straight, looking around - still a ton of the damned things all over the place, and he could hear the sound that one of the big flying ones made on the news, way back during the first Battle of New York. The Avengers may have had a strategy - maybe Cap was leading them somewhere in some coordinated strike against whatever was leading these things against the planet. But Ben? Well, Reed wasn't around, neither was Suzie, and he'd be a monkey's rear-end before he ever listened to Johnny. He didn't have a plan, but he had his strength - and right now, he was pissed. "What, ya' think cuz the Jolly Green Giant ain't around ta' knock some heads together yer off the hook? Well, bad news, the Thing's still in town, an' unless my watch is fast - it's clobberin' time!"
Fist met palm, and Ben couldn't help but smile a bit - he knew the gravity of all of this, and he'd protect any civilians he saw. But hey, most of these things were smaller than him, and there were a helluva lot of 'em: if nothing else, this was gonna be fun.
What the actual frick was going on? One second Jubilee was just wandering around Staten Island, the next second it was pure mayhem all around her. Her blue eyes darted around, taking in the madness occurring before her before figuring out her best course of action. She spotted two police officers staring in horror, the crackling voices on their walkies riddled with panic. Jubes ran over to them, snapping her fingers in their faces.
"Okay guys, here's what we're going to do-" one officer moved to cut her off, the look in his eyes telling her that he wasn't used to taking orders from an apparently civilian girl. "Ah ah ah- no, we're not starting there." She narrowed her eyes. "Ignore the fact that I'm a chick and listen to what I have to say, got it? I need you to round up as many civilians as possible and get them to safety, okay? These guys are no joke, you saw what happened last time."
Last time an attack like this happened, Jubilee had been locked safe in Xavier's looking after the students there. This was a horse of a different color, she hadn't seen active duty in a long time... and damn it, this was some scary shit. She turned her attention back to the officers.
"What are we waiting for?!" she asked incredulously, her hands beginning to glow with the power of her plasma. The cops stared at her hands before looking back at each other and nodding, taking off in different directions to corral the scared people to safety. Jubilee turned around, breathing deeply before leaping onto the squad car the officers had abandoned. "No time like the present," she muttered, raising a hand and taking aim at the nearest alien invading her personal space. "I don't think so, ugly!"
A bolt of plasma shot from her palm, hitting the creature square in the chest. The hot orb burned its way through the alien body, which collapsed to the ground with a gaping hole in the middle of its torso. Jubilee stared at her palm. "That's new..." she grumbled, spinning in place on top of the auto and firing at more of the ugly creatures.
I can get a little drunk, I get into all the donts But on good days I'm charming as fuck
She was going to make the decision now… This was truly the last time she was heading out to Staten Island! Come down, they said. Awesome skate spots, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.
Sure, the skating was sweet whilst it lasted. But it wasn’t exactly cool when the entire god-damned heavens opened up and rained down alien death and destruction over the place. That wasn’t cool at all, why didn’t she just stay in bed like every other day? Why did she have to go out and skate with a bunch of stoners in the first place?
And now she was running for her life, just like every other person on the street that wasn’t embracing ‘the rapture’ or was just downright suicidal in thinking their second amendment rights would keep them safe. She wasn’t a hero, she was a lazy stoner dumbass who drank and partied too much, she hated the very thought of having to save the world, that’s what the Avengers were for?
’Where the hell are the Avengers, even?’ She pondered out loud at nobody but herself, those weirdos loved this kind of action, where they all off sharing a Shawarma, too busy to save the day? Or where they too busy picking out what identical suit they were going to all wear…
In her escape from terror, she had moved herself into a small shopping centre in the hope that there would be other people hiding, and hopefully no aliens around to shoot her in the face. She could feel her heart trying to pound itself out of her chest, she wasn’t prepared to die, she didn’t want to die, she loved living more than anything there was, and she didn’t want to die with a smoking hole in her chest. Dying wasn’t awesome at all, and the thought of it was only causing her become even more stressed than before. She really just wanted to find a corner so that she could cry until the heroes came to save her sorry life.
Rounding the corner, she immediately glued herself back against the wall as she stood face to face with two mean looking aliens holding deadly looking toothpicks in their hands. She felt every part of her body revolt at the sight of the murderous beasts, and her instinct kicked in just quick enough to hide in a small booth before they caught side of her.
What the hell was she going to do now?! She was stuck in a damn photo-booth in the middle of a Staten Island mini-mall. And the chittering from the aliens could be heard echo, drilling itself into her already frightened brain. And from the sound of their moon-speak they were also strolling her way, no doubt looking for innocent people to execute for shits and giggles, maybe it was a national sport from where they came from or something, she didn’t really know and she wasn’t going to step out and ask.
With the beasts coming closer and closer, she could now recognize the foulest stench she had ever smelled, as if various animals decided to start rotting in one nasty package. It was so revolting she was nearly gagging from the stench, involuntarily causing to rear back and hit the back of the booth with a thud that even a deaf alien could’ve heard… ’Shit, Shit, Shit…’ she cursed under her breath at her own stupidity, before noticing that the aliens had stopped trading war stories and were most definitely turning around to blast the booth into oblivion.
Closing her eyes she expected that it was going to be over quick, but after a few seconds she was still there, and could hear footsteps walking towards the booth. They were the inquisitive type, probably wanting to laugh in her stupid dumb stoner-face before they blew it off completely.
Seconds felt like hours to her as she stood frozen inside the booth, too petrified to act in any sort of way. What was she going to do, it wasn’t like she had a giant hammer to just smack them around with, or a fancy suit that could fly and had like a machine gun on it. She was just dumbass lazy Kayley who could do a crappy grind on a small ledge.
With the curtain moving, once more instinct took hold of her brain, forcing her to jump outside with every fibre in her being screaming in anger, and fear, and no doubt every other emotion. The two monsters were huge compared to her, but she still gritted her teeth and tried to give them both a hard shove, not that it would do anything.
Taking a few steps back, she quickly noticed that once more she wasn’t dead, and having checked her own vitals she looked back at the two monsters who had dropped their weapons and were having quite a few problems keeping themselves standing… ’Seriously, you’re guys gonna laugh at me now?!’ she asked on the verge of tears, wondering if she was dreaming this or whether she was already dead…
Whatever it was, the two big nasty stinky aliens weren’t exactly capable of fighting whatever was coming over them. This was the chance to get the hell out of there, and she wasn’t going to ask these two mountains of death about why they’ve suddenly developed killer migraines and aren’t shooting her.
At least, she wasn’t planning on asking it. But the moment she turned around a third said peekaboo and pulled her into the air by her throat as if she was as light as a feather. The soulless eyes of the monster squinting and trying himself to wonder what the hell she had done to his two buddies. ’Please… I don’t want to die.’ she coughed and sobbed profusely as the monster was slowly crushing her windpipe. Her arms flailing wildly in the foolish hope she might overpower the guy. Even an attempt at using her meagre powers only annoyed the bigger badder alien.
… She really hated dying, why didn’t she just stay in bed this morning so she could sleep through the apocalypse. Now she was going to get her throat crushed by aliens if she wasn’t somehow saved by some sort of miracle.
TAG: @mirage , @jubilee , @bengrimm // NOTES: She could really use a hand… (Basically what happened to the two smaller guys is that her powers unknowingly mess with the electronical elements of their beings) // WORDS: 1110 OUTFIT
It was rare for Varina to be found within a mini-mall. Her leisurely activities got carried out on two good feet backed by a healthy dose of energy. It displeased her to lounge and indulge in consumerism overlong. People who sat around twiddling their thumbs or waving around their wallets or any number of other indolence-enjoying behaviors she barely ever registered. Not unless there was a crisis at hand.
She was already wielding a stolen Chitilian spear when she came upon the sight of one elevating a woman into the air by the throat. The girl was a mess of tears and pleading that perfectly contrasted the cool strategic approach Varina afforded the situation. To her, there was nothing but movement and sound and what it meant to what she would do next. Running at impossible speed, she thrust the Chitilian spear with significant force into the lower back of the woman’s attacker, causing it to release the choking hold on her throat. Twisting, she pulled to the side by the point of impalement, coming to fling the heavy alien into the path of another just as it started to shoot. Varina set a foot on the pierced Chitilian’s back and kicked it forward as she reclaimed the spear. Ducking as shots fired at her, she dove into a sweep with the spear that tripped the shooter. It fell to the ground in time for her to step onto it and drive the spear into the helmeted head.
Once it was dead, she pulled the spear free and picked up its weapon. The mini-mall was a mess of activity, but for the moment there was a lull in assault where they were. Varina’s eyes cut over to the frightened woman, assessing her state with a reptile’s clear-gazed indifference. Within a moment, she was at her side, offering the alien gun. “You should use this to defend yourself.” She would wait only a few moments for the other to take it. If she hesitated overlong, Varina would leave her to her fate and proceed in search of new quarry at dizzying speed.
Ben felt like he was drowning in aliens: they just kept coming, from alleys, from their little air-motorcycles - Ben was starting to think he'd seen more of these things since the start of the attack than he'd seen people in his entire life. Not that he was too worried for himself - a few of their shots hit him, and repeated hits meant chips of him were starting to come off. Honestly, though, Ben wasn't too worried about that - his rocky skin always seemed to grow back just fine, at the same pace that he'd healed when he was just a normal guy. Besides, if he could take a punch from Namor, he could get shot a few times by an alien gun and shrug it off.
Somehow this seemed par for the course to Ben - in the past few months, he'd been to space, been bombarded by cosmic rays in space, turned into an orange rock monster, fought a King who could toss him around like a toy, and now aliens were attacking. Somehow, Ben got this weird feeling in the back of his mind that this wouldn't be the last time he fought space crap. But, as far as fighting crap from space went, this seemed pretty easy - the Chitauri were light, at least to him, and they made great weapons when he grabbed them by both their ankles. Most of them stayed on the ground when they were beaned with a fire hydrant or a moped (which were probably begging to be destroyed anyway), and even the big ones went down without too much of a fight.
As if to remind him of how hard this fight was going to be, or how bad his luck was, one of the big Leviathans rounded a corner and started to fly overhead, dropping more Chitauri down on ropes. Well, if the Hulk could take one down, Ben could do it twice as fast - he was as strong as the big green guy and had at least twice the smarts of him, too. The Thing turned on his heel, pushing off the street and digging his fingers into the wall of one of Staten Island's apartment buildings. He pulled himself up in lunges, finally getting close to the roof before pushing off the wall and grabbing onto a group of the tethers in one hand.
It took a couple of minutes, and more than a couple of Chitauri flung from their safe way down, but Ben finally reached the top of the Leviathan - only to get kicked in the face by a Chitlian. He held on to his ropes, but the big Robocop alien kept kicking and poking at Ben with the sharp end of its spear. After all the shots he'd taken, Ben was sure that the spear wouldn't do much damage - especially since none of the pokes were going for the space between the individual stones on his skin. Ben grabbed for the Chitlian's ankles, finally getting a good grip and pulling the Chitlian off of the Leviathan's back - only to have it cut the ropes with its spear.
Now, both of them were tumbling towards the Earth, a bit of a ways away from where Ben had climbed on. Through some twisting in the air, Ben was able to land on top of the Chitlian - a body slam to put the World Wrestling Federation to shame. The Chitlian was pretty much flattened, along with the hood of the cop car beneath it, which Ben was sure he - or really, Reed - would be paying for if they all ended up surviving this whole invasion. That definitely hadn't gone as he'd planned, and Ben actually missed the Matchstick being around to clear out that kind of garbage from Ben's path. The blue "4" in a circle on his belt that doubled as his communicator had been smashed in the fight, so he couldn't check in with the others, but damn if they weren't taking up a lot of his focus. He'd already lost one family to violence, and he sure as Hell wasn't about to lose another.
But where there wasn't a Human Torch, there was another light at the end of the tunnel. He saw it out of the corner of the eye, different than the guns the Chitauri were using, enough to get Ben's attention. He... Vaguely recognized the girl who was shooting something out of her hands. Maybe he bumped into her on the street, maybe she'd been one of the Fantastic Four fans who'd wanted his autograph on the talking action figures Johnny'd signed off on - which Ben still hadn't seen a dime of the profits - but whoever she was, she was powerful. He didn't know if she could fly, but with how strong he was, she didn't need to.
He pushed up from his spot on the cop car, crushing another quarter of it in the process, before stomping over to the girl. He wasn't angry at her, and made sure to vent most of his anger on the aliens between him and the power-girl. When he finally reached her, Ben was holding a Chitauri by the neck, which he promptly threw onto the ground, hard enough that - whether dead or unconscious - it didn't get back up again. The girl's face was definitely familiar - which meant he must have talked to her for more than a few seconds. Ben honestly couldn't remember, just because he'd had so much on his mind since his change, and all the people who thought what happened to him had to be the greatest thing to happen to anybody didn't tend ot last very long in his thoughts. "Hey, kid - wanna lend me a hand beaching a flying whale?"
Jubilee was having the time of her life. She'd adjusted rather quickly to the affect her powers were having on the Chitauri, and she'd found a skateboard that some teenager had abandoned while fleeing to safety. Which explains how she ended up rolling through the streets, steering around and kick flipping over alien bodies while blasting as many as she could as fast as she could. A plasmoid blast burned through one alien into another, and Jubilee cursed herself momentarily for not being quick on the snappy one liners, because that was frickin' awesome.
Since she was focused on trying to come up with a clever turn of phrase, she missed the fallen Chitauri in her path and only noticed it when the wheels of the skateboard collided with the body in the road. Biting back a curse as she flew forward a few feet, she planted her hands firmly on the ground and pushed off, flipping herself upright back onto her feet. A few of the alien fuckers started creeping in on her and she began firing again, throwing in a kick or punch to a Chitauri cranium whenever one got too close.
Yeah, this was definitely more fun than your average Danger Room sesh, but there was more of a "screw up and ya might die" kind of feel to this day. Still, Jubes felt that for being out of action for so long, she wasn't doing half bad. Until she heard a horrific whale like sound that stopped the few aliens around her. She slowly looked up and a string of expletives left her mouth on sight of the enormous alien fish thing. Way to put a damper on the day.
The booming yet vaguely familiar voice pulled her out of her reverie just in time to realize an alien was about to spear her with its... spear. She kicked upwards, knocking the weapon out of its nasty little hands before blasting it square in the chest. Jubilee spun around to see the rocky orange guy who'd bought her a coffee. Finally, some muscle.
"Oh sure, sounds fantastic," she quipped sarcastically. "And then we can call up Captain Tightpants and have a magnificent garden party." She punched another Chitauri square in the jaw. "Fuck it, let's go."
I can get a little drunk, I get into all the donts But on good days I'm charming as fuck
Gasping for air the beast let go off her throat, causing her to clatter hard to the floor. The sickening crunch of the alien monster getting impaled by her saviour echoed, causing her to feel sick about what the alien might be feeling… But then again, the guy wanted to kill her ten seconds ago so she kinda felt alright about it.
Looking up at her saviour she scurried right into a wall, her eyes wide open and fearful of the person she saw. ’Just leave me alone, I don’t want to get in trouble.’ she pleaded at the mutant, alien, or whatever she was, she was blue and she had saved him and she wasn’t sure whether she was one of the aliens who perhaps had a grudge against the guys she had killed, or whether she was one of the good guys. She was sure the woman wasn’t part of the Avengers, they had a green giant, not a blue… thing.
But despite her fear, her saviour handed her the weird alien spear gun thing that had just been used to kill the person that was trying to kill her. Reluctantly she accepted it, grimacing at the thick goopy alien blood that was still dripping off it. ’That’s absolutely gross, you wouldn’t have some paper towels, would you?’ she looked up at her saviour, but she was already preparing herself to leave her in the dust with whatever superspeed power she was rocking. ’Wait, hold up. Don’t leave me with the dead aliens!’ I mean seriously, if their friends showed up and saw her standing next to a threesome of their dead mates, they probably wouldn’t react in a very amicable way.
Stammering a little, she looked at her saviour, trying to come across as something that wasn’t a nervous and scared mess. ’I think I could help out...’ using her free hand to straighten her hair back to some semblance of order, she knew that there was something weird going on with the aliens. ’I’m a mutant, and I have powers, and I think my powers like… messed with their heads or something.’ looking back for a second at the mess the woman had made to save her, she truly wondered if she would even need her help. In truth, she needed her help rather than the other way around. ’Well, you know… Other than the big bad guy, the smaller guys were like stunned or something when they got close to me, like something of my power was messing with their brains, or whatever the hell is in their ugly heads…’ she was certain they weren’t just laughing at her, she was nearly certain there was something weird going on.
’I mean, I’m not fast like you… or strong like you… Nor have I got a clue how to use this weapon you gave me, but maybe I could stick around and watch your back?’ it was a good proposition, at least for Kayley it was. She would rather stick around with the weird saviour instead of going at it alone, maybe they could both find some Avengers to hide behind? ’Please?’ she never begged, but since the world was ending it was a good time to start hoping that people would react positively to it.
And besides, even if the woman told her off, she’d probably still try to go after her, she sure as hell wasn’t going to stick around for the firesales…
TAG: @mirage , @jubilee , @bengrimm // NOTES: Thanks for the save! (I assumed Varina isn’t in her ‘human form’, so if that wasn’t the case then please say so and I’ll edit it accordingly!) // WORDS: 579 OUTFIT
The half-Atlantean cocked her head to the side as the woman she’d just saved tried to shoo her away. “You’ll be in more trouble if you don’t defend yourself with something,” she suggested, her shoulders rising and falling in a gentle shrug as she began to turn away as requested. The feel of something stopping her dragged Varina’s attention back down to the young woman. If she cared about the cleanliness of the weapon, she didn’t give any indication, and rather than suggest the girl man up, she simply let go and turned to find more aliens to take care of.
She wasn’t really surprised when the girl followed anxiously - there was safety in numbers, after all. Varina let out a quiet breath of acknowledgment as the young woman suggested she could be of some help, but it wasn’t until her confession about being a mutant that she truly considered it as a possibility. Bright eyes narrowed in contemplation, taking the other woman in. “Hm…” Without knowing what the girl’s power was, she had no real way of testing out the theory, but she knew better than to pry.
“I suggest pointing at the aliens and pulling the trigger,” she mused, nodding at the weapon as if the answer had been obvious all along. Sure, it was larger than human weapons, and it fired odd energy blasts in place of bullets… but it seemed to have the same basic principle as an Earthly gun: point and pull. “I also suggest keeping quiet… The more you speak, the more likely we’ll attract others…”
Turning a tight smile to the young woman, she motioned to keep up and continued to move. She was considerably faster than the mutant, but she made sure to restrict her pace in order for the girl to match with relative ease. It didn’t take long to reach an exit, and Varina led the way out towards the parking lot. All hell seemed to have broken loose outside the mall, too.
Varina grit her teeth, using the spear to dispatch of a pair of aliens near the exit before her shadow even needed to ready the gun in her hands. As they crumpled lifelessly to the ground, Varina took a look around. Aliens had sufficiently taken control of the area - but all hope was not lost. Pointing towards a group of humans containing the large orange hulk of a man she’d seen in the news recently, Varina grabbed the young woman’s shoulder and hurried her in that direction. There wasn’t a soul in New York City who didn’t know that rocky silhouette. At the end of the day, he would be far better for the young woman to cling to. The man (rock?) was a member of the Fantastic Four; he was a legitimate hero, if the papers were to be believed.
“Get to them!” she called out, turning to defend their side from another alien as it leapt. “I’ll be right behind you!” As soon as the girl was on her way, Varina shifted to the left in order to give the approaching trio her full attention. When those three went down, she made a move to head off in the direction she’d sent the young woman, but one of the larger aliens darting off to her right gave her pause. All thoughts of fulfilling her promise to the woman disappeared and with a battle cry, she surged after the beast…
ADMIN SKIP Character Skipped: @mirage Reason: Player dropped character Next up: @bengrimm
Contact with member issues and questions relating to site events and character development.
Ben was definitely glad that he had a mutant like this girl on his side - she definitely seemed to know what she was doing against the Chitauri. Energy bolts to put Johnny to shame, really; if she could fly, he'd have to open up a 'team meeting' about replacing the matchstick with her. Honestly, though, Ben wouldn't do that to the kid, as annoying of a little turd as he could be. Hothead had grown on Ben, especially since they all got into a space accident and fell to the friggen earth together. Which was another thing - when all this was over, Ben had to strongly consider whether or not he punched Reed in the face for forcing him to be involved as some blasted superhero. Stretch could take it, but Ben wasn't sure he had the heart for it.
As for the kid who was here now, she had heart, that was for sure: any girl that could sock one of these aliens square in the jaw was okay in his book. Plus, she had a good attitude about her, one that Ben could relate with, like all of this was just a big inconvenience instead of some sort of national crisis. Which is exactly how it felt for Ben, given the way he tended to just absorb hits and gunfire - even though he was trying his hardest to make sure the invasion didn't gain any real ground, it almost felt like just another day. Definitely more exciting than usual, but still, something that he probably should have seen coming. "Yeah, fantastic's the word o' the day, kid. Alright, here's the plan - we're gonna-"
His back burned all of a sudden, as a decent chunk of him broke off from a concentrated strike by several Chitauri. He still had a decent layer of rock on him, but enough had broken off that he actually felt it. Which, given the fact that he'd hardly felt anything since changing - boxing match with Namor aside - was pretty damned jarring. But after it was jarring, it was just friggen' annoying - this day was already bad enough, without these damned aliens shooting at him when his freaking back was turned. They'd done it now - they'd really done it, they wanted the beast, they got the beast.
He grabbed a manhole cover, clenching it into a sort of lumpy, irregular shot put ball. He turned around quickly, chucking the cover at one of the Chitauri with enough force to send the ball right into its chest. An angry sort of shout escaped his lungs, almost like a roar. He charged towards the group of Chitauri, barely even noticing the new woman who'd apparently been sent there way, managing to just not knock her over during his charge. Within seconds, a giant, orange bowling ball rammed through a group of grey and gold bowling pins. Ben scattered the Chitauri, sending them flying in almost all different directions. He did manage to catch one, though - and started using it as a bat to strike at others that were still standing.
He'd relay the plan to the kid once he was done venting, whenever that would be.
Jubilee's eyes grew wide at the alien critter sneaking up on the big guy but she was too late in warning him. She winced at his expression on his face, and the loud roar he emitted shook her deep. She watched him basically hulk out for a minute, pretty impressed with the rage in his fighting style. "That's it, dude," she called out to him, "I'm pickin' ya for my dodgeball team from now on!"
She laughed and spun in place, blasting a few more of the Chitauri that tried to creep in on her before wheeling back around to watch the Thing. Two figures caught her eye and she braced herself to attack, but one of them went charging into the fray. "Our team. Good to know," she muttered, her gaze going to the blue woman's companion.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
"God damn it, Ryan!" she shouted, running to her friend. The younger girl looked ruffled and was clutching tightly to an alien weapon that looked a lot like what she'd almost been shish kebab'd with. Jubilee sighed, gripping Kayley's shoulders. "I'm gonna bitch at you later, okay, right now I need you on my six. Shoot or stab anything not human-- or not helping us-" she nodded at the blue woman, "and don't. Get. Killed. You hear me?"
She spun back around, keeping Kayley at her back, cursing vividly in her mind. The fun was gone now, she couldn't focus on just helping people and blasting baddies, now she had to make sure Kayley would be all right. She didn't have any combat training that she knew of, only the experience of being on the street from a young age. And as helpful as that was in every day life, it might not be as effective on the Chitauri. She spotted Grimm simply going to town on some aliens, and shouted "What's the plan, Hoss?!"
I can get a little drunk, I get into all the donts But on good days I'm charming as fuck
Just as she was starting to think she was going to be fine, she wasn’t going to be fine. It was as if faith was cruelly mocking her and making sure she was getting thrown into the line of fire as much as possible, a comically sized target painted on her back for the giant aliens to aim their weird spearguns with. Being sent out ahead whilst the woman fought off another troupe of aliens felt wrong, she wasn’t going to be useful in any fight but still it tore at her mind knowing that she could be able to help that woman fend off her attackers, somehow, someway…
But she had to move on, she would be a distraction for the woman and looking at the chaos on the street there were other friendly people around giving the aliens hell. Hearing something rumble, she looked to her side and in a flinching reaction manages to jump to the side at the very last second before a giant sprinting boulder flew by and launched itself into a small bunch of aliens, blowing them apart like he was a bowling ball. ’Oh crap, Oh crap… I hope that ’Thing’ is with us!’ looking up, she saw a few straggling aliens put their eyes on her, probably seeing easy pickings.
Without thinking for a second, she jumped chest first onto the tarmac –her jacket protecting her but no doubt being ruined under the duress- and grabbed the spearthing the woman earlier had given her, she had no idea what side was the side that went ‘zap’, but at this point she thought only about surviving and not becoming ‘Kayleyspray’… Closing her eyes she squeezed what she thought was a trigger, the bolts letting out a hellish zap that curled her blood. A few seconds of silence later she opened her eyes, and the two aliens had clearly been given their final marching orders to whatever hell they came from.
For a second she was silent, wondering whether she was dead and hallucinating this, or she had actually managed to best two giant freaky aliens that wanted to kill her. ’Holy shit, I think I killed them…’ blinking a few times she realized what she had done, and suddenly she felt sick about it. … I killed them...’ she had no idea why she felt so bad about aliens that tried to kill her, but she wasn’t exactly a trained killer like all the Avengers and whatnot fighting their own battles, she wasn’t one of the X-Men.
But her mind didn’t get time to contemplate the morality of killing, as someone… or something grabbed her by her shoulders and yanked her up to her feet. Shaking off her thoughts, she quickly realized that Jubilee was standing right there in front of her, and she was damn sure she wasn’t hallucinating. She said a bunch of things, but only a few things registered in the back of her mind. ’Yeah… Yeah, don’t get killed, good plan Sparkles…’ she hadn’t been planning on being killed, so hopefully that wasn’t going to be too much to ask of her, right?
Keeping her back to Jubilee’s back, she moved along with her every move. Taking her time to glance back at her to make sure she hadn’t ran off towards whatever danger they were facing, she really didn’t wanted to be alone for the third time in ten minutes, she’d probably break down and cry if fate treated her like that. ’So, since you’re friends with that old bald dude, you probably have an idea whatever the hell is going down, right?!’ she wasn’t the religious type, heck she’d probably get struck down by god himself if she ever set foot in a church, but right now she wouldn’t really be shocked if this was the apocalypse…
But seeing Jubilee move, seeing her confidently make her way through the chaos whilst she was limping behind her like a scared puppy. She didn’t know what she had been doing with the X-Men all those years, but it had certainly changed her. They had both never been afraid of confrontation, but this was something on an unmeasurable scale, and whilst she barely knew what she was doing, Jubilee moved with the grace of someone that could stare down a nuclear bomb and somehow make others feel like she could probably knock the thing out somehow.
Whatever Jubilee had been in the past, it was clear that she truly wasn’t the girl Kayley had known years ago…
TAG: @jubilee , @bengrimm // NOTES: One less writer, but we're chugging on! // WORDS: 800 OUTFIT
Well, Ben was definitely ready to go through with his plan - at least until the new girl showed up, with just the Chitauri spear with her. So she probably wasn't like the kid, no fancy powers or nothing to make her a real match for the aliens. Which was great, just friggen' great, Johnny was probably out blasting aliens out of the sky and laughing about it, while Ben was stuck with the two teenage girls who happened to still be on the streets during the attack. Whoop-dee-doo, the Thing gets to play babyistter, fan-freaking-tastic.
He needed a second to think, and Ben thought better when he was fighting, so that's exactly what he did. One good thing about this whole damned invasion was that there was always something nearby that needed a good beating. So for a couple minutes, he just wailed on some of the Chitauri - taking out small groups as he went, but never straying too far from his new 'teammates.' So his original plan for Jubilee to cover him was probably out - so he'd have to try a different approach to take the Leviathan down. If he couldn't get on top of it, he'd just have to pull the whale down.
One gut shot to a Chitauri trooper later, Ben turned and marched over to Jubilee and the new girl - both of whom apparently knew each other. Ben tried to stand up as straight as he could, to look a bit like Reed, so he could try and demand a bit of respect. Did he really have to try so hard for that, with his height advantage and just... Un-breakablity? Maybe, maybe not, but Ben wasn't really the guy to lay out a plan of attack. He cleared his throat a bit, even amidst all the fighting, and looked back up at the Leviathan that was circling back around to them. "Alright - Sparks, you stay down here with, uh... New girl, I dunno your name, sorry. I was gonna ask ya' to cover me while I got on top o' that hting, but the two of ya' stayin' safe's more important - guessin' ya' can't take hits like I can. So you two stay together, find some cover to get behind, and if you see that thing comin' down on ya'... Move."
He didn't want to just ditch the girls, and when he was done he'd be back to find them again, but the Leviathan was a bigger threat to the whole city. Besides, Jubes could handle herself, and probably the other girl, too. So the Thing turned and ran off towards one of the nearer buildings - the mall was too low, and he couldn't be sure if there were still people in it that might get hurt, but the parking lot was his best bet for a safe spot to bring the Leviathan down. At the least, he could try and slow it so it didn't get too far into the actual mall.
He leapt back up onto the roof he'd started from before, running to the far side of it and turning around, putting his heel against the ledge. As soon as the Leviathan was close enough, Ben pushed off the ledge and started his running start - he couldn't take the time to carry out his original plan, not alone, so he had to go with the reckless option. But that was fine: he actually really liked being reckless. "If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times..."
He reached the other side of the roof, using the ledge as a stepping-stone as he leapt off, soaring through the air towards the Leviathan. A fist clenched and reeled back so it was parallel with his head, his expression shifting into a sort of angry smile. This might get messy. "IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!"
What happened next, Ben could only possibly describe as glorious. Orange fist met golden-grey armor, caving the metal into the Leviathan wearing it. With the metal caved in, Ben was able to open and close his hand again, digging his fingers into the metal as a nice, convenient handle to pull the Leviathan with his momentum and change its direction. The Chitauri and Chitlians that had been guarding the top started to fall off with the lurching of the monster, which was all the better for Ben since it meant he didn't have to deal with them later.
When they finally hit the ground, Ben swung around to plant himself in front of it and slow it down. His feet carved into the street before the Leviathan carved its own path over that, and Ben was pretty much pressed up against the wall of the mini mall by the time they came to a full stop. After that, Ben had to take a breather - his cracked chest rising and falling slowly. After a few moments, he was ready to go - one flying whale down, God knows how many to go... But first things first: Ben had to find the kids. Ain't no way he was leaving them alone any longer than he had to in the middle of all of this.
Jubilee's eyes rolled so hard they nearly fell out of her head. "Worst superhero catch phrase ever, Benny!" she shouted at him, knowing he probably couldn't hear her anyway. Although, the air he got on that damn running leap was pretty damn enviable. The crunch of his fists meeting the alien fish armor echoed around them, and she turned back to Kayley with a grin. "Okay, Chicken Little. Like it or not, the sky is fallin' and today you're an honorary superhero, so just stick close to me and do whatever Rocky up there and I tell ya, no complaints, got it?" She grabbed her and pressed a kiss to her forehead, ruffling her hair as she pulled away. "It'll be fun."
The Chitauri that had been riding the Leviathan into battle like a mighty steed started falling through the air, and Jubilee's grin only grew wider. "Okay, you take care of the suckers down here, I'm doin' a little target practice." Her hands started to glow once more with plasma and she fired a blast, hitting one Chitauri and knocking it straight through a window, it's shrill alien screech resonating in her brain. She winced and shook her head. "Wow, that is not a fun sound. Alright. Let's keep goin'."
She fired off more blasts as rapidly as she could, dropping aliens left and right. She glanced back at Kayley every so often, and she seemed to be doing okay under the circumstances... with those circumstances being she was suddenly in the middle of the apocalypse with an unfamiliar weapon in her hands, fighting alien baddies for the first time in her life. Jubilee ran ahead a few yards, spinning around to call back to Kayley to follow her, when she felt a nasty arm wrap tightly around her throat and start to squeeze. Oh man, she was seriously out of practice...
The arm tightened as she tried to lash out at the Chitlian choking her, but her limbs started to feel like jelly and was her vision getting darker...?
I can get a little drunk, I get into all the donts But on good days I'm charming as fuck
If anyone else had ruffled her hair and kissed her on the forehead, she had unloaded the weird alien gun right into their face without a second of thought, but Jubilee had gotten a small amount of leeway in that regard. ’You might’ve gotten mutant-rambo-training, Sparkles, but the only thing I do well is… nothing, really.’ looking up at the giant rockman she couldn’t help but be wowed by the thing’s surprising amount of spring in his step as he flung himself at the giant beast and went twelve rounds with it without a moment of flinching.
So this is what it was like to be superheroes, run around punching things, shooting it with actually useful powers, and get away with levelling a whole city block for ‘the greater good’… For a moment she felt confident, until she let out a scared eep at one of the bigger alien troops falling facefirst in front of her, Jubilee having blasted a hole into his everything using her fireworks, something she had never realized had been that powerful because Jubilee had never used it for anything other than being annoying.
Trying her best to aim the alien weapon, she shot it at random directions to keep the big aliens from getting shots off on them, at least until her friend could do the favour of ending their misery. Learning on the job wasn’t easy for her, and she wasn’t exactly a prodigy at anything, let alone combat.
Turning back to face Jubilee, her heart sunk to her chest as she saw her best friend being in the same predicament she had been in earlier. One giant monster having grabbed her and put her in a chokehold with the clear aim to kill her dead. And seeing her friend in trouble, she did what anyone would do in this situation… Freak out, big time. ’Oh shit, oh crap… What the hell do I do!’ she frantically looked up at the sky, noticing that the big brown guy was still beating up on the giant flying thing, and probably in no way able to step in and save Jubilee on time, he probably didn’t even know what was happening.
Seeing Jubilee slip away and slowly go limp, she felt the adrenaline flow into her veins. And in a foolish attempt to help she put her hands on the giant big guy, hoping that she was right about her powers having some sort of effect. ’Please let go, Please let go… I don’t want Sparkles to die!’ opening her eyes and looking up, the big guy slowly loosened her grasp that would hopefully prevent her friend from dying any quicker, but a stiff backslap with the big guy’s giant pole of an arm she was sent reeling backwards and she stumbled onto her back.
Lying on her back, she felt the pain ring through her chest, and she wasn’t a doctor but she knew that something wasn’t good. But right now, she had to fight despite the debilitating pain, she had to stop the big guy and not have Jubilee die. ’Ok, Kay. You can do it, do it for Jubilee, she’d be crazy pissed if she died.’ groaning and getting back up, she grabbed the gun again and turned it around with the pointy end first, and fighting through the excruciating pain she used all her power to sprint up to the big guy, and jam the gun into his back.
A sickening crunch and screech from the big guy followed, and somehow she was able to penetrate the armour and skin of the beast, and it falling to its knees without holding her best friend meant that she had done her job.
Looking at her friend, she let out a small laugh. ’I learned that one five minutes ago.’ She felt a stabbing pain in her ribs, and she knew that saving her friends life no doubt made her injuries a bit worse. ’You owe me one, sparkles…’ falling to one knee, she noticed the taste of blood in her mouth. But it wasn’t exactly time to be a burden, so she simply offered her hand to Jubilee. ’I could use a hand, though.’ smiling lightly, she tried to somehow stay cool in front of her friend, although she had no idea how convincing she truly was after being backhanded by a 8 foot tall alien monster…
