2013-04-11 - Family Affairs: America, Oh America

One of the four locations has the Avengers responding to it. Before the team, lies an underground facility, and Iron Man has already reported that the shielding was there. He picks up a large box from his mobile armory and carries it out with ease. He sets it on the atop the facility shields, and activates it before stepping back. There is a strange sound, almost like She-Hulk punching something and shattering it...very high pitched and yet...resounding. It rockets through the air and downward as well, overloading and shutting down the shielding and the equipment that expands it and holds it in place.

"Green Lantern, can you make us an entrance more to our liking?" The computerized voice of Iron Man seems more distant and professional than even usual. He barely said more than a 'Welcome Back' to Captain America when he joined the crew for this mission.

Black Widow grumbles softly to herself, "Bozemoi." She's taking flank along with the others then with her weapons and is on full alert. She's not been on a field mission wih the rest of the team since the climax of the Secret Invasion, so she's going a little extra slowly to make sure she hasn't lost a step as her eyes sweep over the area warily as the team readies for combat.

Green Lantern is back on Earth after taking a brief trip to Oa with Natu on Lantern business. Once returned, he's been briefed about the Asia situation and is here now to add his skills to the team on the little plant girl's behalf. When Iron Man asks him to create a better entrance, Kyle nods faintly. "You got it, IM." Lifting his ring, he creates a large drill and extends it through the shield in an attempt to burrow a hole large enough for even She-Hulk to move through easily. Hopefully, it doesn't set off any alarms inside the underground facility. He shifts his gaze over to Iron Man, but he doesn't make any comments to him. He seemed a little off, but perhaps that is to be expected. He knew the metal man was pretty partial to the girl.

She-Hulk is, for some reason, giving Captain America odd looks. She hasn't explained why. Then she pouts. "Hey. Making doors is usually MY job." Not that she won't find plenty of things to smash inside the facility itself. Cap gets another askance look...what is with that...before she moves towards the entrance herself. Captain America stands ready with his shield drawn and brought up to guard him. He'd been back in New York City only for a short period of time. He'd still been trying to play catch up on the Asia situation. He watches the others trying to figure out why he's getting weird looks, Walker didn't show up posing as Captain America while he was gone did he?

The shielding is gone due to the sonic disruptor, that Iron Man soon enough turns off once it has completed its job. Bursting through the hull of the underground facility however, may set off some alarms. A hand go toward Iron Man's helmeted head and he shakes his head before lowering his hand. "It's down a little far, but feel free to crash the party as they say She-Hulk. We wouldn't want them to miss out on our welcoming party, would we?" It isn't real common for Iron Man to take command in the field, but then again Stark has been working heavily on this case and the research for it for days without sleep. Perhaps that is why Iron Man has take such control while Captain America has been missing for most of that time.

Natasha can understand sometimes that some things are personal. And for dealing with technological oriented adversaries, Iron Man is the best they have, likely operating under direction from Stark via commlink. She has her Widow's Bites up and out, ready to blast out at anyone coming out, "Likely opposition?" She's warily gazing ahead at anyone who's going to be rushing up through the hole.

Kyle Rayner flashes a smile at She-Hulk. "Well, I only did part of it. You can do the final smashing if you like, because I know how much that's important to you." He winks at her. GL only drilled down to the facility itself, so She-Hulk was free to break through it's ceiling at her leisure. "That's a long way down though. Anyone besides She-Hulk and Iron Man need a lift down?"

She-Hulk laughs a bit and then glances at the others before jumping. Iron Man DID say to go ahead and crash the party, and any ceiling isn't going to survive several hundred pounds of Hulk hitting it, with a bit of a gravity assist. She seems entirely too cheerful about the prospect...

CRASH

Captain America moves to the edge of the shaft and he stares down it. It was too far for him to just jump. He hmms, "She-Hulk, you forgot something to let them know whose coming." Then he bounces down the hole aiming for a wall the bounding back and doing a flip to wall opposite him and slowing his descent. It's no where as graceful as Spider-Man or Daredevil but he does the job. Then lands with his shield raised next to She-Hulk.

That is quite a CRASH too! As She-Hulk goes down, the metal roofing caves in and she lands in the center of a large storage area. There are a few dusty crates and the like, but what is likely more interesting to her are the robots that seem to activate at her arrive and start to move.

Iron Man moves forward and hovers with boot jets in the center of the hole before he says over the comlink, << Incoming. >> He then turns off his jet boots and drops like a stone, or rather kinda like a Hulk himself...just way less green. He leaves an indent in the floor as long as the two Avenger moved out of the way to engage the enemy.

Black Widow leaps through the air half a heartbeat after the others down the hole, moving down much like Captain America did. The intent begin if there are hostiles, they're likely to immediately focus on the rushing She-Hulk, then hopefully leaving themselves vulnerable to a quick counterattack by Natasha if there is anything waiting down there!

Kyle Rayner drops his jaw slightly when Captain America used the pinball technique to make his way down the hole. "Wow.." He comments before being the last guy to leap off. He uses his flight power to slow his decent into the hole and when the robots activate, he creates a construct of a bo staff and begins to spin it around his body. "Sweet. They're expecting us. We should go say hello."

Captain America rolls out of the way of Iron Man's fall. He coughs from the dust thrown up, "Okay, I know we're rusty but no landing on other team mates." He says with a frown. "And it's not Hello, It's Avengers Assemble!" His shield goes flying out of his hand toward one of the robots.

She-Hulk has already moved clear...into a robot. Fists first. Smash. "No, it's She-Hulk SMASH!" she calls back to Captain America, quite cheerfully. Robots. The fun thing about robots is she can smash as many of them as she wants without anyone accusing her of anything...she aims a kick at a second machine, sending spare parts everywhere.

Iron Man moves out of the way of a descending Black Widow and Green Lantern before his repulsors start blasting away. He is high on force fields, sonic disruptor, and missiles. Though is repulsor tech is still boosted enough to take care of years old HYDRA a.k.a. AIM robots. "It appears this was the storage facility, we essentially landed in their security center. No need for them to hunt us down, we can take care of their primary security force and move on mostly unhampered."

Though in return to Captain America, "Remind me when I'm awake about not landing on fellow team members, and in either case, you dodged." A robot goes running up to grab ahold of Iron Man and bounces off his shielding into another robot before smashing to pieces from the force.

Natasha pinballs around, landing somewhat harder than Captain America, if only as she doesn't have the shield to use to take the stress of falling, and goes into a series of quick rolls on the ground to deaden her momentum. As soon as she's getting up to her feet, the group seems to be swarmed over by robots! Natasha is quick to go behind She-Hulk, going to pick off stragglers with her pistols and her Widow's Bites, looking for an opportunity to try and disable one of the robots to tear off the head, if she can get it.

Kyle Rayner grins. It's not hard to tell that he's in a good mood. "Right, right. I don't have my own catch phrase. Maybe I should start one? Maybe the last half of the lantern oath. Beware Green Lantern's might?" He moves into combat, using the bo staff to smack down robots in a flurry of movement. He plants the staff on the ground and kicks out at another bot. "I ever tell you guys how much I love this job?"

She-Hulk grabs a robot. Tosses it into another robot. "Yeah. In other words, let's smash robots." She flickers Kyle a grin. "Do you really need to tell us?" No question about how much she enjoys it. Absolutely none whatsoever.

Fist and feet fly out when his shield isn't in his hands. But a series of destroyed robots are laying in a pile at his feet. He looks around, "Yeah they provide a warm up for us. I wouldn't expect it to be that easy again."

Iron Man blasts his way through robots, already scanning the area. "Energy source," and he points to the doorway leading that way as he makes robots burst seemingly from the inside out from the repulsors and he charges right through them, just swinging his arms to smash them as She-Hulk often does as he rushes toward the doorway. Not his usual style, but it is efficient.

Black Widow manages to blast off one of the heads of a robot, quickly disconnecting it from the main power source to then tuck it over and under her arm once she's made sure that the main CPU and remote processor are within. Then, using her other arm to keep on blasting over with supporting fire.

Kyle Rayner dispenses with the bo staff construct as a pair of green gloves, well, more like gauntlets. They crackle with green energy and when he punches a robot, instead of it being smashed to pieces, it simply stops functioning. He glances around and begins to follow Iron Man, punching robots and making them stop functioning. "EMP gauntlets. Gotta love it." He comments.

Captain America follows the other Avengers toward the Energy source. "What's the plan once we get there, Iron Man? You hacking the thing while we keeps these robots off of you?"

"Just keep the EMP from me," Iron Man returns to Kyle. "Stopping whatever it is Dr. Bella has planned. These energy signatures are off the scale, and you know that they are like? The opposite of Omega Red's power." His omni-beam is charging, and when it lets loose, the doorway is no more and so are a lot of robots now that he got a direct shot. "Just knock them out if they get close," and he is moving forward through the burnt open doorway.

She-Hulk is moving to follow Iron Man. "And just do the point and smash thing where I'm con..." She stops talking long enough to punch the head off a robot. "...cerned."

As the group heads forwards, Black Widow keeps her yanked off robot head in one arm, then going to attach it to a carabiner on her belt to hold it in place then. They might get something later from it that could be useful. She keeps her pistols pointed forwards, snapping a fresh clip into each of them.

Kyle Rayner comments. "You realize I have no idea who Omega Red is, right? Come on, don't hold out on the guy from another universe." He looks at his gauntlets and slams them together creating a metallic sound. "No worries, IM. Unless I hit you with them, which won't happen, you don't have to worry. Sides, I'm getting some good physical exercise." And he promptly punches another couple of robots to prove his point. "So, what exactly are we dealing with here?"

Captain America frowns, "Cold War Era Russian Super Soldier that's an energy vampire. He has metal tentacles. Ask Widow." He jerks a thumb to Black Widow. "It looks like an abandoned A.I.M. facility that has been usurped by Asia's mother."

"Yes, back when it was still part of HYDRA." Iron Man continues down a long corridor that appears to have off shoot labs and other hallways, but he does not get distracted. He pauses at a large door and eyes the key command. He moves toward it and advises, "No wireless access in this entire place, so hacking is a bit difficult." But then he just punches through the door command control, and the door slides open. "Brute force in this case."

And as Iron Man walks through the open doorway, with a few robots straggling behind to chase after the group, there appears to be America, one of the daughters of Dr. Bella and a sibling to Asia. She controls air, and her expression is twisted in pain and torment, teeth gritting to keep from crying out in pain, tears rolling down her face as the strange light glows about her. Her body twists from where it hovers mid-air within the bright light encircled machine, before a scream erupts from her. Her body seems to be slowly, so slowly, but steadily shrinking. She was not this small when She-Hulk and Iron Man met her at the first facility in North America.

"What the hell," Iron Man says. "Attempting to trace the energy source now." He is also heading over to the machine to search for a way to turn it off. "Black Widow, you seen anything like this before?"

Black Widow cocks a brow, "Doctor Bella? First name Sara?" Yes, she can make a pun with the worst of them. Her weapons sweep ahead in front of her, and she takes a breath, and then looks over at the girl over with the spasming figure, over that is screaming, "And no. Never." Whispering as her weapons go up in front of her, keeping the girl covered. Then, she goes over to quickly toss the robot head over to Iron Man, "That may be able to upload into the system or get you passcodes." She looks over at the girl, speaking quickly, "It will be okay. Relax. We are here to help you." And whispering quietly.

Kyle Rayner says, "If the system isn't on a wireless server, then passcodes won't do IM much good. Unless there's a hardline jack for him to access." Okay, Kyle knows a little bit about computers, but he's displayed this knowledge before. "I can try to disrupt the beam that's surrounding her, but it'll only be a temporary fix unless someone figures out how to shut that thing down." He dissolves his gauntlets and then puts all of his concentration into creating a shield around the girl that might give her some reprieve from the machine that holds her. "Here we go..""

She-Hulk narrows her eyes. "Iron Man, just tell me if there's anything it would be good to break." With that, she moves to take up a guard position in case anyone else disturbs them. She's not stupid, but high technology? Not her thing, at all. Cap still thinks his 2002 cell phone is high technology. Seriously he has a jitterbug phone. Not really but he's old. He takes up a guard stance, "Let me know Iron Man if you you need me or the shield in any way. We need to get that child out of there."

Except whatever the machine is doing, it will start to drain Kyle's energy from his ring. "Wait. The girl made her choice, we will still save her, but the pain and suffering is no one's fault, but her own." Basically, do not blind yourself to compassion. He studies the console before him, and then shakes his head even as the robot heat crashes into the floor. Suddenly from his hands the armor seems to melt back to reveal a man's hands and it seems to ooze back to his wrists before he is then typing rapidly on the console, trying to bypass it and get through it. It takes only a few short moments before he says, "This is not working, it will take time."

She-Hulk, I need you to destroy the energy source." His armor is already reforming about his hands and his scanners are working. "Green Lantern, get ready to grab the girl and create shielding around the others for shielding, my armor should be able to withstand it." He finally points out to where he found the energy source. "There," and points to beneath the floor. "It may cause some nasty feedback, but we do not have much choice."

"Cap, I need you ready to reflect the energy from the girl so that Green Lantern can grab her and hopefully shield you both from the feedback. This machine stores operating energy so it won't cut off immediately, we need to force it. I think your shield and its materials will be the only thing that will be able to deflect it."

Black Widow shakes her head over and crosses her arms, closing her eyes, and she goes over to back up Kyle if he needs it. She'll be on standby then. Ready and waiting then as her eyes sweep up and over towards the exit, just in case they have someone else trying to barge their way in. She also looks over the computer consoles quickly, trying to make sense of the flashing symbols, the flickering energy.. Hating it to feel so useless!

The Avengers act as a team: Green Lantern from experience, and She-Hulk and Captain America from long-time association. As She-Hulk smashes through the power source, massive electricity running through her body for those split seconds, Captain America is already on the move.

Cap rushes forward, raising his shield as he deflects the weakening energy from America and grabs the girl. Even then, Green Lantern is already at ready even with his energy somewhat depleted.

A large green fist surrounds Captain America and America, dragging them quickly toward him and Black Widow as a shield builds around them.

Iron Man raises his arms up, the energy absorbers facing the burst of energy as his feedbacks into the machine and causes an explosion. His shields at their strongest, what energy is not absorbed is deflected.

She-Hulk gets knocked back a few feet and gets an itch...wait, a tickle from where her clothing got frayed over her tummy. She rips the stray piece of fabric away to expose her packed stomach with a peek-a-boo stomach window. New fashion, got to show Power Girl.

As the lights start to fade, America tries and fails to struggle against Captain America. "No...Mommy needs our...energy." The girl then passes out, only perhaps eight or nine years old in appearance now.

Iron Man then looks at the girl, registering her words. "I'm reaching out to the other teams now to get their status reports. There appears to be more, and we have to stop the feed.  I believed the energy was being directed upward." He then points toward the sky. For how far the bases are however..., "Space," he finally says. The only point that would meet all of the bases in a straight line upward.