2015-11-27 - Lego My Thermonuclear Bomb

Star City, north of San Fran. Beautiful place, one of the best basketball teams in the country (currently 4-0 in their division). Plenty of educational opportunities, and their industrial sector puts out a lot of the country's basic goods. They also have high-level scientific laboratories, but you'd never know it from looking.

Most of them are hidden.

In this case, the factory that proudly announces 'Cinnamon Toast Grunch' actually does make the well-known and kind of disgusting cereal, but the back half of it is used for something completely different. The fact that it's completely abandoned and cordoned off by the police is irrelevant.

Supergirl and Starfire have been called. Given the situation and the fact that they were in the area for some hospital opening, it seemed the obvious choice. The fact that they're babysitting Asia? Not so much. But she seems to want to come, so there you go.

The police chief is at the barricade if anyone wants to talk to him.

Kara Zor-El flies with Starfire, talking her ear off about the last few things she's been doing. "So after I I punched the meteor before it was going to hit Paris, I flew back to where Leah was in the podcast, and these guys started really flaming her on email and saying all sorts of nasty things about girl gamers. Soooo Leah's Leah, and she pretty much calls them out, so we go to meet them at Central Park and it's those nerd guys who got superpowers. RPG-niuses. For someone calling themselves geniuses though, they're really into caveman mentalities. Although Leah did kick one of them right in the.. y'know where."

Starfire is currently flying over with Kara, "Have ou sometimes wonders why there are always so many meteors targeting this planet? Even otherwise when one accounts for those that have been purposefully redirected it does seem that by a sense of cosmology there are a great many more than should be within the orbital arc to be pulled in over towards this realm." She muses to go to loop around after Kara.

As the factory/laboratory comes into view below, the reason for the call becomes clear. One of the walls blows out with a gigantic fireball that sets the next building ablaze. The fireball is visible for miles, to a normal person's eye, and goes a good five hundred feet into the air.

Oddly, the actual building that had the bomb seems fairly intact; only a large section of wall missing and small fires inside. Apparently it was built to handle these exact kinds of things. Oddly, the police don't start moving forward and tension seems to actually increase amongst their ranks.

Kara Zor-El carries Asia in her hand as she responds to Starfire. "Look I have no idea. Krypton used to get bombarded with meteors all the time, but we had global precautions in place, and didn't have a gravity well like Jupiter to deflect most of them. Besides, the meteor was only about a city block size, not like the Texas sized one the Justice League stopped a few months ago." She pauses. "Okay I think we're here." She looks at Asia. "Remember, this isnt a game. I'm going to put you somewhere safe. Don't go running into um... fire or something."

Kara flies down with Starfire, setting Asia down in view of where the heroics would be going on. "I'm going to work on putting out the fire, you get any people out okay?"

Starfire nods over as the pair loop in over on their route, altering course, "Yes. Can you handle putting out the fire?" Starfire scopes out the layout of the facility, trying to pinpoint where the people remaining inside are. "Something is strange.." Whether she means about meteors or the fire in general as she readies to start charging on in then to get to any evacuees who have not made it out yet.

Asia looks around a bit, and while the two grown up talks are looking to ya know save the day, she slinks off into the shadows. She's going to see what's going on, a little bit smaller but she still was built for recon, it's in her nature, in her DNA. Sneak..sneak..sneak..toddle..toddle..sneak..sneak...

The building next to the factory is a lego manufacturer, which is currently pretty well ablaze. Kara will have a good shot with her breath given that it hasn't had time to engulf the building yet. The actual laboratory isn't really in any danger, so Kara moving to deal with the one on fire makes the police nod appreciatively.

Starfire's eyes are having trouble. It seems that the laboratory was built to keep people from spying on it; the walls are thick and reinforced with all kinds of things that they've been told would help. Parts are even lead-lined, but she is able to tell that there are people inside. Moving in pairs, exclusively, and armed. Soldiers, she'd probably think. Asia, however, quickly finds herself inside. She's in an air duct, looking down on a pair of people chatting to each other. "You know I don't want kids. It's nothing about you, I just don't feel like giving up sleep for it." "But you're missing so much." "I would miss sleep more."

Inside, Stafire frowns then as she goes to glide on inwards, speaking on the Titan's Comm < The place appears to e populated with soldiers. Despite the inferno, they do not appear over in any state of alarm. > Gliding down, Starfire is for the moment unsure if they are hostile or otherwise in a state of distress. But things seem too organized..

Asia watches a moment and frowns..kids are awesome, shes' a kid...she continues to crawl through the air duct, thinking of herself as the Xenomorph from those movies uncle Logan showed her. Ten meters...six meters..crawl crawl crawl.

Kara Zor-El flies around to the side of the building where the fire is blazing. A quick use of X-ray vision just to make sure that there's no one trapped INSIDE that part of the building first before she puts her lips together and blows a hurricane-level gust of freeze breath in order to put out the flames without spreading it. She doesnt notice Asia in the next building, thanks to lead lined air ducts though.

A sustained gust of super-breath and the fire is out, and Kara flies down to the policemen to talk to them while Starfire gets any people out of the structurally unsafe building. "We got here as fast as we could... any idea what caused the fire?"

The police chief looks up at Kara, saying, "Good work on the fire. There's a ... well, we assume it's a terrorist group inside. Well trained, well armed, and they've planted bombs. We think there's only three. They said they were going to prove that they had them." Glancing up at the hole in the building, he adds, "I officially believe that they have bombs at this point in the proceedings. How about you? No idea what they're in there for, the owners won't tell us what they were researching. Typical."

Inside, Starfire finds herself face to face with the cafeteria. It appears to have not only a good selection of condiments, but also a pair of people in armor and helmets carrying something heavy between them. They see her come in, what with the glowy and orange and everything, and look at her. Look at each other. And they drop the thing and start shooting.

Asia bypasses the evil person who doesn't want to have babies quite easily; she's built for stealth. Coming up behind them without a problem, they continue talking as they guard their post. "I'd marry sleep if I had the option. I have a picture of me sleeping in every major city of the world, it's a goal of my life." "Dude, seriously. You are like the laziest soldier ever." "Word." "It wasn't a compliment."

Starfire lets out a yell over as the men start shooting at her, the bullets hitting her as the men fire on her and the impacts drive her over into the wall. Kara would likely hear her cry over and the sound of heavy firing as the Tamaranean chanted along the commlink  She moves to try and fire out several low power starbolts, trying to disable the men with the lowest setting of her power, even s she bled from multiple,l heavy bullet impacts.

Asia smiles at them, from behind after she crawled out of the vent. "I like naps too."

Kara Zor-El looks at the other building after listening to the police. "I'm having trouble seeing into a lot of that building... they put a lot of lead lining into the walls and duct work apparently. Do they do some sort of work with radioactive materials?" She then listens. "But I do hear a lot of hearbeats inside." She pauses. "Some guy who doesn't want to have kids... someone else who's ... really lazy.... okay and I hear bulletfire." Supergirl takes off towards the wall where she hears the bullets coming from.

The two guards that are standing in front of Asia kind of freak out a little as a toddler crawls out of the vents. With the lighting kind of low, they can't tell that she's got green skin. But what would YOU do in the situation? After a moment of their mouths hanging open, the one who says he likes kids gets on the radio and says, "Red one, we've got something strange." The other one actually gets down and smiles at Asia. He's the one who likes sleeping. "Hey you. How in heck did you get in there?"

In the cafeteria, the racks get shredded by gunfire sending various foods and condiments spraying, as Starfire not only gets hit by bullets, but by ketchup as well. Of course, her starbolts are far more well aimed and powerful even at low levels, and two humans stand next to no chance. They don't even get to radio in before the trained Tamaranean warrior sends them both falling to the floor with a THUD. Thud. There's two of them.

Kara shows up in a rush, just as they're blown across the room.

Starfire is bleeding heavily then over from the depleted uranium rounds fired by the railguns the soldiers were using then, and much of the splatter over on her then is not just the ketchup then as she was silhouetted as a target as the bullets pierced her heavily, her taking a few oents to steady herself over. "They were here... to rob... something." Watching the men scatter, having to brace her hand up and over against the wall.

Asia smiles looking at them. "My mommy works here, da sitter was sick so it was bring your baby to work day!" she sounds excited in her totally plausible line to the guards.

Kara Zor-El flies in, busting through a wall to see where Starfire has been shot. Whatever they used must have been powerful, since Starfire was pretty much invulnerable to most common weapons, and even the higher caliber stuff just hurt a little or annoyed. She notices the terrorists were down, so flew over to Starfire. "Kori! Are you okay?" she asks, even as she checks Starfire's injuries with x-ray vision and just... plain old normal vision.

The two soldiers had weaponry far in excess of a small operation, limiting it to a group on AIM's level or something similar. However, their armor is fairly normal for their job; kevlar and reinforced helmets. They went down easily enough to starbolts.

The item that they dropped seems to be a ceramic case filled with what appear to be large eggs. On closer inspection, they are openable and seem to be empty. About the size of ostrich eggs. So no obvious clues as to their meaning. And the soldiers are out cold.

The ones talking with Asia however seem confused. Not even the lazy guy is buying this one. "You crawled out of a vent, kid. How about you come out here and come away from that." He motions to her with his gun, trying to look calm, but Asia is standing next to something vaguely bomblike so he's a bit nervous.

Slowly rising up, Koriand'r's injuries are extensive for a group of normal thugs. She has a level of internal bleeding then and several shots to her body, the bullets having managed to pierceher over to a level then as if they could have bypassed most of her invulnerability, if anything her slight resistance making the injuries worse as the bullets spend more 'time' in her body rather than piercing cleanly through. "I am... All right. Deal with them."

Asia grins at them. "Cause it's fun you wanna try it?" she asks curiously, and she looks over to the bomb thing. "Ooooh fireworks yay!" she goes to pick it up.

Seconds later, the sound of someone coming down the corridor becomes someone pelting into the cafeteria. Another soldier, slightly ahead of his partner behind him, who immediately sees the downed Starfire. Snapping his gun up, he aims at her calling out, "Supers!" and tries to fire his railgun at Star, to finish her off when she's down.

His partner comes into the room a second later and spots Supergirl. And immediately goes white under his helmet, as he recognizes the 'S'.

The two guys facing against Asia look a little upset, but they snap down their visors and the first one tries to grab her and physically take her out of the little room while the other one covers him with his gun, finger on the trigger and ready to fire if there's trouble.

Asia is tiny and light and easily grabbed, though when touched and in the light they can see her skin is tough like tree bark. "Where are we going? Oooh we go. a take a nap?". she thinks. "Buh ah didn't bring mah blankie."

Kara Zor-El checks on Starfire to see if she's okay. She clearly needs to get to an infirmary. Soon as the man squeezes the trigger, Supergirl speeds over to him and plants the palm of her hand against the barrel of the railgun muzzle to prevent it from being able to build up a lot of speed before it impacts her palm.

Well, at least Asia wasn't getting in trouble.

Starfire goes to sit up, "I believe that more of them are coming.." Her hands are at her sides, trying to work at pulling the bullets out of her body as she trusts for Kara to deal over with the interlopers.

Hitting something that won't move, the effect of the depleted uranium bullet hitting Kara's palm is nothing short of spectacular. The gun barrel distorts and explodes in the man's face as the bullet impacts against Kara's palm and expends its energy outward instead of forward. The gun becomes a small bomb, and the guy falls to the ground, unconscious and skidding slightly. His friend backs toward the exit door, calling on his radio, "Supergirl! Starfire! Abandoning this position!"

Trying to call in on their own radios, the two taking Asia away from the fireworks looking thing toss her onto the couch. They frown under their suits, then nod at each other and try to shoot at the toddler. Which is completely not within the range of a NC-17 comic and can not be shown here.

Well that's just not very nice. Asia smiles, and leaps into the air as the triggers are being pulled, she slower than she would normally be but it is what it is, a bullet grazes her bits of bark go flying, she pops her claws..her tiny claws about six inches at this age and slice into the first guard clawing him until he falls down, she's on top of him, clawing into him, not to kill because Asia's don't do that, but ya know give him a good Ouchie, her bark like blades are like surgical steel slicing through his body armor, too bad bullet proof armor is good for bullets not good for sharp objects. Asia just smiles enjoying this little game of punish the bad guy.

Kara Zor-El watches as the depleted uranium round impacts against the palm of her hand, exploding the gun and knocking the terrorist out. She then looks at Starfire. "I'm going after the other guy, there are more terrorists in the building apparently! Are you going to be okay?"

Starfire nods, "Yes,Iw ill be fine. Stop them, Supergirl. Stop.. Whatever it is that they are up to and what they are after." Koriand'r goes to force herself upright, "I will be fine. Now go!"

The guy from the cafeteria is trying to retreat. If by retreat you mean running like Superman was on your ass.

Ironically, very much like that as reality proves to be. Since Kara is the one who emerges from the caff after him.

The sounds of scuffling in Asia's area don't last long, and she's shortly sitting on two bleeding people only half-wearing their armor. But the one guy got his wish: he's sleeping. Though it might not be as restful as he'd like.

Asia retracts her claws, but keeps her armor up, she jumps off the knocked out fellows and goes back to the fireworks. Finding them, she goes to look for Kori or Kara because one of them might know how to set them off. She heads out looking for them...hey where's Asia?

Kara Zor-El superspeeds past the fleeing terrorist to stand in front of him, arms crossed, as he runs right into her. "So how many others are with you, other the three in the cafeteria, and what were you after?" she asks after he hits into the unmovable Kryptonian teenager.

Starfire slowly rises up, one hand gripping her stomach, the other the wall. She slides, her fingers coated in her own blood, so she takes a moment to just press her fingers, strength slowly creaking the wall inwards to mae a proper grip so the alien princess can remain on her feet, even with half a fist up the wall is the only way she can remain upright.

Asia keeps looking for Kara or Kori. "Supergirl!" she calls out. "Starfire!" she calls out. "I found fireworks!" she says trying to make her way to the other ladies.

The guy who bounced off of Supergirl doesn't get to appreciate it. She's an attractive woman, but apparently that is lost on him in the current situation. "C-10, Serendipity," he says, then his radio shuts down. Which doesn't actually help his situation, since Kara can hear two other teams out there somewhere. And Asia calling for her friends. Listening hard, Kara can actually hear ticking. Not sure if Starfire could hear it too.

Side note: Asia can hear it. Her fireworks make funny noises.

Kara Zor-El frowns as the guy apparently gave some code word to whoever was on the other side of the walkie talkie. She gives him a quick flick of her finger to the head to knock him out, then tries to determine if the ticking she's hearing is near where Asia's voice is coming from. Why didn't Asia stay put where it was safe? Because it's Asia.

Well, if it's a bomb, she needs to first get to the ticking, so she speeds off towards the sound of the ticking.

Starfire slowly forces herself upright, blood pooling off her stomach as Asia goes to run along and past, "Child... It is not safe... You must get out of here." She would try and fly out, but she can barely focus...

Asia shakes the fireworks because it's ticking. "Ah don't like that beat, come one do some Reggae." she turns and blinks seeing Starfire. "oh my you got an Owie!" she shows her the fireworks. "I got firework it'll make it better." she says having no idea why it would, but Asia likes fireworks and they make her feel better.

The ticking and Asia are coming from the same place - by Starfire! Kara speeds back into the room and looks at Asia. "Asia... you're not supposed to...." She rubs the bridge of her nose. "Asia... please give me the bomb?"

So yeah, the ticking is definitely coming from Asia's location. And nowhere else, that seems to be the only active bomb in the area. The soldiers seem to be leaving in a hurry; that Serendipity code was probably 'get the hell out, we're screwed!' in unnecessarily annoying code terms.

Asia's fireworks have a timer on them, though. It says 15:00:22 and is ticking down a second at a time, so there's plenty of time. Until suddenly for some reason it clicks and a small switch is flicked inside, and the timer changes. To 00:00:05.

Asia holds it out to Kara. "It's not a bomb it's fire works silly."...and lets say that Kara so fast with afterwords that's all asia gets to say about that.

Kara Zor-El grabs the 'fireworks' from Asia. "Asia, we are so having a talk after I get this away from here!" Then she flies off out the hole in the wall and straight up!

3 seconds later, there's a loud explosion, followed by a shockwave, in the sky. 10 seconds after that, Kara flies back in the building via the hole, her hair and costume covered with some sort of soot or explosive residue. She rubs her ear a bit. "Okay... that was... really loud... ow."

Although it does make for a nice fireworks display in the sky.

Asia smiles and points. "Ooooooooooooooooh."

Starfire slowly walks up and out of the building then, "And I believe that the interior is secure." Slowly, step by step, having to punch holes in the wall to stand up, picking up Asia to carry with the other arm, working her way out.

The interior is indeed secure. Starfire gets medical help quickly, with Asia there to make sure that everyone does everything right, because she's very certain that her friend needs the best of care. And nobody would dare do anything wrong with a toddler watching.

Kara, in her normal style, goes to catch the other soldiers as soon as she's made sure that Starfire is getting medical help. She finds them easily, but they are apparently not carrying anything but their weapons. So whatever they were there to find, they've either already passed on to another contact, or it was that box of eggs.

Which turns out to be just containers. Sturdy, scan-proof containers. And none of them are talking. So this time, it's a win. But not as satisfying as it should be.

But the driver of a van driving away, perfectly normal and with nothing to distinguish it, gets a cellphone call.

"Report."

"Success."

"Good. Doom is pleased."