2014-11-02 - Animals Are Cute

Middle of Hell's Kitchen. Place where there's lots of crime. Lots of squalor. Usually lots of sightings of Daredevil. Though tonight he isn't around - he's doing something with the Avengers. Which is too bad. Why? Because there's a trio of supervillains who normally don't associate with each other, who are today.

Elephant Man.

Rhino.

And Grizzly..

Yes, Rhino was looking to make a supervillain team of his own with a theme, and somehow he felt a guy wearing a bear costume worked.

Rhino isnt known for his brilliance.

Apparently, robbing a bank in the poorest part of New York was another brilliant idea - mainly because the only threat here would be some guy in red with no discernable superpowers.

Yeah - because super-types can't move from one part of a city to another. Again - Rhino - not a genius supervillain.

Meanwhile, Kara Zor-El was sitting at a Grey's Papaya, having a meal with a friend she had recently met, Cassandra Lang, aka Stature. She promised that Cassie would be back home before her curfew, which is why she settled on lunch at a place not far from her house, instead of her original choice of flying her to San Francisco to see Titans Tower. During which KAra was recounting how she came to be on Earth. "So anyway, Kal and his friends got me out of Apokolips and I thought I'd try to do what he does."

At which point several cop cars zoom past the hot dog joint to the APB at the bank.

Cassie opens her mouth to say something vaguely related to the story Kara's been telling her when the sirens drown her out. She pauses, then when the first one has gone by she says, "So when did.." and her voice is drowned out by the second car whipping by.

She waits a moment, then says, "I almost think th.." and two more cars fly by, blaring even /louder/. A moment later, eyes narrowed, she opens her mouth and a large SWAT transport flies by, making all sorts of noise.

After the last one is gone, Cassie doesn't even try to open her mouth. A lesson only has to be smashed over her head so much before she gets the idea. She raises an eyebrow expectantly.

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Bobby may be a grown man, but he still eats like a growing teenager (fortunately, mutant metabolism and hours in the danger room more than compensate). So it's probably no surprise that he was actually heading to Grey's Papaya, which sits on the corner, down the intersecting side street. He has yet to spot Kara when the police vehicles start whipping by. He goes from a lisurely walk to a jog up the block as he mutters, "Something's up."

And then the swat transport goes by, and he says, "OK, something's Really up. There goes lunch." Suddenly, there is a shift in the sound of one of the police sirens and the doppler effect on its sound suddenly reverses, as the car comes literally flying back, a huge rhino-horn hole in the front grill. The car arcs over the relatively low buildings and down into the street where Bobby is. He ices up without a second thought, shifting to his ice form as he scrambles, mentally, for a wavy to stop the falling car and save the officer at its wheel.

Kara Zor-El looks at the police cars after the third time they interrupt Cass trying to respond to her. "Er... yeah. Going to need to check that out Cass... want to come wi- Rao one second!" Kara ays as a car is thrownn a good several blocks. Kara flies up to catch it before it hits into a building with the two screaming cops inside. "Sokay! Sokay! I gotcha." she says quickly before flying back down with the car to set it on the street. During which time she spots Iceman. "Hey. I'll just... yeah. Stature? Bobby. Bobby? Stature." She looks in the direction of the trouble. "And three on three."

Cassie Lang picks now to show off a trick she picked up her second day. She shrinks down out of her clothes, letting them fall off of her, and is instantly in costume! By the time anyone thinks to look her way, what with Supergirl flying and the police and the flying police car /and/ Iceman going by, she's no longer a blonde girl sitting at a table.

She's someone wearing a domino mask and a black and red costume that looks vaguely ridiculous. She pulls it off though, and as she heads out into the street she grows to ten feet tall and calls out, "What are we up against?" She sounds completely business, as if this is the most normal thing in the world to be doing. Slightly excited.

Kara Zor-El pauses as she looks from her vantage point in the air. "Three idiots. One idiot who I've beaten up before, and two idiots who I haven't." She looks at Stature and Iceman. "So... um... Bear, Rhino, Elephant. Pick your animal?"

Bobby is suprised by the sudden appearance of Supergirl, though neither as suprised nor as relieved as the two wide-eyed police officers. Bobby kicks into motion a moment later and calls back, "Introductions later. And it's Iceman. With one of his trademark ice slides forming just ahead of him as he moves, he is off towards the source of the flying squadcar at much faster than his running speed. It takes him only moments to cover the two long crosstown blocks. Seeing who's there (at least who that he recognizes) he shakes his head, and tosses off snarkily, "I kind of feel like I'm poaching here. Just not sure if I should apologize to Spider-man or Daredevil." He pauses a moment, then says in his best Ringmaster voice, "And now, ladies and gentleman, I give you... Pachyderms on ice!" And with that, there is suddenly a glassy sheet of ice on the ground under the feet of two of the three villains, leaving Rhino and Elephant man with extremely questionable footing.

Elephant Man gets encased in ice.

For about 30 seconds, at which point the 40 foot supervillain breaks free with a trumpeting roar, causing huge chunks of ice to go flying everywhere! At the buildings. At the heroes. At the civilians. Just -everywhere.

Rhino spots Iceman and laughs as he's carrying the entire vault from the bank. Which admittedly didn't have much money in it given the neighborhood, but it's still a lot of money. "What, Daredevil too scared to mess with all three of us? We're gonna mop you do- aw crap." he says as he notices Supergirl flying there as well. Mainly because Kara's already beaten him up twice, in spectacularly humiliating fashion each time.

Grizzly is busy knocking out a police office when he notices Rhino's sudden trepidation. "Whozzat? Want me to take care of the blonde? Yo! Blondie, how bout you come down here and the Grizzly will maul ya!"

Kara pauses, looking at Cassie and Bobby. "He's serious, isnt he? He really is serious?" She looks back at him and yells down, "Who ARE you even?" At which point the ice chunks start flying when Elephant Man breaks free of his icy containment.

From afar, Stature has to admit, you're way more amusing than I am when you do NPC's. :D

Stature, or the tall girl in black and red as she may be known since Bobby wasn't paying attention, says, "Oh /please/ let him take a swing at you. I need to see that for my scrapbook." She's watching Bobby work in the background, her face kind of amused as she catches on to Kara's tone of voice.

The ice-splosion catches her a little unprepared, but she raises her arms to protect herself instinctively, and when it ends she says, "Got that one," as she starts running toward Elephant Man, growing larger as she does.

When Stature reaches Elephant Man, she's roughly equal in size and mass, and she slams into him with enough force to make him dig in his feet, leaving furrows in the pavement for a dozen yards. But not enough to knock him over, and the behemoth trumpets a challenge into Stature's face!

Bobby takes a moment to laugh at Grizzly, "Buddy, you are so, so, SO out of your league. And I think you pissed her off." With that, he heads for Rhino. "'Kay, so, big, grey and ugly..." A glance towards Elephant man, "Well, Medium, gray and ugly. Guess you're mine." Rhino may not be a common foe of the X-men, but Bobby's seen enough of the villain to know that trying to penetrate the suit is pretty futile., So alternate tactics are required First off, to take care of a big problem and potential weapon. "Looks like you've got your hands full though, let me help you with that." Iceman raises his hands, and two huge pillars of ice grow up from the street at angles into the bank vault. In seconds, the vault is held in place, anchored and encased in ise. Probably not outside of Rhino's capability to break free, but it isn't going to be a one-tug operation. Ice, at least the kind that Iceman makes, does not crumble like concrete can.

As Elephant Man is pushed backwards by a 40 foot tall Stature, and digs his .... feet?... into the ground to stop it before pushing back again, lashing his trunk out to hit Cassie's face, Rhino almost looks relieved when Kara's attention is more on Grizzly than on him - especially when Iceman calls him out on this fight. Kara flies down in front of Grizzly and Rhino. You can almost hear the gulp from Rhino.

"Yeah... yeah Grizzly, you take her, I'll take the ice cub- HEY!" he yells when the vault over him is encased in ice and held in place - along with his hands. Rhino pulls his hands downward, which does free himself. "Arright, now yer gonna get it!"

At which point he charges at Iceman!

Grizzly, meanwhile, smirks at the 5 foot 7 blond girl, still wearing civilian clothes, in front of him. "I'm gonna mop the floor with ya! This suit's got an exoskeleton which amplifies my strength FIVE TIMES!"

Kara is noticeably not impressed.

She's trying really hard not to smile at his boasting. "Yeah. Five times you say? Really" She nods a bit to herself, then looks around. "Seriously, can someone PLEASE tell me who this person is?" Which only serves to enrage Grizzly more.

Iceman just grins as Rhino charges him. He fires out, "Guess the old 'take away his credit cards' thing won't work here, huh?" At the last moment, when he sees Rhino commit to the charge and lower his head and shoulders, Iceman kicks sideways with a short ice slide, taking himself out of the rhino's path. That path, a moment later, becomes a glassy sheet of ice. Iceman moves his arms in a flourish as Rhino rushes by, flourishing an imaginary matador's cape, "Toro!" He's not done yet though, turning in the same motion, he extends a hand, and suddenly the sheet of ice isn't just leaving rhino to skid into a building. INstead, it goes into what looks like the side of a halfpipe, and almost perfect set up to send the villain airborne. Intentionally giving his voice a bored sound, Iceman taunts, "Charging? Really? Buddy, Juggernaut, you ain't."

Oddly, an answer comes from the big girl who's tussling with Elephant Man. "His name is....ngh...Grizzly." She seems to need her breath for something else for a moment as the trunk smacks her in the face, giving Elephant Man the chance to push her back to her knees.

Stature seems to actually be losing in sheer strength, though she's definitely got the edge on brains. Proven by the hip toss she uses just seconds later, coaxing a /very/ surprised squeal out of the giant as he flips over her waist and impacts with the ground.

Stature backs off quickly, having no intention of playing fair with the big guy. She does, however, offer a quip. "You are stronger than I am. But...There's something you should know, Big Guy."

Elephant Man gets to his feet. His massive, massive feet. And he looks at the fight between Iceman and Rhino for an instant before facing his opponent once more. He pauses, lowering his head just in case it's a trap, and makes a quizzical noise?

Stature grins. It's a diabolical grin. "I...am not left-handed," she says, as she plants her feet wide, snarls, and /grows/. 50, 60, 70 feet tall...still growing, til she stops at 100. Twice his size. And Elephant Man shrinks a little looking up at someone for once.

Rhino charges right for Iceman. And when the ground beneath him turns to ice, he instead skids right for Iceman.

And when Iceman simply moves out of the way, he skids right for a building.

And then Iceman, in an effort to keep collateral damage to a minimum, makes that ramp of ice, causing Rhino to skid right into the air, before falling right back down to the ground with a thunderous THUD!

Kara smiles and calls at him, "At least it's not like what happened in Chinatown, right?"

Grizzly yells at her, "Hey, pay attention to ME! I'm the one who's gonna break you in half!"

He gets a finger of 'wait one second' directed at him as Kara seems more interested in watching what the other two are doing.

For example, Elephant Man getting thrown to the ground with the martial arts move, causing the entire area to shake. But he gets up, ready to finish this girl off! He grabs two cars which he planned on using to hit her on both sides of her head!

Then he looks up when she suddenly grows taller than him. Like... 2 1/2 time taller. If elephants could squeak, that's the best sound that can be heard from the B-list supervillain. And very.... very carefully puts the cars back down. And puts his hands up. And his trunk, for good measure.

When Cassie tells Kara Grizzly's name, Grizzly says, "Or you could just call me your executioner!" And throws a punch at Kara. Especially since she isnt even paying attention to her 'fight.' His clawed face slams into the side of the Kryptonian's head. And there's a crunch as the exoskeleton-laced fist impacts Kara's cheek.

Followed by him grabbing his hand.... claw... whatever... in pain. Kara then looks back at him. "Ohhh I get it. Grizzly, Because you're dressed like a bear. Sorry, not really acquainted with all the animals on this planet yet."

Grizzly looks confused as Kara says, "oh yeah. Ow by the way, I guess." Kara says that just to be nice, of course. Not like it actually hurt or anything. Unlike when Kara takes her finger and flicks it at Grizzly, sending him flying backwards into a lamppost, which bends the lamppost and causes Grizzly to become more unconscious than the average bear.

Stature suggests that Elephant Man give up peacefully and, as he proceeds to do so, she calls out to the others, "Need a hand over there?" Giving a good look, she keeps half of her attention on her prisoner and gets to watch the impact she'd begged for earlier. Grizzly hitting Kara. "Oh. Ow."

The slip of Rhino's happened too fast, she missed it, but she's there for the end of that fight. A very large audience of one. She does seem to be a fan of certain forms of winter sports. The ski jump at the moment.

Bobby waits the few moments it takes Rhino to arc through the air, flailing, and crash back down, missing the ice and instead pancaking a nearby street vendor's fight (which the sensible operator abandoned at the outset of this fight). Stunned for a moment by the impact of his own body, Rhino shakes his head, ending up with a big soft pretzel looped ring-toss fashion around his horn. Before the villain can start to get up, his limbs are restrained in ice, a tactic Iceman knows to be effective. All the muscle in the world doesn't help against the ice when you don't have the leverage to put it to work. Iceman glances up at Stature, teasing, "Wait, cute blond who kicks superbaddy butt AND quotes the Princess Bride? If you wre a couple years older, I think I'd be in love." Surveying the wreckage of the area, and the villains, he shrugs, then addresses the other heroes, "We're done here?"

Kara Zor-El walks over to where Rhino's on the ground. "I'm pretty sure Rhino's not going to get up, and Elephant Guy seems to want to surrender amicably..." She smiles up at Stature. "And Whatshisname is taking a nap and will need his hand in a cast when he wakes up." She pauses and looks at Rhino who's on the ground. "You aren't getting up, right? Just checking if you want to go another fight with me, or just take the loss from Iceman."

Rhino says quietly, back on the ground, "Iceman."

To which Kara smiles, patting her hands. "Then yep, I think we're definitely done here, Bobby."

You paged Stature with 'meh, I had fun running the scene even though Kara didn't get to fight. I hate running a scene where I fight AND play the bad guy anyway :)'

Kara Zor-El smiles and sits on Rhino. "Anyway, I'm going to assume maybe you two know each other. But if you don't, Iceman, Stature. Stature? Bobby." And then comes the wait for the SPD to arrive to take away the super-criminals.

And Grizzly.