2012-11-09 - Invader Skrull: Earth's Mightiest Waitress

Fury. THE Nick Fury. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Monster. Man. James Bond. Spy. War Hero. He has been called many things throughout his lifetime. Manipulative Bastard appears to be one of the more popular ones.

In an unexpected place, Metropolis Museum has a break-in. Nothing was taken however, just a letter dropped off with the name: 'Supergirl' on its front.

Luckily, Supergirl was the one to respond. Within the letter is something very specific, carefully typed.

From afar, Sharon Carter watches through a high-tech spy device. She is shipping back off soon, burying herself undercover for just a while longer. Months perhaps? She forgets the last time she hasn't been under cover. She smirks as the bait appears to be taken.

Supergirl,

May this correspondence find you well. As one not a member of the Avengers or Justice League, you may know know this but there is an alien shapeshifting race wishing to take over Earth. They have arrived and have caused terrible damage. The priorly mentioned two groups have done their job, but now it is time for you to step up to the plate to save the world.

Your mission is simple. Retrieve Captain America, and tell him that C.A.T.'s life is in danger. He will go with you. He always had a soft spot for girls that are bad for him. You are to take him to the Middle East in Iran: < The Corrdinates are provided. >

Once there, the opening should already be there. C.A.T. only has Lady Blackhawk for backup. Very few of the S.H.I.E.L.D. members are human there, it is wholly infected, so it must be wiped off grid. The final step in your mission after you make sure C.A.T. and Lady Blackhawk completes their task, is to get them and Captain America out alive.

Good Luck,

Agent 19

Yes, the letter was written by Sharon, but was ordered by that damn Fury. Finally, after what seems like ages, Agent 19 leaves her hiding place and heads back out. Mission completed, and on to the next one. Her life is a series of missions; she does not have time to think of anything else or the fact she has just been ordered to help push Steve and C.A.T. closer together.

Kara Zor-El reads the note then scratches her head a bit. Okay, she heard about what Skrulls are from her cousin a few weeks ago. Bit of a sigh. "I really should get in touch with that SHIELD group to just give them my phone number instead of breaking into museums..." She reads the rest of the note, "Captain America... who the heck is C.A.T.... Okay then." She looks around a bit to see if the person who left the note was still anywhere around before heading back to the window. Seems odd that they'd just leave a note and hope that she's the one that gets it. Leaves a lot more to chance than she'd expect from an agency like SHIELD.

Washington D.C., Captain America was fighting a cell of A.I.M. agents with Nomad just off the National Mall. The plan had been simple for A.I.M. using the Washington Monument as a transmitter for a MAD Bomb that would push the population of the National capital into a murderous rage. The device going off at the percise time that the President would be addressing both the Senate and the Congress. If it would be adding gasoline, dynamite, and plutonium to the fire that is the national political climate. The United States Government would fall as their leaders killed each other over party literally. Hey at least Cspan would be interesting for once. Captain America is currently fighting his way through the bee keepers at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was going to be a long fight to the Washington Monument.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the middle east, a blonde woman is trying to keep herself and C.A.T. alive. "Dammit...this would be a really good time for backup to show up." She ducks back behind the crates she's using for cover as C.A.T. messes with the security system, reloading her gun as quickly as she can. No thought about what Oracle or Batman would say. This is war, and Zinda knows about war. She also knows planes...it's just a shame there isn't a working one here for them to flee in. They'll have to take that jeep. Or pray for a retrieval that might not come.

C.A.T. is terrified, Lady Blackhawk can likely smell it from her and the other woman is fully human! But then again, C.A.T. proved before she's the smack talker and techie, not the hero of the group. Her fingers shake slightly as they work quickly on the wiring, reworking it. Suddenly, doors start closing around them, but not in their escape route...a catwalk. She points above, "There," and shoots off her wrist grapple and says, "This is going to hurt....get on my back." She will wait before activating it to pull the two of them up to the catwalk....she will need to wait for Zinda to get off her, before she can climb onto the catwalk herself and hopes both of them make it alive. "The bomb...it should be going off in ten seconds." It should go off right before Kara arrives so that Supergirl can see the signal. "They will be here...the Director promised." She's terrified of the Director, but she also strangely has faith in him.

Kara Zor-El flies off at superspeed again into the sky to look for where Captain America might be. At least with a name like Captain America it narrows down the likely country he's currently in.

And from orbit, lo and behold, Cap's in the nation's capitol. Annnd seems busy, but the note did seem pretty explicit that time was of the essence. Normally she wouldn't do this, but...

As Captain America is fighting the AIM agents for a lengthy fight, a blue blur whizzes by out of the sky. First pass, several AIM agents are knocked out. Second, a bunch more. A third pass hits the last few into a wall before it stops and Kara lands by Captain America. "Hi.... are you busy right now? I have a note from someone from SHIELD saying I needed to find you to rescue someone with the initials C, A, T. in the Middle East." She peers at Captain America. "I'm interrupting something right?"

Steve Rogers stops looking to Nomad, "Can you disable the Mad Bomb?" Nomand nods, "Sure thing Cap." Then as Supergirl and Captain America speed away. Nomad whistles, "That guy and blondes. Some folks just get all the luck. Guess once a Bucky always a Bucky."

Zinda has done THIS before. She grabs on without hurting C.A.T. at all. Ignoring the other woman's obvious fear completely. That's the best way to deal with it, to not make a big deal of it and stay calm herself. Right now, she has to be the rock. Once they're at the top, she neatly vaults clear. Yes, it's very clear she's done the grappling hook thing before. "Ten seconds. Nine." She looks for the exit, bent on running like hell towards it. Cavalry needs to get here. It needs to. Preferably with planes.

C.A.T. then rolls over the catwalk railing after Zinda is clear. "Eight, seven...," and her eyes keep track of Lady Blackhawk. The woman has quickly become her heroine, and she has to watch herself that she doesn't get too attached. To her, Lady Blackhawk has come to represent survival, which is as important to her as breathing! She tries not to think about Captain America, because she does miss him deeply. She has no idea who the backup is, just that some is being sent. The secrets within secrets...C.A.T. has just learned not to ask questions and has worked hard to at least pretend she doesn't care. Her boots aren't too noisy surprisingly as they run across the metal catwalk. "There!" She is pointing to a panel that can be pulled down, to reveal a set of stairs leading to the roof.

Four...three...two....

The two women work together to yank the panel down, and scramble up it even as the explosion rocks the building. It isn't the only one and the Skrull may deactive some of them, but the number C.A.T. has hidden and left around to be set off at different times? Way too numerous to save the building.

Smoke rises to the air in the mountainous area, to help Supergirl pinpoint the headquarters that appears almost implanted in the mountain itself with its roof flush with some of the outcroppings.

Kara Zor-El flies, carrying Captain America as she makes her way over the Middle East. Last time she was around here she has a rogue terrorist cell fire a land-to-air missile at her. Fun times. "Soooo....." she asks Captian America, "The letter didn't exactly have a description of this C.A.T. person so maybe do you know whereabouts in the Middle East I should be looking? I'd just fly into low orbit to get a more expansive view but it wouldn't be safe for you... plus you'd be amazed how much trouble goes on in this region to pinpoint just one particular problem." She pauses and looks at the AMERICAN SUPERSOLDIER PATRIOT. "Okay or maybe you would." She flies to Iran, to the coordinates that had been given, and looks back at Captain America again as she sees the smoke. "On second hand, I'm going to make a guess?" and speeds up to where the smoke is coming from.

Steve Rogers grins at Kara, "Blonde woman in a black Leather cat suit and mask. Sort of like that one thief from Gotham." He chuckles, "I actually do have a bit of a clue but I am not actually any longer tied to the United States government." SHIELD was something else. He sees the smoke rise and he points in that direction, "If I know her, she's in the mountain."

"Okay...where's this cavalry? 'Cause I'd sure like to fly out of here before this roof collapses." Not that Zinda sounds particularly worried. Almost too calm, in fact. Poor C.A.T...stuck partnered with somebody who hasn't, yet, shown any outward sign of fear. Or maybe she's just that good an actress. She's peering upwards, searching the air for contrails, listening for engines or the put-put of a helicopter. Oh, so narrow sometimes.

Ironically, C.A.T. has red hair right now, her normal eye color, and a black leather S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform, but close enough to Cap's description, right? C.A.T. gasps for some breath, her Danger Sense as she sometimes like to call it, isn't going off right this second. "I...don't know. The Director makes miracles happen though, least he better, or we are dead. And I'm going to haunt his ass and find some way to fuck it." So vulgar! But then her senses scream. "Run!" She moves to grab Lady Blackhawk's free hand and jerks her forward as she rolls forward to drag the woman with her before letting go. Bullets are flying at them while they are on the roof, from a higher level of the roofing.

Kara Zor-El flies to the mountain, and sees the building which has a woman in black leather and.... She peers, "Yep, there's Zinda" She looks down at Captain America. "I'm going to land on the roof where they are okay?" Then does just that, flying to where the two SHIELD agents are located and lets Captain America drop to his feet before landing as a barrier between them and the people in the higher tier firing at them. "Hey... um... cavalry's here."

Several bullets hit the girl and bounce off harmlessly. She turns her head a bit and gives a wave. "Hi." She motions up at them. "I'm going to go up and take care of those guys okay?"

She flies up towards the shooters quickly, so that she can appear RIGHT in their scope of their rifles, floating there in front of them before landing on the roof by them. "Tickles a bit." Then grabs one of rifles and crunches the barrel closed.

Steve Rogers drops to the roof of the building. A smile on his lips as he moves to use his shield to block bullets. "Zinda... Agent." He nods to them both, "Fury sent me and the Earth's Mightiest Waitress to back you two up. What's going on. I just know you two are in trouble."

"Kryptonian cavalry. I'm almost disappointed," Zinda notes, moving so as to make Supergirl's task in keeping her from getting shot as easy as possible. "We need to get out of here. This place is rigged to blow." Just in case THAT information hadn't been passed on to the good Captain.

"Who?" C.A.T. pretends quite effective not to know who the hell Fury is. "And what type of heroic name is Earth's Mightest Waitress?!" Yes, she sounds like she honestly believes that is Supergirl's codename. She then whole-heartedly agrees with Zinda. "Yes! And I'll cry about the moral crisis of this later!" She still hasn't shot a single gun in this entire mission where Lady Blackhawk has been able to see, only her sleeping dart gun sparingly. And she has punched and kicked people and knocked some people out sure! But that's about it. "So can we hurrrrrry, ja?!" She holds a German accent to her voice. She is resisting from leaping at Cap and hugging him, but her eyes linger him him.

When the gun is crushed, the being looks horrifed at first, and then grins wickedly. Him and the one standing beside them suddenly start to shift, into lizard-like being as they try to snap at Supergirl. A third is near them, human looking still, but with no emotion in his expression. He moves to pull out a bomb to toss at Supergirl...a high tech one that is meant to latch onto her uniform.

Kara Zor-El murmurs to herself, "You'd think he'd respect someone having a good old fashioned American work ethic." Then watches the two men shapeshift into lizard beings and actually asks, "Are you two skrulls?" And that's when the bomb latches onto her uniform and explodes. There's a huge amount of smoke where it explodes, undoubtedly blowing the girl up.

The End.

Wait, no not the end, because a gust of incredibly strong gale force wind is sent at the one who threw the bomb. It's actually Kara's super-breath, which clears the smoke away, showing Supergirl to be unharmed.

She quickly grabs two of the lizard men, one in each hand, and konks their head together. Then yells down at Captain America, Zinda, and C.A.T., "For the love of mike, I'm not Earth's Mightiest Waitress! I mean I am... technically... but that's not my name!"

Strange that the human looking one doesn't show fear, he just moves to pull out a knife that suddenly has an electrical arc, some sort of energy to it before he goes to leap toward Kara to try and cut her. But if Kara looked at him, really, really looked at him, she may notice that he is laid out to appear very human, but he is wholly artificial.

Steve Rogers grins, "Agent CAT, that's Supergirl. It's a long story." One that Steve had told the Agent in the past. He looks around, "Alright then we need to extract us out of here." His shield goes flying to strike the LMD attacking Supergirl. "Lady Blackhawk, you're the expert pilot and wheel woman. See if you can find us a vehicle that meets your requirements." He looks back to CAT. "Is this facility locked down? That is what the mission requires lock down and skutteling it?" He didn't like the idea of blowing Skrulls up.

"That's the mission. This is war," she reminds the Captain...and they've both known it, both faced it. Both fought when there was no choice. She moves to the edge of the roof, looking for any kind of suitable escape vehicle. True, Supergirl can fly, but she can't carry all of them at once. Well, unless they use a shipping container. B.A. Baracus, however, is not present. "Hrrrm."

"Couldn't lock it down and still escape, otherwise I would have." Not that C.A.T. is proud of it, the thought makes her feel sick, but she would have done it. "But did I evac the area first? No, and...and...I'm not going to. These...aliens. I don't want to murder them Cap, but...they are trying to take over Earth. I don't want to be their bitch either." And C.A.T. screams when the fake blood squirts out of the LMD.

But when the shield spins back toward Captain America, it becomes obvious that there are wires sticking out and pieces of metal instead of innards if one thinks to look. Cap knew from how it acted exactly what it was.

Okay. Electricity... that hurts. She's dealt with Livewire enough to know that. So when someone is attacking you with something you know will hurt.... get out of the way. Kara drops the unconscious lizardmen and superspeeds out of the way That's when she gets a good look at him. Artificial. Well at least that means she won't have to worry about holding back! "How much time do we have left before things start exploding?" she calls, then continues talking, "And you can't hear me from down there can you yeah...." She looks at the robot? android? golem? "Your move?"

And she really was expecting some sort of attack. Instead, a shield goes slicing through the 'man's' arm, causing the hand and his electric knife to fall to the floor, before the shield hits the wall behind soundly and expertly rebounds back to Captain America. She says happily, "Thanks Captain!" She then throws a punch at the robot. A really, really.... REALLY hard punch. Something she wouldn't do if it was a human. Or even an alien. Or a cyborg. But for a robot? Sure. Annnnd it goes flying up, and up, and... okay let's just face it. He's not coming back down once the robot hits orbit. She pats her hands a bit, then flies back down to the rest of the group and repeats, "Thanks Captain." She looks around. "I've never actually seen Skrulls before." She taps her foot a moment. "Sooooo I was overhearing that there's a bomb? When's it going to go off?"

Steve Rogers catches the shield. "It's a robot, Agent CAT." He says moving to take her hand, "Come on." He points to the motorpool, "I should be here in this uniform. Let's get to the ground level." He shakes his head, "Transportation from this general area. Supergirl might be able to fly us out in a car. If we're all in it." He calls back to Supergirl, "It's a robot. No self awareness. It's probably had enough damage to set off it's self destruct." The he moves to take off at a run to find the nearest way down.

"Any moment now." A pause. "There's a van down there. We'd all fit in and it's not open, so if Supergirl carries us..." Nobody will be in danger of falling out. It's also close. She runs after Cap, moving quickly and easily and clearly not bothered by the heights or the likely route of descent...if it's anything other than a ladder, she'll be surprised.

Yep, no luck for some stairs, just a ladder. Darn government secret co-op buildings in the middle of no where! C.A.T. though, still shaken up, doesn't go to use the ladder. "Ja, van!" She takes to heart that it was a robot, because she does, or she throws up. Her right wrist grapple leaps out and attches to the side of the building, and then she jumps, feet and legs bracing to absorb the shock when she smacks against the side of the building and then she starts to lower herself down toward the rock and dusty ground below. Not that there isn't some individuals coming around a corner to start shooting at those trying to get off the building. The way C.A.T. moves is unevenly, jumping about the side of the building, twisting her body when she swings outward before swinging back in to the side of the building, and hoping someone works at stopping those crazy wanna-be murderers!

Kara Zor-El watches as they all take off in a run over the side of the building and down the ladder. "You know I could just go down and bring the van up here and I'm just talking to myself now aren't I..." She says as she is, in fact, talknig to herself since the others are already are climbing down the ladder, jumping down, climbing down, etc. "Yeah. I'm totally talking to myself."

She decides to fly down alongside them, then go a bit ahead just in case there are more 'lizardmen-changing artificial robot electrical knife wielding shooting aliens' ahead. She lands on the ground near the would-be murderers are. "I would just like to say, as an alien, you are totally giving us all a bad rep."

What follows next is a total butt whooping of Skrulls being thrown and punched all over the place. Except that one who tries to hit her with the stunner club and it instead snaps and hits him. "Okay, path to the van's clear."

Steve Rogers looks at Supergirl as they all begin to get in the van. His shield coming up to block a blast." He shakes his head. "Supergirl, can we worry about this later." He points to the base, "Bomb, go boom. Your the only one that survives. We need to leave." With that he climbs into the van.

Lady Blackhawk fires off a couple of shots at a Skrull that Supergirl wasn't paying enough attention to before diving into the van. "Let's get out of here." She's actually quite relieved to have contact with somebody who isn't Richard, CAT or a skrull...she hopes, anyway.

C.A.T. dives into the van as well with Captain America, and curls up unto herself. After Cap closes the van door and Kara moves to carry them off, she slyly moves a hand toward Cap's...just to hold it. It comforts her. She will figure out where to go soon enough. But she is guessing Fury picked these guys for a reason. He is spreading out his influence and building speed.

Kara Zor-El waits for them all to get into the van, then lifts the van up and flies up. "Thank you for flying Supergirl Airlines. We know that you have a wide variety of choices to choose, and we appreciate your business. Today's movie will be Explosion of the Skrull Robot Base." she says as she flies well out of range of the mountain and, hopefully, any surface to air missiles or a blast radius, since she's not quite sure how big a bang this will cause.

And it starts happening, shaking the van some when the explosions start to go off. One after another, causing mass chaos before the building starts to cave in unto itself. C.A.T. doesn't look back, her expression grim and horrified. She will not regret her decision, but it will haunt her...because no matter that she is a thief and often a liar...she does honestly care about the lives of others.