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Saturday, the middle of the day in New York City and it's damn hot. The sun's high in the sky though
occasionally wispy clouds drift past it, giving some measure of respite to the people so far below.
Yet the weather hasn't stopped people from wandering around and gathering, particular in the more
popular tourist areas of the city. The Museums are doing a brisk business, and so are the street
vendors that line the sidewalks. All sorts of paraphernalia are being sold, from New York Yankees
hats to Mets t-shirts to miniature Statues of Liberty.
Currently, along the walks in front of the Museum of Natural History, a few school buses of children
are being offloaded, tourists are walking about, and amongst all of them some street performers are
trying to earn some extra scratch. It's all rather chaotic, with so many people walking up and down
the street, but there's a certain energy about it that's positive and the vibe is definitely good.
So good, in fact, that nobody notices the white van that pulls up outside of the museum, stopping in
the cross walk. At first people give it an eyeballing and a few people make annoyed gestures, but
it's New York, so people don't think too hugely about double parking.
*
It's so hot that Akihiro hasn't bothered greasing his hair today, but he hasn't forgotten his
cigarettes, currently one hangs out of his mouth. "So many people." he grumps, pausing to look
around. "And they're all positive. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." He fishes a match out of
his pocket to light up his cigarette, attention shifting to the white van as it pulls up into
people's way. The teen's brows furrow slightly, almost like his common sense was tingling.
*
The actual Statue of Liberty's granddaughter stands in front of an ornamental fountain currently
overtaken by all kinds of tiny sailboats. None of these actually belong to anyone under the age of
19. They wouldn't be able to afford them in this bracket. Aficionados are mostly white males 29-45,
though a few younger ones look like they might belong on a yacht somewhere off the Connecticut coast.
Apparently they missed the chance to go to Kennebunkport. Someone takes photos, but there is another
kind of purpose here. Jennifer Walters, girl about town, actually dares to drop her usual lawyer
duds for a pair of capris and a nice blouse, topped by a filmy scarf that notably isn't knotted the
way most girls do. But she actually enjoys the pleasure of a banana without being accosted on a
bench surrounded by sailboat bits. If they let her here or she predates the New York Model Sailing
Club isn't clear. The weather is pleasant and she basks in the sunshine, occasionally peering at her
watch. When she looks up, it's to see a gaggle of children going by. Something worth smiling at. A
cab refuses to pick up a coloured passenger. The smile dims.
*
The cab just keeps on going, ignoring the man hailing it, though nobody seems terribly surprised.
And the day just keeps going, casual injustices unnoticed for the most part. The sail boats continue
their drifting back and forth. A man in white pants and a blue vest grins and calls out with a wave
to one of the other sailors across the way. Some tourists peer as they go by, a few pictures are
taken.
Yet in front of the museum traffic has partially stopped, or at the least slowed as vehicles start
to pass the double-parked van. The back doors of that van swing open and several men all in white
jump suits start unloading equipment onto that cross walk. It causes some consternation in some of
the young students who are trying to get across the street.
An older security guard for the museum saunters up, "Hey ho. You guys gotta go around back, loading
and unloading and all that. You got me?" His Brooklyn accent is thick, an older guy, probably in his
fifties with a moustache that looks like it'd be at home as the bristles of a paint brush. He jerks
a thumb to the side, "Get your junk loaded back up and get outta here."
*
Akihiro casually heads over to where the men have just started to unload their equipment. He takes a
couple drags from his cigarette before removing it and exhaling a cloud of smoke up and out of
people's faces. "Pardon. Excuse me." he mutters as he moves through the crowd, eventually finding a
place where he can get a good look at what's happening.
*
Another bite into the soft creamy flesh of the banana brings back memories of Cavendishes, the long
lost breed replaced instead by the modern imposter. They just aren't the same anymore, bland and
pretty looking fruit, but not nearly so flavorful. Jen pinches the skin and inverts the peel,
carrying her yellow octopus off to a trash can. "Have fun," she tells the kids going by, sharing
their smile and giving the girls a little wave. "Hey, careful, don't go too fast. The boys are slow,
you might run them over!" She is still young enough not to be overly intimidating, but still
definitely an adult. Oh well, win some, lose some. When the fruit lands on various garbage acquired
through the day and turned especially pungent, she turns back to find her bench taken up by a pigeon
- go figure - and the smell of smoke lingers in the air. It isn't quite common enough to go without
a look for the source. Spotting Akihiro, her gaze passes over him. Not unkind.
*
The men seem unmindful of the security guard as he gets up in one guy's face. That guy splits off
from the group, taking the security guard out of the street and back up on the curb where a
conversation seems to have started. Akihiro is close enough that he can probably hear some of it.
"Sorry, what are ya saying?"
"I'm saying you gotta move yer ass, buddy. C'mon, don't bust my balls here."
"Hey, we got orders, we need to drop this gear off, assemble it and then get it moved in."
"If yer movin' anything inside then you gotta go back ta receiving. C'mon buddy, this ain't rocket
science."
And while this all is going on several heavy canisters are set down, then some apparently electronic
devices are set upon them. But what might be the most curious is when one of the guys in the white
suit climbs onto the two canisters and puts on a harness that seems to connect several of the pieces
of electronics together.
*
"Aw hell nah." Akihiro says, crushing his cigarette underfoot. He heads over to where the security
guard and the man in the jumpsuit is, flashing the pair a feral smile. "You realize they're playing
you for a fool, right?" he informs the guard as he rolls his shoulders. "What I'm trying to say,"
his gaze moves to the man in white specifically now, "whatever you're thinking about doing, rethink
it."
*
Jen moseys. It's what you do in the city without a clear destination in mind. Mosey down the
sidewalk at a nice, slow pace while enjoying the warm weather, a touch too hot for anyone's liking
but it beats winter. Look at the blue sky, the happy kids, the hardworking people in jumpsuits. She
tends not to pay much attention to there implicitly, watching the people crossing the street in case
someone might need help. The brunette attorney is exactly the sort of person who helps old ladies
through crosswalks, and no opportunity is really presenting itself right now. "Pardon," she excuses
herself to get past the slowdown on the curb. It takes standing on her tiptoe to seek the source,
some kind of disruption. She dabs lightly at her cheek with the fold of her scarf, probably hoping
no one notices that oh goodness, ladies can perspire until 80 degree temperatures.
*
The guard looks over at Akihiro and blinks a few times, then gestures, "Hey, back off kid. I got
this." He's seen punks like that, greasers and whatever. Always causing him trouble in the museum
with the exhibits. The guard harumphs, but then looks back towards the man in the white jumpsuit
even as the guy standing on the canisters finishes locking in the harness.
There's a hum, a whavoom, and then an eerie greyish glow around the man's shape as a spherical
helmet clicks into place and those canisters attach to his feet while thrusting the man up into the
air.
Up. Up. Up.
Some thirty feet straight up as the silvery armored fellow now LOOMs over the crowd, looking rather
intimidating if only for height. That suit continues to hum and whir, flickering light racing in
circles around each 'leg' in a clockwise manner and the air now smells of ozone.
The crowd reacts almost instantly, people pointing and stepping back on their heels, a few people
laugh perhaps thinking he's a stilt-walker… which he is of a sort.
*
"Looks like you did a real good fucking job." Akihiro informs the guard blandly. "Now, do I kick
your asses, or do you get back into the van and drive off?" He looks tired, really. Metal scorpions,
thugs with guns, golems, and now this shit.
*
Has that man created the atomic age equivalent of a jetpack to loom over New York? The disbelieving
expression on Jen's face might be priceless. She squints through her glasses, pushing them up the
bridge of her nose. With her mouth screwed up a little, she seems vaguely perplexed about how
serious this display is. C'mon, it's NYC, home to race riots every week since 1959. A place where
the Mets somehow eke out an existence when it's the Yankees who deserve all the love. Alligators in
the sewers, crime bosses doing laundry on the dole, and general source of malaise, right?
"Even on my day off? Are you kidding me?" The joy about rhetorical questions, no one expects a
response from anyone. "I wanted a date in the park, not… not this."
She sneezes at the discharge, and then wades past the collection of lookie-loos. Who cares what
they're really up to right now? In a completely bored voice, the attorney draws on all the expertise
they give even women in law school — yes, women! — up to the helmeted man, "Look, Daddy Long Legs,
you're not impressing anyone. My grandma had one of those."
Considering that is Grandma Banner, you know? She just might.
*
The Towering Stilt-Man deigns not to respond to you mere mortals. The Mighty Stilt-Man proceeds to
step forwards, CLOMP!, CLOMP! The footfalls cause shock waves in the nearby area, shaking the ground
and playing havoc with one's equilibrium. He's walking straight towards the museum, and covering a
good chunk of ground considering he's only taken two steps.
As for the men in white, they're retreating back towards their van, their payload having been
delivered. The security guard is still looking straight up and up at the tall being as he strides
past, probably having forgotten to pull his gun in the meantime. And when that first clomp is heard
he loses his balance and promptly sits down straight on the ground. In fact many people in the crowd
sway and stagger, reaching for something to keep them upright as the balance part of their brains
suddenly tells them that being on the ground might be for the best.
*
"Son of a bitch." Akihiro grumbles, popping four of his claws out. "Maybe next time fucking listen
when I say something is up?" he says to the guard. The ground rumbling makes it hard for him to keep
upright, but his destination is clear, he's gonna try and cut the man down to size.
*
Fine, Towering Stilt-Man, have it your way. Remember that it's /your/ way. Jen pulls up short at the
concussion waves, thrown right off her feet. She bounces back three times, making the best of it by
using her hands to break her fall. "I prefer you don't cuss, if it makes any difference to you.
There are children around!" That could be to Akihiro. That could be to any of the thirty people
suddenly knocked to their butts. Any urge to rub away the sting or see the effect of pavement
dirtied by 2,000 feet in the last hours. She takes off her glasses, putting them in the chest pocket
of her blouse. The flowy scarf gets loosened completely so both ends hang down the front. Anyone
expecting a strip tease — and why, she's not that kind of beauty — will be sorely disappointed to
see her getting up and hopping towards the anonymous van that's forever associated in the American
psyche with labourers, criminals, and paedophiles. Jumps are timed with Stilt-Man ramming his steel
trunk limbs into the ground. A few times she wobbles. Well, no help for it. Muttering under her
breath, "I /liked/ these pants, you hoodlum. I looked /cute/," the attorney swings her arms to catch
up with her adversary. It's actually the van.
One hand sweeps out to seize a traffic pole warning no parking this side of the street (ignored) May
to November for street cleaning. A five foot something girl versus cement? No chance. Seven feet of
irradiated pique? Lady Liberty got a javelin and it's the US Track and Field Championships now. The
green jotun shouts, "DUCK!" and tilts back, flinging the street sign full bore over the crowd's
heads straight for the van to pin it into the cement.
*
The van had been making its escape with a roar of engine and a whir of tires. The pole arcs cleanly
through the air, leading the target nicely only for it to come down with a smooth crunch straight
into the back of it and pinning the vehicle to the ground… though not for long as the momentum of
the vehicle causes that sign to tear the rear assembly all to pieces as a furrow of torn metal is
created by the combination of steel impaling its back and its engine trying to draw it forward.
Eventually it collapses as its axle is split, the engine still revving.
As for Akihiro's claws against the legs of the striding Stilt-Man, the swirling energy around them
cause friction to be almost ignored, a purchase upon the material from which to slice or tear or
punch becomes almost impossible to gain against the legs as the robotic creature strides forward.
It's another two steps, then it sways high upon its legs, reaching a several story high window and
thrusting telescoping arms into it.
*
"Fuck." Akihiro swears once more, regardless of the children around. Like father like son and all
that. His attention turns to the museum itself, if his claws won't work on the legs he'll use them
to scurry up the side of the building instead.
*
Lady Liberty's granddaughter, 1. GM pedo-wagon, 0.
Not one to rest on her proverbial laurels, Jen goes looking for a proper plinth to stand on. Liberty
has one, she wants one. Okay, not the case. Quick strides bound over the sidewalk and over a
cowering pair of teenagers, and at least her pants are mostly stretchy enough to not tear completely
thanks to the power of polyester and spandex. 1959's best contribution to humanity right there. Her
impacts might rattle the nearest people, and she mutters an apology in passing. "I'm so sorry. Stay
down, cover your heads against debris." Whether they listen to the copper statue who moonlights as
an attorney is up to them.
Strategy reverses as she swings around towards the front façade, eye out for anything especially
aerodynamic besides herself. Because when Shulkie is in a grim mood, her all out run becomes
something ludicrous and those impossibly high leaps only possible when a kid doodles them on his
physics homework. Or the meeting minutes for 1971, Mr. Lee. That spring is meant to hit the roofline
of the museum. Or the helmet of Mr. Stilt-Face.
*
Mr. Stilt-Face 'not his real name' is leaning forwards reaching into that top story of the museum,
his robotic arms reaching out with a mechanical whir as he seeks something in particular. So his
helmet isn't easily in line for a leaping giantess, though Akihiro can see him easier form his point
of view as he climbs up the side of the building.
After a moment further passes, once Shulkie has sailed past and landed on the roof, the robotic
being straightens up, now holding an ancient sarcophagus in both hands. There's a crackle and a
whine of feedback as the speakers on the outside of the suit shriek into life.
// Stay back, 'Heroes'. If you strike me I shall destroy the High Pharaoh and deprive the world of
this treasure! //
He lifts the coffin up into the air, seeming to exult in the success of his heist as he then, having
dealt with them, turns around and starts to make his not so speedy escape.
*
Akihiro makes it onto the roof and sighs, giving his head a shake. "Wanna do me a favor and throw me
at him like you did that?" He motions down towards the van. "Figure if you jump after you can catch
that sarcophagus."
*
"You can play nice, Legs, and everyone gets to ooh and aww over your invention *and* the Pharaoh.
You can break that coffin, and I'm getting you charged with theft and malicious intent," Jen replies,
crouching down to avoid having her head taken off by an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus. One can hope
it's the metal inner sarcophagus and not the dense sandstone lid or outer shell, though one can hope
it's the stone one to avoid damage to a papery thin, fragile corpse. "Then I might swat your sorry
backside like your Pa should have for having no respect for other people's possessions." This could
be an idle threat without really any significance, but the attorney has a bigger, angrier, scarier
super-genius cousin who is every bit as green as her. And -he- gets headlines about indiscriminately
destroying contraptions by beating them into submission with their own limbs. Maybe she isn't
bluffing. Certainly she isn't afraid of contemplating beatdowns in a bad mood. "So you feel like
dancing with a nice girl, or spanked in front of -all- these people like a bad boy?"
When she puts it like that, it's not really so hard to choose, is it? Especially because she idly
laces her fingers into a cradle, though it could be assumed she's trying to fix her shoe. Batter up.
*
// Stilt-Man, away! // And with a heavy clomp clomp clomp, the robotic armored man breaks into what
passes for a run, starting to rush across the street as his suit rises even higher as if he were
getting ready to stride right over the buildings on the opposite side of the street.
But in the sudden turn to the side, the twisting gyration of the suit, and the shockwaves it
generates, the inventor perhaps did not plan on the effect this would have on anything he was
holding in his arms. The sarcophagus seems to just slip right out from his robotic arms and is
abruptly dropping down… down down… straight towards the ground as people in the crowd shriek
with alarm.
*
"Aw hell." Akihiro says, backing up slightly as the man starts to run off. "Here goes nothing." he
decides with a soft sigh, running forward to let Jennifer toss him at the wobbly stilt-walker. It's
clear his target isn't the man though, rather catching the coffin and putting himself between it and
the ground.
*
Shulkie has no hesitation about throwing the cussing Asian kid at the fleeing man in armoured flight.
Maybe Jen knows something about Dad. Or she's prejudiced and cannot bear his presence in her
essential American greenness. Yeah, no.
Her arms tense to the minor weight Akihiro presents. She lunges out of the crouch, her corded quads
giving the burst she needs to accelerate him out of the gate like a thoroughbred high on speed with
a rocket-studded saddle. Boosters fire, hurl the Japanese hobbit! That also means flinging herself
off the top of the Museum of Natural History like a swimmer, two steps forward used to flatten her
feet to the façade and spring off.
Smaller physique makes a lower likelihood of breaking stone. Hallelujah. She falls with force, but
gravity is gravity. Either way, Stilt-Man is her target. If there's any grace to body slam him at
the torso, most obvious target, all the better. She coordinates to wrap around him assuming no field
bounces her off like a bad puppy. Presuming she can reach metal, her clawed fingers start tearing
into the plating to hurl it away, ripping apart whatever powers the generators or connects him to
the rest of his suit. She -is- a Banner after all. Wanton destruction are their middle names.
If he bobbles the sarcophagus, far better Akihiro get knocked over catching it at the expense of his
dignity than someone else gets splattered like an overripe tomato stuffed with Chinese firecrackers.
*
The sarcophagus for a moment seems almost out of reach for Akihiro, floating in the sky in that
interminable moment when he's in flight and it is crashing down. But then in the next split second
he's got it, bracing it against him as he and it fall, him turning to get his body in the way and
then…
/WHAM!/ into the ground they hit and it must hurt like hell, but as far as he can tell the coffin
seems intact. Success!
Yet that crashing sound is not alone. The jade giantess hurtles through the air and careens straight
into the middle section of the armored suit, sending the already unstable Stilt-Man reeling, its
armor surface flickering and failing as she begins to shred bits and pieces of it, causing the
'cockpit' of the suit to lash around like some malicious Water Wiggle that eventually slams both her
and him straight into the concrete of the sidewalk, sending bits and pieces of the armor skittering
across the ground as the crowd around them breaks into a run away from ground zero.
*
Mr. Stilt-Man is hauled out from the cockpit of the suit eventually. Before that anyone whom ever
wondered what Laocoon fighting the snake or some Norse god trying to kill Ragnarok would look like
has an excellent view of Jen Walters crushing a wily limb in a hug until it stops trying to beat her
into the ground. That rending snarl of sheer displeasure cuts right into the bones. "This was a nice
shirt!" Cloth tears. One bunched fist punches the metal construct flat into the ground and leaves a
deep groove of her knuckles there. It can smack her into the ground, she barely wears any scratches.
Clothes do, but bruises heal while they watch.
The brief reprieve for the terrible driver comes tearing right back as she seizes him by the scruff.
Then she stands. "That is enough! You… you… RUFFIAN." Eyes flare radioactive green, her jaw
tense and nearly twitching.
*
If this is what success feels like, Akihiro wants no part in it. Blood spews from his mouth and the
teen looks all sorts of broken, clearly flesh and bone don't mix well with stone and concrete. "A
little help?" he wheezes out.
*
That security guard is seen by Akihiro, he's leaning over the young man and he whispers, "Oh god.
You hang on kid, I'll get an ambulance, you hang on!" He says that, fear entering his voice as he
turns and runs off to make the call from the guard post inside the museum. He beats feet as fast as
he can.
As for Stilt-Man he holds his hands up in surrender as the cockpit opens with a hiss. "I give, I
give! Can't blame a guy for trying to make a living, right?"
But already there are sirens in the distance, a myriad of flashing lights can be seen coming down
the street, blue and red glimmers sliding over buildings as they pass by.
*
"As a matter of fact, I -do- blame you for making a living through theft and endangering the public.
Is that the definition of a good job? It makes you sound like a mad dog crossed with a raccoon, or a
rat." Being held out at arm's length, Stilt-Man probably makes a sorry sight. The jade giantess, on
the other hand, clearly seems put out of joint a little. "You can just stay there and explain
yourself to our city's finest. I'm sure they want to ask you a few questions about your upstanding
character." She gives him a cross glare. "Don't you forget you're going to /so/ pay for a new shirt
and pants, buster."
*