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.~{:--------------:}~.
New York University bubbles away at the hour when all the afternoon classes let out and no one really thinks about vanishing into the Greenwich Village rock halls, jazz clubs, and bordell… bars. Sun shines bright, autumn forgets it's not really summer, and the main library absolutely burns and seethes with activity as the student body, undergrad and grad, tuck into their various studies and projects. Diligent researchers dig into fat books and a huge card catalog under the watchful eye of a flotilla of junior librarians. Heavy, dusty tomes litter return carts yet to be processed. The hush is surreal in part thanks to a lot of sshhhhhs and sibilant reminders if anyone gets too rowdy. And if they sneak in a bottle of Coca-Cola, they're tossed out on their ear none too kindly.
A pretty normal afternoon here, really. Desks are occupied, tables strung with students. Lines snake around the reference desk and the stacks shiver with giggles.
It makes no sense that a shadow disgorges five people in a tight formation, one of them holding a shield before him. They fan out with precision as much as the aisles allow, two in one, three in the other. A girl in a hideous orange sweater jumps and drops her book, gasping. "Where did you come from?"
The book is thin and small, red letters stamped on a maroon cover. Beside the shield-bearing soldier, a slim woman in glittering silver and black kneels to pick it up with the tips of her gloved fingers, rather like it's a poisonous snake. «A banned book. It is as we thought. A vile place.»
The helmed man in the front nods. A simmering, shattering bolt of lightning roars down the aisle and blows not only books galore ahead of them, but at least four patrons. A window smashes. No mistaking the ozone scent. Its source, a very broad-shouldered brute of a man with wildly long hair scratches his chin, and bellows in accented English, "Reich-troopers… avenge!"
Sitting at one of the reference desks is one Kamala Khan. She has a large book in front of her that's open as she's doing research. What's she researching?
Well, honestly, it's the Strange Tales! comic book that she has opened within that she's reading about the World War version of Human Torch and Swamp Man doing battle.
The young woman glances up as she hears the announcement of Reich troopers attacking and blinks. "Uh, guys, that's a pretty lame LARP.." she starts to say. "..I mean, why would you want to be the Nazis?" she asks, then stares a little more as she gets a better look at their costumes. "Okay, not a LARP, not a LARP!" With that? Kamala is scurrying off the little Ladies room because it's impolite to change into your hero duds out in the open, even if you can morph into them.
Pietro Maximoff had been in the process of returning a few tomes on behalf of his sister. Strange's Sanctum had every imaginable tome in regard to magic and the occult, but didn't have anything particularly useful on the subject of botany. The white-haired mutant had been leaning against the desk, bored enough to flirt with the dark-haired coed behind the counter, "I assure you, it's entirely natural," he's in the process of saying.
When suddenly the bad guys start to show up and his attention is jerked up, making him narrow his eyes in confusion and anger. Nazis. He was not very fond of Nazis, to say the least. If 'burning unending violent hatred' counts as 'not fond'.
Maximus is coming out of the restricted section WITH a book, which is unusual. Pulled from its glass case and now residing in a clear, plastic bag in his hand, he definitely should NOT be taking the MythAnu Tela-kee, a supposed antique 'hoax' book, that is actually written in Kree with annotations in ancient Vietnamese. He's with Karnak and looking proud as a peacock in his 'teenager clothes', apparently trying to play 19 when he's well into his 20s. The movies do it. Why not. He smiles over at Karnak and Kamala, "I told you we would get the book.With my help anything is poss-OH BY THE KREE, they are after it!" Convinced that the attack squad is here to thwart him, he instinctually takes a step back and behind Karnak.
|ROLL| Karnak +rolls 1d20 for: 1
|ROLL| Rogue +rolls 1d6 for: 6
|ROLL| Rogue +rolls 1d20 for: 11
In the atrium, many an ignorant person goes about their day right up until glass and metal rain down from the primary third floor access. A few body parts might join that too.
The emergence of five clearly uniquely attired individuals from the stacks into the main area produces a single, uniform response from the students. Mass hysteria. Books are abandoned. Chairs screech back. Several girls go into immediate hysterics worthy of angry toddlers, screaming, shaking, praying "John save me!" and "Paul, Paul, take me now!"
With only two visible exits, stairs to either side, the stampede begins before the advancing wave: Oxford Comma, clad in red and black, at the front with a shield steady on his arm. The very hairy fellow in dire need of an elastic follows behind, unslinging an axe from his back. Aquila tosses aside the book, sneering unimpressed at the volumes around her. "A temple to profanity. The Communist Manifesto? Filth."
Out the other aisle, two men advance. One's clad head to toe in glistening metal and the other in a tuxedo with a full cape. He pulls off his tophat and scowls at everyone around. "This is not a party, Iron Cross. You said there'd be /red-lining/." He grabs one of the roses from his boutonniere and hurls it angrily into the masses. Hope Maximus is paying attention; otherwise, he's got a rose in his hair.
|ROLL| Maximus +rolls 1d20 for: 4
|ROLL| Kamala +rolls 1d20 for: 7
Once in the bathroom, Kamala squeezed out through the window and circled around. This is so.. weird. Coming in through the doors, there's a pose, and a figure in blue and red and gold! Oh! Oh! She should make a dramatic entrance, right? Oh! Perfect one! She snaps her hand out and makes it larger.
"Hey, hey, you don't have reservations here… this library is…"
Wait for it.. because that's when Kamala throws a wicked stretchy super punch, aimed directly at smashing into Oxford Comma and knocning him over.
"…completely booked!"
|ROLL| Pietro Maximoff +rolls 1d20 for: 9
Pietro Maximoff moves in the blink of an eye, quite literally, travelilng the distance across the library before an eyelid could make its full journey. He focuses on the lightning wielder, anticipating him to be perhaps the most dangerous and wanting to take him out of the fray as quickly as possible.
Rather than strike him, Pietro aims to grab him by the collar, planning to yank him in his wake and, if possible, fling him right out the window. Defnestrating Nazis can be fun.
Maximus gets a rose stuck in his hair and makes a gasping sort of sound. He reaches up to his hair and pulls out the flower and then GLARES at Karnak. "I could have been fatally wounded! Do…your…kicky things!" Max flails his arms, book still in hand. He runs down one of the aisles and shoves some books off the shelf so that he can peek, observing, not wanting to give away his skills until he knows the best one of these villains to control. Eiinie, meeenie, miiiney…AXE. He goes for scraggly-haired axe guy! DooooDOOODOOODoooooo Mind powers activate.
|ROLL| Maximus +rolls 1d20 for: 17
Karnak glances over at Maximus, then says drily, "I would never be so fortunate." Seeing the shield-bearing soldier, she decides to go for that one, even though she's wearing something more appropriate for an associate professor than the Shatterer. But Maximus said it was to be incognito, so Karnak is wearing a simple white blouse and long green skirt. In any case, she moves gracefully towards the shield-bearer, looking to punch clear through his shield. Unless it was some weird unbreakable alloy…
But what are the odds of that?
Kamala will have a difficult time making a fully dramatic entrance through the door that several dozen people are trampling one anotheer to get to. It's a tight fit, even for someone malleable as her. Oxford Comma falls into a defensive stance, anticipating trouble from the wave of heroes inexplicably supporting the travesty of the library. "Follow the order!" he shouts, and flings his shield up to intercept that big fist attached to a disproportionate arm. It forces him back and shoves him into the nearest bookshelf at arm's length away. He goes right through it, rolling backwards as he goes. Cue a fling of the shield that rebounds off the ceiling cause Nazi occult powers, and goes sailing at Maximus.
Right in time for Pietro to blur into existence in front of Perun. The frowning Teuton giant isn't exactly easy to pull along. He's enormous, as that big fist closing onto the Transian's shirt might show. The man's a mountain who could crush skulls barehanded. They're going out that window together. "What's this? You want me to turn your colon into a semi-colo-" And he abruptly goes silent. Even if that means he and Pietro are out the window together; that's really up to Max. Meanwhile…
|ROLL| Kamala +rolls 1d20 for: 9
Aquila flicks her arms to the sides, glittering silvery claws on every fingers. She bounds right up to the top of the stacks, springing out across the aisles. Like her namesake? She flies. Unlike her namesake, she's throwing molotovs the size of marbles that catch fast. Fire and a mob!
"This is a problem. Engage," Iron Cross hisses to the rose flinger. Easy: he holds up his hand, and repulsor beams form a brilliant green surge aimed at Karnak. Zing!
Ritter twirls another rose around. "Blah blah blah, corruption, blah." He yelps at the large arm, and then throws his cloaked arm high… and vanishes in a puff of white-silver smoke.
|ROLL| Karnak +rolls 1d20 for: 17
Kamala barely manages to squeeze through the door and is using one embiggened hand as a guide for those fleeing the library and to shield them from the attackers. "Make sure that you have stay orderly and check out any research materials that you take with you!" she calls out, as her hand reaches to grab the shield, and her large hand closes it. "Let's play frisb—OW!" she yells in pain - true pain as the shield starts to drag her, ripping into her flesh and pulling her arm further out of proportion as she releases the weapon finally and lets it go. She stares at her hand. That really really hurt. Noone told her that heroing is gonna hurt like that!
But then there's the fire starter. She's looking around, trying to figure out what to do as she tries to shake all the pain out of her hand, but once it returns to it's normal human state - it's healed.
"Whoa."
Pietro Maximoff doesn't like having strange hands on him, jerking himself just short of the window, "I bought this shirt in Milan, you swine!" he snarls. Anticipating that simply removing his hands might be problematic, Pietro plays dirty and just casually drives his thumbs at Perun's eyes, about a dozen times in rapid succession, a machine-gun jabbing that probably hurts like hell if he succeeds and, if the guy does let go, Pietro will follow it up with a swift kick to the solar plexus to launch him through the window properly.
|ROLL| Pietro Maximoff +rolls 1d20 for: 16
One rock broke the window. A much bigger rock breaks the windows, trailing a cometary trail of bright blue light.
|ROLL| Maximus +rolls 1d20 for: 8
Well poop. Maximus eloquently thinks. There goes his big, beefy, muscle man. He was alllll up in that mind. But he's not going to stop the speed demon from blurring the guy into a trip out the window. Down down…UGH…now he has to mind control the big asshole into jogging up the stairs. Where were they again? If Perun goes unconscious, at the fall, then he won't have a mind to work with, otherwise, he begins that long haul with his prize back to the action. Its not the only thing Max has to deal with though, because about then is when the shield comes crashing in on him and Karnak can get the satisfaction of seeing the former King plowed into the nearest bookshelf, volumes toppling down on such subjects as 'The use of Irony in Modern Poetry', 'How to Change a Person's Mind' and 'The Symbology of Shields'. Twup thwup thuwp thuwp, books tumble down all over him and he makes a soft groaning sound.
|ROLL| Karnak +rolls 1d20 for: 7
Karnak nimbly flips over the repulsor blast, then lands on her feet in front of Iron Cross, "Shiiiiiiit, man. You be messin' wif mah cousin cracka, gonna be runnin' cold upside down your head, yaknow!" With that, she punches into the Iron Cross's armor. While it doesn't seem to do much… instead of a broken hand there's a sharp *CLANG* as Karnak might not have hit the weak point of these Nazis.
At least, not with her fists…
|ROLL| Rogue +rolls 1d10 for: 3
|ROLL| Rogue +rolls 1d4 for: 1
|ROLL| Rogue +rolls 1d4 for: 2
|ROLL| Pietro Maximoff +rolls 1d20 for: 14
|ROLL| Kamala +rolls 1d20 for: 14
"Typical shoddy American grammatical workmanship. Such incompetence would not be tolerated in Deutschland." Iron Cross shows nothing but contempt for the wanton blitz out the window and shelves. He adjusts, a row of discs erupting along the front of the armour coated to his form. Bursts form off his shoulders, releasing a circle of six missiles no larger than darts. They go in a ringing circle, and chase Karnak.
Aquila screeches in disgust, and keeps hurling more of those flaming cocktails. Hard to see her location, but the screaming mob trying still to leave gives cover.
"NEIN! You foul swine with your disgraceful ways. This is how you lost!" snaps Oxford Comma, snatching his shield up and punching the nearest column into plaster fragments. The roof slants. Good for Kamala she isn't plowed over by the bookcase knocked aside. Bad aim! Is Jive /working/? It COULD be!
Except for fancy pants McGee sitting in the middle of the sky. Or an adjacent light pole because why are they outside the library? "You know where I belong, punk? I belong with the decent and innocent folk, who can't find a moment's peace. Not in the streets, not in their own schools — so long as punks like you terrorize them. I belong with the linguistically persecuted. Now who's got the power, you stinking tube of dangling participles? And how's it feel to play victim of word crimes for a change?" If only.
Why is Karnak talking so funny? Is this supposed to be a thing? Kamala looks confused for a moment before she eeps at the collapsing pillar and bookshelf and starts to stretch out in all types of different directions, bending in ways that she didn't think was possible. As she does so, she considers, and adds to Karnak's assauly. "'ey 'ey, 'm walkin' 'eah." she puts on a thick Jerse accent, as she suddenly shouts, "Embiggen!" Because that's totally a word as she grows to much much taller and supports the roof in the pillars place. In the meantime, she uses her oversized foot to start stomping out fires. "Ain't sure how long I can hold this, guys!"
Satisfied that kicking people through windows is both pleasing to his sense of justice and fairly effective, Pietro decides to intervene with some of the others. In this case, he tries to track down the cackling source of those flames, darting around the library and, if he does track her down, beginning to simply pelt her with books, one at a time, rapid-fire flinging of tome after tome. Yes, it's disrespectful to the books, but the library simply isn't equipped with a wide range of weaponry.
"Ow!" Aquila shouts in German. Her claws make pretty damn short work of one book, though she doesn't work at Pietro speeds. The ones she can catch are deflected or sliced straight through. Maybe it's kind of fun for someone who hates the library enough to burn it down.
|ROLL| Karnak +rolls 1d20 for: 8
"How DARE you besmirch the tradition of monologuing with that complete nonsense!" Maximus shouts in a dramatic and sudden push of the books off himself. He has to step out of the pile, and then he wanders so that he can be in line of sight. "Throughout history, those who destroy knowledge are known as barbarians and tyrants, /heathens/, spoken about with disgust and contempt. Whatever history you believe in, it is not ours, oh no," Maximus widens his eyes, his smile growing manic. "Ours is the history that has ridden in on a white elephant!" He spreads his hands and pretty much ceases to make any sense, but his tone and the power of the delivery all aim to 'sell' the madness. He probably had someone 'cutting the mic' on him when he was delivering speeches as King, "Glorious, triumphant, /literative/…survives in all its pathetic, smelling trashiness, from the puked up garbage that people call music, to the absolute waste of space that is the Magazine. I am /offended/ by the pure and utter waste of paper. But among these flaming fecal remnants are the jewels of creativity…and also many stories about squirrels, which I find adorable. YOU SIR, are the overdue book in a world that has decided to reject any decent standard. TRA-LA-LE!" Upon the last of his own monologue, Perun bursts back on the scene and rushes at Oxford Comma with his huge axe while Max stands there with his arms wide.
Karnak smiles a bit, "Yo fool! Can you dig it!" And then she's off, dodging nimbly around to lead the missiles on a merry chase as they stay locked onto her. Thanks to the carnage and the stacks and everything else, she vanishes from Iron Cross's sight…
Only to leap over him as she shouts, "Knock a self a pro, Slick! That gray matter perform us DOWN, I take TCB-in' man!" Which coincides with four of the missiles hitting the back of the Iron Cross… sadly, the other two missiles adjust for Karnak's leap and hit her, sending her flying backwards down the aisle.
Ritter already /being/ batshit insane is not helpful. "A fellow seeker of diamonds among dross? The profane attempts at literature regurgitated from the poisoned pens of these serfs who ought to have been sent to the work camps to achieve something remotely useful for the father-lalalalala-land constitute nothing apparently worthy, worthwhile, or whirlagig fuckadoodle worth it. Noxious as a pink Romani playwright!" He curtly snaps his cloak again, a matador daring a bull, and flashes out of sight. Teleportation takes him places, like the eleventh floor balcony. Preening there, he vanishes again in a puff of white smoke, largely to avoid a stray missile. "ROMMEL! What is wrong with your DEE-VI-SAYS?!"
Weeeell, it's called attack by what the doggerel is that, and Karnak is upsetting his manifold systems with incomprehensible junk that doesn't help. Iron Cross fires another blast at Karnak, just about the time his own slam into him. Boom! He's sent flying off into a pile of books past Kamala.
Perun simply detonates. The axe on Comma's shield is good and all, but throwing lightning into the mix goes with a contest of strength on the scale of a green physicist monster. Oxford Comma shouts, bloody and infuriated, turning his shield in that direction. "Heil grammar, you oaf! I knew we should never have trusted lebensraum!"
Pietro Maximoff can see that she's slicing through most of the projectiles he sends her way, which means it's probably time to up the ante. Which, in this case, means actually going smaller, not larger.
Instead of books, now she's got try to slice pens out of the air, each of them flung with surprising velocity as he throws the pointy things right at her face, hoping she's distracted enough that he can run in close anough to give her a solid right cross. Here's hoping.
Aquila takes a wiser course. She jumps down and retreats back from Pietro. Shouting in protest, she's not thrilled about that big pen hurtling for her arm, leg, and where is your damn vibranium suit now, Hitler Eagle? Pietro smacks her good, though there are definitely claws to be wary of.
Maximus has lost his meathead to an explosion. Awww. And the other guy is still monologuing at him. Though the masses are screaming and fleeing, Max staggers nearer to the window where he can see Ritter and clings to the side of it, not in any of the broken glass bits, so he doesn't cut his hands. "What are you /really/?" And instead of reaching out for the caped-man's mind, he stretches his influence to the innocent citizens, seeing if any of them are packin' a weapon with little nudges to brandish their 'weapons'.
Sadly for Max, all the fleeing students left behind their abundance of books, but he does find one biology student with ketchup packets, and another education major with a pocket proteector! So exciting. Someone else has a drumstick of the wood part, rather than chicken sort.
Pietro Maximoff figures the head of the snake is the easiest way to get rid of the serpent. And Maximus is certainly doing a very good job of holding the other lunatic's attention. So he goes after cross, figuring he'll take him in the back and run him down. He's not ashamed to hit him from behind or, if he takes him out, kick him when he's down. They're Nazis. They're made for kicking.
Maximus sighs when none of them turn up a gun or something useful. Dammit, no cowboys. FINE. A king's work is never done. He launches out an assault on Ritter that is not mind control. Its mind obliteration. He'll get it back, eventually, but if he's able to get through that smokescreen of evil, then he can make him forget an entire branch of literary device- who, what, why, when, where and also how.
Karnak picks herself up, then takes advantage of Ritter being distracted by the mental assault from Maximus to sneak up on Ritter. Then she says, "Know ain't gonna lay no mo' big rap on you, man!" Then she jams her fingers into his temple. Not a lethal strike, but wanting to knock this sucka out.
It's unfortunate for Pietro he has to shimmy up a lightpole. Anyone seeing this will deduct points from his cool factor. Be bitter, man, it's fine. Ritter just rolls his eyes until kicked by nothing. Something. "Your hair is ugly. /Foul/." Right, easy to say with a bloody mouth.
But still. Maximus grabbing hold of that mind is bound to find a disconcerting mirror of complete, total madness. Psychotic breaks enough to be a sanatorium, the funhouse mirror effect is slippery and upsetting. It's like pulverising a Peep. His efforts seem to work but do they really? Is Ritter just going to rise up, misshapen and laughing about Max's teeny-weeny syntax errors? He might. He just might.
A lethal strike Karnak doesn't give, but it's enough to knock the teleporter over.
But Oxford Comma, where did /he/ go? Him and his shield? No one shall know until the rise of the Grammar Nazis: This Subtitle Will Shock and Awe!