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Halloween!
It's this crazy holiday, apparently, on Earth in North America and sometimes other places. It had cultural roots steeped in local beliefs and traditions and none of these people were gathered for any of that.
Tonight's about candy loot!
For others this has become about other kinds of loot as well. Some folks are hearing about it on police scanners, or through some manner of official surveillance. Some may have heard the announcement on the radio that Iron Man and his sidekick Robin were seen breaking into a jewelry store. (Seriously is that a miscast, not pay attention to hero groupings, or…?) Tonight there's all manner of people in costumes so it's hard to tell who is who.
What people do see is a Wolfman carrying televisions out of a small downtown department store with someone dressed as Captain America (on a sweatpants wearing laundry day) and someone else inside the building. Oh boy. Looting.
This is Mike's second Halloween on Earth. We don't discuss what happened the first time. This year, however, he seems to have gotten the hang of the costume idea and has thrown a sheet over himself and has cut two eye holes from it, and has attached a cartoon-like bubble to his head that says "Boo" on it made of cardboard and affixed with a headband that seems to sit under the sheet and poke up through it, the weight of the sheet helping to hold it on his head. Beneath, one can see jeans and a pair of running shoes as he walks the streets, haunting them in the cheesiest way possible. But from what he recalls, looting isn't part of the holiday spirit.
Fjorskar shoves her way out of one of the larger grates in an alley, sending a loud CLANG echoing up and down the building walls. It's much too dark among the dumpsters and doorways to see her horned, scaled, feathered, furred shape as she draws close to the street, but there's a sense of something big and dark lurking just outside the lights, watching these sad facsimiles as they do…whatever it is they're doing. Humans stealing from one another perplexes her, especially these odd little trinkets. They don't smell of magic, foul or otherwise. They can't be that valuable.
Namor had no idea the surface world was celebrating some sort of harvest festival, although he's not particularly surprised by it. Humans are festive creatures, silly things, attracted to baubles and pretties and distractions. You know…morons.
Of course, Namor stands out pretty well himself given that he's wearing just his usual green fish-scale briefs and is otherwise bare-skinned, his ocean-conditioned body more than capable of withstanding the autumn weather. He walks down the street amongst the humans, seeing them in their costumes and frowning at the Captain America, "You are not Captain America," he says. Observant.
Elmo's too old for candy loot (and not yet old enough to stop caring that he's too old). Still he's out wandering around, and in lieu of a costume he's dressed up. A shimmering blood-red shirt with a matching cravat and a black-on-black brocade waistcoat are the statement pieces. "Whoa, hey," he says, kind of amused, watching "Captain America" helps himself to a color TV or five. Namor catches his eye because, um, yeah, and he gives him a dubious look. "Nice costume."
Julie is rumbling along through the neighborhood in a Pontiac wagon as she encounters a street, well, in some disorder, pausing at the head of the block a car ahead of her on the street seems to be taking its time about an awkward five-point turn. "Cripes," she observes, pithily. Still wearing some facepaint and a baseball uniform, her costume from an early party, she sighs as she gets out, swinging on a leather jacket with some X-shaped accents. "This probably ain't gonna be cheerful."
Captian Un-America (you know, the looting impostor) looked first to Namor with a confused look behind the mask, noting briefs and pointy ears and, well, the guy had wings on his feet. "No bow and arrow, Cupid?" Looking back into the store he said, "Hurry up before they get here, Mack." He turned to Elmo and said, "Fred, grab this or go help Wolfman. We don't have a lot of time."
A woman dressed on roller skates dressed as Mockingbird tore up the street past Fjorskar and then Julie and almost running into Mike. "Can someone help there's a Spiderman stealing candy from like… another Spiderman! It's a Spider-mess and- oh…" yeah oh indeed. This was a little bigger than middle schoolers being snotty.
Mike Matthews isn't particularly dressed from crime fighting, but he knows well enough that crime fighting finds you. The ghost drifts over toward one of the guys with the TVs and says, "Put them back. This is a holiday for the voluntary distribution of candy, not for the taking of electronic devices." That's what he'd been taught, anyway. "Go celebrate the harvest by harvesting some pumpkins or something." Then he reaches out and takes hold of the television and lifts, one-handed, and both the television and the miscreant holding onto it come up off the ground.
Two familiar faces is enough to bring Fjorskar out of the alley; she's too big to really 'sneak', so she simply walks up along Elmo's right side, claws clicking on the pavement as she goes. The street light gleams off her pearly bronze scales and night-black feathers. She favors Namor with a brief glance, nose working as she sniffs. Her ears cant back at the request for aid with candy theft. Is that more important than the boxes? Less? The not-spirit seems to think the boxes are important.
She tilts her head and glances down at Elmo, fixing him with a glowing yellow eye, waiting to see what he'd like to attack.
Namor approaches the Captain Fauxmerica with a narrowed gaze, "I've never required a bow and arrow, not, in fact, any weapon to deal with miscreants such as you. Stand and deliver, bandit!" he says. He reaches out to snatch the Cap by his questionable garments, rather easily capable of lifting the man over his head and tossing him down the street like the refuse he is.
"Scalawags, cease your thievery!"
"Yeah, sure thing," Elmo says to the Cap, repressing a snicker. Crime fighting? More like crime assisting. He's about to take the TV box from Cap when Mike lifts the box, dude, and all. Elmo slides backwards a few steps, eyebrows up. Namor joins in the do-gooding and Elmo sighs, watching his chance to make off with something evaporate. Then Fjorskar materializes at his side and he flinches with a crackle of electricity. "Jesus! Where the hell'd you come from?" He shakes his head urgently at her, his hair floating with static. "Don't hurt nobody. They ain't doing no harm. Just a little honest shoplifting, yeah?"
Julie is, for her part, sizing up the situation, and takes out a yo-yo, idly playing it up and down as Mike intervenes and a near-naked guy chastises the looters… And then there's Halgrim. She starts idly playing the other hand across a swath just above street level on the buildings, as though remotely feeling for something.
Captain Un-America was about to hand off that TV to the latecomer of their group (Sure Elmo might be mistaken as a rogue member of a street Scooby gang) when, oh hey! off the ground! The not-Avenger looked between Namor confused and the Ghost that hand him in the air a bit in a panic, "We don't want any trouble guy, like Freddie said honest shoplifting!" He paused and said "Why you got candy?"
From the inside of the store there was a rustle from the inside of the store and the Wolfman poked his head out. Uhhh that might… that might not be a costume? Huh! The girl on Roller skates dressed as Mockingbird circled around back to watch wide-eyed. Cap tried to throw the TV to Elmo. It looked the size of a 15" screen so naturally it was heavy as all get out. Elmo might get squished by a box with a cord if that pans out.
The Wolfman yelled into the shop "We got company!" They didn't get too close but called from teh store "Maybe put em down and no one gets hurt?"
|ROLL| Halgrim +rolls 1d20 for: 7
|ROLL| Elmo +rolls 1d20 for: 7
The ghost just holds the television suspended in the air with the guy dangling from it. He could let go at any point in time — the guy holding onto the TV, but perhaps he's just too distracted to do so. Mike continues to hold it, suspended in the air, and turns to look at Elmo and Namor. "Shoplifting is a criminal activity, even if done honestly. While it's certainly polite to be honest about it, it's still not a good idea." He gives the TV a little shake, to perhaps shake the dude loose.
Namor isn't that particularly concerned about the legal aspects of it, per se. He isn't subject to human laws at any rate (or, at least, he does not acknowledge their authority). That said, greed and pettiness were some of the worst flaws of the human condition and he saw no reason to reward them.
At the wolfman's veiled threat, he snorts, "As if you could hurt the Scion of the Seas! Do your worst, you mangy cur!"
Fjorskar grunts at Elmo. No sense of his surroundings, too easily startled. She needs to teach him to listen more. And then there's one of the large boxes, being thrown *at* Elmoto him, really, but from her perspective it's all the sameexcept it stops, midair, before she can knock it aside with her horns. She tilts her head at the sheet-spirit, curious.
Wolfman's appearance inside the store draws her attention. She bears her teeth, flattens her ears, and snarls. It's a sound like a muscle car at the starting line, bypassing the ears and going straight to the gut. If it's a costume, it's the best one ever made, complete with a sound system out of the far flung future.
Elmo's eyes go wide with alarm, hands coming up, when the robber tries to throw him the TV. It just hovers in place and, relieved, he expresses his tension in yelling. "Schmuck, do I look like I can catch a fershtunken 15 inch TV!" He rolls his eyes at Mike. "Superheroes," he mutters, and it's not complimentary.
Wolfman gets his attention, too, and he narrows his eyes at him. "Ain't nobody gettin' hurt. You got that? My buddy here—" he jerks a thumb at Fjorskar, "says so. You wanna argue? Take it up with her."
Julie just seems to saunter on up, slipping on some black-edged yellow eyeshields as she continues with the …shiny, metallic, yoyo, patiently bobbing up and down. It's not exactly intimidating, still wearing face-painted nose and what might have been whiskers… Bats got whiskers, right? She was dressed as a 'Baseball Bat' earlier, of course. She does speak up, her accent, local and Italian-tinged. "Awright, kids, friends, and monsters, fun's fun, but this here's someone's livelihood you's playing around with. Howsabout everybody goes and has a drink before the cawps I passed a few blocks back show up?" And just like that, an alarm bell up somewhere on a building starts ringing.
The wolfman looked to Namor and held both hands out and said to Mike and Namor, "No! I mean don't hurt Chuck! uh Cap!" The wolfman winced, "Sorry Chuck!"
The dangling Cap in Mike's mighty grip pointed to Elmo bickering back, "I thought you had it, Freddie! Yeah go get the Black Cat and tell her- GOD!" Okay he didn't plan on the bird creature being there. "Dammit Mitch you didn't tell me you were bringing the neighbours warn me!" Apparently this was part of a larger situation.
Notably a call from the neighboring rooftop from a woman dressed like Black Cat (might have been, who really knows on Halloween). "Wolfman they're not WITH us, get the van!"
Mike Matthews physically separates Cap from the TV and puts him down, and puts the TV back where he got it. Since Earth is effectively his home now, he feels compelled to protect its citizenry. That's what he and Johnny had been out doing all those patrols for, anyway. It gave him some purpose. "I'd suggest that you all move on, like the lady says, to continue your festivities elsewhere."
Namor seems almost disappointed. It seems that none of these miscreants were particularly up for a bit of sport. Thrashing a few air-breathers might have been cathartic after being in Atlantis for the last few months. Things there can be so very formal. Still, he doesn't make any aggressive action, if only because none of them have insulted him and raised his legendary temper.
Fjorskar's feathers flare out at the back and forth yelling, and her snarling drops a level; the humans are panicking now, so her point has been adequately made. Now to see if any of them try to run before…well, whatever Elmo and the others plan to do with them. Maybe they'll just chase them away, so that they know not to threaten this stash of boxes.
Elmo flinches again as the alarm goes off, covering his ears instinctively. "Diz!" he complains, shoulders hunching up, back going tight. He points an elbow at Cap. "Youse guys get outta here before the heat shows up." Glancing up at Fjorskar, he adds, "You too. Let's go." But first, he gives Namor an annoyed look, and tells him, "Put some clothes on, for cryin' out loud!"
Julie tsks, to Elmo, "Come on, Plug, you know what small business is like, now, don'tcha?" She yells, "Awright, kids, last chance to clear out, and you better believe we's gonna be watching, or, well, this monster anyway, so go do something honest witcha lives tonight."
Cap's fingers drift off the - wait! noooo! Aww TV come back. Cap looked at the man not breaking a sweat and the bold fishman in the scaley speedo with- this was no time to figure out how any adult got their eyebrows so well manicured. His hands fell down to his sides and he looked to the Wolfman and said "Just get the truck."
Wolfman was eyeing the bird creature carefully and looked to 'Freddie' who they still haven't figured out was part of the fringe group of thieves - and for that matter might just well be. "Right, meet back at the rally point, Fred!" And with that ran back into the store to head through it and out the back! To the getaway van and away from ACTUAL hero-ish types not part of the heist!
Mike Matthews watches Cap and the others, standing right where he is, arms folded under his sheet, not quite looking as impressive as one might think, and yet, that sheet did just lift a man and a television together without blinking. But once the perpetrators begin to flee, the ghost turns to look at the others and says cheerfully, "Happy All Hallows Eve to all!" And then he continues on wandering down the street in the direction from whence he came.
Fjorskar's gleaming yellow eyes track the thieves as they begin to depart. She cants on ear towards Elmo, curious as to his complaint. Probably the incessant ringing inside the building is bothering him; she's not a fan herself. She huffs a breath, steps forward to sniff at the now-exposed display of TVs. She can't help it, the raven in her is curious.