ic Something Fishy (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

Summer 2019 

London 

 

Sea Devil had invited Singularity along on her trip to London, but Jessie had been decidedly uninterested. Aquaria had tried to assure her that her social plans for the trip were only a small part of her agenda, but Jessie had started covering her ears and singing, which is what she did when she really did not want to hear things. So Aquaria had flown out to London in a Freedom League jet, safely ensconced in her armor, so she could tell what she knew about life Below to the heroes who lived on the tiny island where Sgt. Shark made his home. The members of Vanguard hadn't betrayed Shark's trust by telling her where she could find him, of course, but they had been willing to tell her how to contact him. She didn't like the way Surfacers talked on telephones much, but she'd been introduced a few years  earlier to something that conveyed messages but didn't make her feel like she was talking to a ghost. 

 

And so it was, as Aquaria perched by the Thames, safely wrapped in her armor, that Sgt. Shark's phone buzzed with a message. 

IT IS I. THE SEA DEVIL. 

 

[Supercape]

Sgt Shark

 

"Sea Devil?"

 

This was serious. Of all the threats he had faced, none were so utterly terrifying as Sea Devil. He had had some time to plan his strategy, and he had devised a cunning strategem to counter the threat. 

 

That was tactics for you. 

 

He opened the door, dressed in a dressing gown and slippers, a copy of the Times under one arm, and two enormous pink nose plugs, greasy and perfumed, stuck up each nostril. 

 

"Good to see you hear. What brings to to London?" he asked the armoured fiend. 

 

Gods I can even smell her through this...he cursed as his brain started to alight with primal passions. 

[Avenger Assembled]

Aquaria stared at Sgt. Shark, by no means the first female to be thoroughly gobsmacked by a male. Is he...no! She had not traveled all this way to be put off by his strange sense of fashion - or his strange choices. "Hello, Sergeant," she said with a coquettish croaking growl. She hopped close, standing within inches of him, ready to leap backwards if he got too fresh. He really was a magnificent specimen of manly virtues, even if he did insist on wearing clothing. "I came to help your friends. And for you." She inhaled, nostrils flaring, and let out an amused snort as her giant eyes flicked from one side to the other, taking in the rest of the corridor. "You should let me in before those outside know I am here..." 

[Supercape]

Sgt Shark

 

At least she is armour so I dont have to see the horror beneath!

 

....nor smell the full delight of her smell!

 

Curse me!

 

"Freinds?...oh yes, freinds..." he said, trying to focus his brain to the mamallian parts. "Yes, I have friends. Freinds. Freinds I have. Did I say I have friends? I have freinds...

 

He jammed his nostril plugs up tighter and refocssued again. 

 

"Please, ah...come in...." he said. It was a pleasant enough house. The Sergeant was not short of money, although he was not rich either. He had a nice converted shower and bath of huge proportions to wet his skin in, but otherwise it was a fairly unremarkable house. 

 

"I am not sure we need any help right now. But you are welcome. And...what is that you are holding?"

 

Normally he would have smelled the fish a mile away. But he had taken precautions against smelling anything. 

[Avenger Assembled]

Once inside the house, Aquaria stepped out of her armor. It meant a loss in height and bulk, but there was something liberating about it as she stretched her muscles, reaching her free hand back to run her three-fingered hand through the short crest atop her head. Underneath she wore a few straps, and a forest of blue tattoos over her green and white skin, glistening in the interior illumination. "A housewarming present," she said, hefting the fish in her other hand. "It lives still, see?" Sure enough, the big carp she held was still wriggling and twitching feebly. "Shall I cook it, or would you rather..." Here she showed her teeth; not quite as impressive as Sgt. Shark's, but ferocious enough for all that - Deep One teeth being made for rending and grinding flesh as much as tearing off great chunks, in a smile that was seemingly pleasant. "eat?" She offered the fish to him, head-first. 

[Supercape]

GM

 

As it happened, Sgt Shark was more than happy to eat raw fish. It was just that most people didn't share his palate. Certainly not when it came to eating live fish. He quite relished the opportunity to eat it right now, in front of her. 

 

He took the fish in his clawed hand, and bit right into it, tearing off almost a half of it straight away. He felt the flesh, the juices, in his mouth and dribble slightly down his chin. 

 

"Very nice" he said. In his mouth, the flavours swirled up into his nasal cavity, without impediment from his plugs. 

 

"But I think cooking is an idea..."

 

He also enjoyed cooked foods. He was hardly an expert cook, although he was trying to learn. His hyperacute olfactory senses had opened up a whole new world of flavours, herbs, and spices!

[Avenger Assembled]

Aquaria leaped forward and caught the other end of the fish in her mouth. She made play with the remaining half, chewing at it messily and very audibly, until the juices ran down her broad, muzzled face. (Normally she'd just have swallowed it whole, but she'd probably have needed to vomit up the bones afterwards and that sort of thing would probably have put a damper on her plans for the evening.) The maneuver brought the two of them very close together, faces nearly touching. She rumbled low in her throat, a sound that in the open air made a deep throb, then did it again. "A big male like you must eat whenever he likes," she croaked, her intent plain. "Do you want to eat more? Because if you do..." There was, at that moment, the distinct sound of an alarm from somewhere in Sgt. Shark's house... 

[Supercape]

Sgt Shark

 

BIg male? Sgt Shark wondered exactly what Aquaria was thinking. She seemed so impenetrable, so alien, so unknowable. Even if she didn't stink of ecstacy and stop him thinking straight. 

 

The alarm jolted him out of his thoughts. Why now? he pondered in an instant. This can't be coincidence? True, alarms went off, but rarely. And more rare still was a visit from another superweirdo...Superhero...I mean....probably....

 

He gritted his sharp teeth and felt a tingle down his claws. 

 

"Time for eating, and time for...well....seeing what set that alarm off....!" he grunted, eyes black as the ocean depths as adrenaline started to hit his blood stream. He turned and stomped back into his house, to see if he could find out the cause of the breach. 

 

He almost welcomed the distraction. 

[Avenger Assembled]

Aquaria followed Sgt. Shark, feeling rather itchy herself. She was sorely tempted to suggest they ignore the alarm but she knew it was the responsibility of the strong to build up the weak, especially once the alarm turned out to be a general message the city of London's government was broadcasting to registered superheroes in the area. A train had struck something on the tracks of the Cannon Street Railway Bridge and had been partially derailed, injuring dozens of people, and now faced the possibility of falling into the Thames. Only the lateness of the hour (and thus the sparse population in the train) had prevented anyone from dying; and if they didn't move fast, that might change! Aquaria made a deep, sharp noise in the back of her throat and hopped towards her armor, realizing that there was no Freedom League here to roll in and save the day! 

[Supercape]

Sgt Shark

 

Sgt Shark was already tearing off his dressing gown as he read the incoming emergency. His muscles writhed under his grey skin, responding to the flush of catecholamines that came with the crisis. 

 

To action!

 

Wait!

 

He could use some help!

 

"Come on! We have souls to save!" he barked at Aquaria, his tongue licking his mutated lips. 

 

With a mighty leap he was out of the house, and plunging into the tepid waters of the Thames, plowing through river, below the surface, unseen, sleek, and silent!

[Avenger Assembled]

Sgt. Shark responded wordlessly, leaping after Shark and following him into the water, because the sight of his big muscles rippling beneath his rough skin had briefly stolen all the thoughts out of her head. She really wished this disaster had not happened, because now she wanted to mate with him very much, but on the other hand maybe helping him save these Surfacers would get him interested in some friendly play afterwards! 

The scene at the bridge was one of chaos, that much could be determined from the water below. It looked as though one car in the middle of the train, still fastened at its front and back, was dangling partially over the side of the bridge towards the water below, while smoke was rising from somewhere on the surface of the bridge proper. Aquaria frowned inside her armor, wondering exactly what had caused all this. "I can push back the car," offered Aquaria as she rose out of the water, "can you climb?" 

[Supercape]

GM

 

"I can" affirmed Sgt Shark, full of Spartan efficiency with his words. Poetry and war were not strangers, but one did not mull over the best use of iambic metre when was being shot at.

 

He leapt clean out of the water, so fast his swimming that he propelled himself halfway up one of the bridges struts. His iron claws clenched over concrete and steel, and he started rapidly scuttling up.

 

And he ripped out his nose plugs. As dangerous as her scent was, he wanted his full senses. What was burning?

Edited May 17, 2019 by Supercape

[Avenger Assembled]

Sea Devil concentrated on getting the dangling cars back onto the bridge, the engines in her space armor thrumming with force as she lifted and shoved things back where they needed to go. This was rather rough work, she knew, but better to bang the cars up a little than let the Surfacers inside fall down into the river below! Busy as she was, she wasn't in the same position Sgt. Shark was to get a full feel for the scene on the bridge - especially for whatever it was upfront that the front car had hit. There was definitely someone moving around up there - past the rising column of smoke that stank of acrid burning metal and...sulfur?! It was hard to get close, though; he could tell that the frightened people inside the ruined train (those who hadn't already evacuated, anyway) were going to be hard to persuade to move. 

[Supercape]

Sgt Shark

 

Sulfur? Why Sulfur? he couldn't really recall much chemistry. And right now, he didn't have time to. He logged it in his head as something odd, and focussed on the trapped people on the carriage. 

 

"Get out!" he roared, bluntly and with all his teeth and black eyes punctuating the point. He wasn't going to be able to calm them down - and arguably, they shouldn't be calm. His only gambit was to make them more terrified of staying than moving. 

 

"GET OUT I SAY!" he roared again, leaping into the carriage. He tried to tear off one of the doors - sturdy enough for regular use, but of little consequence to his might!

[Avenger Assembled]

Sea Devil watched Sgt. Shark through the windows of the train, wincing just a bit as frightened Surfacers made a hasty retreat down the bridge and away from the armored paragon and the piscine predator. Still, she judged, he has a very manly way about him - and he is certainly getting the job done! There was enough space on the bridge, especially with the pedestrian walkway alongside, that the frightened people inside the cars could make their way out of the cars and off the bridge without too much trouble. Secure inside the anonymity of her space-armor, Aquaria rather enjoyed being the one that the Surfacers weren't doing their level best to flee from. 

 

"Yes, you should go that way!" she croaked, keeping her eye on the odd injury among the passengers. At least everyone was what Jessie called "walking wounded" - the train must not have been going that fast when it hit whatever it was up there that had stopped it so abruptly. 

 

And then, distinctly, she heard a noise - a high-pitched, eerie wailing from the front of the train, an alien sound like she'd never heard before! She thought she heard the sound of a Surfacer shouting something over the sound of the wailing, but the sound of the eerie piping seemed far louder, cutting right though her closed helmet, - as it was plucking the strings of the universe itself. She made a distressed noise, pressing her hands to the sides of her head automatically. 

 

For Sgt. Shark, the sound of pipes from up front wasn't nearly so oppressive - but it was accompanied by an eerie voice that echoed as loud as a cannonball. "Tha thu uile lag! Tha an dam Gearmailteach sin anns an lùchairt an ath rud!"

[Supercape]

Sgt Shark

 

Bagpipes? Who the hell plays Bagpipes at a time like this?

 

Wait...who the hell plays Bagpipes at all?

 

Of course, he was a military man, and the United Kingdom Armed Forces had a little thing for Bagpipes. He didn't. Awful wailing horrible things! And since his transformation, the squaling pitches and wails only assailed his heightened senses even more. 

 

And what was that chant? Damn Gaelic!

 

At least everyone seemed safe, or safe-ish, for now. But what had caused this horror? Surely not the bagpipes?

 

Like a man lost in the woods, blind and disorientated, he started to stumble towards the origin of the sound...

[Avenger Assembled]

Between the armored Deep One and the shark-man, one would think there were enough abominations on the bridge - but there was something else. The being that walked out from behind the front of the train looked like someone had tried to sculpt a man with only an indifferent knowledge of humanity. His chest and arms were swollen to almost grotesque proportions, exaggerating a muscular frame to the point of caricature. He wore only a kilt in a green and yellow pattern that looked distinctly off, and carried an impressive-looking set of bagpipes in his arms. At the sight of Sgt. Shark, the Scot set his feet and said, "Aye, and look at me! Ye didna expect ye'd meet the One True Scotsman, did ye noo?" He blew experimentally on his bagpipes, producing a vigorously offensive sound, "I'm here to knock down that German lass in the Palace and free ma people from her bondage! How lang wull ye persevere wi’ this, Ah’m wonderin’?

[Supercape]

Sgt Shark

 

Woah! This fellow looks like he was drawn for a Kid's Cartoon Show on Saturday Morning!

 

....And in the crazy world, maybe that is his origin!

 

"The One True Scotsman?" gasped Sgt Shark, increduluous. He had met plenty of brave Scotsmans in the Army, and the SBS, and he couldn't see any of them taking kindly to somebody professing to be the only true Scotsman in the world. 

 

"You...do know this is the United Kingdom?" he asked. He was hardly a major in political science, but he did read the newspapers. And not The Sunshine, either. 

 

"Democracy?" he posed. "Constitutional Monarchy? Referendum? Does this mean anything to you?" he asked, honestly rather intrigued.