ic Raptor Ready (IC)

[trollthumper]

The blast washed over Cannonade like the backdraft from molten iron; his helmet glowed around him, and he could feel his clothes charring. He pushed on through the blast, his eyes shut, seeking escape. Goddamnit, he thought to himself, does every universe have Nazi bastards? Even the dinosaurs have Nazis? Isn't there some little corner of the cosmos that doesn't have genocidal supremacist idiots?

Once the barrage of the flame seemed to have passed, leaving just the cascading wave of heat, Cannonade opened his eyes and began rolling across the floor, trying to put out the flames. As he stood up, he saw a group of children hiding in the corner, trying to avoid the notice of the insane dinosaur.

"Come on, kids," he whispered. "Let's get you out of here. Can any of you tell me where the rear exit is?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Scared as they were, the kids followed the nice hero who'd just been fighting a dinosaur on their behalf (and who'd distracted the little ones first), all of them heading together out of the church and into the big cemetery in the rear where it turned out their families were all waiting for them! Thank yous followed him as he turned back to the fight, from young and old alike in gratitude for the rescue. Luckily, the question, "...do the dinosaurs mean God isn't real?" was asked of the Reverend Stone and not of him as he went back into the action.

[April]

Willow left the marginally safe confines of the church on the heels of the others, the vines wrapped around her arm once again growing and shifting to encase the dryad in her armor. She winced at the blast of heat that shot by lightly scorching her armor but generally missing her though it slammed into the helmeted human. She was caught a moment of indecision but when she noticed the human was still alive she turned her attention to the rampaging abomination.

Willow wasn't sure what she could do against a monster of that size, but she noted how effective the girl's assault had been and so Willow lashed out at the radioactive T-Rex, the vines wrapped around her arms elongating and darting at its face in an attempt to distract it.

[Electra]

Wander landed after her thirty-foot leap, caught herself, and took a moment to assess the situation. The civilians were being taken care of, and there was plenty of backup in place. Now was probably not the time to wonder when it had happened that a thirty-foot-tall Nazi dinosaur rampaging through the middle of a city could be classified as "not that bad" on her list of bad situations. Now was the time to concentrate on stopping the attack. With another leap, she flipped over the dinosaur's left haunch and onto its tail, running up its back like she was running up a hill. When she reached the top, she grabbed her bat by the middle and began seesawing it rapidly, delivering a flurry of punishing blows to the dents that were all the ears the reptile had.

[Avenger Assembled]

The Kaiju gave a great howl as Wander's savage beating drove him face-first into the sidewalk, asphalt and concrete spattering everywhere as the great beast fell. He came under attacks from the raptors while down, the well-drilled team biting and clawing, and by the time the great radioactive monster was on his feet again he was looking decidedly battered, blood running down his flanks and shaking his head to try and clear the brain damage his massive skull had just taken. "<IMPOSSIBLE! I AM THE TYRANT LIZARD FUHRER! I WILL...I WILL CRUSH YOUR EGGS AND DEVOUR YOUR YOUNG! I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA!>" He threw back his head and gave a mighty, if somewhat less-mightier-than-before, roar. "<THE INFERIOR RACES WILL FALL BEFORE THE T-FUHRER!>"

[Gizmo]

Wail's face set in contempt as the massive dinosaur physically shouted his self-aggrandisement. "Inferior races, huh? You wanna roar, sucker?" Taking another massive breath, the earsplitting educator took a heavy step forward. "So let's ROAR!" The new onslaught of sonic force pounded into Kaiju, who had no chance to blunt the attack this time. Wail advanced one step at a time, continuing to pour forth the rumbling bass attack. Even as he kept the shout in a tight column, the pebbles on the street around him bounced up and down, and bits of loose brick fell from nearby buildings. With a final push that burned his super-dense lungs, he sent the T-Fuhrer spiraling into unconsciousness.

[Avenger Assembled]

"<NOOO!>" The great dinosaur roared and bellowed as he failed to match Wail's mighty roar, and indeed the sheer force of the shout hurled him backwards into the empty park across the street, safely away from any nearby civilians as the great dinosaur tumbled down unconscious, his sheer bulk plowing into the soft grassy earth as he landed with a sound like the shattering of the world. The assembled parishioners, not to mention the crowd as a whole, began to cheer! While the humans celebrated, the raptors went into action, charging into the field and making short, vigorous work on the T-Rex; within seconds, they had efficiently slashed their way through the backs of his legs, effectively hamstringing the unconscious uber-predator.

[trollthumper]

Cannonade watched as the velociraptors went to work on the T. rex, acting with deadly precision and teamwork to cripple the beast. At the same time, he couldn't help but feel slightly unnerved by the whole experience. Guy's a bastard, yeah, but he's still a prisoner. And they are kinda maiming him. I mean, they're already putting him to death...

Then he remembered the looks on the children's faces as the dinosaur had rampaged through the church. He remembered the thing exulting in the carnage and threatening to eat them. What the hell am I saying? I'm sorry I didn't get to beat that thing to death with its own tail.

Once the raptors had managed to properly subdue their prisoner, Cannonade stepped forward. "You guys said your ship was embedded in concrete, right?" he asked. "Need any help getting it out?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"<That would be difficult,>" said Runs-With-Claws, looking quite satisfied with the prey the heroes had brought down for her. "<We can discuss that in a moment. But first...>" The raptors went around and made a ritual bow to the heroes, ducking their heads low and scraping their noses against the ground. (It was a gesture of humility, it seemed, particularly since Bloodfang had to be swiped across the face with Runs-With-Claws' tail before she would grudgingly consent to do so.) "<On behalf of the Forever Empire, you have my thanks and our gratitude,>" Runs-With-Claws said to Wander. <"You have helped us destroy the last champion of an old and vicious evil. Younglings will sleep soundly in their beds across the worlds for what you have done. Should you ever need our help, just ask.>" She seemed to assume that the most ferocious female there was the leader.

For her part, Bloodfang was eying Wail. "<With your sonic powers, we may be able to power our zero-drive and take our ship to the Hearthworld after all. Would you consent to using your powers on our engines? I can rig up the required power absorption in just a few moments...>"

[Electra]

Wander nodded, stepping forward to speak since she'd been spoken to and there was no more obviously senior hero around. She could talk to people, she'd had training. Some training, anyway. "We recognize that symbol and that evil from our world as well," she told Runs-With-Claws. "It was our duty to intervene and make sure he wasn't able to hurt anyone, our people or yours. Steer clear of eating any human beings you run across in your travels, and we'll call the debt even, okay?" She wasn't sure she wanted to think of any situation where they'd need to call in a marker from a planet full of velociraptors. She looked over to Wail and shrugged, figuring it was his call whether he could fuel their engines or not.

[Gizmo]

"Putting down a transdimensional bigot?" Wail noted with a snort, dusting off some of the dirt his sonic assault had kicked up onto his clothes. "This is one I woulda done for free even back in the day." He gave Bloodfang a level look over the tops on his sunglasses, though he wasn't entirely sure how well the gesture translated between species. The raptor lieutenant hadn't been the most gracious of the bunch, but the broad-shouldered hero supposed he could appreciate the effort she was making. "Well, like they say, your neighbour's truck brakes down, lend a shoulder getting it out of the ditch. Let's get you on your way."

[Avenger Assembled]

Down below in the church basement, it was easy to see the scene where the giant T-Rex had thrashed around and tunneled out with his radioactive fire-breath: luckily the church stored most of its records in the attic, though the loss of the spare choir outfits was certainly upsetting, the fact that no one had been using the big meeting hall down below had saved a lot of lives. Finding the raptor ship through the seared cinders (the stone foundation had luckily held up just fine) was a little harder until they pointed out the huge round hole in the floor: they had come in and intersected the concrete underground! A few more feet, and they might have been trapped, or their ship might have materialized inside the crowded congregation. Bloodfang went about clearing the mess around the open nacelle, hissing over her duo of men to help her clear away the space for Wail to work. "<Just a minute...>"

[trollthumper]

Cannonade studied the raptor ship, somewhat amazed at what he was seeing. It was embedded -- no, not embedded, that would imply force -- it was within concrete, like someone had emptied out the rest with an ice cream scoop and managed to slip a spaceship in there. Yeesh, no wonder they didn't want me pounding through the concrete, he thought. Given how tightly this thing is trapped, there's a damn good chance I could've busted through it. And if it does stuff like this normally, I'd hate to see what it does when it breaks...

So he was content to help the raptors clear away debris while Wail went to work on the ship. "So, you guys veteran world jumpers?" he asked. "Or whatever they call it in your empire."

[Avenger Assembled]

"<Our empire is...>" Runs-With-Claws hissed at Bloodfang, silencing her lieutenant before she could speak. The commander chose to share those facts herself.

"<Let us not be pulled into questions of politics,>" she said with the gentle firmness of a mother predator, once again talking to the woman there who had taken a leadership role. "<The Forever Empire endures where others have fallen. Where worlds are empty, we fill them with the blood and glory of civilization. When we pass through the Ghost Zone, we will have taken our monster from this world, and you need not worry about our ways any further.>"

Bloodfang kept a close eye on the work, hissing instructions at her slow-moving male subordinates. But even as her leader talked, she murmured a question to Wail. "<This is...this is all your web is, isn't it? Worlds upon worlds of...your kind, roaming free, and not one of us to be found.>" She sounded fascinated and scandalized all at once.

[April]

"The 'blood and glory' of civilization?" Willow repeated, amber eyes narrowing. She paused in her labor, several large pieces of rubble held easily by the thick vines that had sprouted from her armor. "I see the arrogance of animal-sentients travels beyond this world. Tell me true, do you strike a balance with the biosphere of these corpse-worlds or is your 'Forever Empire' always one step shy of drowning in its 'blood and glory'?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Runs-With-Claws gave Willow a look to make a prey animal's blood freeze in its veins: luckily, Willow was neither of those things. "<You are a plant-not-people, yes? Then perhaps you will understand this. The Forever Empire was born in the ashes of a million races, like a seed of food's food after an inferno. Our scientists have found ten thousand empires that came before us on the Hearthworld, each which rose and fell in nuclear, biological, or chemical fires as their rage and hunger overcame their civilization. We have learned to build without the tools, the resources, everything else that they had and used up. We are not like our ancestors. In the earliest days of my nestmother's nestmother, the Empie's greatest scientists found the truth of what we are: a species planted on our world by ancient powers beyond our reckoning. We knew then our destiny: to spread the civilization that we plucked from the ashes of the Hearthworld across the planets of the Ghost Zone, until at last we find the world that hatched our first eggs. Your biospheres are our tools to preserve and use as we wish. Nothing more, and nothing less.>"

[Gizmo]

Wail didn't look much more impressed than Willow as he set down a chunk of concrete roughly the same prodigious size as he himself was and folded his arms across his broad chest. "Sister, I think I made myself clear about that 'not people' talk," he told Runs-With-Claws flatly, his voice echoing in the cavernous hole in the ground. "To paraphrase a popular quote on this world, you act like the folks you run into don't have rights 'cause they're different than you, next thing you know there's nobody to have your back when the Nazi T-Rex comes knocking on your door." Continuing his work clearing the area, he nodded to Bloodfang. "If I follow, then yes; there's plenty of parallel worlds with human populations. Then there's one that's nothing but shrimp. Multiverse is a mother of a teacher of humility."

[Electra]

"Yeah, okay, we should probably try to focus mostly on the task at hand here," Wander interrupted, trying to intervene before an argument broke out that left the spaceship stuck in the church basement. "It doesn't sound like there's a lot of non-dinosaur sentients or plants in the Forever Empire's neighborhood. When's something's scarce and it's life of death, you have to use it. That's sort of the way nature is," she added, looking at Willow. "But around here, there aren't any big sentient reptiles," she told Runs-With-Claws.

"We, humans," she said, waving an arm around, "we're at the top of the food chain here without a lot of pressures or threats. So we have to police ourselves and try not to let happen to us what happened to the people who came before you. You guys are really far from home right now, and we'll try and get you back where you belong. But you owe it to us to show some gratitude and some politeness while we help you."

[trollthumper]

"I gotta agree with her," Cannonade said. "Look, I know you guys are in a rough place. I've got sympathy for you there -- can't imagine it's easy finding out you're alone in the universe. Er, multiverse. But while I can understand you're dealing with some culture shock here, you've gotta understand -- just as you ain't familiar dealing with humans, humans ain't familiar dealing with you. The images most people have of dinosaurs here is either giant ones laying waste to cities or reasonably-sized ones tearing up theme parks in movies. We'll help you out, but you've gotta understand -- the people here aren't used to you guys, and spitting in their face ain't gonna help."

[Avenger Assembled]

"<We are grateful,>" said Runs-With-Claws a little peevishly. "<Did we not show you the backs of our necks, as one does to a trusted equal? Your great powers prevented the escape of one of our most terrible criminals, a threat to the civilization of the Empire and certainly to the lives of millions, both our own and yours. If we were not grateful to you, we would not be speaking so civilly now. I merely wished for you to know who we are and where we come from. I am sure you are all very happy with the civilization that you have. Now let us work together as the equals that we are, so that we can go from this place and trouble you no more.>" It sounded difficult for her to say, but it had the air of a concession.

As she worked alongside Wail, Bloodfang confessed "<You have to understand: when we call you not-people, it is not meant as disrespect. Across a dozen worlds, we have never met anything like us...like you. My mother and I have served the empire for thirty years between us, traveling from world to world in the Zone. There are no other worlds where primates build and think. When we arrived here, we thought we were in some rich nest's playground, like a show for younglings where primates are dressed in clothes and taught to sing and dance, and that your speakers were only some sort of mutant, or disguise.>"

[Gizmo]

Wail paused for a moment to take a deep breath and let it out, an unintentionally intimidating gesture from the big man with the sonic shout. "Fair enough. Shouldn't have put you on the spot for it," he admitted. The passing reference to her mother suddenly underlined Bloodfang's relative youth to him, and though admittedly he had no frame of reference for where the younger raptor was in her lifecycle, he suddenly drew more than a few parallels between the impetuous dinosaur's behaviour and that of his teenage students, and his new tone reflected that. "That kind of talk is a... hot button for me, but no way you and your momma could've known that. Hrn..." Frowning as he heaved a chunk of rubble out of the way, LaMarr considered. "Funny, though, your people going so long without running into anybody else."

[April]

Willow's mind drifted as the raptors spoke of their origins, long buried memories coming to the fore. "I am Guardian Willow," the dryad whispered, only partly hearing the other conversations around her. Her voice was distant, almost mechanical, and her amber eyes had a far off expression. "In the beginning there was the Mandate. Before the destruction of Lemuria, before we cast down Atlantis and scattered its people, there was the Mandate. The creators tasked us to.... preserve the sourceworld. One day the tribes they took would return, they said."

Willow shook her head, shaking herself from her reverie.

[trollthumper]

"...well, yeah, now I really get where you're coming from," Cannonade said. "Like I said, here we either see dinosaurs in movies or if something really weird happens. And even then, they don't speak much beyond the occasional roar. But, yeah, we can definitely help --"

Willow's mind drifted as the raptors spoke of their origins, long buried memories coming to the fore. "I am Guardian Willow," the dryad whispered, only partly hearing the other conversations around her. Her voice was distant, almost mechanical, and her amber eyes had a far off expression. "In the beginning there was the Mandate. Before the destruction of Lemuria, before we cast down Atlantis and scattered its people, there was the Mandate. The creators tasked us to.... preserve the sourceworld. One day the tribes they took would return, they said."

Willow shook her head, shaking herself from her reverie.

Cannonade just stared at Willow, somewhat slack-jawed. "...wait, wait, wait," he said. "You're saying that they come from here? And how the hell do you know about all this?"

[Avenger Assembled]

The raptors made no comment in reply to what Willow had said, though they did shoot several glares her way. From their reaction, it seemed like they thought she was making fun of them: they certainly didn't discuss anything else about their history. Finally Bloodfang and her men were able to get the sonic unit set up for Wail, and a booming bellow from the hard-lunged hero was able to power up the ship below. "<We will take the Kaiju with us when we go>," said Runs-With-Claws, "<everything from our dimension will come with us when we reactivate the Ghost Zone Drive>." She bowed low to the humans, showing the back of her head again, and said, "<On behalf of the Forever Empire, the cause of justice, and my nest and myself, I thank you for the service you have done today. And for all that we have learned about each other.>"

The brash young Bloodfang wound up being the last raptor onto the ship, and she stopped to look at all the heroes in turn. "<Thank you for your help. I owe you my life, and so does my mother. We will be grateful...>" She let out a low hiss, then added, "<But if all your world is like you...don't come looking for the Empire unprepared. I...I have to go.>" And with that, she ducked back through the hole in the floor, and the door beneath rumbled closed, revealing a shiny silver wall like the side of a movie flying saucer. With a shimmering glow, one readily familiar to Wander and anyone else who'd been in the Centurion's Sanctum, the saucer flickered out of existence, the shell of concrete it left behind subsiding slightly as the floor cracked. Dr. Metropolis would have a lot of work to do!