ic Molehills

[Fox]

Tiamat made a pleased-sounding (and suspiciously rumbling) noise in the back of her throat at the heat of their new surroundings, but Gaian Knight lacked her fiery fortitude; after sealing off the already-closing tunnel with the remains of his platform, the geokinetic hero pulled off his coat and folded it over one arm. "I don't imagine bursting into someone's bedroom would make a very good impression, no," he chuckled in agreement, following after Shield. "I imagine we want to be a little more 'foreign diplomat' and a little less 'alien home invaders'. Besides, a good walk never hurt anybody."

[Avenger Assembled]

Frost pulled back his hood and smiled down at the river of lava with real pleasure, his eyes a faint but visible red in the underground shadows. "<Delightful>," he said with a sharp smile before turning back to the others, looking visibly relaxed as he took in the comforting heat. "I should retire and enjoy lovely underground scenery of fine Igneous city some night. Truly it is delightful place; like Muspell but with more pleasant company." He winked up at Canadian Shield and went on. "Much better to arrive in strange place with invitation. Makes relationships with local inhabitants so much more...delightful." It was warm enough, at least by his lights, for Frost to actually remove his gloves as he went, and the sensation of distant lava and compressed earth around him had him positively animated. 

[Electra]

Fleur seemed less than entirely pleased about the underground hike, and any enthusiasm she did have was further dampened by Comrade Frost's red eyes and creepy vocal stylings. Still, the job was the job, and it wouldn't do to wimp out in front of her teammates, much less their Canadian counterparts. Tucking her hands into the pockets of her coat, she kept very close to the not-lava side of the ledge and followed Shield towards the distant city. "Do you think we'll have a chance to talk with people in the city, find out what the general climate is like?" she asked as they walked. "I'd imagine we won't fit in very well, and an isolated society like this may be reluctant to talk to strangers. Maybe there are other ways... is there a newspaper or magazines, anything like that here?" 

[Gizmo]

Hanging slightly toward the back of the group while Canadian Shield led the way, Bombardier spoke to Wendy Go in a hushed voice, "Might want to suit up, fille." The armored hero had set down on the rocky ledge, content to conserve power and walk normally for the time being.
 
"Er, no, I don't-- I mean, I'll wait until I need to," the young woman quickly replied, looking a little distraught for a moment before schooling her features. "Not the best weather for fur anyway, right?" She made a weak attempt at a smile to go with the weak attempt at a joke but her senior teammate gave her a clap on the back as though she'd delivered a worthy punchline and let the issue drop with a brief nod.

Combs herself ignored Frost's sly suggestions in favour of giving Gaian Knight's work closing up their tunnel an appreciative look and murmur before turning to Fleur. "Not a lot of paper down here," she pointed on, a note of wryness in her honeyed drawl. A faint frown crossed her face as she looked down at the florakinetic. "Not many plants, period. Is that an issue for you?"
 
Up ahead the ledge widened as it led into another, larger cavern and as the heroes neared they could make out a massive archway shaped into the stone. Even from a distance the craftsmanship was obvious and the angular design striking. The sheer scale was the biggest shock, however; one of Freedom City's smaller office buildings could have easily slid beneath the arc of the entrance. Before they could take time to admire it, however, the stone under their feet shuddered and the unmistakeable shouts of a fight rang out, echoing along with sounds of rocky collisions. "Hurry!" Canadian Shield barked before sprinting off in the direction of the cacophony.

[Fox]

By the end of Bombardier and Wendy Go's conversation Tiamat was rather unabashedly eavesdropping, one crimson eye sizing the young woman up as they walked. She slowed her pace a bit to fall closer in line with the girl, waiting for Gaian Knight's attention to be elsewhere before opening her mouth to say--

... the stone under their feet shuddered and the unmistakable shouts of a fight rang out, echoing along with sounds of rocky collisions.

Gaian Knight took off toward the arch on Canadian Shield's heels, Tiamat not far behind (and muttering something that was not in English but was quite clearly impolite). "I suppose I should have been paying more attention to possible signs of problems and less attention to the scenery," he admitted, one hand on his sword to keep it steady as they dashed toward the city. "So much for slow to violence, I suppose - either something has set the people off or this has been building a lot faster than we expected."

[Avenger Assembled]

"If struggle comes, I hope it is in very depths of the molten rock, yesss. It will be delightful." At the sound of combat, Frost dropped the act like an old hat - when there was a crisis, Comrade Frost was on in an instant, his body erupting into icy fog as he tumbled down the tunnel after the others. "Experience has proved that, on certain very important questions of the proletarian revolution, all countries will inevitably have to do what Russia has done." He snorted. "Let us hope that things have not gone quite so far as that, however..." Experience with living in a revolutionary society hadn't convinced Comrade Frost to embrace the institution - just the opposite, in fact. He continued, awfully chatty for a red-eyed cloud of white mist, making sure to keep his distance both from Fleur de Joie and Tiamat as they ran. "Suggest we concentrate on separating combatants first, deciding the guilty second." 

[Electra]

Fleur shrugged at Canadian Shield's question about plants underground. "It's a little uncomfortable, and it impedes my teleport, but it's not a big deal. I brought what I need with me." She gestured to the pouch full of seeds at her belt. "Lack of sunlight is more of a problem, but we're just visiting..."

 

Her voice trailed off as the noise ramped up. "That doesn't sound good." She broke into a jog, then a run to attempt to keep up with her faster colleagues. "Definitely missing the teleport now," she gasped under her breath. 

[Gizmo]

The group quickly covered the distance, spreading out some as the faster among them outpaced the slower. The massive archway turned out to be perhaps a dozen meters long before opening up into a cavern so large it was difficult for those with less subterranean experience to mentally interpret it as anything other than an open area. Down a steep incline, the city itself spread out before them, lit up from within in warm hues ranging from blistering red to soothing yellow while impossibly luminous mosses etched blue-green ribbons and pools of light across the rocky canopy. The multitude of light sources picked out tremendous structures of the same angular style as the archway itself, layered in size and shape as much as any surface metropolis.
 
The attention of the heroes was more immediately seized by the ten or so locals hurling punches, weapons and boulders at each other just inside the connecting tunnel. For those seeing the Igneous for the first time, it became clear just how heavily Canadian Shield favoured her father's side. The smallest of the lot was easily eight feet tall and five or more feet wide at the shoulder. Every one was powerfully built with a posture that would have been considered hunching among humans, with prominent rocky scales jutting out across scalps, down backs and about joints. They ranged from light sandstone to blue-grey onyx and the clothing on both sides ranged from heavy aprons to ornate, gemstone ornamentation.
 
"You can run back to Arenaceous, you skyborn moledogs!" a scowling Igenous woman with pewter scales across her high cheekbones roared in a deep, gravelly rumble as she swung a hefty hammer that looked better suited to forging than battle at another participant in the melee. The implement struck the cavern floor with the resounding collision of a car crash.

 

Her would-be target slid back a step with the momentum of a landslide and swept his arms - earthy red with veins of coal black - in a broad arc. "So like one of Laccolinth's old fools to abandon reason for threats!" Evidently he had little issue responding to one attack with another as a pillar of stone the size of a lamppost launched itself from the nearby wall like a javelin, only to be reduced to rubble by a well placed parry with the female's hammer.

 

None of the combatants seemed to yet notice the surface dwellers' arrival, nor the cracks forming and widening in the archway's walls as the calamitous fight continued.

[Fox]

The next boulder to fly through the air didn't make it very far - forewarned and unnoticed, Gaian Knight reached out with one glowing hand and simply plucked it out of the air halfway between its creator and its intended destination. It hung still for half a moment before splintering apart with a sharp and - hopefully - attention-grabbing SCRACK, the subsequent pieces gently curving their way over toward the newly-arrived heroes.

"Not to interrupt," he apologized, slightly out of breath, "but I was hoping there was a better way to solve this than bringing the archway down on our heads. It's a really nice archway and I for one prefer not being buried under it."

[Avenger Assembled]

Frost took a few steps away from the archway, careful not to get too close to the rampaging Igneous, and formed into the icy, red-eyed fog that was his fastest means of transportation - and the safest in a confined space like this. He didn't speak, not wanting to add to the velvet-gloved threat that Gaian Knight (not to mention Fleur de Joie!) was in this place, but instead sussed out the battlefield. The big one, the one who threw that stone, take him by the knees if he becomes trouble. The woman...is that a woman? Yes, yes, you know Igneous women, Dimitri, you know what they look like; she could be a threat too. Be prepared to move fast and hard if they decide to take out their frustrations on the new arrivals. 

[Electra]

Gaian Knight's display with the boulder had drawn some attention from the brawling giants, but it wasn't at all clear to Fleur that they were ready to stop fighting. She was starting to feel more and more like Amaryllis here, surrounded by inscrutable giants and too slow to do more than run after and try to keep up. It was not a great feeling, but any worries about shortness were quickly driven from her mind when she noticed the cracks appearing in the walls. Gaian Knight or Canadian Shield could surely shore them up without much difficulty, but they were also the people the Igneous were most likely to listen to right now. Fleur could at least do a patch job. 

 

With a flick of her wrist, she tossed a handful of seeds at the base of the archway, then with a moment's concentration brought them to green and expanding life. Ropy vines swarmed up the stone of the arch, leaves and runners doubling and tripling back on themselves to create a latticework that looked more like a living green scaffolding than vines running up a trellis. Hopefully it would be enough, so long as the Igneous didn't get too enthusiastic about their fight. Just in case, she took shelter under the shadow of the sprawling green structure. "We'd like to talk to you!" she called to the fighting strangers. 

[Gizmo]

Bombardier had come in high over the scene, watching as Fleur's vines reached the top of the archway and began doubling back and forth. Evidently satisfied that the abruptly appearing foliage had the situation under control, the blue and white armored Québécois came back down to a less threatening height just behind the florakinetic, watching for Canadian Shield's lead. Stesha was close enough to hear the soft but telltale thrum of concussive weaponry powering up, just in case. "Always a pleasure to watch you work, belle." Boisterous words aside, the voice that came through his helmet's speakers was focused and level.
 
Wendy Go kept to the back of the group as they raced forward, though her long-legged loping stride suggested she could have outpaced some of her elders if necessary. The young woman ended up closest to Tiamat as the heroes came to a halt, the dragon catching a stronger whiff of the preternaturalness that had raised her hackles before, surging with adrenaline. The junior Canadian hero seemed oblivious to any reaction from the mace wielding redhead, however, focusing on deliberately steady breathing while watching the Igneous brawlers with a decidedly predatory squint.
 
"Welcome to Subterra," Combs muttered with some annoyance as she stepped beside Gaian Knight, planting her hands on her hips. "I just got finished telling these surfacers how rational and civilized the Igenous are," she called out, a ribbon of steel sliding into her smooth voice, "and I do not like to be made a liar." It was hard to miss the pebbles about her feet lifting into the air to bob a foot or two above the ground like tiny satellites.

[Gizmo]

The bizarre assemblage before them certainly gave the Igneous rioters pause. A stockier male with ashen scales across his brow that gave the impression of wild, bushy eyebrows looked agape at the space where the boulder had exploded for several moments, working his jaw silently before spreading his arms wide. "Salt and stone, what was that?"

 

"Shut up, Marl," the woman with the smithing hammer growled angrily over her shoulder, focusing more on the vines Fleur had called forth, gripping the shaft of her weapon defensively as though wondering if they were snakes coiling to bite.

 

The shorter Igneous persevered, pointing at Canadian Shield. "But look at that one! Isn't that--"

 

"Shut up, Marl!"

 

The two factions seemed to have been distracted from their quarrel for the time being but the heroes' arrival had done nothing to remove the tension that hug heavy in the air. The Igneous closest to the archway, a younger looking fellow with an cobalt complexion contrasting with flakes of light gold, stumbled back several steps and raised his hands in front of him. "S-stay back!" he managed, a pair of watermelon sized rocks pulling free from the tunnel floor to float in front of each palm, ready to let fly.

[Avenger Assembled]

Icy crystals erupted first from the rocks, then from the rock man himself as an freezing white cloud descended over him, the glowing red eyes at the center of the cloud making it instantly obvious who was to blame. "Drop weapons now or I make no claims!" said the frozen thermovore, his voice a sharp bark of command that nonetheless seemed to sizzle like water freezing in Siberian air. "We come to bring you diplomacy, not to stand here and be pelted by rocks! Where is Igneous who brought forth the obsidian heart of Tezcatlipoca or quenched the unspeakable fury of Mother of Dragons? You are race who built temples of the vasty deeps. You know better than such foolishness!" 

[Gizmo]

The iced over Igneous let loose as close to a blood curdling shriek as his dense, resonant chest was capable as the draugr fell upon him while the others followed up with a chorus of curses and oaths. About half of the locals looked ready to flee in terror while the other half seemed resolved to battle this fresh horror, mixed evenly amongst what had been two battling groups moments before.

"I can guarantee you none of these dry veins were there for any of that," a sandpaper rough voice replied to Frost's rhetorical questions before the scene could descend into bedlam. Over the hill that led down into the city proper strode an Igneous in a long coat, chainmail links clinking as he walked from somewhere beneath it. He wasn't quite the largest of the rock people they'd seen so far but where some of the others had the slabs of muscle that came from heavy labour even the surfacers present could recognize the build of a trained brawler. Bright silver scales accented his temples, contrasting with dusky granite and coal black eyes.

Not far behind him hurried a half dozen more Igenous in less weathered versions of the same outfits, clearly a uniform of some sort, though none of them carried any obvious weapons. "Go home," the lead Igneous shouted at the rival groups. "Now. Save it for the Senate." They quickly complied, either out of respect for his authority or simply glad to have an excuse to escape. "Name's Ijolite and about all you need to know is I'm the law down here. Now I can guess what brings her half-royalness to come slum it but why don't the rest of you explain what the pit you think you're doing in my city?"

[Fox]

"We're here to help her half-royalness do her slumming," Tiamat rather (un)helpfully supplied, with the lopsided grin of someone who had a history with either the law or people in chainmail. Or both.

"We were asked," Gaian Knight corrected, turning his head slightly to shoot a glance in his disrespectful partner's direction, "to join Canadian Shield in her journey down here, to lend assistance however we can. We don't mean to cause any trouble and we don't make a habit out of interfering with the politics of other groups, but it sounds like things are getting increasingly, ah...."

He paused, gesturing at the cracked archway that Fleur had wonderfully shored up. "...increasingly volatile. Too much of this sort of thing in the wrong place could spell disaster for both our peoples."