ic Ice Age Cometh

[KnightDisciple]

Thoughtspeed's helmeted head whipped around to see the suddenly-animated ice statues moving. Bad enough the guy was throwing ice around blindly. Now he's making rampaging...

 

"Dinosaurs are cool, ice golem dinosaurs, not so much. Stronghold, try to keep him busy! The rest of us will take care of the rabble."

 

And then he moved. In about two eye blinks he was next to the icy dinosaur construct, and instead of a single long blade, he held two shorter blades, not unlike the Roman gladius.

 

In a blur of motion, he began carving into the icy creature, the condensed and shaped kinetic energy imparting more force than the boy's rather lean arms might suggest. Also, he was hitting the thing a lot.

[Raveled]

Thoughtspeed's blades sliced into the permafrost prehistoric predator, carving out great chunks with each blurred pass and soon he reduced it to a pair of quivering leg-stumps. That was only one of the eight, though, and the speedster soon found himself fending off ax blows from a brawny lumberjack and swipes from a roaring grizzly bear. Which is why he didn't notice the boxer dance up behind him and lay a cracking blow to the back of his head.

TNTeen winced as the fist landed, but he soon found himself under attack. The motorcycle gunned across the snowy field straight for him, forcing the teen hero to throw himself to one side to avoid being crushed. Unfortunately that put him in the prefect position for the soccer star to step on his shoulder with iced cleats. Gene howled as his shoulder flared in hot agony and pounded uselessly at the glazed leg.

The remaining ice statues didn't bother to charge the heroes; instead they turned their anger on the crowd, spreading panic through the civilians. If someone didn't do something soon, there could be a full riot.

[horngeek]

Stronghold's eyes narrowed as the two ice statues turned their attention on the crowd- she had to admit, she was worried about her sister... of course, even if she wasn't, this couldn't be allowed.  

 

The Orange Ring shone brightly as she brought her right hand up in a fist, pointing it at the further away of the two statues.  "You.  Stop."

 

And the earth shook briefly, before stone slabs rose upwards, slamming around the statue and binding it tight- preventing it from moving towards the crowd.  Or at all, really.  If it was a person, Haukea would have done something more delicate... and less likely to cause injury.  These, however, seemed very temporary.  So, she didn't have to hold back.  

[Raveled]

TNTeen's shoulder was the binding center of his universe, alternately burning and freezing as the ice sculpture ground its spiked feet into his flesh. He knew he couldn't focus on it, though; there were people, even his whole family, relying on him! He brought up his free hand, focusing power in it, building a sphere of energy from grain-sized, to marble-sized, to baseball-sized. With a grin he squeezed, releasing all the power at once. Light and force rippled out, blowing the snow away in a wide circle and ripping a heating tent from the ground... And doing almost nothing to the glacier-carved soccer player, or the motorcycle revving for another pass.

[RobRX]

Groaning, Cho clenched her fist and turned to Ice Age. Her last attempt at stopping him had been met with her making a fool of herself, as she had crashed in the snow.This time she wouldn't miss, this so-called Ice Age would go down. After all, Cho wasn't exactly the most subtle of persons; application of force beign her primary method of resolving problems. That and she couldn't be bothered to try anything BUT the least subtle and most immediate course of action, rather than risk having her familly injured in this crossfire.

 

"Enough!" A fist harder than steel, moving at great speed headed toward the ice-controlling villain. Her fist crashed against Ice Age, causing a shockwave that sent snow flying all around her and made tree shudder. As Ice Age collapsed, Cho breathed a sigh of relief as she flicked her wrist, secretly hoping she hadn't killed him.

[Raveled]

Ice Age didn't have a chance to dodge Cho's blow. He folded around her fist, rising into the air and landing a good few feet away. The snow and the frost hung on the air for a moment, then fell to the ground, coating everything and everyone in a fine, shimmering coat of ice. In TNTeen's case, this meant soccer cleats frozen inside his wound. He groaned; he knew it was going to be painful, but he did his best to create a small, careful charge and blew the statue's leg apart, letting him roll away from it and push himself to his feet with his good hand.

Gene looked over the scene quickly. The statues were still again and it looked like the bystanders had managed to stop from stampeding. Now they were simply watching the heroes, the statues, and the insensate villain. Gene turned and stomped over to Ice Age, looking down at him while he clutched his wounded shoulder. "Wonder what got into him," he muttered, giving the unconscious man a half-hearted kick.

[horngeek]

Stronghold sighed in relief, keeping her bind up on the statue.  "Well, that was a thing.  Is anyone hurt?"

 

She walked over to Ice Age, giving Gene a slightly disapproving look at the kick.  "Nice take-down, um... sorry, I don't know anyone's names here.  I'm Stronghold."

 

The ring on her finger gleamed slightly as she looked at the... well, boy, really.  Not too far from her own age, she thought.  Then Gene's comment made her frown in thought.  Wait a second... "Um... I know you're just saying it as a turn of phrase... but he might have a drug of some sort in him."

[KnightDisciple]

Thoughtspeed had blurred in front of one of the statues moving to attack the civilians when the ice golems had stopped in place all at once. He looked over and saw Cho having knocked the punk ice controller all the way out. With a sigh of relief he shook his hands and dispelled the blades around them. With a few quick steps, he was standing next to the others.

 

First up, he gave Cho a thumb's up.

 

"Nice punch! Better than I managed to do..."

 

He shrugged at Stronghold's speculations.

 

"Dunno. Let Star Squad sort it out. He's knocked out and no one else is in danger, that's the important part."

 

Only then did he notice Gene's wound.

 

"Crud, are you okay, man? Sheesh, we should get you a doctor or something."

[RobRX]

At first, Cho doesn't say anything to Thoughtspeed, simply flicking her wrist, as if trying to remove an unpleasant sensation. "Yeah I...um...I hope he's okay." She says, somewhat faintly. A punch like that would have likely reduced a normal human into a bloody smear, something she was worried would have hapenned. "I mean, I wasn't trying to kill him." It seems that, with the action and adrenaline down, she's back to beign a tad awkward.

 

"So, is everyone all right?" Then she glanced at Gene briefly, before turning to Thoughtspeed, trying to put thoughts in the right order and react to all this in a way that isn't likely to backfire. "You! Um..uh...you're fast, right? Do you think you can carry him to the nearest hospital?" Of course, she's not saying this in a bossy way, more like someone who isn't really sure how to react sometimes.

[Raveled]

Gene’s eyes grew wide and he started panicking. “No no no, I can’t just leave, I… my family’s around here.†He gritted his teeth. “If I just disappear my mother’s going to go ballistic. Um.†He looked around the site of the battle, trying to see all the possibilities. “My coat’s back in that warming tent over there. If Thoughtspeed can put a hole in the shoulder, I can pass it off as just happening when I was running away.†Probably, he added to himself. Lying wasn’t his strong suit, but he was banking on his mother’s protective instincts to stop her asking too many questions.

[KnightDisciple]

In the blink of an eye, Thoughtspeed was gone and back, holding a jacket. He eyed the wound on TNTeen's shoulder, then the jacket, back and forth, for several moments.

 

Finally, he manifested a small blade and shoved it inward through the shoulder of the jacket. Looking at Gene's shoulder again, he made sure the damage only marred the front side of the shoulder. He then handed Gene the jacket.

 

"There. Not perfect, but it'll do. Probably best this way. I don't think my weak noodle arms could carry you that far anyways. You need a hand getting up or getting it on?"

[RobRX]

"Um, so..." Cho turned to Ice Age, who was still probably knocked out cold. "Anyone going to do something about him? I mean, can't really let him stay in the snow like that. U-um, even if he probably doesn't feel the cold." Crouching down, Cho began poking him with her finger, a single poke making him roll around like a ragdoll. The girl grimaced a bit at the reaction, almost with a hint of fear. "Are you okay? Uh, sh--. I hope he's not dead!"

 

Getting up, she shrugged. "You're probably right, we should let the authorities handle him. Still, I wonder what his deal was or why he did it. I'd ask him but he's knocked out cold. Heh, hehe...cold." After her lame, accidental pun, Cho started to 'curl back into her shell', so to speak.

Edited May 20, 2014 by RobRX

[Raveled]

GM

Gene got back into his civvies and met up with his family, bleeding slowly from his arm. He was soon whisked off to the hospital, and his parents were too concerned about the obvious wound to ask where he had been during the wintry melee.

---

The artists were some of the first to return, grumbling about how their exhibition had been crashed by a supervillain not even old enough to shave. People gathered up their tools, while people shied away from the statues that had come to life and attacked everyone. The crowd gave them a wide berth, until a brawny man with a sledgehammer smashed one to pieces. The crowd cheered, and he was making a start on a second ice sculpture when the police arrived. In short order they patted down Ice Age and confiscated the inhaler with the red dust. Before long the entire area had been roped off into a crime scene, and the police began processing witnesses to an assault with a blizzard.

Just another day in Freedom City.