ic From Beneath You It Devours: So Do Our Minutes Hasten

[Brown Dynamite]

GM

 

The Bridges connecting North and South Emerald
Mallory Bay, The Emerald Cities, Washington and Oregon

Wednesday, February 1st, 2017

6:00 PM

 

The Emergency Civil Defense Siren blared throughout the city.  Atlantis had sent warning ahead of time of an attack through an encrypted military frequency.  It wasn't long before local seismic activity changed drastically, with scientists able to predict the fact that a massive tsunami was coming for the cities.  Coupled with rush hour traffic, this meant that the bridges connecting the sister cities were filled to the brim.  Defenseless, as the waves could be seen in the distance.  Nearing by the minute.

 

The frantic sense of fear overwhelming the drivers did nothing to speed up the egress issue.  In fact, people started getting into car accidents in a desperate bid to escape the bridges.  Unintentionally trapping themselves and others and dooming them to their fate.  That was unless aid happened to arrive in a timely manner.

[Avenger Assembled]

Citizen hovered in front of the bridge, putting himself between the people and the ocean for a long moment. He wished for the tidal dissipators that were standard waterfront constructions in the Lor Republic. He wished for a metahuman weather controller, or a mass teleporter, or Temperance, or any number of things. While he was at it, why didn't he wish for Terra's moon? Over his internal radio, he continued his conversation with Archetech West. 

 

_Okay - I'm on the scene and it looks bad. Estimate just another few minutes until impact - make sure everyone's off the coast, and clear the river banks, because this is going to turn into a tidal bore._ He was faced with choices - try and disperse the tidal wave? Try and evacuate the bridge? There were so many choices, and there was only one Citizen. Other people can evacuate the bridge - but I'm the only one here who had a chance of stopping that wave. 

 

Drawing his fists up before him, Citizen rocketed forward, his electromagnetic drive powering him towards the oncoming tidal wave at supersonic speeds. Try and undermine it underwater first, he thought, cut its legs off and keep it from running any faster...

[olopi]

By the time the first reports began to stream in, Hakim was still sitting in WestRock’s offices. They had a deadline coming up, so quite a few people pulled overtime. It was a nice atmosphere. Somewhat stressed, yet also casual. And then, everybody’s attention went towards the news.

 

“Guys, anybody opposed to calling it a day and evacuating?”

 

Once everybody was out, they all headed for the local shelter. Apart from Hakim, who had more important things to take care of. He mimicked a message by a friend requiring his help. And after taking a quick shortcut into an alleyway, Sha’ir the Spellsmith ascended above the buildings of Emerald City, flying towards the bridges.

 

From up above, he got a better look at the situation. It looked bad. If everything stayed like this, things would turn ugly very soon. But Sha’ir wasn’t sure how to help. He didn’t have the right skillset to help evacuate.

 

Unless…

 

“Citizens! I am here. Do not panic, help is coming!”

 

And then, it was time to work. He remembered reading an entry about a spell that summoned a magical … pack mule of sorts? It had been rather vague, and that generally was bad when it came to these things. But it was his best shot, the one that would save the most people.

 

He would summon a large quantity of these … wicks, they were called. The spell only talked about one, but fixing that was easy. They would work like a living conveyor belt, picking up whatever was on the road, handing it to the one behind them, and continue onwards. So long as he got this spell to work, trying to pronounce ancient Egyptian words jumbled into extradimensional magic always was a pain…

[Tiffany Korta]

 

After a long day of work Peri was so looking forward to collapsing into a chair and eating some of her Gran’s amazing guksu, which was of cause when the alerts went of about of all think an Atlantean invasion! Maybe it was because she lived on the Pacific but she’d never even considered if then to even be around Emerald City let alone be a threat.

 

Myung-sook knew her granddaughter to well and was already spooning a generous portion of her guksu into a tupperware container, they both knew that Peri was going to try and help in anyway she could. With no more than just a reassuring smile she passed the food to Peri as she prepared turning to once again leave there home.

 

A short while later she was on the bridge trying to bring some kind of order the chaos that had developed as people tried to flee. As Emerald Spider she’d already snatched up several in her entangling superstring projections, to keep them from being trampled underfoot. This was well over her pay grade, if superheroes got paid that is, but she was still going to try to help as much as she was able.

 

After all she was the Emerald Spider!

[Ari]

Runningrunningrunningrunningrunningrunningrunning

 

Skidding to a halt in a spray of water, a man in a gaudy black, green and orange suit paused to take a breath. Leaning against another car full of terrified people, the Salmon glanced out over the Malory Bay and the oncoming wall of water. Starting at the unfamiliar sight of something rocketing through the sky, Ishmael grimaced behind his grinning mask at Citizen as the android went to face the storm. 

 

"F***ing showoff."

 

Turning back to the task at hand, the Salmon drew back a step, paused for a fraction of a second and then rappd on the car door dripping with mud and rain, hollering "Atte! Get outta there! I'm Salmon, I got super-speed, I can task you and all your dumb kids!"

 

By now it wasn't nearly so totally unexpected to see people in costumes yelling at other people, but it took another second for the family inside the tiny car to decide they'd take a chance with the strange yelling man in the mask over the wave or making it on their own.

 

Racing them to the closer shore took agonizing seconds, and not for the first time that day Ishmael cursed his weak powers. By the time he was done with those five people ('Two men, one women, and those kids are both adopted? That's a way better idea') he was panting for breath, again, and had to rest against the next vehicle stuck in the As-Me's middle.

 

Waving gratefully at the other two Originals working to rescue to trapped drivers, Ishmael turned once again to his incredibly pointless self-appointed task 'Bet Citizen just punches that wave and all this is for nothing. You're a real hero, Fishy'.

 

Takazumi Ryu's mocking nickname for him stung more than usual, cold and wet and bone-weary as he was. Mars' offer hung even more tantalizingly in his mind's eye...

 

The Salmon hoisted an old man who literally couldn't walk the distance onto his back and set out for Bridgepoint, dodging and weaving and leaping through the tangled metal maze.

 

Runningrunningrunningrunningrunningrunning

[TheAbsurdist]

 

Amir didn't often have to hustle.

 

Right now seemed like a good idea, as used his considerable stamina to push hard to get here from downtown, where he had been working on the whole 'Summit West' Building.  National branding you see.  Fortunately he had been in his heroing duds for some other social engagements.  Then the news came, and he had hit his full speed out of the window... which he'd pay for later. Provided there was a building to pay power.

 

Given those circumstances, his arrival was heralded with him landing hard on the bridge, an empty THOOM as his powered were negating the impacts.  Seeing what was happening... closer, he turned to roar at the people there, "EVERYONE LEAVE!  I am going to try and help stop the wave, rest of you help the people..."  Help stop... whatever. At this point he wasn't going to be able to do a proper speech where there was a wall of water, and he joined the other thing streaking towards them, not nearly as fast the green streak, but well... he didn't even know if he could do this, but he was going to try.

[Avenger Assembled]

Citizen played it smart. 

 

He didn't try and split the wave down the middle (essentially impossible when you considered his mass against the wave) or to try and use his internal energies to change the phase state of the wave (again - essentially scientifically impossible given the level of energies he had to work with and the time allotted). Instead he acted like a pin being driven into a balloon, zipping in and out of the wave over and over again at nearly full speed. He plowed underneath to break up the roiling waters beneath the wave where the water was beginning to pile against the continental shelf. He slid along the front wave, skimming the surface, sending that great bowfront collapsing in on itself like a surgeon cutting a knife across a swollen vein. 

 

He hit the wave, again and again, until at last he emerged from the wave soaking wet and smiling confidently, watching the wave fall apart with a feeling of great satisfaction. He had other reasons for satisfaction too, one of which was clenched in his fist, hands around its wrists. "What do you think I am, stupid?" he demanded. "That wave was obviously artificial. Who are you?" 

[TheAbsurdist]

Asad was really making this up, as he wasn't able to move as fast the green blur before him, but he could do something else.  So he aimed low towards the bottom of the wave, and he smacked into it, and he reached out to start soaking up the kinetic energy.  It was like when he got punched, and it helped that the wave was intent on punching him.  And other people.  Some structures.  This, however, was a lot more force than he normally took, so he started to bled off as light.

 

He turned and braced back with the waves as he tried to pull the energy out of it, as this time working to buy time for people on the bridge as he stayed with the water.  Then he saw the people inside of the waves.  What the...?  Gritting his teeth he pressed harder with his power working to help with whatever it was Citizen was doing.  Unless it was some other hero he wasn't entirely familiar with.  Which was possible.

[Brown Dynamite]

GM

 

The combination of Citizen's speed and Asad's energy dampening rendered the waves inert.  When Emerald Spider swung on to the scene, she was treated to a view of more Atlanteans.  These climbing up the sides of the bridge.  Apparently not demotivated down by the fact that their tsunami was stomped.  "Let me go vile surfacer!  The city wall buck and fall under the rule of Sethra, the one true princess of Atlantis!"  The musclebound captive yelled out at Citizen, struggling with superhuman might.  Yet, his strength was less impressive under Citizen's hold.

 

The Salmon's mad sprint almost ended in disaster.  An Atlantean blaster fired upwards from below, almost hitting the old man.  However, it did hit its intended target.  Snapping a bridge cable loose.  The cable swung from one end of the bridge to the other slicing a vehicle perfectly down the middle.  This vehicle was one of the ones being carried by a wick.  Which in turn created another scene of panic with vehicles no longer waiting around and people trying to drive offf again.  To no avail, as the bridge was still filled to the brim.

 

During this panic was when the truck almost careened off the bridge barely remaining upright, but gravity was not on the driver's side.  His screams drawing all eyes to the Atlanteans ascending from below.

 

 

[Avenger Assembled]

Citizen stared at the Atlantean in his grip, remembering his Claremont lessons about Atlantis - or accessing the android's memory banks, depending on how you looked at it. He processed tough skin and muscles designed for underwater locomotion in a heartbeat, thinking oddly of the plankton trawler he'd left behind in Tronik to come here. "You'll survive a fall from this distance," he said with calm authority before throwing the Atlantean as far as he could away from Freedom City, pushing his cybernetically-enhanced strength hard to get some distance. From there he turned and flew back towards the bridge, the radio transmissions from the police cars stuck on the bridge catching his attention. He didn't remember the Day of Wrath, not really, but he was reminded of the footage he'd seen - the robots rampaging, the citizens in terror. But precious few people to save them now. 

 

Trusting Asad and the other heroes to handle the oncoming Atlantean horde, Citizen concentrated on the dangling truck. Zipping forward at full speed, he drove his fists through the thin metal of the hood and grabbed directly onto the engine block, the hot metal scorching his hands but doing no serious damage to the metallic reinforcements underneath. "Get out!" he called to the driver, "it's going to fall!" If it fell on the oncoming Atlanteans, well, that was no bad thing. 

[Ari]

"Scusemecomingthrough!" Suddenly, a kid in a gaudy costume was hanging by the truck driver's door, struggling against the momentum that had sent him racing along its slick metal walls. 

 

Regaining himself, the Salmon wrenched the door open, dragged the man inside out, hoisted him onto his back and sprang back onto the bridge. Skidding and sliding on the rain-slick concrete, the speedster growled a curse against the weather, the Atlanteans, the bridge, the lack of real traction on his costume...

 

Setting the man down on the other side of the bridge, Ishmael took stock of the Atlanteans clambering up the support columns, the swinging cable and especially the burn-hole made by the blaster.

 

He was pretty sure he couldn't run up walls too easy, but right now that wasn't much of a problem. Leaping into action before he could think things through and run away, the Salmon jumped off the bridge and ran along the side, angling sharply to meet the amphibious invaders with a flurry of punches and kicks as he rocketed by.

 

Swinging around for another pass, scrabbling for purchase on the smooth colmun and fighting gravity at the same time, Ishmael couldn't prevent one errant thought slipping into his rigorously-clear mind.

 

If they kill me, I'd be the first dead hero in the Emeralds

 

It was profoundly uncomforting. So he leaned a little extra hard into the burst that sent him charging again into the Atlantean pack.

[olopi]

 

The most pressing issue had fortunately been dealt with. At quite a speed. And even if part of him would’ve loved to show off one or two of the spells to deal with large waves, this was not the time for that. People were in danger. And in the end, it was up to Sha’ir and his colleagues to save them.

 

The wicks were doing their job as intended, and were doing quite a good job at it. Not good enough, apparently, as people continued to panic.

 

Sigh.

 

They probably had a fair reason to, what with all these Atlanteans climbing up the bridge and attacking them, but had these people never been to a safety briefing? This stuff was how you made things worse. The wicks weren’t enough. He needed to be more active himself. His skillset was more suited for the evacuation than the other’s. It was his duty to.

 

Time to get his hands dirty. Sort of. The Mage Hand was the essential building block spell. It was simple, it was quick, and it offered all the segments needed for something bigger. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a great spell by itself.

 

If he just added in two new segments...

 

As Sha’ir lifted his arm, what was best described as almost entirely transparent tentacles of force shot forwards, grabbing onto various cars and picking them up. Now he just had to move them….

[Brown Dynamite]

GM

 

Dozens of Atlanteans were knocked around with ease as Asad and the Salmon combined their efforts to attack en masse.  Atlanteans falling back into the water from whence they came.  Their bodies floating harmlessly like a pool of unfed fish in a home aquarium.  The efforts on the bridge were also making positive strides with the driver of the truck Citizen had saved narrowly avoided plummeting to his doom.  The tentacled vehicles quickly progressed off the bridge.  At least 1/5th of the trapped commuters had made it across.

 

Everything was going well...until it wasn't.  All of a sudden, Sha'ir's tentacles began throwing vehicles off the bridge.  Four cars went flying in opposite directions.  One of them headed towards the other bridge where Emerald Spider had set up her webbed suspensions.  All the while Atlanteans made another push to climb both bridges.  With apparently a strategy of throwing body after body at the problem, not even showing the slightest hesitation as their comrades fell.  In fact they weren't showing any emotion.

 

The same could not be said for the screaming people on the bridge who renewed their efforts to escape.  Some leaving their cars behind.  And one person in a very ugly yellow hummer on the middle of the bridge simply flooring it.  Crashing into a parked car along the way.

[olopi]

****. Not now! Why’d it have to be now of all times!

 

As quickly as he’d summoned them, Sha’ir called back the tentacles. If he even still could. Such was the problem with these spells. Sometimes they grew a mind of their own. And that usually didn’t lead to anything good. Like it did in this case. Hopefully those people were insured.

 

And hopefully people were too focused on the chaos and escaping to realize what had just happening. Last thing he needed was for this to be widely known.

 

He took a moment to assess the situation. Cars in mid-air, one heading towards the other bridge. People still panicking and being reckless. And way too many Atlanteans. The latter was arguably the biggest issue. The panicking only happened because of them. And now the wave was gone, the bridges themselves weren’t as big of a risk. He could try catching the other car, but he’d have to be fast. No, there was something else he could do. Something to hopefully stop all of this.

 

“Spider! Car!”

 

Meanwhile, he flew over to the water, keeping his altitude. Perhaps he could cut it all off at the source. The Orb of Skadi. He’d come across it a while ago. It could work, if he got lucky…

 

A white light formed in his hands, growing larger than him within seconds. Then, once it had reached a certain expansion, it deflated, not unlike a balloon. And all below would feel an icy chill. According to the manuals, it was strong enough to freeze water. Hopefully those manuals were right.

[Tiffany Korta]

Disaster and supervillains were new but still well within the scope of what Peri felt she could cope with, despite a few close call. And a giant invading army of Atlantian from the sea, that was apparently a bit beyond her new normal. She froze for a few moments watching them climb up the bridge towards them, luckily Sha'ir's shout brought her to her senses. A runaway car was definitely something that she could wrap her head around.

 

“I'm on it, save some fish men for me guys!"

 

She tumbled away from the edge and as she did so she made the fingers gestures to send of a spiraling weave of forces that hopefully would bound the vehicle to the bridge without harm to anyone.

[Avenger Assembled]

In the air again, Citizen shouted loudly "I SEE YOU!" As Miss Americana had taught him, robotic speech had the pleasant ability of echoing far more loudly than an unamplified human could speak. Pointing down towards the water, he let his eyes unfocus, redirecting the magnetic energies that he used to power his flight and strength into the generators behind his eyes - the ones that took up most of the skull cavity of the robot. With pinpoint accuracy, twin beams of scarlet, azure, and pure white light erupted from his eyes, burning down into the water and slicing into the hulls of the Atlantean vessels below, one after the other. Atlanteans can't drown - but I can make them swim! 

[Ari]

As he burst back onto the A-M Bridge, panting and struggling to keep his footing while his arms shook from the shock of punching super-tough Atlantean faces, the Salmon could only stare dumbfounded as the atrocious yellow brick on wheels churned into another car. 

 

"...I..."

 

Suddenly it was caught by a swirling wave of twisting space, the very laws of reality itself calling it a day as what should have been there became here, the combined effect being to halt the juggernaut crushinator in its tracks.

 

Snarling under his breath, the Salmon spun on his heel, hammered open the door of the T-bone'd car and hurtled head-first into another mindless wave of soldiers from the deep, who had gotten over the bridge's lip while he was screaming and thoroughly distracted. Dodging around their mechanical yet powerful swings, Paris grit his teeth and unleashed another barrage of superfast punches to where he'd gathered their exposed pressure points might probably be. He'd learned soon enough to not try and hit them in the jaw. Like punching a fifty-centimeter thick oak door.

 

As one was sent off the bridge and into the waiting Columbia, the Salmon risked a look at still,silent Devlin, copper-rust green arms raised eternally above Council Island and the A-M. Above the Salmon.

 

For an instant Paris wondered if this was what religious people felt seeing images of God right when they felt most foresaken. Then a steel-hard fist smashed into his back, throwing him, reeling and gasping for breath, to the asphalt while the silent warriors tried to hem him in and beat him to death, only prevented by the speedster lunging out of the circle and stagger back to his feet. He stared into their blank, eerily beautiful faces. 

 

I hope something kills them. I hope they all die.

Edited May 8, 2017 by Ari

[Brown Dynamite]

GM

 

Half.  Half of the trapped civilians had made their escape at this point.  And those who almost plummeted to the ice were saved by the heroes' combined efforts.  The heroes had been swiftly dealing with the Atlantean invaders. The entourage of Emerald City's finest efforts hadn't been for naught.  But, half of the civilians being rescued was not the same thing as saying they were halfway through.  After all,the hardest part of a climb was the halfway point.  And no truer was that comparison than when a giant hydra rose from from beneath the waves.  Broken pieces of Atlantean vehicles falling off its scales as it rose.   Ice shattering around the length of its body.

 

The creature appeared straight out of a Greek myth.  It screeched loudly and menacingly.  All the while nearing the bridge.  On top its middle head was a muscular Atlantean man.  The man was bare chested with what could only be described as the bottom of a toga covering his lower half.  Much like the superheroine, Glamazon, his clothing also consisted of armored coverings.  Metallic greaves and gloves protecting his extremities.  Clutched tightly was a golden trident pointed directly towards this bridge.  The air rippled as a stream of powerful vibrations were sent towards Citizen in an attempt to cause the robotic defender of Emerald Citizen to tear itself apart from the inside out.

 

 

"ENOUGH!"  The armored Atlantean yelled out.  Coupled with the appearance of the hydra he was riding off enough distraction was provided that Atlantean footsoldiers managed to sneak their way on the bridge.  At least the remaining ones that were not still trapped under a blanket of ice.

 

 

[TheAbsurdist]

"This isn't so ba-...!"

 

Amir stopped, as the tide shifted, metaphorically.  The creature emerged from the water with the rider on his back.   Crap.  "Well then..."  And with that he pushed off the asphalt, and surged back towards the hydra and the Atlantean atop, because he looked important, what with the big glowing trident.  It was a straight tackle, his arms flung around the midsection of the Atlantean leader (Asad guessed?).  He kept his arms around the waist of the other man, as he followed through with a go behind, and locked his arms.

 

"Allow me to introduce myself, I am Asad, would you kindly stop this?"

[Brown Dynamite]

GM

 

The Hydra's heads divided their attention between the airborne heroes.  Opening its mouths the hydra began to exhume a putrid miasma.  A purple mist exiting after the foul stench enveloping the bodies of Asad and the bridge.  The captive Atlantean seemed unaffected by whatever effect the mist was supposed to have.  He was, however, visibly affected by the lack of effect on the floating heroes.  On the ground the fast paced Salmon wasn't quite so fortunate the venomous mist was inhaled and immediately without pause he lost muscle control mid run.  

 

Sent colliding into a nearby car, The Salmon could feel his various systems in his body began to shut down.  All except his mind which was left entirely aware of his current state of affairs.  Much akin to a super shot of hemlock or Atropine the threat of his respiratory system following suit hung nearby.  The sight of the limp hero did have a positive effect, it completely terrified the passengers inside the vehicle to run away screaming.  Leaving the Salmon behind as the most expensive hood ornament in the city.

 

Struggling with renewed vigor against the might of Asad's powerful grip the Atlantean warlord was held in place as the Hydra screeched in furor.

 

[Avenger Assembled]

Citizen took off and whipped around over the battlefield, pushing cybernetic computation and magnetic propulsion to its limits as he accelerated to his maximum speed. Plowing into the side of the writhing hydra-thing, he braced his shoulder and pushed, the great beast's limbs whipping around as he pushed it backwards, deeper into the water from which it had come, literally pulling the floor out from under the Atlantean that Asad was grappling with. Take out these two, leave the soldiers back on the bridge for the others to deal with. He got another faceful of gassy venom from the beast, a blow that had exactly as much effect as it had before. "I can't believe you brought your pet along!" he called up at the Atlantean warlord. "I thought you people cared about oceanic life!" 

[Brown Dynamite]

GM

 

The Atlanteans looked on with worry as the Hydra was sent flying back.  Perhaps more concerned with the fact that their apparent leader who was riding the creature was sent flying as well.  Whatever manner of concern they held for the Atlantean warlord did not stop them from acting.   Their attention turning from the civilians they began to surround the heroes on the bridges and act in concert.  The pair on the Westernmost bridge surrounded the paralyzed speedster.  Their spears would thrust forth to keep his costumed pin against the hood of the car before finally the last Atlantean would stab a spear directly into the hero's shoulder.  

 

On the opposite bridge.  Four Atlanteans took to surrounding the Emerald Spider.  Two would push their spears forward tauntingly cornering the arachnoid heroine against the side of an empty sedan.  A third Atlantean rushed forward and attempted to stab the Emerald Spider who flipped backwards to avoid the strike.  Easily clearing the distance of the vehicle she was set to arrive unscathed.  Unfortunately, a fourth Atlantean was waiting nearby and stabbed square into the heroine's stomach in mid air.  The Spdr Rig's repulsive field reduced the impact, but the araneal heroine was.still slammed directly into the car as a result. 

 

The force of which was enough to shatter the glass of the car.

 

[Tiffany Korta]

 

Peri wasn't concerned with few cut's and bruised, she'd taken much worse trying to get a handle on the Spdr Rig, but she was concerned about breaking any of the connections that allowed the suit to operate at its maximum capacity. She wasn't about to give up the fight however with a complicated series of hand gesture she turned the area beneath the Atlanteans in a bounding area of quantum sickness, which looked a lot like snaking ropes of webs.

 

"Isn't it just terrible when you get stuck on the bridge?"