Issue Five: The Avengers Versus Everybody!

Maelstrom continues to fly backward through the air, carried by the momentum of Beetle's attack. Beetle's body goes limp for a moment...or rather, his suit goes limp for a moment as it has been ionized off of him.

Flying backwards, holding onto the Beetle suit, Maelstrom sees an armorless man floating in midair crest above the top of the Beetle armor. At least he had the common sense to wear some sory of spandex jumpsuit under his armor. The man has a starled look and seems to mouth "Oh" before plummeting towards the earth. His fall is, fortunately for him, broken by a thick canopy of trees.

Maelstrom feels a small twinge of satisfaction before being reminded of his predicament by the scenery rapidly rising around him. Letting go of the Beetle suit and flailing his arms wildly, Maelstrom and the suit also diappear into the canopy of a row of trees not far away, accompanied by an "oof". A few random pieces of Beetle-armor rain down from the tree, but the majority of it remains lodged in the upper branches. Maelstrom, lying comfortably in a leafy cushion, is thankful for the soft catch and momentary rest before being shocked back into the present by having to forcefully remove a small, broken tree branch from a rather embarrassing spot.

The now-unarmored Beetle climbs down from the tree and hastily searches for his missing pride. Looking up, he sees Beorn is still holding it.

TV news crews are starting to set up a short distance away with a few daring (stupid?) souls moving a little too close for their own good, but managing not to place themselves in danger...yet...

At this time, a yellow van no one recognizes comes speeding into the park, heading directly towards the assembled heroes and villains.

Inside the van, Blackbird sits behind the steering wheel, glancing over towards EnergyStar, awaiting her directions.

Meanwhile (unbeknownst to our heroes)...

A small puddle of water.

A short distance away, in Central Park, the sounds of combat can be heard. But here, we see a small pool of water. The resulting pool of water that splashed off of Maelstrom as a series of droplets only a few minutes ago, causing him to believe it was starting to rain.

Pulling back a bit, we see several small puddles, all gathered in parallel lines, passing across Central Park and leading back towards Avengers Mansion. Possibly the result of the world's most accurate rain clouds? Not likely...

Scanning up, the raindrops forming the puddles seem to manifest out of thin air, as if either spontaneously forming and falling to the ground below or dripping off some huge, invisible object. The source of the drips seems to be moving further and further away from Central Park...and closer and closer to Avengers' Mansion. Eventually, the source of the rain stops moving...directly over Avengers mansion.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

After a few minutes, the cloak of invisibility is dropped, and an absolutley massive object, blotting out the sun from the street below, is revealed to be floating directly over Avengers' mansion.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Raindrops splatter on the kitchen area window where Jim Hammond, the Golden Age Human Torch flips through a huge Greater New York yellow pages.

"Oh, it's not under 'Fantastic 4', it's under 'Fantastic F'...well, that's dumb..."

Suddenly the room grows extremely dark, as if something outside had extinguished the sun itself.

"What the..." Peering out the window and realizing he can't see anything from this vantage point (except that there seems to be sunlight on the buildings in the distance), the Torch calmly walks to the mansion's front door and steps outside.

The Avengers' butler, Jarvis, stands dumbfounded, staring at the sky, a dish rag and a plate in his hands. Jim Hammond walks over to stand next to him, also staring to the sky.

"What is that?", the Torch asks, half-expecting not to get an answer.

"I believe that might be Hydro-Base, Master Hammond", Jarvis replies, never taking his eyes from off the massive floating island.

"ATTENTION: SECURITY BREACH. ATTENTION: SECURITY BREACH.", the Avengers' security system begins to squeal over and over, snapping Jarvis and the Torch back into the present. The two men quickly exchange glances and then rush back into the mansion.

Across and down the street, within sight range of the mansion, a man with a noticable blue hue to his skin also stands staring up at the floating island, a sense of wonder and amazement frozen on his face.

Drip.

Energystar sits in the passenger seat, puts on her seat belt, points her finger at Goliath and says, "Ramming speed." She says it in the worst fake Scottish accent you have EVER heard.

Blackbird blinks once, then an evil grin spreads quickly across his face. "Aye aye, ma'am!"

And, double-clutching to get the van out of third and into overdrive, he stomps on the gas.

Speeding at the van-wide ankle appearing before him, Blackbird floors the accelerator as EnergyStar displays a childlike grin.
Tensing up just a split second before impact, Blackbird and EnergyStar have the surreal impression of being attacked by giant marshmallows.

Those on the ground see a yellow van come careening across the park, only to embed itself in Goliath's left ankle like a piece of metal shrapnel. Although the identity of those inside is not certain, it is fairly obvious both air bags deployed upon impact.

Goliath, screaming in pain for the third time in as many rounds, lashes out at the giant-size ('though slightly smaller) Hank Pym. After trading blow once, Goliath's second strike against the good doctor completely KO's him, knocking Pym to the ground unconscious. Hank did happen to have a trick up his sleeve before passing out, however. Touching Goliath as he was falling, Hank managed to use his shrinking ability to reduce Goliath from his 30 foot height down to about 24 inches. The now very-mini-Goliath plummets to the ground as well, falling atop the hood of a surpringly-in-good-shape-for-having-just-sustained-a-high-speed-collision yellow van.

*Gasp* Rad gets yet another breath and at least a partial view of sunlight as he sees something strongly resembling the undercarriage of a mini-van pass rapidly overhead.

Grappling with the large white inflatable pillows just delpoyed from the dashboard and steering wheel, Blackbird and EnergyStar make three quick observations:
1) Hank Pym is down on the ground, now regular size. He is not moving and probably needs someone to tend to him.
2) Goliath is now 24 inches tall and standing on the hood of your van staring at the two of you in horror. You're not quite sure what exactly happended there, but an Intuition check from either of you might reveal more...
3) A glance in the rear-view mirror reveals Radical Warrrior laying flat on the ground behind the van, with the vehicle's tire tracks on either side of him. Did you just run him over?

Sunstroke hurriedly finishes donning his costume.

Beetle looks for his.

Klaw creates two more flying sound creatures and sends them to attack whoever is in the van, realizing whoever they are, they aren't being very helpful.

One of the pink creatures attacks either side of the van, breaking through the side windows. One misses EnergyStar while the other manages to claw Blackbird, even through his force field.

Tiger Shark turns to face the approaching Captain and the two combatants trade powerful blows; each one being forced to stagger backwards from their opponent's hit.

All PCs may now post their actions. It's all you guys' initiative time.

Meanwhile...back at the mansion...

Torch and Jarvis race back into the mansion. Torch puts his hand on Jarvis' shoulder. "Find Bova and get out", the Torch tells him. "I've got a bad feeling about this..."

"Perhaps that would be prudent, Master Hammand", Jarvis agrees. The two allies part ways, each following their own instincts further into the mansion.

Maelstrom smiles serenly, the Beetle costume held in his arms like a loving dance partner as his glassy form arcs over the park in a perfect parabola. He can almost hear the waltz from his his wedding dance...


SMACK! Wack! Slam.


Falling into trees, while better than the alternative, is not a comfortable landing, nor a particularly pleasant ending to his revery. Especially that last bit. Did they have proctologists on this world?

Ignoring the garnish for the moment, Maelstrom climbed to his aching feet and began running back to help again. Seeing a mostly naked man standing nearby, Beorn swerved to meet him. "I have your helmet!" he called, waving a beetle helmet over his head. "Here catch!"

With a hard punch to the ribcage, Maelstrom 'handed back' the hardware.

Punch the naked Beetle:

Dice Roll: 1d100
d100 Results: 19

Excellent fighting, Incredible strength.

No karma this time.

Mantaman winged over preparing to take on Goliath again when all hell broke loose on the Big-Guy. Satisfied that a Doll-sized Goliath was no longer a threat he looked around the battlefield. What the $#*%! Is that... "TIGER SHARK!" He yelled to his old enemy. "I knew you had something to do with the disappearence of Stingray!"
The winged hero arced high up into the air and dove-bomb his aquatic nemesis.

Charge Tiger Shark

Beetle, who also managed to climb down from his tree, turns to see the approaching Maelstrom, very intently focuses on him. Beetle's eyes grow wide and his jaw goes slightly slack in an expression Maelstrom would interpret as the realization of horror.

Maelstrom quickly closes the distance and attempts to stuff Beetle's helmet into his bread basket, only to be surprised at how quickly he manages to dodge the blow. Returning the offensive greeting with a wild punch, Beetle manages to land an impressive right hook to Malestrom's jaw.

Spinning around and momentarily distracted from his battle with the Captain due to the sound of his old enemy, Tiger Shark scowls menacingly and bares his pointed teeth at the approaching Mantaman. "You! I don't know what happened to my brother-in-law or his pointy-eared buddy, but all I know is without them around, you're nothing but a cheapOOF!"

At this point, Tiger Shark leaves an impression. In the earth. Momentarily at eye level with the Captain before slamming Tiger Shark to the ground, the Captain flashed Mantaman a smile and a thumbs-up.

Switching his attenton to the battle taking place behind the two great sharks, the Captain spots Klaw and hurls his sheild at him. Upon being struck, Klaw issues what sounds, simultameously, like a mix between a deep ringing bell, a human scream, a loud *POP*, and a dog whistle before he disappears, leaving behind his sonic convertor on the ground next to Cap's shield.

"Yay, Vibranium alloys...", Cap says to himself, smiling.

Several feet in front of cap, an orange-and-purple fist flies up from the ground, socking Mantaman in the jaw and causing him to stagger back a short distance.

Tiger Shark climbs up from his self-created crater and faces Mantaman. "I...WAS...SPEAKING...", he informs the hero through rows of nasty, big, pointy teeth.

Beetle's eyes momentarily flash away from Maelstrom's, as he sees the two weapons now lying on the ground only a short distance away. He dives towards the weapons and rolls into a tumble, managing to grab Captain's shield and hold it defensively in front on him. "Yes!", Maelstrom hears Beetle whisper softly.

Sunstroke, having just put an extremely embarrassing period in his criminal career now behind him, generates a heat wave, which emanates from his body outward. All heroes without some form of energy protection suffer 20 points of heat damage.

The rest of this round...

Still having the opportunity to go this round and be time bubbled in: Rad, Pulsar, Jim, Bubbles (those who are around anyway, the rest will be NPC'd).

Over at the van, Blackbird and EnergyStar may each take one action before it is Goliath and the sound-creatures' turns.

After that, all the heroes are up in initiative order again.

Intuition

Intuition and Endurance rolls

"I thought these things were supposed to disappear when Klaw lost focus?" Blackbird grits out as he fights the airbag for elbow room. "I don't know how he can concentrate at all with this many people scattered about, all pounding on each other!"

Action

Energystar exits the van twirling her staff in her hands. "Thank God for marching band."

She hits the 24 inch Goliath before he can do anything.

I would like to hold back on the blow so I don't kill him, just knock him out real good like. If I have to spend Karma for this, so be it.

Dice Roll: 1d100
d100 Results: 86