| DC/Marvel: Age of Infinite Heroes | ||||||||||
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It was a sunny but cold day in Metropolis, but fortunately there was no snow. The air was brisk, the people walking perhpas a bit faster to get to where they were going to make sure they would stay warm. A perfect day to bask with a mug of hot chocolate and contemplate.
Down the main street, across from one of such coffee places, Cass was doing a story with Jimmy, "... But, how exactly were the girls with the tassles involved over in the midn control business?" Poor, poor Cass!
Then came a bellow. Then came a roar. Then came smashing out of the ground in a giant drilltank GRODD. With several dozen apes, monkeys, gorillas, orangutangs, etc wearing armored looking suits and with giant lookind death rays in thier hands. Grodd howled, "Come, my army of assassin apes! Together, we shall conquer this cityscape and remove the stain of humanity from it!"
Cass keeps staring at her pencil and decides if the others would be mad at her if she stabbed Jimmy through the eye. She has been grinding at the bit all day! She likes human interests stories, not stories about tassles and mind rape! Even if they break in ratings, she feels dirty.
And then suddenly, Cass leaps up out of her chair at the appearance of a bellowing Grodd and screams as she thrusts her fists into the air, "YES! I'm saved!" Oops! She looks about a bit wide-eyed, realizing she just declared that outloud, very loudly at that. "Oops," she says again, this time out loud.
Clark Kent is enjoying some much needed time away from work. He's with his genetically inbued son and is currently munching on a hot dong and offering one to Conner. "You know, it's been awhile since we've had some bonding time for you and I, son. I really enjoy sepending some time with with you outside of some sort of crisis. This is a much needed rest for us."
"Well, there was Christmas at the farm," Conner points out, dressed maybe a little light for the weather, but still capable of feeling the chill, if only a little. He accepts the hot dog, taking a bite. He stops mid-chew, listening carefully as the phrase 'Assassin Apes' draws his attention to the farthest he can hear. He turns his head, listening for a few more moments to make sure it's not some cartoon. Someone loudly declaring their saved just confuses matters even more. "Think you might have jinxed us."
Jimmy Olsen looks over at Cass, and entirely misses her sudden howl of success, as he just stares at the arrayed army of apes, "Golly Gawrsh!" Did.. He just say.. Yes. Yes he did. "Do you think we had better get to cover, Miss Cass?" Jimmy has his old, bulky looking camera out, bless him. The apes are charging around, haphazardly firing around laser guns.
Cass glances about, then moves to overturn the table and hides behind it. "Surrrre, does this table protect us from laser fire? It is not exactly crystal clear glass. Wait, will glass even reflect it? This is a bad idea." She pouts. "I can't even interview anyone!" Her arms cross over her chest, before she forces them to uncross and looks about as she pulls out her notepad to start jotting down notes. "Screw it, start taking photos Jimmy." She's as bad as Lois in some ways, no self-consideration for her own well-being really.
Clark Kent sighs when he hears the commotion. He even faceplams briefly when he hears Cass exclamation before. He sets his hotdog to the side and comments to Conner. "I believe I did. But at least it's not Lois this time." He motions with his head to Conner towards a nearby alleyway as he places his hand on his tie to tug it off as he blurs into the alley to emerge in seconds as the Man of Steel himself. He flies by visibly overhead of Jimmy and Cass.
The upside of the winter wear is it allows Conner to wear a proper costume beneath. It's not the full costume, a Leather Jacket rather difficult to hide beneath a long sleeve shirt, but it's still recognizably Superboy in his trademark bodysuit that takes a lower approach, weaving between buildings.
She-Hulk doesn't bother with little things like secret identites, being over six feet tall and, of course, an interesting shade of green. "Ape attack?" she inquires. Aha. A Kryptonian. Make that two. They ARE handy to have around, as long as they're on her side. She cracks her knuckles and advances into the mass of monkeys.
Jimmy Olsen is certainlyw tih Cass on this one! He goes to take photos over of the gorillas swarming downtown, going to go for a clossup and then he sees.. It's Grodd. Jimmy goes, "Uh-Oh." That is a bad thing. And unfortunately now he can't duck back to cover with Cass..
Grodd turns over, "Stop the infidel Kryptonians! Destroy the debaser aliens of our ape ruled earth to be!" Well, and the green woman too.
A trio of monkeys flip by towards She-Hulk, gooing, "OOH OOH AAHH!" Laserbeam!
A trio of Gorillas are setting up what seems to be a giant looking cannon that has three of them manning behind it with the most -adorable- army helmets with straps hanging down thier faces to try and aim it ove rtowards the approachong Superman, Conner having not been noticed yet..
Cass sees Jimmy in shock trouble, and still holding her notepad and pencil, she darts from her cover and goes to try and tug Jimmy behind some chairs, "I said take photos, not stand there and be shot or ripped limb-by-limb!" She isn't really yelling exactly, but her tone is scolding at Jimmy! "Let the Super Family be the targets, and take photos of their awesomeness, don't /be/ the target yourself." Wait, maybe she does have more common sense than Lois after all!
Clark Kent takes a moment to survey the scene and spots She-Hulk moving into a troop of monkeys with lasers. "I think we got some help, Kon." Offering the green beauty queen a wave, he then comments. "You take the large cannon thing, I'll take Grod." He angles his flight so that he goes for the large gorilla himself. "Grod! Stand down and surrender. You know how this is going to end if you don't." He hovers above him slightly, arms crossed confidently over his broad chest.
With his X-ray vision not yet quite instinctive, and his low flight causing him to have to navigate mostly by sound, he doesn't see Jen, or even what Clark's talking about until he bursts from a nearby alley. Advantage of super human reaction time, he can ID and redirect himself without losing much in the way of speed. One of the gorilla's setting up the cannon feels himself grabbed by the shoulders before Superboy flips in mid air, bleeding off forward momentum even as he swings the gorilla around and then into the ground.
She-Hulk wades in, grabbing a chimp and throwing it to land on a pair of orang-utans. "Superman, is this one of *your* villains?" she calls up, entirely too cheerfully. A second chimp jumps on her back, though, and covers her eyes with its little chimp hands. "HEY!" she exclaims. Okay. That's SO not a fair move!
Jimmy Olsen takes a moment to err over at Cass, "Yeah, and.." At this point, Jimmy tries to hide over behind the table then, "I bet you could interview the monkeys when Superman's done wtih them." Sure, why not? It makes sense to him! "And ask them why they're tryign to take over Metropolis? I mean, what's it about here as opposed to Burbank? Or Montreal!"
As Kon-El zooms through the air with the greatest of ease, Grodd calls, "So Superman, afraid to confront me and sending your son!" The last time wtih the little dog too would be best left unremembered as Grodd calls out, "Tehre will be no more doings of the monkey for you Superman, for this time, we shall do the spanking!" HIs eyes glow, and he attempts to use his nefarious ape human mind control abilities to take over Kon-El's psyche to have him smash over towards Superman! "Do my bidding, inferior alien!"
The Orang-Otangs were swarming over Jennifer, trying to keep her too busy to help over in the main fight as they trie dto trip her up and hit her over with the laser guns!
Cass hrms, "You may have an idea there." She peers about again, and looks for some cover to get closer to the action! Though the laser fire makes her a little wary when Power Boy isn't there. But she stiffens her spine as they say! "Come on!" She then goes to grab the back of Jimmy's shirt, and goes to start dragging him from table to table, as they start toward the sidewalk, and a newspaper stand. "We are going to get closer to the action! And that big thingy!" She means the missile launcher, or whatever it is!
As She-Hulk fought agaisnt the swarming orangutangs, the sound of an engine gunning could be heard. Or rather, a rocke tpowered engine. A clown car, commandeered wiht a large jet engine on the back, a massive laser cannon mounted atop, revved the rocket engine as it faced off against the Jade Giantess,the monkeys howling, "KNEEL BEFORE GRODD!"
Superman calls over to She-Hulk. "More or less. I think he likes playing with Flash more than me, though." When the monkey's eyes begin glowing as he tries to take over Kon's mind, Superman's eyes widen slightly. "No, not him." And the man of steel moves faster than a speeding bullet, attempting to gut-shot the gorilla himself to maybe distract him from concentrating on taking over Conner. "You leave my son out of this, you fiend..."
The gut-punch distracts Grodd enough for Superboy to break free, and he turns on the remaining apes. "Hey, Grodd!" He repeats a trick, patting both apes on the back as they try and finish setting up the launcher, and then launches them skyward. "Flying monkeys!" He then sets on the launcher itself, going for quick and dirty, wanting it out of commission before Grodd can try and re-capture his mind.
She-Hulk laughs. A pretty free laugh. "I don't kneel before anyone. Much less a jumped up MONKEY!" Then as the car drives towards her, she neatly leaps upwards, spinning in the air to land on...well, on the top of the jet engine, really. "Hey. Mind if I...drive?"
Grodd is sucker punched inthe stomach by Superman, rolling over to the side and landing near Jimmy right as Jimmy was going on to Cass, "I mean, they could have invaded just about anywhere, why not.." Then Grodd looked up at JImmy, "You, human! WHy do you continue to resist the rightful domination of the world by us superior, Intelligent Apes over your infernal aliens!" Jimmy erred, "Hi.."
Meanwhile, the giant gorilla manned laser cannon let out a huge blast, now properly charged at the Man of Steel, glowing bright as it let out a streaking blast of light!
And Jennifer Walters was doing what she was born to do. Riding atop a rocket powered clown car piloted/driven by monkeys as they tried to knock her off the top of it Dukes of Hazzard style. Life was good.
"OOH OOH OOH AHH AHH!" Shaking thier fists as they tried to toss her off!
Would Kon-El get to the blasting laser before it could blast off Superman's mullet? Could the Intelligent Simian Overlord use Jimmy as his bethroned? Find out next pose round!
"Then stop killing us!" Wait, maybe Cass shouldn't have said anything! Still holding onto Jimmy's shirt, she suddenly says, "RUN!" And boy does she start working to drag Jimmy right with her, "Take photos!" Geez, can't she just say something nice to poor Jimmy?! And where is she running?! Holy shit, right toward the big shooting thingy! At least she is trying to run at the sidelines, jumping over a monkey and dragging Jimmy right over it if he isn't careful!
Superman turns just as the laser goes off and is hit full on by it. With a 'umphf' he is blasted backwards, through buildings, street signs, and cars. He is blasted back several, several city blocks. And when he finally comes to rest, there is crater around his body and whisps of smoke rises from his prone form. For the moment, he is stunned as he rises to a knee holding his head. "Wasn't expecting..that.." He murmurs.
Kon is too late to stop the cannon from firing, flinching from the blast that sent Superman flying. He grabs hold, and charges forward, holding it like a somewhat unwieldy baseball bat as he rushes Grodd, trying to bash the ape upside the back of the head with it.
Jen. On a rocket car...with them trying to scrape her off. She clings on...and then reaches into the 'cockpit' and does her best to knock monkey heads together. This might be more effective if they actually had brains. It starts to send the car spiraling downwards.
Meanwhile, luckily She-Hulk is able to smash the carroming, careening monkey flown rocket powered clown car over into a conveniently nearby stand of Hostess Fruit Snacks, which squish over and blind the monkeys before the apes can make their grand escape, hte clown car and the rocket engine both fizzling, and giving her one working laser cannon!
Superboy is able to grab the bat as the giant gorillas were bonked around like a group of batboys by the bazooka wielding bat, one of them shrieking, "Noo! No more infernal Beatles spinoffs!" Right before he was klonked over on the side of the head and sent into la la land!
Off in the distance, a tall, muscular looking blonde man with a mullet hairdo and sunglasses quirked a brow and went, "Huh, guess the monkeys didn't wnat to do the monkey with him."
Jimmy is being dragged along by Cass, and yelps as his camera continues to take scattered shots as Cass flees.. Into the legion of monkey doom. Bouncing along, going, "Ow, ow, excuse me!!" Into the middle of the melee! Somehow, she ends up tripped over, and falls to the ground. Jimmy stumbles, rolling and land atop, slammed over to the side with the camera on auto now, clicking off shots, and then Grodd steps behind them, Jimmy's face rebounding off fo Grodd's kneecap. "Infernal human, admit your inferiority to my super simians!" Jimmy's face rebounding repeatedly off Grodd's knee, bagonging upon his freckled nose, "Can't.. Answer.." Owowowow!
It was a monkey, it was a short monkey! Cass goes tripping over it, ended up kicking it like a football as it skips and skids away before she lands face first into the pavement. Oooh, that's going to leave some indented marks as her notepad and pencil goes flying when she goes to catch herself, scraping her hands with a wince. But then...
...the air is knocked out of her with a very un-ladylike grunt as Jimmy lands on top of her. She tries to flounder, but Jimmy is heavier than his skinny butt looks! Talk about a fish out of water!
...then air! Cass grasps as Jimmy rolls off, and Grodd is busy greeting poor Jimmy's face with his knee. Cass is slowly picking herself up and searching for her notepad and pencil. She sounds breathlessly and gaspy as she tries to ask, "Aren't you into taking over the world and ruling? How do you expect to rule without humans? Are the monkeys to be your slaves ruled by gorillas?" Is she trying to cause dissent in his troops?! Damn right!
Now if she only looked more collected and knowledgeable rather than gasping for breath, a dirty cheek, and sit sitting on the road awkwardly in the middle of chaos! Now will the distraction for Grodd work? To get him to brag about his plans, fluff his ego?
There is a sonic boom and the man of steel is suddenly floating in midair. Having recovered from the laser, Superman actually looks a little pissed off. Grodd is caught in his eyes sight as he streaks towards him, attempts to grab him by the back of his large gorilla neck and tosses him up into the air. Superman disappears again to appear above the rising Grodd and smacks him back down towards the ground. Superman disappears again to appear below Grodd to catch him and send a punch towards his gut. He uses enough strength to make the monkey man feel his strikes so that he knows that the gloves were off, but not enough to actually kill him.
Superboy, in the mean time, finishes smashing various gorillas with the cannon, and just lets it fall apart suspiciously neatly, as if being disassembled. He doesn't even have to turn around to recognize the sound of Superman punching something and meaning it. He zips in, snatching Jimmy by the back of his pants and Cass by her arm. "Better a witness than a bystander," he remarks, flying off with them in tow, heading towards where She-Hulk crash landed.
Which means...She-Hulk, covered in pieces of cupcake, emerging from the trashed stand victorious. With a laser cannon. "Okay. NOW are any of you apes willing to take me on?" She's a little worried about actually using it and maybe killing a gorilla or two, but you wouldn't think it from the way she's standing. And grinning.
Before Grodd can attest to his arrest, a rather pissed off Superman is drubbing him at Supersonic Superspeed. GOrilla Grodd is strong enough, fast enough, and poewrful enough to go toe to toe with some of the most feared fiends on the planet. This does not preclude a pummeling from the Man of Steel not holding back. Someone in the crowd calls out, "Watch out for that Tree!" Grodd is gone, folks. Let's give him a big hand.
Jimmy rubs over at his sore face, and offers over to Cass, "Uhm, I'm sure he'll give you that interview later on. Maybe you can get a byline with it." Jimmy goes to pick up his camera, rubbing over at it as he made sure it was still working.
Meanwhile, She-Hulk was a giant jade woman covered over in creampuffs sliding down her figure with sweet sucrose smeared all over. The monkeys paused, and looked over at one naother and then shrugged. One of them reaching forwards to try and grab some of the puffs over on a finger to then eat off. Then giving a thumbs up and shrugging it's shoulders. It was Grodd's idea!
The general raucous ruckus seemed to be over with the remaining Gorillas pulling a magilla to get into their ape escape!
And of course, Cass and Jimmy are picked up by Superboy! "Whoa!" Cass realizes she isn't dangling from her arm, but almost seeming to 'hover'...odd. But then, "Oooooh, I got TTK boys and girls!" Damn it, she has seen Toon Titans! She looks up at Superboy and smiles cheekily, "You need a peek-a-boo window sweetie, it's soooo sexy to show off your chest." And there is a playful wink, before she then gets an eye-full as they say of She-Hulk holding a missile launcher, looking like a manaic about to go on a killing spree, and monkey's eating cupcake stuff off her with their fingers. Her jaw drops, and she half speaks, "Get a photo of that Jimmy. It's awesome." She needs her head checked, and it's all Jimmy's fault.
Superman hovers down to where She-Hulk is standing. He places a hand gently on her shoulder and nods. "Thanks for the help, She-Hulk. I'm glad you were in the area." And the best part is that he actually means it. He doesn't see himself as how other people see him. He nods to Kon-El as well with a small grin. "Great job, Kiddo. Though next time..maybe warn me about the laser thingy. That really smarts." He says as he rolls his shoulder. "Jimmy..Cass..are you two okay?"
"You're already taken, aren't you?" Kon wonders down at Cass as he flies. He's not that bothered by the TTK comment, lord knows he advertised the power enough back in the day. He places the pair down where, with the two superhumans and the alien, they're probably safer than some military bases. "I tried to stop it from firing, was a little too slow, I guess," he says, checking Superman for signs of serious damage.
-Hulk grumbles. "This is going to be viral on Youtube. Who was that zoo escapee anyway?" Clearly not a normal gorilla and yes, she did catch the name. Superman...yeah. He could handle everything himself or...could he? Probably not, as fast as he is. Everyone needs backup sometimes.
Jimmy Olsen is hefted along with Cass, and takes a picture over at her direction, after having wiped ihs camera clean on the first available surface. Which was Superboy's shirt as he erred, "Sorry about that." But he does go and take the picture over of She-Hulk as he was gestured, "Uhm, what did the monkeys want to do with her anyways?" Jimmy always got in late to these sorts of things..
"Yes, I'm Power Boy's girlfriend!" Cass sounds chipper as she informs Kon. "Didn't he tell you?" She pouts cutely as she is sat down. Then, Cass stares a few seconds at Superman, and then her notepad and pencil raises, she then eyes her pencil cracked in half, but she has the writing half! She's good. Cass says, "Take photos Jimmy, you are /really/ good at that." Apparently, not asking interview questions though. She then looks back at Superman, "May I have a statement for the paper Superman about what happened to Grodd?" She then grins cheekily, "Love to get statements from each of you /wonderful/ heroes, and extra-/tastey/ I mean /lovely/ heronine." That was totally by accident, the slight blush on her cheeks indicating that.
Superman did have a bruise on the side of his neck, but it was healing as Superboy looked at it. He answers She-Hulk. "That was gorllia Grodd. He's a super smart monkey that believes that humanity doesn't deserve to be on top of the evoluntionary ladder. He has a plat to de-evolve mankind into apes and then rule over us all. He says that it's his destiny, or something." He does smile faintly for the camera when Jimmy takes his picture. His hand is still resting on She-Hulk's shoulder unless she moves it. "Cass, I'm not sure what Grodd wanted this time. I wasn't really interested in finding out. I just knew he had to be stopped, but I could have never done it without the help of the Avenger's own She-Hulk and my son, Superboy. Thanks to their heroic efforts, Grodd will be spending a lot of time in jail to consider his folly."
"Yeah, he did, that's why I was asking," Superboy remarks to Cass, then goes quiet as the interview portion begins. He whispers, quietly, to She-Hulk. "Sometimes my rogues gallery having a humanoid shark doesn't seem that weird," he remarks, knowing publicity well enough to almost subconsciously position himself so that he, Superman and She-Hulk make for a rather nice picture for tomorrow's cover.
Great. Press. And she's covered in twinkie cream. Well. She's been seen in less dignified situations. Yes, there are naked pictures of the female Hulk around. "You guys get all the *cool* villains," she notes to Superman, amused. "But if he devolves humans into apes, then...eh. Villain logic never works."
Jimmy Olsen looked over at She-Hulk and shrugged, "Uhm, since when did villains have logic? I mean, if they had logic wouldn't they know that the good guys won all the tiem?" Watching over as the police were going to prepare Grodd for trasnport, "ANd I liked the light bulb helmet you had on last time! It was really dapper." Fashion genius Jimmy ain't. Evne on supergorilla everyday wear.
Superman asides to Conner, dropping his voice to where only the kid could hear him. "Sorry I got a little overprotective there, kiddo. I couldn't bring myself to fight you, even if you were mind controlled."
Cass then asks Superboy, "How do you feel at getting to fight by your Father's side in a Father/Son duo? Most guys your age as busy distancing themselves from their old man, how you feel about that?" She winks at She-Hulk, promising to get her next, saving the best for last after all! She then elbows Jimmy and points at his camera to remind him to keep photographing!
"Been there, done that," Superboy responds, nodding his head towards Superman. "Between my Hero of Hawaii days, Young Justice, and lately, the Titans, I don't really feel I have anything to prove. Not that anything's wrong with the sidekick thing, but I have never really thought of myself that way. He sets a heck of an example to try and live up to, but it's the same for any hero, even the ones that aren't his clone." Besides, for a few months, he WAS Superman, and that's not counting when he kept insisting people called him it while 3 other guys did the same.
She-Hulk is actually going to try and make an exit while the press are talking to the Kryptonians. She's heading...for the nearest shower. And no, Superboy, you *can't* help.
"Wait!" Cass is calling after She-Hulk, she was saving the best for last after all! "She-Hulk, what do you love about Metropolis most?!" Cass is feriously jotting down information and notes!
Cass sighs as She-Hulk keeps walking, "Damnit, should have asked her second," she says grumpily, looking /quite/ depressed about the whole thing suddenly. Awwwwwww!
Jimmy Olsen watches over as he takes a picture of She-Hulk as she goes, "Uhm, Miss Cass, did you get your quotes?" Some of the monkeys are makin' eyes at him.
Superboy turns, watching She-Hulk walk off. He pats Cass on the shoulder. "Maybe she's press shy? She's a lawyer, might be a occupational hazard," he says, trying to cheer the girl up.
Superman glances around and then announces. "I'm sorry, but we should probably be going." He motions to Superboy just before he takes flight in case he wanted to join him. "Sorry about your interview, Cass."
Jimmy Olsen gives a wave up at Superman< "Take care Superman. And really, just what do all those monkeys want to do with Metropolis? It's like we're King Kong Central.." He paused, "Or have we had another giant ape attack recently?"