| DC/Marvel: Age of Infinite Heroes | ||||||||||
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Jo Ausom was cursed with an odd name. Not only did she get the boy-name teasing, her last name sounds exactly like 'awesome' and the english-speakers had no end of things to poke her about that. But for all the annoyance and pain, she'd rather be back in school with her tormenters than faced by this, as she brings in the wounded body of yet another ranger.
Africa is a dangerous place, but this isn't a normal event. Her and her team aren't worried about snakes or dehydration. They're worried about bullets, which is what took down her friend who is being taken into the medical tent under the worried eyes of her camp physician. "I've got a jeep coming to get him as soon as possible, but it'll take some time. Just stabilize him, please, Ruth."
Ruth, the medic, nods and gets inside. Too many people under her care in too short a time have left her looking haggard. A crime, on her beautiful black skin. The military-style camp looks good, but the people are scared. Jo tugs at her own short hair and wonders aloud. "How can I STOP this?"
Kara Zor-El liked Africa a lot. Sure, there were a lot of problems with warlords and tribal and governmental conflicts, slave trades (yes, that actually still happened, largely in the north), killings over stuff like blood diamonds. But there were also nice things. Lots of unspoiled land. Beautiful vistas. So many types of animals. She particularly liked the lions. They were just like Streaky.... but nicer and more playful and with less of a killer mentality. Then again most things had less of a killer mentality than Streaky. She sat among a pride of lions, hugging a cub while another rolled around at her feet wanting more tummy rubs. Three full grown lions were around her as well. The male had already tried to bite her once, but after it almost felt like his teeth would break, it decided to just lie down and do nothing - the human didn't seem to be dangerous to the pride after all. One of the female hunters didn't feel the same way though, and was trying to scratch and bite at her, only getting a giggle from the teenager who was having fun playing with her. She decided to put her arm around the lioness and skritch her behind her ear. Streaky liked that kind of thing when he was getting ornery, after all.
Shading her eyes, Jo looks out over the landscape. A gathering of lions is always of interest, even if she is distracted with worry. Mostly because they're easy targets for poachers, but in this case the flashes of primary colours is new. Pulling out her binoculars, she frowns, then says, "I'll be right back," to her team. With James in the med tent under anasthesia, she's in charge.
So she walks out toward the group of lions and the odd sight of a girl in blue and red playing with them. Cuddling a lion cub. Ignoring their fangs and claws like it's playtime. The tall african woman calls out, "Are you okay?" in clear but accented English toward Supergirl, having not yet recognized her. If not, she has a tranq gun on her but she'd rather not use it. The lions are endangered enough already.
Kara Zor-El sees the woman calling out to her. Shoot, she needed to pay more attention. Maybe she was a ranger or something to be out here? "Shhh." she says to the lioness who's finally beginning to relax from the ear skritches. And it only take her breaking two claws on Kara's invulnerable skin. Kara sets the baby cub down by the lioness. The cub licks Kara's hand. "I'll be back guys."
She gets up and waves over at Jo. "Stay over there!" she calls out. "I'll come over to you." she says. Then there's a blur and Kara's by her. "Sorry um... if you're a park ranger or something... I can explain. I just like hanging out here sometimes and playing with the big cats. I guess I'm a cat person." She pauses. "Well not a literal cat person, but I like cats." She looks over Jo, then adds, "Er... Supergirl." she points to herself.
Jo jumps as Supergirl moves so fast that she can't track. Literally jumps, landing in a crouch that suggests a lack of hand to hand skills but a good sense of self-preservation. "Gah!" Apparently the automatic reaction is the same in all cultures. She stands up again, frown on her face, and tries to not look too embarrased at her obvious overreaction. Supergirl, of course.
"Don't...do that," she says, then tries again. "Sorry. Welcome to Africa, I see you're making yourself at home. That's impressive to say the least." She glances at the pride of lions, then back to Kara. "I'm Jo Ausom. Don't say it." Sticks out a hand to shake, assuming that Supergirl is a person. Even though she's not actually sure of that point yet.
Behind her, people in the camp are noticing what's going on and starting to talk about 'Supergirl! She's come to help!'
Kara Zor-El smiles and shakes Jo's hand. "Nice to meet you Jo. Sorry... I sometimes forget that can be startling to people. The superspeed stuff, I mean." Odd, Kara's hand doesnt feel 'superstrong' - it's a firm grip but not like... insanely tough. Werent people like Supergirl like... as hard as steel or something? She seemed normal to the touch. Kara motions at the pride of lions. "They're pretty social animals, actually. Much nicer than tigers. Heck... much nicer than my housecat."
When Jo says Supergirl's here to help, though, Kara seems a bit confused. "Yeah I... wait what?" She asks, "What do you need help with?"
Kara Zor-El smiles and shakes Jo's hand. "Nice to meet you Jo. Sorry... I sometimes forget that can be startling to people. The superspeed stuff, I mean." Odd, Kara's hand doesnt feel 'superstrong' - it's a firm grip but not like... insanely tough. Werent people like Supergirl like... as hard as steel or something? She seemed normal to the touch. Kara motions at the pride of lions. "They're pretty social animals, actually. Much nicer than tigers. Heck... much nicer than my housecat."
When Jo's people say Supergirl's here to help, though, Kara seems a bit confused. "Yeah I... wait what?" She asks, "What do you need help with?"
Jo nods as she shakes Kara's hand, then looks at her own hand for a moment as if wondering why it's still attached. Then she gives a small shake of her head, apparently writing it off as one more thing to consider later, and says, "I know they are, we're studying the animals. We're a ranger group for the science institute. How do you know we need help?"
Though Jo can think of about a dozen ways to tell, she's still a bit confused as to how KARA knows. Still, any cover in a storm and you don't turn down assistance when it's available. "We're mostly waiting on the medical jeep to arrive to get our captain to a hospital. The poachers shot him about half an hour ago. Sniper." She isn't flat-out asking for help; that's not how she was raised. But she is telling how the situation lies, without pretending that it's better than it is either.
Kara Zor-El pauses and points over at the others in Jo's group a distance from them. "Oh um... that guy said 'Supergirl - she's come to help.'" She adds, "I have really good hearing, Jo." with a smile as she then listens, then looks concerned. "I can bring your captain to the hospital, then I can help with these poachers." She thinks, looking Jo over. "Assuming you're okay with that?"
Jo finds herself in a position where she's being offered basically everything she could possibly need. Blinking in surprise, she says, "Um, yes? I mean Yes! Ruth is a good medic, but I seriously thought James was going to die this time and the jeep is a rough ride for a critical patient. Go, go!" She stops and shakes Kara's hand with both of hers, acting a little stupid for a moment. Since Kara can't go if she's holding her hand.
Kara Zor-El nods as Jo keeps shaking her hand with both of hers. She's about to go to help the captain, when she notices Joe's still shaking her hand with both of hers. "Um.... I sort of need my hand to do this, unless you want to come along to the hospital when I take your captain there?" She looks back at the others, then at Jo. "I'll just bring him there and be back within a couple of minutes or so at most." She does need to fly slower when having passengers, but flying as fast as a jet would still be more than fast enough.
Jo lets Kara go quickly, saying, "No, no, go. I'm just an idiot." She calls out, "Ruth! Evac's here!" Which gets a response from the medical tent in fluent Zulu that doesn't bear repeating and consists mostly of references to Jo's parentage. But the pretty medic sticks her head out anyway, confusedly.
Kara Zor-El looks over at Jo. "Colorful language she has, doesnt she?" Then says to Ruth when she peeks her head out, in Zulu, "< Is your captain stable enough to be moved safely? >" She knew how to speak Zulu. Of course.
Kara asks, "< Also, you can speak english I'm assuming, right? >"
Jo takes some time to get back to camp. Until then, Ruth is faced by Supergirl and confusion. < Moving him is possible, > she says, frowning. < He is dying, so moving him now will either save him or take what time he has left. But if he stays, he will not survive. > At that point, the very practical medic steps aside and waves Kara into her tent where a very unhealthy man awaits evacuation. < My english is poor, but acceptable. They did not hire me for linguistics. >
While this is happening, Jo jogs up to the tent and starts giving orders. Bring maps, don't argue with me. No she's not giving autographs. "Ruth! Let me know if you need anything."
Ruth calls out, "I could use a regular sex life," almost casually. They come across as old friends; it sounds like a conversation they've had before, many times.
Kara Zor-El checks out the captain with x-ray vision and microscopic vision, seeing if she can fly with him without making his injuries worse. From what she had studied of human biology when Batman and Superman kept her at the Fortress, she made an estimated guess that he would be fine. She walks over to the table and picks it up him up in a cradle-carry. "I'll be back soon. The hospital isnt more than 40 miles away." she says before walking out of the tent with her. Then she floats up in the air and flies off at a speed which Kara estimated wouldnt be too fast to cause him injury, but fast enough that it makes using any other aircraft slow in comparison.
She's back maybe 10 minutes later, having taken the time to explain to the doctors what had happened before returning in seconds instead of the minutes it took to take the Captain to the hospital. She lands outside the encampment. "So...."
Ruth is in her tent, holding her head in her hands. She'll be fine, but things are a bit stressful for her. Jo is easier to find; she's at a hastily set up table with maps and her team around her, pointing at things on the map while she tries to get them to shut up. Looking up at Kara, Jo waves and says, "Here. This is where we are." A dark finger shows their location, then indicates several other markings on the map.
"We have no idea where the poachers are, but we've indicated the locations of the elephants they're targeting right now. That's all I can give you; they shoot us if we get close to finding them. Can you help us?" The locations are spread apart, but one is very close. It's also where James was shot, not half an hour ago now.
Kara Zor-El looks at the map, nodding a little. "I could probably fly up and get a good look at all locations. Maybe I'd get lucky and spot these poachers? But yeah, that one, over there..." she points to the elephant location that Jo had mentioned. "But yeah, that looks like the most likely spot."
--
The ground is uncomfortably hot out in the plains. Laying in the grass, with some protection against snakes and insects, the sniper finishes his beer. Putting the empty can into the pile, he chuckles at the thought of that idiot ranger just walking into his sights. Served him right, and they do scurry when one of their people are down. It never fails to amuse him.
Well, back to the job. He rolls over to his rifle, then sets it up. The truck should be by in a bit, and he needs to have a dead elephant for them to take. Even though all they really want is the tusks these days, there's some market for the skins. He's left skinned elephants all over Africa. Disgusting beasts.
He turns his eyes to his sights, scoping in, and spots the herd. There's a really BIG bull that he's been looking at, and todays's it's day. He turns, finding the old man, and gives a bit of a spit on the ground as he gets the big grey beast in his crosshairs. "Bang," he says, liking that english word. Then he squeezes his trigger, sending a bullet toward the gigantic elephant. He aims for the center, liking it when they have time to squirm before dying.
--
The bullet fires towards the elephant, but when it hits where the elephant should be, it impacts instead with a woman's very nice chest, covered in a blue shirt with a familiar S logo, whereupon it flattens like the bullet hit steel.
Guess that's why they call her the Girl of Steel.
Because if he stopped looking through the scope, he'd see that the elephant is no longer on the ground, but rather is being held off the ground by one hand.... by a pretty teenage blonde girl who has a stern frown on her face. Supergirl. And when Supergirl is acting stern, that usually means trouble for the person she's looking at.
She briefly looks up at the bull elephant she's easily lifting, "Shhh ... no worries big guy." she says to calm it.
The expected moment of confusion on the poacher's face is short-lived. "What the hell?" he says, lifting his head from his scope. Having neither a degree in logic studies nor one in current events, he decides that his best bet would be to lower his head again and take another shot, this time at the girl.
Aiming at her right eye, he zooms in his scope slightly and then fires again. Nice, high-caliber hunting round designed to take down full-sized elephants. To be fair, they are the biggest land mammal on earth. Which makes them all the more confused when they're lifted off of the ground by stern-looking girls.
The sniper/poacher is clearly a great shot.... the bullet fires through the air, slamming against Kara's eye. She didn't even bother to flinch or blink. It hit her eye, flattened, then fell to the african plains. "I swear, people either don't respect the S, or just have a double standard. Bet they don't do that to Kal." She puts the elephant down while the sniper loadds another shot. When he puts his eye to the scope again, all he sees is the S in his field of vision. Because Kara's standing there in front of him, maybe a foot and a half from the gun scope.
The poacher frowns at his scope, then lifts his head. He backs away from his rifle suddenly, scrambling on his butt as he tries to adjust to seeing Kara suddenly up close. A very similar reaction to what Jo had just a little while earlier, though her face isn't white with fear. "Holy Jesus!" he says, reaching for his big-ol knife. Taking it into his hand, he gets to his feet and tries to eviscerate Kara with it. Never failed him before, after all.
A truck starts being audible in the distance, as well. It seems that some of the poacher's compatriots are coming to back him up, and they spot Kara's red and blue outfit without too much trouble. They start breaking out the weapons, including a rather nasty looking grenade launcher and a flamethrower. Nobody in their right minds uses a flamethrower in the plains in autumn; it's suicidal.
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Kara Zor-El picks up the rifle idly as the poacher backs away. She looks at the poacher in front of her. "No, not him. Guess again." she says as she calmly takes the barrel of the gun and bends it like a pipe cleaner into a loop. "Just so you don't start trying to shoot more elephants. You know that's illegal right?" she says casually, as she tosses the gun back on the ground by the poacher's feet.
Right before he brandishes the knife.
Kara looks at him and can't help have a look of part disbelief (that someone would be this dumb) and part amusement (that someone would be this dumb). She rubs the bridge of her nose. "Yes. Good idea. I just bent your gun like a paper clip with my fingers, after taking two shots - one to my chest, the other to my EYE...." she says, stressing that he shot her in the eye and it didnt hurt or even make her blink. "... and it didn't do anything. But yes.. you have a sharpened piece of metal. That'll work a lot better."
She continues. "Yes, I don't see how this can possibly fail - this won't end at all poorly for you. I'm incredibly scared." Kara said with a deadpan, sarcastic, and totally unafraid tone.
Right before he charges at her to try to gut her. The knife slams against her taut, exposed stomach and the tip of it first blunts, and bends. Then, as he tries to push harder, the metal snaps at the base.
Kara looks down at where the knife thrust at her, then at the thrust-ee. "Yeah... no. That was sad." she says before putting her forefinger and thumb together and flicking her finger at the sniper's head.
As the knife snaps off at the hilt, the poacher finds himself staring at the handle with consternation. "Superman?" he says, giving one last nail in the coffin of him being a -complete- imbecile. Just before Kara's finger sends him over in an unconscious heap. He does a glorious backflip first though, which makes him totally worthy of a participation award if not any actual prize for his efforts today.
His group, however, have gotten the grenade launcher up and running. The sound of a 'phoot' from over by the vehicle suggests that they're firing it as well, which is when semi-automatic grenade rounds start flying at Kara's immediate area. Along with some bullets, but those are really only a danger to the poacher.
Kara Zor-El takes a moment to rub the bridge of her nose exxasperatedly. "Superman?" She walks over to where he flew back and collapsed unconscious from her punch-level finger flick, but first speeds around to pick up each of the grenades, tossing them upwards into the sky - so high that the explosions can't even be seen. Except for the last one, which she just holds, enclosing in her hands. There's a muffled explosion within her hands and a few whisps of smoke as it explodes in her hand, the explosion contained. Kara continues. "Seriously. SUPERMAN? Long blonde hair, narrow waist, skirt? Oh and not to mention...." She points to her chest. "BOOBS! HELLO?!"
Kara rolls her eyes. "Poachers are idiots." Then sees as the poacher's group pulls up with weapons better suited for going to war than hunting animals. She just shakes her head as the machine gun bullets spray the area. Kara does at least bother to get in front of the unconscious poacher just in case a bullet would have otherwise hit him on a ricochet. A hail of bullets hits into her all over her body, as she idly taps her foot and crosses her arms. And they keep trying to fire at her!
"Yeah sure! That first batch of 100 bullets must have been the soft type!" she say as she watches them reload the machine gun. "Putting the harder ones in now, right?"
And they start firing again. "Oh for Rao's sake..." she says before she just lets her eyes glow red and fires out heat vision at the machine gun barrel, melting it into slag and rendering the weapon useless.
Having as much luck with the machine gun as they would have with a potato gun, the poachers start arguing amongst themselves as to whose fault it is. They start to openly panic when the turret-mounted machine gun gets slagged, and bail out of the vehicle! The guy holding the grenade launcher stops shooting so he can reload, which is fine since he was only really putting his sniper in danger with the grenades. Not exactly the best of friends, then, one might assume.
Three people leave the jeep. The first is fighting with his grenade launcher, reloading. The second has the flamethrower, and is preparing it to use on Kara when, not if, she ends up at close range. But when the third leaves, the guy with the flamethrower turns his pistol on him. "You're fired."
Kara's a blur when the pistol fires at the third poacher... and flattens against Kara's palm, which is suddenly in front of the third poacher's face. She turns her head to look at the poacher who's life she just saved. She drops the flattened bullet. "Not much job security in your line of work, huh?" she says before giving him a light swat with the back of her hand. Better than getting shot in the face.
"So I'm assuming you're going to be smart and give up now, right?" she asks.
Well, the guy with the grenade launcher's gun is jamming because he's trying to reload it with rounds that he's putting in backwards because he's going too fast. He drops his gun and crouches down on the ground with his hands on his head like a good little guy, screaming something about Kali. Apparently he's religious.
The guy that Kara smacked does the expected; he drops in a heap. Which is a good thing, since his boss isn't the type to give up easily. "Not as long as I have blood in my body, Supergirl!" he exclaims as he grips his flamethrower with both hands, and unloads a stream of flaming napalm into her at close range! Or tries to anyway. He's making a concerted effort to do so.
To be fair, at least he recognized who she was.
Kara Zor-El gets doused by a hellish torrent of flames from the flamethrower. At close range where the napalm is its absolute hottest. She crosses he arms, and taps her foot a bit, looking at him, even though he probably can't see her with all that fire in the way. "You know..." she starts, but realizes with the sound of the flamethrower, he couldnt possibly hear her. so she raises her hand until it's touching the top of the flamethrower.
Her fingers close around it, and he tip of the flamethrower nozzle crumbles like foil under her grip.
She takes a cleansing breath. "AS I WAS SAYING... You know..." she repeats, "If you know who I am, you should know that I'm invulnerable. Or at least after your guys shot at me with the high powered rifle. And the knife. And the machine gun. And the grenades..." she says, stopping to look at the third guy still trying to quickly reload the grenade. "They're grenades. The only people they'll hurt even if I LET them go off would be you dummies." She looks back at the 'boss.' She grips the boss by his shirt and lifts upwards.
The guy with the grenade launcher has pretty well given up on reloading at this point. He's on the ground with his hands on his head, trying to surrender. His boss probably wouldn't approve, but given that he's figured out that he's only making things worse, well, he's done. Quite.
Mr Flamethrower shuts off the output before the thing can blow up as he watches Supergirl crush the end, looking at it with wide eyes and a disbelieving expression. Then he finds himself being lifted off of the ground, and flails with the flamethrower spout a bit. "You have no jurisdiction here!" he yells, whimpering in fear. "Someone kill her, kill her!"
From the one other guy still conscious, we get a resounding, "You're on your own, boss." He's on the ground already, trying not to be dumb for once.
Kara Zor-El looks at the guy who surrenders and gets on the ground. "See? Dumb people CAN LEARN." Then looks at the boss in her one-handed grip as he's flailing with his feet not touching the ground. "Well... some dumb people, anyway. As for jurisdiction.... " she says, taking his pistol from him, and crushing it in her hand like clay. She then lets go of his shirt and letting him fall on the ground. She shrugs. "Pfft. I'm not the ones who are going to arrest you." she says when she hears Jo's jeep and people approaching the area. She smiles. "By all means, try something else though. Beecause flamethrowers, machine guns, grenades, rifles and knives didnt do anything. And you don't have any more weapons on you. So unless you think you can do anything with your bare hands, I think you should follow your friend's example."
The arriving jeep comes up, having been rushing to get there as fast as they could. Jo and her team are armed as well as they can be, but with no flamethrowers or grenade launchers. Still, it's enough to be able to package up the sniper in cuffs and come up on Kara and her captives.
The boss looks at Kara and looks as if he'd like to spit on her, since nothing has worked. But instead he stands up and waits to be arrested, saying "I will have my lawyers deal with you. I will be out in hours."
Jo comes up at that point, saying, "Seriously. Adrian Birbeck? Kara, I don't think he's aware of the warrant for his arrest that's come out this week. Mind if I have this one?" She's spinning a pair of handcuffs around a finger, looking amused. "You're under arrest. I should let Ruth have you for shooting so many of her friends." She doesn't sound like she's kidding, or like Adrian will enjoy the visit with her medic.
Kara Zor-El takes a step aside and motions at Adrian. "He's all yours." she says to Jo.
As Jo is taking the poachers into custody, Kara hears something coming up behind her. Normally not an animal that approaches jeeps, the bull elephant walks up to Kara and puts out his trunk as if to rest it on her shoulder. His big, old eyes suggest that he might just be aware of what's going on regardless of species, and his family ranges the fields behind him as he pats her to let her know. He'll remember.