July 18, 2010 - Happy Harbor, RI
Happy Harbor Power Plant
11:56:18
“Evasive maneuvers!” Robin shouts as the control orbs under M’gann’s hands light up and she tenses. But just as Ship begins to turn away from the oncoming tornado, the twister moves like a predator striking out for its prey and it is upon them. Instantly the craft is buffeted and their smooth bank becomes a headlong tumble. The world outside the viewscreens spins like they’re in a tumble dryer, a chaotic and disjointed series of images while the team shouts in confusion and alarm.
Whatever mechanism or ability Ship has to negate G-forces so they don’t feel its sudden accelerations and stops appears to be overwhelmed, as they are all tossed about in their seats, but still held in place by the stretchy living harnesses.
“Hold on!” M’gann yells, an oasis of calm and concentration in the tumbling vessel. There is an audible hum from the decking as she struggles to right Ship and after an unknown number of revolutions within the tornado, they level out and accelerate away from the tornado. Somehow, the weather phenomena turns and follows them, gouging a path of destruction through the parking lot as cars and trucks are picked up like toys and thrown about.
“I don’t think it likes us very much!” Walli shouts unnecessarily.
“We are ineffective inside Ship! M’gann, bring us down and we will deploy. Tornados do not pursue targets, we are under attack. Fan out and find the enemy!” Aqualass tersely orders. For a moment, Robin looks like she is going to argue, but grits her teeth and stays silent.
In that moment, Connor freezes, hand halfway up to the release control (he hopes) for the restraint harness, even as the others get up and M’gann dives towards the parking lot and opens a drop chute in the floor for them to exit from.
Damn it, we didn’t even get one training session with Wonder Woman yet! I’ll just follow the others’ lead, they’re old hands at this.
Trusting to his friends, he hits the release and the harness does thankfully ‘unlatch’, except its more like tentacles unwrapping from each other and he suppresses a shudder. As Ship swoops low, the asphalt of the parking lot is only ten feet down, and the team hop down, except for Ms. Martian who simply floats down on her telekinesis. As soon as they are down, Ship swoops away and the tornado follows it for a moment, before Ship turns its camouflage back on and the tornado seems to lose interest after a moment. Connor scans around desperately, seeing fleeing workers on foot and piling into undamaged cars, but no garishly dressed villain appears to bedevil them.
“Kid! Get those people out of here!” He shouts, pointing at the remaining workers who are still running on foot. At the same time, Aqualass barks an order to Kid as well. “Scout the building!” Both Superboy and Aqualass turn to look at each other in consternation, as Kid Quick glances between them in confusion.
“Well, which one is it?” She yells exasperatedly and tugs her goggles down. The wind begins to howl as the tornado approaches again.
“Get the civilians, Robin will scout!” Aqualass decides after a moment, and Kid nods and dashes off in a yellow and red blur, plucking people out of the tornado’s path and depositing them far from the danger zone.
Wincing, Superboy turns to her to apologize.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean-”
“We will discuss it in the after action report. Now, Robin, report!” Aqualass says tersely, then looks about in confusion at the lack of reply.
Superboy casts about but there is no sign of the Girl Wonder, and he groans.
“Aw, man! She did the thing that Bats does!” He gripes.
“She’s inside!” M’gann says, pointing to the tall power plant building. “But she’s not alone.” She adds, grimly.
“Then let us hope she is sticking to scouting.” Aqualass says through gritted teeth.
As they rush toward the building from the empty parking lot, the windows mounted high in the walls simultaneously burst and rain glass shards at them. Aqualass snaps out her water weapon hilts and forms a dome over them that the glass harmlessly sticks in. As it drops and glass shards and water drain away, they can hear the sounds of combat and a roaring gale issuing from inside the building.
“Yeah, I think she might have been rumbled…” Superboy observes.
Aqualass’ only reply is a growl as she leads the way into the building.
They enter through an open loading gate, into a cavernous concrete building with catwalks lining the walls, surrounding the massive turbines and engine which power the plant, which have gone quiet but which still glow with heat to Superboy’s thermographic vision. Inside there are gale force winds that force M’gann and Aqualass back a step, but Superboy powers forward, ignoring the resistance. He can see the source of the winds now.
A man bobs in the air in a long, ragged, bottle green coat that snaps in the wind, a shapeless and dirty black slouch hat on his head, with a spray of grey feathers in the brim. A long knit brown scarf wraps around his neck, and the long trailing end snaps in the wind like a pennant. Under the coat he wears a yellowed button up and brown pants, and in one hand he clutches an odd hook shaped wooden staff. The staff is only about four feet long, and one end curls over and points down, with carvings up and down it and a line of more grey feathers tied into it along the back of the hook, which strangely do not twitch in the powerful winds.
The raggedy man catches sight of them, and in his lined, weathered face his grey eyes sparkle with malice. He grins and shows off a partial set of yellowed teeth, and he cackles with delight at seeing the team arrive.
“Well, blow me down! Looky what we got here! The Guild done sent its chil’ren to do its dirty work. I am powerfully disappointed, I must say…” the man says in an Appalachian drawl that leaves a feeling like being covered in oil.
“We’re not kids!” Robin shouts as she leaps out from behind a support column and throws a fistful of birderangs and her boomerangs. The raggedy man laughs at her sudden appearance, and quick as a rattle snake, whips the staff around and is suddenly at the heart of an indoor twister. The vortex hurls aside all of Robin’s fusillade, sending birderangs clanging off metals and the boomerang exploding against a wall. He cackles again as Robin lands in front of the team.
“Ooh, mercy me! Are you telling me young ‘uns are certified grown, naw? Well, don’t that beat all. You just lemme prepare proper congratulations!” He shouts as he twirls the staff again, and a pair of twisters are conjured into being, which rush towards Robin and the rest. The team dives out of the way as both tornados rip towards them. Robin grapnels out of the way, and Ms. Martian flies around a column to avoid the worst of it. Superboy and Aqualass are less mobile and less fortunate; Aqualass snaps a water whip out and grabs onto a railing to try to hold herself in place, but is torn loose after a second and is sent sailing away across the room. Superboy digs in his heels and crouches down as the tornado bears down, determined to muscle his way through. For a moment his indomitable strength succeeds, but suddenly the wind shifts and he is picked up off his feet and hurled headfirst into a concrete wall with stone cracking force.
Dropping to the ground after impact, he springs back up to his feet, unhurt.
Damn, that was crazy! I could power through the head on wind, but he just picked me up with it instead. I can't use my strength if I have no leverage. And yet again, I have no idea who this guy is! If he’s a no-name D-lister, he sure is a bit too strong for that.
Once more, he cursed Cadmus and their slipshod cloning that denied him flight. The fight would already have been over if he could just get his hands on the ragged bum who cackled again at his misfortune. He growled in anger at the mockery and shouted a question to his team.
“Any idea who this bum is!?” He asked angrily.
“You best learn some manners and vocabulary, boy! Bums choose not to work, hobos work. And I, most assuredly, work! Heh heh ha ha ha! You may call me MISTER… Twister!” the ragged hobo, apparently, answered him as he rose higher in the air on a column of his namesake, ending just above his waist, like he was sitting in an airy whirlpool.
“No idea, never heard of him!” Aqualass shouted as she got to her feet and formed a new pair of water whips.
“He’s not one of ours!” Robin shouted over the wind as she filled her hands with more throwing weapons.
“His name is Bromwell Stick, he’s from the town of Hatton Corners. And he-” Ms. Martian quickly explained, one hand to her temple before Mister Twister interrupted her.
“Don’t be about telling tales, girlie!” He screamed, and spun the staff in one hand while he raised the other toward Ms. Martian. There was a sudden tang of ozone in the air and a pit formed in Superboy’s stomach.
“M’gann, look out!” He shouted, just as there came a peal of thunder and a blinding discharge of lightning from Mister Twister’s hand, and the bolt struck Ms. Martian unerringly. She spasmed as it hit her and screamed, before dropping to the ground, smoking.
“M’GANN!” Superboy screamed, and leapt across the room to her, scooping up her still smoking body. He noted, with frantic relief, she was still breathing.
“Is she-!?” Aqualass choked out, but sagged with relief when Superboy shook his head. Cradling her body, he leapt for the exit and ran outside with her, back under clear blue skies with barely a rustle of sea breeze. The earlier tornado had disappeared. As he laid Ms. Martian down, he checked her over for injuries, but besides some burned hair she had no permanent wounds.
“Whoa! Whathappened!?” Kid Quick skidded to a halt in front of him as he knelt at Ms. Martian’s side.
“Villain inside! Mister Twister. He controls the weather, he made the tornados! He shot M’gann with lightning!” Superboy said frantically, hands hovering over Ms. Martian as he desperately tried to think of something to do to help her. She was unconscious, but breathing shallowly. His eyes were locked on her still face, fear and panic rising in him.
“CONNOR!” He heard as a slap cracked across his face. He looked up to see Kid Quick shaking her hand in pain, but her eyes were locked on his.
“What.” He said dumbly.
“You have to focus! M’gann is down but she’s not dying, the team needs you in there fighting the bad guy. You can’t help her, but you can help them!” Walli barked at him as she grabbed his broad shoulders and shook him.
Shame flooded him as he nodded and stood.
Shit, I’m fucking hysterical. M’gann went down and she was all I thought about.
WIth one last glance at the prone Martian girl, he winced and leapt away back toward the power plant building. Kid Quick was at his heels, zipping right to where he would land with each jump before he landed. As they reentered the building, he watched with horror as two miniature tornados picked up Aqualass and Robin at either ends of the room, and smashed them together like a child insisting their action figures fight. They collided and wrapped around each other like ragdolls, and were then contemptuously tossed aside.
With a roar of rage, Superboy charges toward the villain, feet pounding the concrete floor until he takes a massive flying leap at the hovering malcontent. With another contemptuous cackle, the weather witch spins the staff in his hand again and a vortex of wind hurls Superboy off target and sends him careening into another wall. This hit dazes him and leaves a crater in the concrete. He lands heavily, and pushes himself back up to his hands and knees.
Kid Quick, trying to take advantage of the distraction, throws herself at Mister Twister as well, flipping forward to deliver a double foot jumpkick from below. Again, the villain sees the move coming and suddenly Kid finds herself buffeted up and over the target, legs kicking desperately. As she sails towards the ceiling, she flips over and spins her arms until they make their own vortex, pushing against the ceiling before she is smashed onto it like a bug on a windshield. This cushions her landing, and once her feet are back on the solid footing of the ceiling, she runs down the walls and back onto the floor towards Superboy.
“Okay, this sucks! We need a new plan!” Kid Quick shouts as Superboy rises to his feet, and he sees Robin and Aqualass struggling to their feet as well.
“We’re coming at him like mooks in a movie, one a time! Hit him all together but be careful so he can’t redirect us at each other.” Connor orders, and the others nod. There is no time to coordinate more, so they each take off in a different direction. Kid Quick circles around from behind, Robin grapnels up to the catwalk level overhead on the left, and Aqualass uses her water whips as a swingline to do the same thing from the right. Superboy moves in the one direction left for him; straight on.
Hey diddle diddle, right up the middle!
Robin holds a fistful of birderangs, and Aqualass cracks her water whips in preparation, while Kid Quick lines up for a straightaway at Mister Twister’s back. Superboy charges forward, and as he moves, Mister Twister cackles and the whirlwind around his legs begins to spin up much faster, growing in size and darkening in color, until it looks like a black omen of doom and completely covers him. Somehow, his cackling laugh can be heard over the howling wind from somewhere in the eye of the storm that fills the building.
Robin’s weapons come flying in all at once from the left, followed by a pair of electrified water whips from Aqualass on the right. But the birderangs once again are caught in the vortex and thrown in all directions, and the water whips burst apart into a million droplets upon impact with the vortex. Superboy charges ahead relentlessly, planting one foot in front of the other, ducking low to keep as much of his body out of the relentless wind from catching him. It is like looking directly into the wind of a hurricane, and even his invulnerable eyes tear up behind his shielding arms. But as he continues to advance, the wind only increases.
Kid Quick makes her attack run at the same time his slows down, trying to capitalize on the distraction. She takes off like a rocket at Mister Twister’s back, but her straightaway turns into a looping curve as the wind blows her off course and she ends up running around the perimeter of the tornado shielding the villain, and with his supervision he can see the look of frustration on her face as she orbits him over and over again.
For Superboy, the howling winds only increase their push against him with every step forward. As he gets within twenty paces, the wind is so severe he has to lean into it with all his might, and soon that is not enough either. He sinks to his knees and digs his hands into the concrete, grabbing crumbling handholds in the floor. For another ten paces, clawing forward on his hands and knees is enough, but as he gets too close, the wind increases again and with all his muscles straining, its all he can do to just hold onto his position. From that crouch, he struggles to keep his head up and glaring at the tornado wall in front of him.
“Heh heh ha ha ha! You got some grit in ya, boy! You’re all they said you was an’ more! Now hold real still for Mister Twister!” The villain cackles maniacally, and the tornado surrounding him abates slightly, enough to see him behind its wind wall. His spinning the staff again in the way he did before, and Superboy can see electricity arcing between him and the staff, and there is some discomfort on his face about it.
Suddenly, a vision fills his mind.
He sees another version of Mister Twister, in a familiar but strange town, quarreling with people. Later, he is fleeing town and there is a glimmer of fire and smoke rising behind him as he runs. Then, a cave where a shadowy figure is handing him the staff, and demonstrates brewing some kind of liquid in a stone bowl in the cave. The bowl is placed over a roaring fire and begins to bubble, and the villain lets each part of the staff marinate in it for some time, until the whole thing has had a dip. Finally, he sees the villain flying on his tornado, cackling.
M’gann? He asks mentally, but her chipper mentality doesn’t intrude.
Instead, he feels the familiar gravity of Gizmo’s link, almost imperceptible if the G-Gnome didn’t wish it to be known. He sees one more vision, of Ms. Martian’s face close up, and a pair of blue grey monkey like feet seated on her chest, looking down at her.
Damn, Gizmo! Good job buddy, you can have all the burned cookies you want when we get back!
Superboy snaps back to the moment in his body, and tries to catch Kid Quick’s gaze as she spins around in Twister’s tornado, only able to go along with the current. Once he has, he jerks his head in the opposite direction, and she nods. The smell of ozone is growing as he sees Twister is charging up his lightning strike, grinning like a loon the whole time, even as his eyes twitch with every errant arc that touches him.
Now, Superboy has his target and bears a savage grin as he digs in with his finger and toe nails, holding on for what he hopes is a chance to get through this interminable wind wall.
Just as it sounds like the lightning bolt is going to overload Mister Twister, Kid Quick reverses direction and fights against the wind current, and the blackening tornado lightens and slows. Superboy can see her straining to run every more step, but that brief slowdown distracts Mister Twister, who looks at the speedster countering him for just a second.
WIth that second of distraction, he launches himself with all four limbs like a catapult right at Mister Twister. Agonizingly slowly he can see Twister bringing the staff up to defend himself in slow motion, but he doesn’t move to strike him at all, but instead reaches for the staff. Forcing his hand through the opposing winds, he snapped the it from Twister’s grip in a second, and then he was gone, hurtling through the air past him, clutching the staff in his hand. Immediately the winds begin to die down.
“Nooo! Gimme that back, you little-” Is all Twister can say before Aqualass hits him a chop block at the waist going one direction and Robin glides in with her cape outstretched to deliver a drop kick to the head that lays Twister out, completely horizontal, over Aqualass. Superboy lands, springing up with the staff in hand and pumps it up and down!
“YES!” he shouts in triumph.
Kid zips over to him and snatches it out of his hand before he can react.
“Niiice! Trophy room!” She declares instantly.