xp_logs | Potomac Calls To Chesapeake

The Avengers have arrived on site, and join in to help some of the X-Men. There are all kinds of teamups all around the city.

Molly and Maya team up with Kate Bishop. They discuss the philosophy behind superheroing, and benefit plans.

Maya had never met an Avenger before, Clint and Natasha didn't really count, especially since she'd never really spoken to Natasha, and Clint had been weird and made her want to punch him, so that did not count at all.

Kate seemed pretty normal when it came right down to it, which was a small disappointment considering giant green men, a literal sort of alien God, and a guy who created technology like other people breathed.

"What's it like, being an Avenger?" Maya asked, moving along easily through the debris-strewn and flooded streets.

"Simultaneously imagine the most amazing and terrible things you've ever experienced. And then keep doing it," Kate answered, eyes searching as she picked her way through. "You don't have to do the hero thing just because you can, but maybe if you keep asking yourself why not, or it should be me then. There's a reason for it, I guess."

"Also, you know. Dental?"

"You want to know something really odd?" Maya simply followed in Kate's footsteps, her body easily copying the Avenger's form as she synched into her physicality. In some cases, it also gave her a certain degree of knowledge about their current emotional state simply from the amount of tension her body reflected but it wasn't exactly a science, so she normally ignored it unless it benefitted her in some way. "I've never even asked if the X-men offer dental. I mean, they pay me, but we kind of have our own medical and well, I haven't been to the dentist since the last time I lived with my Grandparents, so I don't even know what my teeth are like, only I brush twice a day so they can't be that bad, right?"

Rounding a corner, Kate looked at their target, the lighthouse, up ahead, pausing to see if anything jumped out at them. "Uhhh not to get all white on you but if you don't get dental like. Go on strike and burn that mother down, you risk your life for a rich dude in a literal mansion," she said, not looking back until it seemed obvious that any jumping out would be done more in a SURPRISE sort of way.

Molly folded her arms thoughtfully. "Dude, we get dental," she said, leaning in toward Maya. She pointed at her teeth. "Invisalign, yo."

She then turned back to Kate.

"And all that stuff you said...I totally feel that way too about what we do too! I mean, at the end of the day don't we all just kinda....punch various kinds of bad guys, gals, and non-binary pals until the problem goes away?"

"Further nuance is above my security clearance until I finally manage to break in," Kate quipped absently, as they neared the clearing for the foot of the lighthouse, already reaching into her back quiver and reloading an arrow. "You two clear the landing and the stairs up, I'll scout up top. It's mostly because I trust you but also because boo stairs."

"You and stairs need to make friends," Maya responded but she headed out toward the landing with Molly in tow to do some ultra-violence to violent sealife. "Comes on, Mols. Let's go get our punch on."

"Don't gotta tell me twice," Molly said, taking off up the landing. "Hey crustaceans! Time to make some crab cakes!" she shouted, launching herself into one of the crabs as she started to ram her fists into it.

Kate looked over her shoulder, flipping her shades down NCIS style as she aimed and shot her grapple arrow at the lighthouse's upper deck. "Sit down, I live in a sixth floor walk up," she said, giving Maya a grin as she shot off to the top. "Have fun!"

Nica and Lorna team up with a fossil. Oh, and Captain America is there too.

In the course of things, Nica had been allocated to protecting an old-style ship called the Constellation, which was being used by the invading sealife to clamber up out of the water and onto the land. It was not exactly easy - sheer numbers alone were keeping her busy, and she was glad when Scott's voice through the comms told her to expect some backup.

Lorna was hovering in the air while using a broken lamp post as a golf club to swing the oversized sea creatures back into the water. She flew down to Nica when she heard Scott's voice stating that backup was coming. Who else was coming? "I don't think I'll ever eat seafood again."

"I don't think any of us will," Nica agreed, blasting another crab back into the water with a hiss of super-heated shell. "I mean, I'd feel bad about killing them, but they are trying to eat us."

The shield hummed in with a noise they'd never really heard before. It bounced off six advancing mutant sea creatures before being caught by a red glove.

"I heard you ladies needed some help. Thought I'd pitch in." Captain America said, before unleashing his shield again, cracking the shells of multiple opponents and widening the circle of safety around them. "I admit. Even in Brooklyn, we never imagined this kind of fight. You?"

Lorna flew down right by the newcomer, "Well, well well. It's The Captain himself." The green-haired woman smiled, "We will never say no to more help." Turning back to the sea, "Fighting sea creatures was not on my bucket list, but I guess I could add it now."

"Cap!" It came out as a squeak and Nica blushed, even though in her intangible state she wasn't really sure how that was possible. "Um, I mean, good to see you again, sir. That is, the last time you might not remember, you were in some sort of stasis and then there was the robot with the giant human head..." She caught herself in mid-babble. "Er, hi. I'm Spectrum, and this is Polaris. And no, I've never seen anything like this either." Another crab hauled itself over the railing and she hit it with a double blast from her fists, sending it toppling back into the bay. "And they just don't seem to be stopping!"

"Siege situation. We need to find a point we can channel them into and hold. Aft, the poop deck." He pointed. "Even if they take the main deck, the easiest way up are the two stairways. We can use energy to cook them when they mass, and I can take the stragglers."

"I'll take high. We'll need to know how many are coming." The broken lamp post was still hovering in the air above Lorna. "I can lure any that are on deck into the channel."

"I guess that leaves you and me on the poop..." Nica choked back a wholly immature giggle, blaming it on the stress of the situation. "Deck. Sir."

"Kid, that joke was old when I was young." Captain America said wryly, as the first wave hit them. He moved like chained lightning, everywhere at once between his shield constantly in motion and his own physical blows landing like cannonblows, scattering the creatures.

Nica blushed and focused on the task at hand. Her hands and eyes glowed with red light as she used infra-red blasts to cook the crabs massing below in their shells. More crabs climbed over the corpses of their brethren, waving their pincers ominously, but snapping on nothing as they went through Nica's energy form.

The Star-Spangled Avenger was seemingly a force of nature in return, using his speed and strength to hold the position, trading off his shield between his own throws and Polaris's magnetically amplified ones which blew massive gaps in the lines of the creatures. It was long, draining, violent, and yet, wave after wave of crabs crashed against a line that held up against each one.

Kurt and Betsy maybe impress Yelena just the littlest bit. She's difficult like that.

Teleportation never got old. Just a ‘poof’ and a smell of sulphur and there they were. Betsy turned around slowly, taking in the combination of semi-detached houses and higher, newer developments. It almost reminded her of Brighton. “So, have either of you been here before? Any recommendations for decent seafood restaurants?” she inquired of her traveling companions.

"I cannot say I have", Kurt told her. "But being a coastal city, I would be very surprised if most of the seafood restaurants here were not good."

Yelena snorted and rolled her eyes, but held back the snarky remark. Instead, she scoped out the scene before them. "I think you will find there is plenty of seafood without the restaurants," she remarked, allowing herself a small quip although it wasn't usually her thing. "There's something in that bar over there, if I"m not mistaken."

She wasn't. A moment after she spoke, the front window of the bar smashed outward, revealing several crabs the size of a small car. Yelena charged her Widow's Bite and glanced at the other two. "I hope you have offensive applications to that teleporting of yours, Nightcrawler."

"It certainly can have", he said with a faint smile, moving over to glance through a restaurant window. Two teleports later, he was back with a large knife in each hand. "Especially when I have these."

“That looks practical,” Betsy said appreciatively. With a little bit of concentration she was holding her own dual blades, their purple glow faint in the daylight. She tried not to look too proud of herself. “I do need something of a direct hit to their nervous system, to do any damage though.”

"Whatever works," was Yelena's brief reply as she leapt up onto the shell of the first crab, dodging its claws as they attempted to sweep her off. She plunged the Bite against the shell and zapped it, blue sparks cascading over its surface before flipping off and over to another crab.

Kurt teleported on to a crab's back, slashing at its eyestalks with his knives and then pushing them into the spot where the eyestalks emerged. As the crab collapsed, he leaped off its back and teleported to the next one before he hit the ground.

Betsy took off at a run, building up momentum to slide under the claws of one of the largest crabs with one of her blades ready to glide through its head. She rolled away from the stumbling carcass while stabbing the other blade towards the snapping mouthparts of the next crustacean, letting it grow to reach the spot between the eyestalks that housed the dorsal ganglion.

The crabs, however, kept coming, and worse, they were getting larger - the new wave were medium-car-sized, waving pincers that looked like they could easily cut someone in two. It wasn't just the two X-Men and the Avenger they were targeting, however, as they began to spread out and attack the buildings, the traffic and light poles, basically anything they could lay claws on. The piles of dead crustaceans grew as the three continued their efforts, but it was an exhausting process.

"Whatever is causing this, I hope someone knows how to stop it, because I don't know how much longer we can keep doing this," Yelena panted as she finished off another crab with her Bite - it had proven much more effective than her sidearm.

Leaping down from the back of yet another dying crab, Kurt glanced over to where Betsy was trying to reach the head of one of the larger ones, and dashed over. "May I be of assistance?"

Betsy looked slightly sheepish. “If you would be so kind as to give me a slight boost? I am having some trouble reaching.”

"Gladly. Would you prefer a hand up or a teleport? Some find the smoke noxious." Most, if he was being honest.

“I am fine with teleporting, if you have the time,” she said, before realising how ridiculous that statement was and continuing: “which you obviously don’t, since, well. Busy stabbing giant crustaceans. Anyway. Whatever works for you.”

"Teleporting takes hardly any time at all", Kurt assured her, and proceeded to prove it.

While she wasn’t really expecting to suddenly be on top of an enormous crab, it didn’t take Betsy long to force her blade into where its primitive brain was. She shouted her thanks to Kurt then took a leap on to the next creature as the one they’d landed on started to collapse, nearly slipping on the gleaming wet shell before grabbing an eyestalk with one hand and waving the sword through its head with the other.

Yelena nodded, watching the pair even as she continued her own mayhem. As amateurish as they could sound, they did have training. And were able to work together. Perhaps Fury wasn't quite as reckless, relying on the mutants sometimes, as she had thought. And perhaps Natasha had made the right decision, staying with them.

"Nice work," was all she said, however. "Keep it up."

Logan, Clarice, and Arthur engage in the sort of hijinks that only seem to happen when Longshot is around.

Moving was difficult, but porting was easy enough. Not perhaps what she would do in a normal situation, but good enough for crabs. "I cannot decide if this makes me hungry for sushi or swearing off it for a while," she grumbled, lopping a couple crab claws from a distance with her ports. She wasn't sending the leftover bits anywhere special, just back into the water. Let the Avenger's deal with cleanup now that they were here.

"Hard to tell. Always wanted an infinite buffet of seafood, but not like this," Logan said as he spun and ducked and cut off all approaching crustean limbs aimed in his direction. The crabs looked pitiful in their inability to move and most of the time he tried to also deliver a killing blow to put them out of whatever sensation/misery they had at the moment. It wasn't like they asked to be made giant to wreck destruction on the waterfront.

Arthur, meanwhile, had conveniently found some cover with a little shade as he idly scanned the area for people and not, necessarily, killer crabs. This was proving a bit dull, so he was also thumbing through a pamphlet that read "Welcome to Baltimore!" cheerfully. "Hey guys, apparently you can rent electric pirate ships here. That sounds fun!"

An enterprising crab, seeing the opening, scuttled toward the blonde as, suddenly, the squealing sounds of a vehicle being wrenched apart in the distance filled the air. It diverted, getting a leg caught in the wood boardwalk. Arthur turned toward the sound, oblivious to the dancing crab, and frowned. "I hope they have insurance. Can you have crab insurance?"

"Arthur!" Clarice complained, seeing him not paying attention. Stupid luck powers that weren't entirely controllable. Rude ass, it was what it was. She and Logan were actually doing stuff here! And she was definitely feeling the energy exertion given her other injuries. She was definitely hungry though, now that she thought about it. Teleporting herself down to the street, she leaned over Arthur's shoulder, "Rent a pirate ship? That sounds kinda....counterintuitive."

"Well, I imagine that's the entire goal! If you're painting fake tourists as pirates, then that means the real pirates can roll in under the radar!" The other man beamed. "It is just like that movie with James Bond about art. The one with the umbrellas and bowler hats."

He glanced briefly down at the crab who was still stuck. It shifted irritably from side to side, contemplating murder.

"Have we stopped for a minute to consider that the crabs don't have a choice in what's up?"

"Yeah, I doubt they did but there's not much we can tell 'em to get 'em to stop. Dumpin' back into the ocean only messes up the sea life down there." Logan hrrmped as he ducked as outstretched claw that wanted to club his head in and swiped through the next several closet joints. "Ya got some magical solution to make them back to normal size, I'm all ears."

Jean-Phillipe and Sooraya are near a museum when there is a literal "from your mouth to god's ears" type of moment. Well, a god. Of thunder.

The X-Men had scattered to various points around Baltimore's Inner Harbor, doing their best to protect key landmarks and choke points where the surge of crabs that were now approaching the size of small cars was thickest. Jean-Phillipe and Sooraya found themselves at a spot where the road curved around a large three-story building covered in mosaic tiles that would likely be reflecting the sun if it hadn't been raining most of the time they had been there.

Jean-Phillipe had done his best to pace himself with the use of his power, but the relentless tide of sea life was starting to flag his reserves. And the crabs were getting larger, which meant they would require more power to incapacitate. Still, he grimaced and poured electricity into a stoplight, causing arcs to dance down from it to a pair of crabs that were approaching.

Sooraya swooped down, shearing through a crab that had been creeping up behind her teammate. It fell to the ground with a wet splashing sound, but Sooraya ignored it as she shifted back to her human form. "You okay?" She asked, flicking a bit of crab guts from her sleeve. "That one was pretty close."

"Merci, Dust," Jean-Phillipe murmured. "I am...managing. But I have been using my power quite a bit, so I am..." He pushed at the hair on his brow, which would likely have been soaked with sweat were it not already drenched from the rain that had been steadily picking up. "In need of a rest." Not that that seemed very likely given the continued surge along the waterfront. "Or a recharge. Or some additional backup." After all, he had seen the Iron Man arrive, which meant the Avengers were assisting...

A few peals of thunder from close by caused the Frenchman to raise his eyes skyward. "Calisse de tabernac," he ground out. "Why do I not be more careful with the things I wish for?"

Lightning crackled around the soaked horizon and a streak of light appeared above them. It streaked in, arrow straight at the heartt of the surging sealife. When it hit, the impact blew a forty diameter circle of seawater and angry crustaceans five stories in the air. As it rained fragments around them as the god stepped out of the impact zone.

"When Fury alerted us to the threat, I thought it was one of his jokes. Fury generally doesn't make jokes, but he had to start sometime. Why not giant... seafood." He hefted his hammer and brought it down, boiling the sea as a torrent of energy leapt out and tore up the street into a gathering wave of regrouping attackers.

"I would not have believed it myself were we not looking at them," Jean-Phillipe admitted. The thunder god made him uneasy, he remembered having to face off with the man at the Triskelion. To be fair, he had been under magical influence, but it was difficult to overcome that gut reaction. Still, he had manners. "Merci for the assistance."

"It's definitely one of the weirder things we've come across." Sooraya stepped up besides JPC, brushing away a few more pieces of slimy crab bits that had rained down after exploding. "Thanks for helping out." She tilted her head. "You're Thor, right?"

"I thought the hair gave me away. Stark always says that." He looked around for a moment. "This is a broad based invasion. We need to exert force in a wide fashion. Care you both collect them? I see-" His eyes lighted on a local installation. "I see a suitable conduit for providing some much needed voltage."

Jean-Phillipe cast his eyes up where Thor was looking at a metal construction with... "How many weather vanes are on that?" he asked in disbelief. Still, it would likely serve as an impressive lightning rod, as the other man had undoubtedly come to a similar conclusion. Where to gather the crabs and such, though. He gazed across the road as it rounded the museum. Bayside apartments, mostly, but... "Ah. Dust, if you can direct them there," he pointed to a small parking garage next to a grassy park. "Thor, I will do my best to channel whatever you provide."

"Get them in there, easily enough... but they are gonna run out just as hard through those exits over there." Sooraya quickly scanned her surroundings. "Any chance you can close up those exits with some of the cars overthere? You look strong enough for that. I'll start herding the seafood in the right direction." She quickly dissolved and rose in the air, speeding off in the direction of a larger grouping of crabs.

"Cars. I miss my bike." It slipped out of nowhere before he shook himself. "Yes, bottle them up." He swung his hammer and a car spun, rocketing over to slam into the concrete barrier, He flipped several more to follow, building a barrier.

Jean-Phillipe, lacking the raw strength that Thor was throwing around, cast his eyes around for something that could be used to plug the smaller gaps between the cars. To one side of the structure, a handful of pay-as-you-go scooters had been propped up against a wall. And somehow, as part of the overflow of sea creatures, they had all become encrusted with barnacles as though they had been sitting at the bottom of the harbor for some time. "Thank goodness for reinforced gloves," he declared, grasping several in each hand and dragging them over to the growing barrier.

The hard outer shell meant that direct lashes to the body were out a means to herd the crustaceans and there were too many of them to form a wall around them and push them that way. Hovering for a moment she considered and finally lashed out with one sharp tendril, aiming very carefully at where one crab's legs touched the ground. The creatures skittered away from the lash. If she could, Sooraya would have smirked and quickly lashed out again, this time with multiple whips.

Slowly, but surely the creatures started moving in the direction of the parking garage.

"We need something more widespread. These crustaymoree are too spread out to... what? Crustaymoree? Beastial warriors from Palange 6. They engage in ritual combat and the winner devours the loser. With garlic butter. I swear the human tradition came from them. Never mind. There, the tower. I can bring significant power down. The little one can amplify and spread the bolt further, if you can provide a barrier to concentrate them."

It would be nice to give her a little bit of time to get the creatures together at the very least. Sooraya reflected as she calmly continued driving the crabs in the direction of the parking garage with sharp lashes to their feet for a few minutes longer. Finally, when satisfied enough of the creatures were moving in the direction she shifted tactics and shifted forms, forming a thin, but inpenetable wall of sand that caged the crustaceans in. A hand shot up from the wall, waving to her teammate and the Asgardian. She wouldn't be able to keep them from escaping for very long.

Bobby and Kyle wind up at Under Armour HQ. There is hockey, and Hulk wants to make friends with Mr. Trash Wheel.

Bobby's ice trails wound around and around as he made his way to the inner harbour. They were heading for the Under Armour HQ on Tide Point in order to hold back the oncoming sealife, and he scanned the waters for their targets. A ton of crabs were visible, which was weird, but he'd fought weirder, and -

"Whoa." He pointed at a huge object with... google eyes? "What the hell is that?"

There was a thump as the ground shook, large green footprints leaving footprints in the wet sand next to him as The Hulk landed on the beach, a cloud of sand billowing up around his footsteps as the giant staggered forward a few steps forward to regain his balance. The giant's eyes focused on the sight of the large...thing that stared at them as he absently swung out a hand, sending a crab flying into a building. "Giant like Hulk...be Hulk friend?"

"oh fuck." Kyle breathed out the profanity as the ground shook and he went down to a knee to keep from being knocked flat on his ass by the displaced air. "Yo. Hey. uh. Hey, Hulk? Um." He pointed at the thing with the eyes. "It's a trash wheel, it eats garbage in the water. So yeah, please like, be it's friend, my dude." He picked himself up, shook loose gravel and sand from his hair and then threw himself on top of one of the crabs. "Yo, Bobs, can we like, get. Can we hockey rink the parking lot over there? Cause..." He kicked off the crab with both feet and it shot off over one of the slightly melting ice trails. "I'm seeing some potential here."

Bobby stopped blinking at the trash wheel after another second or two, still trying to process what Kyle had said. "It eats... no, ok, yeah. Can do!" He snapped back into action, resuming his slip-slidin' around and threw down a heavy sheet of ice on the parking lot that Kyle had pointed him towards. When it was done he circled back towards his partners, waving out at the NHL-worthy impromptu rink that he'd just made, thick enough for even the Hulk to walk on without cracking through the surface. "Ta da! Whaddya think?"

Massive green eyebrows creased together in thought as the Hulk turned his head towards Kyle, a low dissatisfied rumble leaving the giant's throat, "No make fun of Hulk friend. He mis..misunderstood." There was a satisfied air to the green man as he managed the word looking over at the trash wheel with a nod. "Hulk have your back friend, you like eating trash you eat trash. Hulk like smash, also like bowling like this." Taking a step forward he seized a nearby grab spinning it around his body before releasing it across the ice, letting it ricochet off the other monsters before he grinned. "Strike"

"Defo not making fun, bro." Kyle said, with a grin. He took a flying leap towards one crab, and sent it careening around into another. "I did a bunch of googling on the way over here, Mr Trash Wheel legit keeps the water clean. There's a couple of them." He dug his claws into the ice and skidded to a stop. "Note to self, do not be on anyone else's team if bowling with the Hulk."

"Nice shot big guy!" Bobby cheered at the Hulk's shot as he pelted crabs with gigantic balls of snow and ice in an attempt to knock them over. "Seriously, the Islanders could use an enforcer like you. You ever consider going pro?"

Scott and Angelo wind up at the Museum of Industry. With a billionaire industrialist.

A short wooden quay led to a broad bricked landing area, behind which a marquee on a gray building proclaimed the Baltimore Museum of Industry. Behind it was the original two-story brick building, and towering above was a large free-standing crane. A century-old steam tugboat tied to the quay was currently listing badly as a tide of oversized crabs and other creatures rushed up and over it onto land.

"How the hell do they keep getting so big?" Angelo complained, moving to intercept and grab one after another and fling them back into the sea before they started grabbing back. "I thought crabs could only grow so far before they die."

A single eyebrow arched towards Scott's hairline as an optical beam bounced off the pavement bouncing up to smack a crab just under the jaw, staggering the overgrown crustacean and sending him staggering backwards. "Maybe, but then shooting blasts out of your eyes is also supposed to be impossible so...it's a weird world we live in."

"Let's focus on the immediate threat of every reception buffet priciest dish coming to finish us off." Iron Man said as he swooped low over the incoming tide of creatures, uncapping off a line of directed charges which tore a hole in their lines. "Friday, do we see any kind of end to these things?"

"LIDAR and SONAR say no luck, boss." The sweet Irish brogue responded.

"Doesn't matter how much chowder we make, these things are going to keep coming. Options? I mean, mutant ones? I don't know what physics defying powers you can pull out of your asses."

Kitty and Alex fight giant crabs playing bait and switch - Kitty leads a crab into the line of fire, phases, and Alex blasts right through her to hit and fry the crab. Or more accurately blows it to bits. Either way, seafood might be ruined for awhile.

"And boom!" Alex called as another crab collapsed, burned shell smoking, a whole right through the middle. It was better than the one they'd blown up. "How you doing?" he called Kitty. It was basically just them - the streets were deserted, storefronts wrecked and abandoned. Everyone had understandably hit the road when the giant crabs started marching in.

"I've had better mornings," she shouted back, wishing not for the first time that her power was a bit more aggressive. A giant crab was scuttling toward her, beady eyes full of glee as it snapped its pincers. Kitty danced back on her toes, grabbing the lid off a garbage can and brandishing it.

"Did-a-chick, dad-a-chum, motherfucker," she muttered as she flung the lid toward the creature. The lid glanced a pincer, then dropped to the ground with a clang. She'd never been good at Frisbee.

The crab was nonplussed, scuttling toward her at a faster rate. She darted backwards, leading it away from Alex at first, almost to land in a cluster of three more. With a slight yelp, she phased, just as one of the crabs gave her ponytail a good snap. "Why are these things attacking? Ugh, you'd think we smelled like fish food or something. What do crabs eat anyhow?"

"Uh... little water things?" Alex shrugged, jumping up onto a mostly wrecked car to get a better angle and blasting a couple "smaller" crabs threatening to trap him. "Not people, usually. As far as I know. Shit, are crabs carnivores?"

One giant pincer swung in to try and grab him off the car. He yelped and ducked, just barely escaping the blow. The screech of metal being squished together was hellish. He blasted the big one, then scrambled up and ran. It was raining, of course, so his usual power source - the god damn sun - was unavailable, and he didn't like it.

"Don't they eat dead bodies? Of course, I suppose that's better than if they were eating live ones," Kitty mused. The rain was plinking on her nose and she scrunched it up, trying not to sneeze as she waded through crabs. Mental images of her coming unphased mid-sneeze crossed her brain - she wondered if it would turn her into some sort of weird half-crab, half-woman if she unphased into one just as Alex's powers hit them. She had absolutely no desire to turn from Shadowcat into Crabgirl.

After she was a safe distance away, she unphased long enough to toss a rock at the center of the crab herd, hoping to draw them away from Alex. "Maybe we need, uh, a net. Or a giant pot."

"I mean as cool as a giant crab dinner would be, I don't think-" One of the crabs let out a weird hiss, and Alex winced. That was not a pleasant sound. "Anyone's going to be in the mood for crab any time soon," he finished with a blast to one of the crab's pincers. The pincer blew right off, cracking and making an unpleasant squishy noise. Nope, definitely not getting crab any time soon.

"What? You don't want to treat Scott and Lorna to a home-caught meal?" Kitty teased.

"Huh... ya know, that would be pretty cool actually..."

"Leeeeeeroooooooy Jenkins!" America shouted as she landed feet-first on a monster crab. The shell cracked, fracturing in an indiscernible pattern and squishing unidentifiable goo out the sides.

Alex blinked a few times, only moving when he realized another crab was coming from the left. "Hey, that works!"

"Okay. I am definitely not eating that," Kitty said, dodging around the goo as she picked up a bottle, tossing it at another crab. It plinked off the shell, then broke on the cement. "Argh. You know, sometimes I wish I had the power to breathe fire or something." She danced backwards, phasing to avoid getting snapped in half by yet another set of pincers. She glanced at America. "How you doing over there?"

America waved with a gigantic smile. "We having a buffet later?" she shouted.

"We were actually just talking about that," Alex called back, blasting one more crab. "Certainly enough food for one."

"I think there's just a couple left!" Kitty darted past a rapidly snapping pincer. "How about I lead these guys to you, then the two of you take 'em out?" She didn't wait for an answer, just started phasing and running toward her teammates. She was fast enough to duck their blows or phase as needed.

America sprinted for a running start. She crashed into the next crab hard enough to start a domino effect.

"I like it!" Alex half-yelped, already shooting another crab that was crashing toward them. Part of him wondered if they were being fried by his beams. Fried crab? Was that any good? Wait, focus. He took aim at another and fired.

Good or not, they were going to have a lot fried crab tonight.

Alison and Terry break into Oriole Park, hack the sound system and destroy an absolutely astounding number of crabs. Why are the crabs in the stadium? Because they're really not very smart.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards was a beautiful masterpiece of a ballpark. Old brick, classic lines, every seat a good view. It did lose some of the charm when the red of the brick was partially replaced with the grey-blue of crabs climbing up the walls.

The steel gates had managed to hold against the crabs that were battering against it, but just barely. The cars in the parking lot were less successful, crushed under crabs equally as big and twice as heavy.

Terry nearly fumbled the image inducer in her hand as she reached out to Alison. "Here, just in case. Lord only knows who might be recordin' things on their mobiles and we can't have you gettin' caught up in drama later. PR nightmare, that." She'd been at the mansion when the call came in for assistance and, given it seemed to be an all-hands type of situation, she'd scrambled when everyone else scrambled.

She was glad she'd thought to bring a few image inducers with her, given the company likely to be kept here. Checking to make sure her own was securely attached, Terry paused for a moment before turning it on. "Have we a plan?"

Alison slapped the watch-like device onto a wrist, and the mechanisms that were definitely more complicated than some steel ribbon wrapped in silicone kicked in to latch and activate it automatically. She gave Terry a grin. "Thanks," she said, even as she felt the sensation that let her know that the illusion had clicked into place. It felt a little like water flowing backwards, and in a weird way, she'd kind of missed it the last few months at the mansion.

"I assume you mean something beyond 'pray', yeah?" Alison asked, trying to inject some humor into the situation. She was tired, as evidenced by the way her shoulders were slumped and her breathing was heavy. Camden Yards had bought them a few minutes' time, but those gates wouldn't hold forever. She was just thankful her key had still worked.

"Well, prayin's on the cards, regardless, but I thought more along the lines o' sortin' out how t'deal with all the giant crabs comin' after us... you've sound related powers, right? I'm good at makin' noise when I need t'be. How's about we try and... do somethin' with that?" Terry was already moving away from where they'd entered, though she wasn't particularly familiar with the building.

Alison shook her head. She wasn't disagreeing or anything, it was just less effort than nodding. "Yeah, sure, that... that'll work." She took a deep breath and pulled herself up straighter. "Okay, last time I was here, I had my own audio set-up, but we'd also configured a backup sound-line to run through the Yard's built-in speaker system in case things went... well. Don't worry about it; it didn't happen."

She glanced around, looking for a sign to let her know where she was. She could make out the field through the walkway out into the stands; they were already on the second level, and while she didn't even remotely remember where the audio booth was, she could guess.

"We should go.... that way," she said, turning and pointing to the left. "That should take us around by home plate. I'd put money that the sound booth is on the next level up by the Elite Suites--" (there had been big black signs all over advertising them) "--so that the broadcasters can have a good view of the action. They should have the audio gear there. We should be able to pick up a microphone or two that the National Anthem singers use. If we're really lucky--" Alison hoped they would be "--we'll be able to sync up one of our phones as well, maybe?" She trailed off uncertainly towards the end, suddenly bizarrely self-conscious given everything that was going on.

"That sound like a plan?"

"I've got nothin' better," Terry offered, already heading in the direction Alison had indicated. "What's the advantage of settin' up one o' our phones? An' do we need t'get t'the stage?"

There was a crash from somewhere below them and a screeching in short order. The banging didn't let up, but it did change tone.

"...have you seen Megamind?"

"Who? No," Terry said, shaking her head.

Alison tripped over her own feet and stumbled, coming to a stop.

"Wait, you've never seen Megamind?! Like, never never? Megamind is the pinnacle of human creation. How have you never-- have you at least seen Despicable Me?"

Terry's expression turned incredulous for a moment even as she reached out to steady the younger redhead. "Does this have any bearin' on the current situation?"

There was a long (given the current circumstances) pause as Alison just stared, incredulous. "...fine," she eventually agreed, starting up running again. "But we're talking about this once we're done here."

Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, Terry said, "Aye, later."

"As for why we need to set up one of our own phones for music, there's one excellent reason." Alison sprinted ahead to the nearby stairs, vaulting over the end of the safety railing which was also affixed with a sign pointing up specifying that it led to the executive suites, and turned back to face Terry. She tossed her arms out wide and projected her voice to fill the entire atrium, manic smile on her face. "PRESENTATION!"

As she reached Alison's position, Terry reached out and grabbed her arm to hurry her forward. Presentation, indeed. "C'mon," she half-muttered, already working on pushing her powers to the forefront rather than holding them in check as she normally did. She was mildly surprised when Alison briefly lit up, almost a halo-corona effect showing briefly around her head.

They took the stairs two steps at a time, footsteps echoing in the otherwise quiet of the ballpark. Alison spotted the door to the sound booth pretty much immediately upon reaching the top of the stairs. "Over there," she gestured.

Below them, there was another loud crack, above and beyond the last one.

"...we might want to hurry."

"Y'don't say?" Terry half-laughed, tugging Alison along. The hall before them was long and curved, which made sense when she thought about it. Only half the lights were on and, with another, much louder crash following so soon after the last, half of those flickered out. "Shite."

The sound booth door was at the end on the right (opposite the door that read 'radio broadcasting center', which itself could have been fun but wasn't really the point at the moment). The door itself was big and heavy and there was no way that Alison had a key for it, so she didn't even bother checking.

"Shit indeed. It's locked." Alison placed a hand over the deadbolt. "Give me an A-minor 7th?"

"A what?"

"ohmygod... Just... pick a note?"

Terry actually rolled her eyes at that and said, "Move over," before forming a triangle between her forefingers and thumbs and shrieking at the door handle. The material around the metal handle itself broke into pieces, letting Terry yank the knob until the door swept open on silent hinges.

Alison looked impressed. "I'm impressed." Obviously.

"See if you can find a microphone cabinet? I'll look for the sounding board."

"Aye," Terry agreed, moving over to a cabinet that looked like it might be filled with useful things. Opening it up, she shoved a few recording devices and quite a few cables out of the way. There were boxes upon boxes, but they all seemed to be labeled and none of them said anything about microphones.

Alison abruptly straightened up from where she'd been looking over the desk that overlooked the field. "There you are!" she exclaimed, reaching out and flipping the shiny metal radio switch labeled 'Master Power'. She could literally feel the speakers outside click on, giving off the low-hertz oil-slick hum out of the range of human hearing that she could feel across her skin.

Terry could hear the hum, felt it shiver down her spine for a moment before she shoved another box out of the way and discovered three microphones piled behind it. "Ha!" She grabbed all three of them and turned around. "Need anythin' else?"

"Just need to find... aha!" Alison swiped a small black box with what appeared to be a headphone jack on the end. "Wireless dongle," she explained. "I... think that's everything?"

"Brilliant," Terry said. Then she pointed out the window toward the field. "We should go out there, aye?" There was a resounding crash behind them, not from the hallway, at least, but still getting closer. A moment later, something slammed into the ground. "Mayhap quicker rather than no'?" It sounded like a very large door had just collapsed under the inauspicious pincers of one of the crabs probably now surrounding the whole bloody stadium.

"Right, never mind, no more time for planning." Alison pulled out her phone and tapped it a few times, then tapped against the window. "We're going to have to lead them into the center of the field to get the most power out of this." She paused, listening to the window and checking her phone. "Ahhhh," nope, too low a note. She tapped the window again. "Ahh. Ahh... Ahhhh?" Too low, too high, but with the last one she felt the same sort of oilslick resonate off the window.

She tapped her phone, and it started playing the same tone. "You can get us down from here, right?" she asked, slowly using a microlaser on the tip of her index finger to begin to cut a round hole in the glass of the booth.

"Lord love you," Terry said, pulling Alison away from the window so she could once again scream at something the other redhead was trying to finesse. The reinforced glass shattered from the point Alison had been closest to, the force of the soundwaves Terry created sending the multitude of pieces outward, over the seats beneath the booth. "Aye, I can get us down." She looked the other woman over, tipped her head to the side, and said, "Hold on t'my shoulders."

Alison just managed to not look put out as she watched the shards of safety plexi-whatever it was that the window had been made of rain down on the seats below them. Honestly, it's almost like the other girl enjoyed messing with her attempts to make sure things got done in style. Still, she was about to get to fly. And with Terry, too. This was going to be awesome!

Alison tried to not be too eager to grab onto Terry. "Go for it!" Beat. "Wait, was I just insulted?" Was that like, the Irish version of that southernism that was basically 'you dumb motherfucker'? "I feel like I was just insulted."

Grinning despite the situation, Terry said, "No' at all," before opening her mouth and dropping a note low enough to hopefully not shatter anything else around them while being strong and loud enough to carry the both of them up and out the window.

She had to put a bit more force into it than she normally did, but considering Alison was a good three inches shorter even than Terry herself was... well. It wasn't as loud as it might've been. Still, she wrapped an arm around Alison's waist a bit to make sure she didn't fall as they swooped outward.

Alison was right. Flying was awesome.

Terry landed at home plate -- Kyle's enjoyment of baseball hadn't rubbed off on her, but some of the terms had stuck -- knees bending beneath the bit of Alison's extra weight. She looked up properly at the sound of a truly massive thud as a large, green wall smashed to the ground. Behind it, falling in after it, were crabs large enough to be used as cars or trucks -- pincers waved through the air, knocking into signage and various lights on poles.

An 'oof' escaped Terry as she released Alison, eyes a bit wide as she asked, "Why'd we come down here instead o' stayin' up there? Where they mightn't have gotten t'us quite so fast?"

"They'd still have made it to us eventually," Alison said, letting go and straightening out her outfit. "And this way we have significantly more room to maneuver. Plus," she said, gesturing up at the massive speakers that surrounded the field from all angles with a shake of her head as she popped the dongle into her phone's audio jack, "I'm gonna need to be in the middle of the sound wall if we want to make this work."

"By all means," Terry said, gesturing. She handed over one of the microphones, sticking the third one in her back pocket before fiddling with the little button to turn it on. "What d'you need me t'do? Just shout at you?"

"Uh... I tend to work better with actual music, to tell you the truth?" Alison said, also flipping her microphone on. She scrolled through her music library. "What's your best Karaoke song?"

Terry suppressed the urge to stomp her foot. "I don't sing," she said, gesturing wordlessly at the crabs approaching them. "Wait -- wait, no. I can -- I know God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."

Alison.exe has stopped working. (A)bort (R)etry (I)gnore?

"You're kidding, right?" Alison said, turning to actually really look at the music heathen in her midst. Yes, the crabs were coming over the walls in the outfield, but they were all the way at home plate and they weren't very fast and this was more important dammit.

"You don't sing, you haven't watched MegaMind... what, do you hate puppies too?"

Terry looked from the approaching crustaceans to Alison and back again before clenching her fists briefly and saying, "Actually, I prefer cats, but I like dogs just fine." Then she hummed a deep thrum low in her throat and pushed a shield outward to surround them. Immediately after it had settled, she opened her mouth again, held the mic up to her mouth, and yelled into it, "God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay. Remember, Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day."

Orange electricity and singing bubbles crawled across her skin as the massively amplified voice of an already voice-based mutant slammed into her and everything on the field. The champagne sensation was almost enough to knock her to a knee.

"HOW DO YOU NOT SING?!" Alison yelled, doing her best to be heard over the din. "WAIT, DAMMIT, LET ME AT LEAST START THE MUSIC!"

Except that Alison very deliberately didn't keep Christmas music karaoke on her phone, so when she reflexively hit the play button on whatever she happened to have highlighted at that minute, what actually came over the speakers, layered in a cacophonous blend with Terry's acapella, was the bubblegum pink fluff of Hayley Kiyoko.

It sounded... well, it was sound?

And then the crabs were too close for her to contribute any more distraction to the moment, and she let the ocean of electricity crawling across her skin focus to a point on her fingertips. Oh yes, she could work with this.

"To save us all from Satan's pow'r when we have gone astray," Terry continued, not sure what Alison was playing over the speakers. It took a moment for the sparks and pinpricks of light haloing the younger woman to form up into something more tangible, but when they did -- Terry almost lost her train of thought and the line of the song she was on.

It wasn't dazzling, as she would have been blinded, but the refined light shining at the tips of Alison's fingers glinted sharply, miniscule daggers of sheer radiance. "Oh, tidings of comfort and joy -- comfort and joy. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy."

The first laser left her fingertips like a cannon, a purple sword of light that left a trail of dazzling sparkles in its wake. It slammed into the lead of the crab crowd and just... kept going. The front crab took an extra step forward before its left half fell one way and right half fell the other. As did the crab behind it. And the one behind that one.

Somewhere in the back of the crowd near what used to be the center field bullpen there was an explosion of dirt and metal as the laser finally hit the ground, launching a wave of earth and crabs alike high enough to break the windows on the highest floor of the pseudo-warehouse building behind the stands that housed the club's offices.

Alison looked at the devastation, then down at her fingers, then back up at the incoming waves of crabs.

"...holy shit."

Terry held the word 'joy' for longer than she should have if she'd actually intended the song to sound even the slightest bit correct, but... she really couldn't help it. That had been an outstanding display of power and if they'd been in any other set of circumstances, she'd have said something. As it was, she shook herself a bit and continued yelling into the microphone, "From God, our Heavenly Father, the blessed angel came, and unto certain shepherds brought tidings of the same."

Each follow-up shot cleaved through crabs by the dozen. Within a minute there was a wall of shredded carapaces and tangled limbs between them and the crabs, and still they kept coming, and still Alison kept firing.

Then Alison sent a shot just a little bit too far right, and the jumbotron began to tilt ominously forward as she took out one of its supporting legs.

Mouth snapping shut for a moment, Terry's eyes widened and she forgot the next words she was going to yell. Instead, she yelled, "Aim at the crabs, no' the buil--" She broke off as the giant billboard paused its downward fall for a moment, then gave in completely and crushed all the crabs beneath it. The sickening crunch of all those hard shells giving way to the Jumbotron was followed briefly as Terry said, "Oh," into the microphone. "Well done, you."

"Thanks," Alison said, looking at the utter devastation that the collapsing jumbotron had wrought. "I absolutely meant to do that. Good job me."

Terry side-eyed the younger woman for a long, loud moment before saying, "Sure y'did." She glanced back toward the still approaching crabs, gestured, and asked, "Shall we continue?"

"You've got the microphone."

Having forgotten where in the Christmas carol she'd been, Terry just rolled her eyes, held the microphone to her mouth again, and screamed into it. The sound pulsed around them for a moment, contained in the shield she'd formed to protect them from the crabs, before the microphone itself cracked where the wire mesh met the plastic handle and the head went flying.

Alison fired off one massive laser, taller than she was, which carved a gouge in the field from home plate through the outfield. Lacking the nuance of words, it had shifted from a pulsing beam of purple to a mottled gray crawling with white flecks instead. It sustained until the microphone exploded, sweeping it across the range of crabs until the sound, and Alison's legs, gave out. She collapsed to a knee.

The pitcher's mound was gone, as was second base, the outfield grass between right and left, the home run wall, the bullpen, half of the collapsed jumbotron, a number of sections of seats, and all of the back wall. What remained was a perfectly smooth trough of earth and concrete from their position at home to the bay, which was steaming and bubbling from the residual heat.

There were also no more crabs to be seen.

Alison let herself fall backwards onto her butt, gasping for air like a drowning man.

The crab corpses had piled so high that they actually slid forward on Terry's right -- lifeless, but now putting pressure on the shield she'd been maintaining for a mite longer than she usually would have. She dropped the force field around them, letting the compressed soundwaves return to their normal lengths, then frowned as the dead crabs slid forward a bit more. Turning to face them properly, Terry screamed them all backward, carapace and limbs scattering in a wide arc just to keep from crowding Alison and herself.

"Well then," Terry said, eyeing their handiwork. "D'you need a sound system like this t'do your lasers, or would me just screamin' at you work, too? Dunno what the rest of the city looks like, but they might need some help somewhere?"

"I... I think.... I think I... I just need a mo--... moment..." Alison said, panting hard. She felt like she'd just done a pair of four hour stage shows back to back. "That last little bit took a lot out of me. Is the ocean still boiling?"

Snorting softly, Terry walked over to the younger woman and held her hand out. "C'mon, love. Let's get somewhere we're less likely t'be made t'pay for... all that." She waved her other hand toward the destruction they'd left.

Alison took the hand and pulled herself up to her feet, legs unsteady. She looked at the destruction again. "Yeah, let's... um... let's go?" There was a long beat as they started walking towards the tunnel in the first base dugout, Alison leaning against Terry the whole way.

"So...", she said as they made it into the tunnel. "Megamind."