12620/Frightful Fracas!

Frightful Fracas!
Date of Scene:	07 January 2021
Location:	Upper East Side, Manhattan
Synopsis:	Frightfulness, Times Four! And also a fifth one. Bad Guys Cheat At Math.
Cast of Characters:	Iron Man, Falcon, Slipstream, Thor, Spider-Man

---

Iron Man has posed:
"God... can't you bother Spider-Man with this?"

With a glass of scotch in one hand, and a very greasy slice of pizza in the other, everyone's favorite champion of the working-class looks as if he would much rather not be taking this call. But the holographic representation of the Mayor of New York is very insistent that, actually, no, this is definitely an Avengers thing, and that Tony should remember that the zoning committee is meeting next month and be a good neighbor.

Ten minutes later, the streaking form of Iron Man can be seen in the airspace above the Upper East Side, scanning the ground below for signs of whatever disturbance the mayor thought Spider-Man couldn't handle.

Tony's voice comes over the Avengers Comms, which all good members should be monitoring. He sounds unhappy, but let's not blame him too harshly, he only got to finish half of his pizza slice, and none of his scotch.

"Okay, Avengers! I'm in position. Not sure we all needed to come though, it just looks like that Sandman guy is robbing an armored truck again. I say... new guy should fix it!"

Sure enough, down on the ground level, the Sandman is clinging to the top of an armored truck as it attempts to get away. Unfortunately for the armored truck, it's kind of stuck in traffic. Unfortunately for the Sandman, the Avengers are on their way.

"Wait, which one of you is the newest again? I'm pretty sure it's not me or Thor..."

"Mwoop!" The on-board operating system for the Iron Man Mark L chimes in, apparently he agrees that neither Tony nor Thor should be stuck on Sandman duty, but most especially not Tony, because he'll get sand in his gears.

Falcon has posed:
Not far behind Stark, the Falcon is winging his way across town. "Really relying on me like that already, Iron Man? Don't know if I can take care of this guy myself without some collateral damage." But he sounds like he's got a sense of humor about the whole thing. "Let me shoot a rocket down his throat, see if I can't distract him. Maybe one of you guys find a cement truck and see how it mixes with sand?"

He prepares for Operation: Distraction, circling through the air over Sandman and preparing to dive bomb the villain.

Slipstream has posed:
"Am I still considered the new guy?"

Drake is in position on a rooftop with an Avenger issued sniper rifle that most likely has some type of plasma bolt attached to it. He squints one eye from behind his telescopic visor, staring down the scope with the other as Snowball floats next to him in a whirling matter.

"I'm on your six and I got eyes. I can pop a hole in him but he's just going to reform, but I can cause a distraction. Database says that he's weak against water. Anyone wanna bust a fire hydrant open? I can have Snowball freeze him in it if we get him wet enough."

Thor has posed:
Thor had missed this.

Being out wit hthe team, stopping evil, fighting crime! Its a nice break from the intense battle of Asgard's armies verses whomever was next. No doubt the sight of Thor is a welcome one on earth once again. It was more than about time for Thor to get back into the fray with the Avengers.

"The man of Sand? Hah! Child's play." Thor comments over communications as he soars through the clouds, hammer leading the way as he flew to his position, eventually slowing to a stop on a certain rooftop. His blood-red cape flowed with the gust of wind and his armor glistened in the sunlight.

"I agree, perhaps we should let the new members take care of this one." So, Thor is on lookout, ready to dive on in...just in case they need some help.

Iron Man has posed:
The traffic light turns green, and vehicles begin leaving the intersection. Which is when it becomes obvious that the truck wasn't just stuck in traffic, it's stuck, period. As cars honk and try to get around it, the Sandman continues pummeling the truck with his fists, while his legs start to discorporate.

"Huh. The truck seems fine, power's going to the axle but the wheel's aren't... FALCON PULL BACK!"

From out of nowhere, a tight formation of large glue-y globules pour down directly in Sam's direction! Looks like someone else brought a sniper rifle with them, and it also explains why the truck isn't moving: It's been trapped.

"That looks an awful lot like PASTE! Slipstream! Change of plans, use your scope to scan the nearby structures, see if you can find our old pal the Trapster!"

Rapidly descending, it looks as if Iron Man has changed his mind about hanging back too much.

"Looks like we're going to be needed after all, Thor!"

Falcon has posed:
When told to get out, Falcon does so, interrupting his dive by utilizing his powerful thrusters and aiming his wings skyward in a remarkable feat or aerial prowess. Getting the hell out of dodge, he twists to avoid getting glued anywhere, "Thanks for the head's up!" As he heads higher in the sky he looks around, utilizing the enhanced visual acuity provided to him by his goggles to try to spot where the shooter is at.

Continuing to fly erratically in order to present as difficult a target as possible he says over the comms, "This dude really shooting glue at us? Can't say that's ever happened to me before." Is this one of those villains one doesn't shoot missiles at?

Slipstream has posed:
"The Trapster? What a stupid name. Almost as stupid as Sandman, or The Swarm, or Booger Man."

Drake swings the scope around from where the glue globs came from, flipping a switch along his long barreled weapon as he hears the hum of power surge from within. From his shoulder, Snowball is chirping and beeping away as she spins around the area in a perimeter search from their rooftop spot.

"What does that guy do? Build stuff from Target and robs banks with it?"

Spider-Man has posed:
Fwip. Fwip. Fwip. Spidey's out for a good ol' swing through the town. He stopped a mugging several blocks away, made sure to get a few good pictures from his little drone he's programmed to zip around while he's "On Duty" and take pictures. Tomorrow they'll probably talk about how he's a menace or terror, but y'know, no good deed goes completely unpunished. He's about to take back off when he hears about the current situation on the police scanner. Glue. Sandman? No rest for the weary. It takes remarkably little time to cover the distance for him. He's still a way off, but if someone was looking they could see his approach.

Thor has posed:
Thor narrows his eyes and suddenly, the skies begin to blacken and broil as the God of Thunder twirls Mjolnir and leaps from his perch. "Already in mine sights!" He calls to Tony, hammer directing his path. Now then, his attention is locked onto Sandman. He lets the others look for this trapster.

What does Thor do?

Well, he lobs Mjolnir at Sandman, perhaps in an attempt to knock the man off of the armored car? The electricity around the hammer might do the trick of striking the sandman in solid matter. Though as all these heroes come to save the day, Thor smiles.

"This brings back glorious memories!"

Iron Man has posed:
"Who Trapster? Mostly he just shoots glue at people. I don't know, but it's really good glue. If you get it on you, you'll have to be shaved."

As he descends, Tony continues scanning, narrowly avoiding some glue as well. It looks as if he's on a collision course with the Sandman who, we've already established, can take about as much punishment as anyone can dish out.

Unlike the Trapster, who is very squishy.

But before he makes contact, a flash like lighting strikes Iron Man from a nearby powerline, shorting out circuits and shutting down the navicomputer.

Iron Man misses the Sandman, who's still trying to break into the armored car, but fortunately he runs into the side of a nearby donut shop.

I'll be an expensive repair bill.

"Gack! Can anyone still hear me on the comms? Something just took out half of my systems, some kind of electromagnetic attack!"

But the rest of the Avengers (and Spider-Man, hi Spidey) probably already know that. Because after the flash of lightning takes Iron Man down, it reappears near the glued-down armored truck and takes human form.

The human form of... Electro!

As Mjolnir sails through the air, the Sandman doesn't have the time, or probably even the ability, to dodge it. It hits him dead in the torso, scattering his sandy body in all sorts of directions, and leaving his partially-discorporated legs still on top of the truck, before they collapse into sandy piles.

But before Mjolnir returns, something else that's large, heavy, and nearly indestructible begins hurtling in Thor's direction. We'll see who reaches him first, Mjolnir, or the leaping form of... Titania!

Falcon has posed:
"Got Trapster!" Wilson exclaims as his goggles tag the villain on his AR display. "Six o'clock high!" The winged Avenger flies towards where he's located, speeding through the air. He twists, twirls and spins to make himself as hard a target as possible as he swoops in. As he gets close Sam flies low, under the glue guy's spot, coming up at the last moment to attempt to slam into him with both feet, "Glue this, asshole." The kick is a mighty one, seeing as how the Falcon's flying very fast toward him.

Slipstream has posed:
"Tony! You okay?!"

Drake's eyes widen as he watches his teammate fall from the electric strike. He spies Electro, then lets out a low growl in his throat. "Man, fuck this guy." He takes a moment to assess the situation, then whips his sniper rifle around and taps a switch on the side of it. The rifle charges up with a loud hum, followed by a hot blast of plasma ...

Straight into Titania's chest!

Backing up Thor at the moment seemed the more tactical manuever to make. She's the strong guy of this bad guy team. He hits her with enough force to knock a semi truck on it's ass as he slides back a foot along the top of the roof. The visor over his eyes turns bright red as he hisses under his breath.

"Personne n'echappe a mon regard."

Spider-Man has posed:
There's a brief hiss of static as Spider-man gets closer and has spied the very obvious Avengers crew. "Really?" he says "Glue this? That's what you're going with?" There's mirth in the voice, at least till he gets close. "Oofa, man, what'd you guys do to gather these baddies all in one place? Prison transfer go wrong?" He sighs, "You've got a few moments before Sandman gets up. Lightning's probably not going to do much to Electro. Fortunatly, I brought my insulated webs."

He ends up swinging over Drake's position before dropping in a dive to fire off a couple of really thick, blobby webs at Electro, twisting in the air and aiming as if it's nothing. He sees the plasma bolt hit Titania and winces, "That's gonna leave a mark."

Thor has posed:
Thor lobs Mjolnir and as it smashes through Sandman, it stops before it can strike the ground or a building, stopped still by Thor's will alone. Then its rocketing back in Thor's direction with the intent of meeting Thor's hand, but suddenly there's Titania!

Before she can strike him, however, Drake manages to get that shot into Titania's chest, slowing her speed for that brief instant for Mjolnir to strike her from behind! Thor moves out of the way of the hammers path to let Mjolnir carry Titania into a nearby wall.

That worked out.

But now Thor leaps after Titania after saluting in Drake's direction. Titania needed to stay out of this fight!

Iron Man has posed:
"Ha ha ha! So much for the Mighty Avengers! They'll never escape my TRAPS!"

This is what the con artist formerly known as Paste-Pot Pete was saying, out loud, right before he got kicked right in the sternum by a fast-moving Falcon. He collapses with a 'Huuuuuuuuuunnngh!', dropping his glue gun in the process.

Probably should have hidden a bit better on his rooftop vantage point, but he'd have been found eventually either way.

It's likely that Titania had some sort of glorious image in mind, crushing Thor like a pancake. Or maybe she just wanted to get close enough to touch him, lot of that going on. Either way, she probably didn't imagine she'd get sniped with a plasma rifle and have all of the force knocked out of her leap.

That'll leave a mark.

Over at the donut shop, anyone with the right angle to see through the Iron Man-shaped hole in the wall would be able to see the Armored Avenger getting up a bit shakily. As he runs the systems through their checks, he waves at the patrons, who are all freaking out.

As Titania sails off into a wall, leaving a crater in the masonry, she does her best to get out from under Mjolnir, but... either it's a temporary trick of physics, or... she's not worthy to get it off of her.

Sandman begins to reform on top of the truck, but before he finishes the process, Electro zaps the truck's doors. They swing open, revealing a few security guards, and a little skinny guy with greasy black hair and messed up teeth.

"Excellent! Free me, my Frightful Four!"

Electro rolls his eyes, zapping the two guards quickly. They're probably okay.

"Hurry up, Wizard, we gotta get you out of here. The Underoo Squad is after us!"

Falcon has posed:
"Should I have yelled 'Falcon Punch'?" Sam asks as he lands for a moment to make sure the villain is out of the fight completely. He does this with a powerful punch to the jaw. Then he's back in the air, flying back towards the action. Wizard? Like, a magic user? Nope, THE Wizard. Sam zooms in with his goggle's magnification for a second before getting ready to swoop on him. Unfortunately, Sandman's reforming and Electro's right there. Wilson instead circles, looking for an opening.

Slipstream has posed:
As he and Thor's combo to take down Titania worked out, Drake shifts the rifle up again and swivels it to track Spider Man taking on Electro, then looks over to SandMan who is continuing to cause chaos in the streets. "Looks like only Sandy is still up and moving about. I call not it."

"Thor, can you make it rain? That will clog him up and slow him down. Snowball can ice him up after. We need to make sure Tony is okay too."

Spider-Man has posed:
Electro manages to get out the "Underoo Squad" comment then both arms just get slammed with insulated webbing and stick him firmly to the ground. He starts to say something else, but then gets a bit over his mouth too before Spidey lands on the side of a building above him. "Hush, Sparky. Grown-ups are chatting." He hears Falcon's retort and says, "I think you'd have to run that one by Tony's lawyers." He's close enough to actually see "The Wizard". He just flicks a few webs at it, intending to web as much of the door closed again as he can. "Looks like there's only four this time. Usually I end up with Six. It's not a good day, and this is /way/ easier with you guys. Anyone want to join the Spidey Squad?"

Thor has posed:
Thor continues to leap after Titania until she finally comes to a stop. So what does Thor do? A supercharged, thunderous punch to the face should do the trick, hopefully knocking Titania unconscious before he pulls Mjolnir back into his grasp.

"I'm on it." Thor replies to Drake as he takes off back into the sky. The blackened heavens already beginning to rumble with the sounds of thunder and flashes of lightning. Soon after, Thor lifts Mjolnir into the air, causing a single lightning strike to dart its way towards Tony! Hopefully recharging his suit and kickstarting the many, many mechanisms of the construct.

-Then- it begins to rain, heavily, like in the tropics. Maybe then Sandman will find it difficult to fully reform?

Iron Man has posed:
"Hello? I can't hear... dammit... Dummy, what's wrong with my headphones?"

"Mwoop?"

The first thing that Iron Man hears is 'Falcon Punch!', which is a reference that he does not get.

The Wizard's taste of freedom lasted about... four seconds or so. Which seems pretty appropriate, considering who he is. With the door webbed shut, we can't even hear his complaints.

When Tony leaves the donut shop, it's through the doors, though the manager is probably already dialing up Damage Control to get the hole boarded up. Or... plastered up, maybe.

"You couldn't afford our medical insurance, Spider-Man, and Tony needs his Viagara."

He makes it out just in time for the rain to start up, suddenly glad that he paid the extra few thousand for the undercoating...

"Hey... uh... what's up with Mudman over there?"

Sure enough, the Sandman is actively trying to reform. But... it's going a bit poorly now that he's gotten a bit sludgy. Here's hoping nobody confuses him with Clayface.

Slipstream has posed:
"Same thing that's up with every bad guy that tangles with us. Taking an L."

Drake glances over to Snowball who by now is hyper charged and glowing bright blue beneath her floating LED's. There's a firm nod of his head as she lets out an excited 'Doot-da-Doo!'

This entire time, she's been collecting moisture out of the cold winter air, adn this time of the year it's easy for her. With a loud whirl and click, she unleashes her blizzard attack upon the Sandman, coating him in a thick casing of watery ice that is as cold as liquid nitrogen. It won't be too long before he becomes a cocoon. "Sorry Sandman, but it seems like the badguys are going through a hiring freeze."

He said that outloud. With a straight face.

Falcon has posed:
With Electro webbed down and Sandman frozen, Sam flies towards the downed guards from the armored car. Landing, he grabs them by the collars and goes to drag them away from potential danger. Once he's gotten some distance he stops to check for pulses, ready to start CPR if he needs to. "Alright guys, stay with me." Wilson is a paramedic by training, after all, so they have something of a chance.

Spider-Man has posed:
"Aw man, these tights really ride up when it gets wet. I'm going to have a wedgie all day," Spider-man says as it starts raining. "Though, good call, you may want to vacuum Sandman up while you have a moment and..." Apparently there's a plan B "Or you could do that. Really." There's a little hum as a Spidey-Drone returns to sender as it starts to rain, and he discretely puts it up. He then just adds another quick layer of Webbing to the door. Just in case. "Man, I can't even afford my own insurance," he replies to Tony.

Thor has posed:
With Thor now seemingly leveling the playing field, Thor dive bombs, landing solidly upon the ground with a crack in the concrete beneath him. Though with many of the criminals either detained or in the process, Thor narrows his eyes before he looks up towards the sky. The sweet scent of victory comes with rain.

"Well done my friends! The Avengers have saved the day!" No doubt they are being cursed by a villain or five even as Thor makes such an announcement. He seems relaxed though, all the same.

"Falcon! Slipstream! Well done!" He bellows.

Iron Man has posed:
"Yeah, nice work, Slipstream. You'll get your own action figure at this rate."

Iron Man seems to be functioning normally. Nice for him to finally join the fight, huh? A wave for the cameras, there's always a camera somewhere, and this'll at least end up on the evening news, though it'd be better if it went viral.

"Nice job everyone, really. Even you, Dummy."

Iron Man's onboard AI chirps a grateful "Mwoop!"

With all five of the Frightful Four (somebody is getting fired, so the numbers will work out later) now wrapped up for local law enforcement, though otherwise not much the worse for wear, and with the guards only dazed (Electro's slightly too smart to get a murder charge), it looks like this can be chalked up as a Successful Mission. B+, at least, maybe even A-.

"Alright Avengers, let's help the first responders get this traffic cleared up. I'll take the truck to... whichever jail Wizard was getting transported to."

Gripping the underside of the truck, Iron Man lifts it up until the tires (and the glue) come up from the pavement. That'll need to be smoothed out. Hoisting it up above his head, he prepares to blast off with his Rocket Boots. But he holds the pose long enough to let the onlookers snap a photo, video, or boomerang.

"And Spidey, come by and see us more often. We have Viagara."