14281/Rocket Run: Here puppy, puppy!

Rocket Run: Here puppy, puppy!
Date of Scene:	06 April 2022
Location:	Central Park, Manhattan
Synopsis:	The Spectral Howler goes to ground on Earth. And Rocket needs help from the natives to run him down.
Cast of Characters:	Rocket Raccoon, Kit Killovarras, Pepper Potts, Ivory

---

Rocket Raccoon has posed:
    How often do people still look at the skies? When is the last time anyone has gazed up at that starry sky and stood in wonder, contemplating the beauty of nature, the essence of the infinite or asked themselves the age old question... if there is so much space out there, so much infinity, are we truly ever alone? Not lately, of course, this is New York. And on the rare few occasions anyone can see the sky through the light pollution of the skyscrapers, they look at that rectangle framed by glass and concrete and ask themselves if there's a place out there where you can rent a two bed apartment for less than three grand a month. New Yorkers don't have time to contemplate the infinite, they've got enough trouble with the finite.

    Cue the inevitable explosion on a roof top by the park, and a brief flickering of the lights nearby. Masonry cascades down onto the street, putting a few more dents in the unfortunate cars that hadn't already been rendered a total loss just by being parked on a New York street, presaging the form of something large and furry dropping from a fire escape, into an alley, dashing out of 76th and across 5th avenue, scattering traffic where it goes. The form is large, somewhat bipedal, and clad in some form of futuristic looking armor. It hops the wall into the park, howling as it goes.

    Following hot on its... ehmm... well, something, a smaller furry figure flies across 5th avenue on a small jetpack, firing shots from an oversized blaster at the larger form, melting the statue of Alice in Wonderland with a stray shot. "Stand frickin' still when I'm shootin' ya! Be under frickin' arrest already!"

Kit Killovarras has posed:
This is the sort of place that creatures prowl, but what kind of creatures would prowl this place at night? Well, tall dark and fluffy of course! Kit takes note of the explosion, the furry forms flying and falling through the air and just sort of shakes his head and sighs.

Without even a gesture, he wills a nearby trash can to suddenly fly into the path of the chase, ahead of the one fleeing and whether it hits or not? You have to admit, a large chunk of metal full of half-eaten hot dogs and rank old street food vendor trash flying right in front of you is going to probably lead to some confusion.

For the time being though, this is the Yeens hunting ground and he knows it exceptionally well. He'll watch and wait, trying to find a moment where showing himself would be a good idea. For now? He's just some random stranger in a hoodie and far too baggy jeans, wandering around the park at night and bobbing his head to an unheard tune.

Pepper Potts has posed:
Going from one meeting to another, Pepper's life never really stops despite the lateness of the hour. She's, at least, not being flanked by body guards any longer. There might be one following her, but no one is paranoid that someone is going to take a shot at her on the street. She had stopped for coffee between her meetings, the precious substance balanced in her delicate hand, only to be lost in shock when she sees the chaos of the chaos going right past her.

"...What... in hell...is THAT?" She asks, coffee dropped and dramatically splattering on the ground as she continues to stare, backing up a few feet to try to not be directly in the path.

Ivory has posed:
Aaaactually, some people look more to the sky than to the ground on certain days. That is, unless they glare at sketchpads to draw something. Ok, it is a very single New Yorker that sits in Central park, eyes gleaming up to the sky at times as they catch gazes of the stars, then lowering them back to the pad where a pencil leaves scribbling marks of... well, something on the white paper. Wait... a tapetum lucidum on the eyes? And was that white hair shaped into some sort of cat ears? That is, they flik into the direction of the explosion almost a tad too quifkly, ficking away as the sound waves over the artist, the eyes moments later bearing witness to the piece of art getting turned molten rock and metal.

Quickly, the white hared one stuffes the sketchpad into thir carrier, before they start to dive for cover, running past a coffee dropping woman, one hand extending to try and grab the wrist to pull her with them. "Quick, we need to take cover!" they remark, pointing to some benches around a fountain, that would offer at least temporarily cover.

Rocket Raccoon has posed:
    Dodging bright, incandescent shots every other step, the creature runs. Possibly for its life, because those shots are leaving small craters in the ground where they land, and the creature doing the chasing doesn't seem inclined towards dialog. Not anything that could be recognised as dialog anyway, not unless 'string of incoherent venacular' counts as dialogue these days. Probably not in this franchise...

    "I ain't warnin' you again! Frickin' stop!" It is one of the few failings of Rocket that he never seems to realise that people are not inclined to surrender while they're still being actively shot at. No idea why, seems perfectly sensible to him. Why surrender when the shooting has stopped? That's the time to run ... or more likely, return fire.

    The werewolf creature takes a large swipe at the trash can when it comes at them, catching it on the claws of their left hand, using it to deflect a shot, and then hurls the chunk of metal at their pursuer.

    Caught momentarily off-guard, Rocket has to apply full reverse thrust and aim a flurry of shots at the trash can that came out of nowhere. The thing explodes into a shower of molten metal and red hot fragments, starting a few small grass fires around.

    But when he has shaken his head clear, the chase has vanished without a trace, lost somewhere in the park. "Frickin' brilliant..."

Kit Killovarras has posed:
Yeah, that's the queue for the yeen to act.. Too bad Rocket had been so quick to fire, but not entirely a failed attempt. The yeen steps into the line of fire, cutting into the sight of the fleeing canine biped, not even bothering to signal the raccoon before eight massive blades of energy are let fly! The brilliant purple light will be signal enough.

Both paws are used for the strike, both arms now out and wide and with the glowing eyed yeen deciding to step into the open? There are not two LARGE fuzzy creatures.

The blades are razor sharp and guided entirely by the will of the mage who created them and while they might have a maximum range? Again, this is the yeens playground, he can likely keep himself in range fairly easily.

The drop of a coffee cup and a shout to take cover don't go unnoticed either, but priorities are priorities.

Pepper Potts has posed:
Is that a ... Racoon?? Pepper just stares in blank confusion, trying to figure out what kind of technology he's wearing as well. Tony could figure it out. She reaches down to her pocket, pulling out a phone to take the last few seconds of this fight in video. As Ivory tells her to take cover, she squeaks a little, but does kneel down even as she's still taking video. She isn't so much worried about the werewolf as she is whatever the Racoon is shooting and what he's wearing. That's fasciating. She gets all of it on camera, if only briefly, but then the prey is gone and it's just that short furred creature left around.

"...Uh... are you... alright? What in HELL ... was that?" Not are you. Pepper isn't that rude, even if it almost comes out of her mouth. The tall, thin woman steps up a bit closer to the furred creature. She then look over to Ivory, "Are you alright?" She breathes out, though she's not really taking her eyes away from the racoon OR the bladed yeen that's come onto the scene. "...this is a very strange night..." Pepper breathes out raggedly.

Ivory has posed:
Missing the hand barely as they try to pull Pepper into the cover of the concrete water basin, Ivory hunkers down against the cold item. "Hey, get back here!" they hushy-whisper at Pepper, the white ears flicking and turning and trying to pick up where the *other* beast when. The one that isn't all visible by holding glowy swords or a gleaming, possibly hot, laser gun.

Rocket Raccoon has posed:
    Magic blades! The foliage of the park is cut, a tree falls, a host of squirrels runs for the safety of a hot dog cart... but the creature that just a moment ago was /right there/ suddenly isn't. The Raccoon currently being held aloft by rockets descends rapidly to the ground and looks around, wide eyed, aiming his rifle in a few speculative directions. One of them is directly at Kit, but something seems to trigger a spark of recognition, and the massive blaster is lowered. "Oh. It's you." Yup. That's the lot, that's all he's getting.

    And then complications arrive, in the form of a native. Great. Just brilliant, really, because consider Rocket's track record on this mudball of a backwards planet, it could have been so much worse.

    He still owes the park a $20 fine, for one.

    "That? That was the frickin' Spectral Howler!" Rocket begins before he turns towards Pepper and stops. Hm. He looks her up and down, then puts his blaster away, and makes an attempt at smoothing some of the fur that has gotten ruffled in the chase. Always look presentable in the presence of a lady. "I mean, that was a dangerous criminal that I'm here to hunt an' bring to justice. Dangerous, desperate criminal..." and he looks at the patch of softly smoldering ground where the Howler had been. "An' frickin' impossible to find with that frickin' stealth armor. I had t'get him in a frickin' high yield EMP blast to knock out that stealth generator." He sighs, runs a paw over his face and pulls out a tablet of some description.

    "Guess we gotta do this the ol' fashioned way..."

Kit Killovarras has posed:
Kit watches the creature vanish before his blades can hit, then gives a little sigh and pulls back his hood, revealing his form to the world as his eyes close and his head tilts to the wind a little nose wriggling. "Canine.. " he murmurs to himself, turning slowly. His ears perk strait up as well, taking in every sound possible.

After a moment though, he'll even reach up and take off the steel cage muzzle around his maw, rubbing the bridge of his nose before going back to tracking.

He doesn't reply to anyone speaking, he doesn't have the focus to speak much when he's hyper alert and right now? He's trying to track an invisible enemy.. This is gonna take focus.

Pepper Potts has posed:
It's only then that Pepper realizes she completely missed Ivory's hand, the other person just having tried to help and here Pepper is exposing herself to danger to get a few technology videos. "It's fine, clearly fine, they aren't coming in this direction!" Except for the fact that's the moment that Rocket does turn in their direction, smoothing his fur back and trying to look more put together.

Pepper slowly, gingerly starts coming out from the cover Ivory took her into, confusion peppered across her features, "...You... you are a raccoon. A talking. Raccooon. Who is hunting a dangerous... werewolf criminal?" She asks with a vague blink. Her confusion only deepens as she sees that other creature taking his muzzle off and seemingly scenting the air. "It...it looks like someone else is after your criminal.. .too?"

Ivory has posed:
Ivory says, "And that one over there's an aardwolf and I am a talking catperson. Comeon girl, have you no sense of self preservation to stay in cover from a gunslinging member of the Procyonidae? Or whatever that weapon actually is." Ivory doesn't stop Pepper from approaching Rocket though. Instead, they cower a little more against the fountain to try and lower their profile..."

Rocket Raccoon has posed:
    So, now he has an audience. And one thing Rocket can't resist, is grand standing. If these natives want to be impressed, sure, he'll impress them. "Him? Nah, he ain't gonna fine the Howler. Who ever heard of smelling a criminal?". Rocket shakes his head and instead starts to set up the tablet, explaining and expounding as he does. After all, that one native is holding what looks like a primitive recording device, and he might as well get some free advertising.

    "See, the Howler might be wearing stealth armor, but there's a flaw in his whole strategy. Point bein', they ain't from around here. Now, you humies, you got a very distinct signature, really distinct..." it is, after all, very easy to track Quill. "So, all I hafta do, is set this short range scanner to exclude humans, 'cause I already know I ain't a human, so there ain't nothing for it to confuse me with. Let it calibrate, do its thing an'..."

    And thousands of pings. /Tens of thousands/. Felinid, canid, rattus rattus, a whole host of creatures big and small. In fact, the only one who /doesn't/ ping on the scanner of the small gathering is Pepper.

    "I frickin' hate this planet." Rocket mutters and throws the tablet into the trash without a further thought, heaving a sigh and looking over to Kit. "Alright, down to primitives I guess. What a krutaxin' mess..."

Kit Killovarras has posed:
Kit's fur suddenly stands on end and a sudden flurry of what initially look like swipes at the air take place, each swipe of his paw sending four long, brilliant blades of energy careening towards a tree about fifteen feet from the group.. Eight? No, sixteen in all this time, practically circling the treetop to slash away, carving into one particular spot in general.. This is going to be messy for the yeen to clean up later, but he will regardless.

After all, he wants his hunting grounds to remain pretty.

Pepper Potts has posed:
"It might be a gunslinging member of the procyonidae, but it's also wearing rocket boots and if I don't tell Tony Stark about someone else in rocket boots, I'm SO fired!" Pepper huffs out to the catperson at her side, but this has been rather more strange a night than she's had in a long while. Pepper gives Ivory a momentary reassuring smile and then, indeed, tries to step closer.

Her brows furrow at Rocket's words, "Hum...ies...? Humans. That is most of this planet, you know, despite what it seems right now. And how dangerous are these things that you're hunting? I... I can probably call Iron Man, if this is that bad..." She was going to be in such trouble if she was standing out there and these things really were dangerous. She was supposed to be careful.

And then that flurry of swipes comes. Her eyes go a bit wide and she instinctively steps back closer to Ivory again. "M-maybe... maybe we should let you hunt. Looks like your friend...found something..."

Ivory has posed:
Ivory already was starting to back away as Rocket starts to use that trange scannertech, all the more happy to start and run as Pepper joined th ehasty retreat. "Let's get out of here... uh.. call in the cavalry or something." they remark over the shoulder as they move...

Rocket Raccoon has posed:
    And *thump*. First there was a tree top, next there is a flurry of blades, then there is the slightly damaged form of the Spectral Howler falling to the ground. It seems they've never had to deal with magic before, and unlike Rocket, the Howler isn't equipped with a jetpack or rocket boots. The failing of that strategy becomes apparent when gravity claims him, and they discover that the ground on this planet is every bit as hard as it is elsewhere in the universe.

    A shame their instinct had compelled them to take cover in a tree not fifteen feet away from Rocket.

    "Nah, I think we got this..." the rambunctious trash panda calls over his shoulder when the natives declare they're going to fetch the cavalry. Probably means it's time to go, because in Rocket's world, 'the cavalry' means the Shi'ar or the Nova Corps, and he's not keen on explaining to them why he's here. So he walks up to Kit and shrugs. "Good job. If'n you're ever around knowhere, look me up, I'll give you an interview. Rocket and Groot, can't miss it, best bounty hunters in the Galaxy."

    In a mere moment, the blaster is back in his small hands, and gets pointed directly at the Spectral Howler's head.

    "Shouldn'ta run. Night night, scumbag."

    There is bright blue light...

    Fade camera.