14308/Castle Crasher

Castle Crasher
Date of Scene:	13 April 2022
Location:	Castle Doom, Adirondack Mountains
Synopsis:	She-Hulk ventures into an old, abandoned castle in the mountains, pursuing some small-time criminals who have toys beyond their understanding.
Cast of Characters:	Doctor Doom, She-Hulk

---

Doctor Doom has posed:
The heavens cry out for vengeance! Cloudy riders gallop across thunder-hooved steeds amidst the mountains, and in the wake of their gallant race rolls thunder and lightning; all is wet and dark upon the springtime mountains, the sun-blotting clouds weeping with force enough to overflow small streams and drown the vegetation. Here, nestled deep in the mountains, far from any hiking trails or prying eyes, is the long-abandoned Castle Doom, a base of operations the notorious Doctor Doom himself once used for his American exploits.

This venerable fortress is surrounded by a moat still churning with crocodiles, whose boundless appetites keep stragglers and wildlife at bay; it rises as high as the trees, its towers and spires, looking like a slice of the old European world transplanted into modern-day New York.

On a good day, the fortress is regal; in the midst of this thunderstorm, it is ominous, each flash of lightning illuminating it in the darkness.

She-Hulk has pursued a few small-time villains here. They're no-name baddies who have been committing crimes in the northeast with technology beyond their capacity to control, evading capture with tricks and finely-honed instincts for running away. But at last, she caught one of them, who ratted the others out...

And now here she is. A bunch of small-time thugs holed up in the mountains in an abandoned castle? Piece of cake. Step one: getting across that moat.

She-Hulk has posed:
Damn those cloudy riders! Damn them. She-Hulk looks up surveying the weather and then shakes her head. "Wow pull it together Jennifer. Next thing you know you'll be a headline. Old Woman shakes fist at clouds." Still, she'd prefer a sunny day, who wouldn't? It's a long hike to... a csatle? Not only that, but a very recognizable castle. "Is this Latverian? Is that... is Doctor Doom somehow involved?" She wrinkles her nose thoughtfully. Maybe she should call backup from someone? Doctor Doom is a a tier one villain, not the small timers she was chasing down. "No, I thought last time I talked to the Reeds they said he hasn't used any of his homes in New York in forever. Okay... well anyway. A moat, that should be easy enough. She looks over the towers, paces back and forth a few steps to get a feel for the height of the walls and the length of the moat. "Here goes nothing. She-Hulk up up, and away." She squats down, and judging that it should be an easy jump she flexes her toes into the ground and then launches up and over!

Doctor Doom has posed:
Once upon a time, Doom wrought terror upon the world from his throne in this castle; but, like so many schemes, and so many fortresses, it has been abandoned once Doom had no further need of it.

That doesn't mean the defenses have been disabled, though -- for as the incredible She-Hulk runs and leaps over the moat, wisely deciding to hell with the drawbridge, compartments built into the fortress' walls open and issue forth a myriad of automated turrets! Her speed and height have been detected as an aerial attack, and so anti-aircraft operations are a-go; a veritable wall of laser-like energy beams surge outward in repeated, pumping pulses.

Well, some of them do, anyway. It seems fewer than half of the guns are operational, and they're running in low-power mode. But there's still a number of blasts tracking She-Hulk as she soars toward, and then grasps, onto one of the towers.

Honestly, it's a pretty metal visual, fit for an album cover: the emerald heroine rain-soaked and empowered, being shot at by gleaming bolts in the dark rain.

She-Hulk has posed:
     "Oh ouch son of a bi..scuit eater!" As she's shot at and the beams track her, she's pummeled over and over again by the energy beams. Granted there's not a ton of them, and they're on low-powered mode. But that doesn't mean that they don't sting. The force of them catching her in her chest, shoulders, and legs sets her jump into tumbling, spinning through the air only to wind up catching and holding onto a tower, clinging to it with one hand and dangling for a precious second before punching into the stone to grip with her other hand. "Oh boy." Shes to climb fast, to get herself to somewhere she can throw herself up and over the wall - on the back side where the guns can't reach - but other dangers might lurk.

Doctor Doom has posed:
As She-Hulk scales the wall, her fingers dig into the immaculate stonework of one of the battlement's crenels. The turrets continue to fire at her, though their programming will not allow them to damage the structure itself; as she climbs, and their angles of attack become more limited, the number of active guns diminish, until only a pair of weak, rain-scorching beams sizzle at her. Her plush and well-muscled figure has held up to the assault well, though each blow scored did sting and smell faintly of ozone.

As she hurls herself up over the wall, a cyclopean-eyed robot appears, a fascimile of a human form with treads instead of legs and an elongated torso. "Intruder detected," the machine announces, and it lifts its arms to --

Wait, no, it doesn't. Its arms are missing. It seems a prior castle-crasher has partially dismantled this robot, and left it helpless to do any more than crawl back and forth across the walls.

It does, however, zoom as quick as it can (which isn't dangerously quick) at her, its treads squeaking in the rain. A port where once it surely held its own turret sparks near its midsection.

It's almost sad. How devoted it is to protecting its master's home -- and how deadset it is on running over She-Hulk's toes!

If, by some miracle, she overcomes this incredible guardian, the inner courtyard below opens to her, as does access to the nearest tower.

She-Hulk has posed:
     "A few singes, a few holes in the ole costume. Nothing that a good tailor can't fix. But still, geez, should have played it a little safer." She-Hulk's dusting herself off when the robot starts moving forward and zooms over. She watches the sparks and the non-existent arms and sighs, taking a big chest-swelling breath. "Aww, man, poor guy. This is. This is sad, it really is." And so she puts the robot out of its misery, raising both hands over her head to SHE-HULK SMASH! Down onto it and shatter the thing into pieces, then glance into the courtyard and say, "Too obvious?" And start to head into the tower, keeping an ear open for the villains.

Doctor Doom has posed:
Once upon a time, Wall Patrolbot #12 was fresh-faced and eager, hot from the foundries and ready to honor the rightful master of the world with eternal vigilance. With its articulated arms and clobbering electro-shock hands, as well as the stomach-mounted freeze gun, #12 was a fierce guardian, and for a long time, nothing made its way into the fortress -- even when Doom was long gone.

Those halcyon days are gone. In the smoldering crater where it now lies, crushed and mangled by She-Hulk's overbearing hands, #12 sputters and dies. Its treads spin helplessly, slow, and stop.

"All... glory... to... Doom!"

Its metallic voice grinds out its final words, and it explodes, scorcing the stone and She-Hulk herself, though the damage is trifling in the face of gamma-powered regeneration.

Rest in peace, #12.

--

As She-Hulk makes her way through the tower, she follows the stairs, heads downward into the main keep. The place is dark, its interior lighting disabled, but in some places new bulbs have been strung up, powered by small, portable generators. These lights and wires lead on and on, past paintings of Doom and glorious Latveria, past suits of mechanical armor that, once, perhaps, could move...

... and lead, finally, to an old barracks. Here, she can hear men talking, though the distance muffles their words. If she peeks, they've made a few old bunkbeds theirs, and are gathered around a table playing cards. There's five of them in total, a mix of races and appearances.

"Alright, fuck you guys. I raise... uh... this glove thing I pulled off a robot."

Some small part of #12 lives!

She-Hulk has posed:
     "Well I guess the reports were right, Doom must not use this place too much. That only raises the question, what kind of two-bit thugs are so stupid as to use one of his old castles for a hide-out?" She sneaks her way in on such musings, getting quieter as she gets closer to the muffled voices. She pauses, ear to the door, then leans to peek in. Counting, five of them in total. Most without their gear. Okay, this should be, this hsould be okay. Easy even. She steps through the door then, chest out and hands on her hips, "You boys wanna give up now, or we gonna do this the clobberin' way?"

Doctor Doom has posed:
The moment the green giantess greets the greedy goons, they leap to their feet, knocking over the wooden table in the process. Beer bottles, cards, and stacks of cash and trinkets spill across the stone floor, including the glove-like appendage pried from a robot.

"Shit, how'd She-Hulk find us?"

"I dunno, you could ask her..."

"Oh fuck off, Harold. You ready, boys?"

"Heh. I think we're gonna have some fun with you, sweetheart. Think after you surrender, we're gonna have a Hulk Smash of our own."

"Whoah, dude, come on. We're bad, but that's, like -- "

"Too far?"

"Too far. Sorry, She-Hulk. We're just gonna pound your face in, that's all. Right, guys?"

They nod. One crouches down and picks up the electro-glove. The men spread out and prepare to fight!

...

"How'd you find us, anyway?"

She-Hulk has posed:
     She answers the question first, "It turns out there's really no honor among thieves boys." She cracks her knuckles slowly, one at a time, watching them start to circle around and spread out, one of them even picking up the glove. Ah man. Some days it's just great to be a hero.
     Bam, Bif! Pow! In older comic books the violence would be obscured. The Comics code has changed a lot since then, but She-Hulk is still a hero and a good guy, and so unlike the Punisher and some of those other fancy new guys, she doesn't hurt them too bad. Getting tossed through a wooden crate, getting smashed into a pillar. Getting socked into next week or flipped up and thrown into the ceiling - all of those things are gonna result in some hospital bills, but no damage /too/ permanent.
     With an ease that suggests she's playing with them, She-Hulk starts dismantling the gang slowly - which isn't to say they don't get in a few good hits here and there, the electro-glove making her skin tingle and head disoriented and achey like getting tased. But, at the end of it, they're all tied up, moaning and groaning as she sends a text to the police, "You boys be good and wait here while I clear the rest of the castle yeah?"

Doctor Doom has posed:
In her eagerness to contact the police, She-Hulk hardly notices the little red message after she hits enter: message not delivered. Around her, the men groan and whimper, battered and broken but not crippled and dead. They'll spend some time in a hospital bed and then a jail cell before trial -- they've stolen a few cars from lots, took on a bank, and raided a Walmart -- but their reign of low-level terror is at an end. Without preparation and their ill-gotten technological toys, they're just men.

And not hardened criminals, either.

"Aw, shit, guys, I told you this whole supervillain thing was a bad idea," one groans, stuffed into an old cask of aged wine that's spilled out around him.

"Yeah," the others echo, groaning in pain.

"Shoulda stuck with moonshine," the voice repeats. "And scams."

"Yeah," the others echo.

"We'll get you for this," he finishes.

"Meh," they echo.

They're not going anywhere for awhile. But that doesn't necessarily mean they were all of it. What horrors lurk deeper in CASTLE DOOM?