42/Party at the Museum

Party at the Museum
Date of Scene:	14 April 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	When Giganta and her friends decide to rob a museum, its up to the heroes to prevent them from causing irrepairable damage to the relics inside.
Cast of Characters:	Grant Ward, Yokai (Sakara), 64, Wonder Woman

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Vorpal (87) has posed:
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THE USE OF ENCHANTMENT
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The name of the exhibit did a lot to captivate people during its opening week- ancient artefacts from ancient Greece, on display for a limited time. The wing of the museum holding the exhibit has been redecorated aptly to set the mood of mystery.

Many of the relics could be considered as historical curiosities as well as objets d'art: a beautifully detailed mirror, intact after millennia, said to have been used by the feared witches for their secret rituals; the pinecone-tipped staff called the Thyrsus which the followers of Dionysus wielded to work their spells; the remaining half of what some believe to be Eurytus' bow, which only Odysseus could string and fire. The exhibit goes on in this manner, with items both great and small.

But there, towards the end of the room, was the crown jewel of the exposition- the sword of Themis, also called the Sword of Justice, wielded in ancient Greek lore by the female personification of good counsel and divine order.

For its thousands of years, the sword (encased in a glass box) is surprisingly bright and polished.

Some individuals, with different reasons to become interested, have regarded the opening of this exhibit with some trepidation. Some of the artifacts, after all, are said to be authentic, and the possibility for mischief is great.

"Rest assured," the museum director had said behind closed doors to the concerned parties, "these are only historical objects. We have had verification that the only magical thing about them are the stories woven around them."

She is wrong about this, but it isn't her fault- the powers of the gods can elude even the best magicians when they lie dormant.

Tommy Chase regards the exhibition with a certain evel of boredom. "Oh, a shield. How impressive," he mutters while trying to stifle a yawn. He had figured this, of all places, would be a scene a superhero would show up to in order to 'keep an eye' on things and thus give him something to write about for HeroWatch.

No such luck, so far. All he could see, the milling museum patrons.

"How *boring*."

Nearby, in the street outside, a van parks. It is quite an ordinary-looking van, nothing too remarkable about it, as far as vans go. It's what's inside it that is remarkable.

"Alright. We begin on my mark," a husky voice says inside the van to the other occupants, hands moving swiftly to slide a mask over the speaker's face. "You ready?"

Grant Ward has posed:
Agent Ward, Clearance Level 7, with a Doctorate in Being Complicated, is on-duty. SHIELD approached the museum due to the possible chaos caused by the exhibit, but only a few agents were available for duty. Others are off fighting snake-themed terrorist organizations, or hanging out on enormous flying aircraft carriers. Ward is not so lucky.

He blends in perfectly with the crowd inside, and only certain members of the museum staff knows who he is, or what he is doing here. A jacket and jeans, along with a faded Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt and a Gotham Knights baseball cap make him blend in with everyone else. A worn backpack hangs over one muscled shoulder. The man looks like any other tourist, taking in the exhibits with a mixture of boredom and curiosity.

An icer is holstered beneath his jacket, and a hold-out pistol carrying very real bullets is holstered at the small of his back. A cleverly camouflaged earpiece is worn as well, in case he needs to get in contact with actual HQ.

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
There are several people taking photos (no flash) and/or video, some even using non-smartphone cameras, and a few even sketching the various pieces. One such person is a too-tall fellow with a subtle hint of the Asian features found in the north of Japan, blended with what appears to be viking European, because he's over two meters tall and has very pale blond below-shoulder-length hair with chrome-blue tips, and he's dressed in something that looks like it came off one of the pages of a European Street Fashion review magazine -- part leather, part fishnet, part more leather, and black denim in surprising places, and boots that could curb-stomp by themselves.

And, of course, he's SKETCHING. A fairly outsized wire-coil-bound sketchbook of heavy duty paper, in it he's using some kind of wax pastel (we don't call them crayons) to take down images of the various Magical Things. Next to them, he's written some fairly long blocks of chinese-and-japanese characters. Not descriptions. If you can read the characters, they're somewhat gibberish, but that's because he's transcribing a different language that is neither Japanese nor any dialect of Chinese. It has more gutturals in it for one thing.

Holly Winters (64) has posed:
Magic. Its not something that she is really too familiar with. Its not something she knows anything about. Still, A trip to the museum is certainly more fun then waiting for word from the new school she's going to be attending soon. Holly Winters, The young mutant who has caused a little bit of chaos with the weather recently is exploring. She doesn't carry an icer like another person present... She IS an icer!

Quietly she moves along, her cool aura just helping her to keep from sweating. Those around her would likely feel like they are getting hit by some nice AC. She simply looks around taking in the sights and reading as she goes. The young girl doesn't exactly know what all is happening outside. Nor does she have any idea how she will handle it when things go down.

Quietly she gets out her tablet and makes some notes. Then she sees something that stands out. "Oooo! That sword is really pretty!" She looks at it curiously and idly sketches it in her tablet.

Wonder Woman has posed:
No heroes here watching the museum showing? Puh-lease!

Diana Prince was here. She just was dressed in civilian clothing and wearing large dark designer sunglasses, with her black hair tied back in a bun on the crown of her head. She would appear like just a wealthy museum onlooker here to view the exhibit to anyone that didn't have a vrey sharp eye to catch any evidence pointing to her true identity.

She was particulary interested in the sword, and would view it from afar but ultimately hos chosen not to approach it as of yet as she would bide her time or refrain from going any further than she already had, in hopes of not being recognized as it wasn't her goal tonight.

Diana's eyes would fall on the other onlookers as well, she'd walk past Grant Ward and give him a smile should he look at her. She'd take note of Rory's sketchbook but not wish to interrupt him as of yet and upon overhearing the words from holly once she was near to her she'd smile at her exclaimed statement. "It is, isn't it?" She'd say back to the young one.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
If Tommy Hunter knew, he would kick himself. Anyone familiar with his rather sensationalist writing (under a pseudonym, of course) could easily tell you that while 'Chase' had raised a bunch of shady and scandalous speculation about a good number of heroes, Wonder Woman remained surprisingly absent from its tabloid-like existence.

He would -so-kick himself for not noticing. But then again, he is dreadfully bored and his attention span is miserably low. He strolls by the guy holding the sketchbook, though, and his focus comes back into the real world for a second- both because of the sketching, as well as the sketcher. Very striking guy, that one.

"You go to the Uni? Art student?" Tommy asks impertinently, leaning over to take a look at the sketching. He can't lean over the gian't shoulder, it's impossible, so it's more of a side-and-around lean.



Four people walk towards the exhibit room. Three men, two women, all decked in long coats and hats. The unseasonable garb raises immediate suspicion and attracts the attention fo one of the guards, who starts to walk towards the group.

He never makes it. The woman walking at the lead f the group makes one quick gesture with her hand and emits one fast-flying orb of light, and the man flies against the wall with a shout- which ends when he slams upon the side of the hallway and falls quickly to the floor. This gets the attention of the museum-goers standing in the hallway outside of the room. There's the sound of shoes and high heels scampering across hardwood floors, quiet yelps of surprise and other sounds of urgency.

The woman is the first to burst into the room, divesting herself of her coat and hat in order to reveal a scarlet and green uniform underneath. When she removes her hat, it shows that her face is obscured by a mask that takes up most of her face, except the lower half.

"Spread out and take hostages." She barks the order to the three men, who havve divested themselves of their outer garments as well. They are identical triplets with dark, wavy hair and black uniforms. And there are guns in their hands, guns which they raise at chest level as they begin to shout to the museum-goers to get down on the floor... NOW.

The scarlet-clad woman, who goes by Psydeliner (whose powers clearly do not include good moniker choices), looks at the other woman.

"Your turn. Go get us that sword," she says, pointing towards the sword, "I'll keep us covered."

Their employers had stated that under no circumstances should anyone else lay a hand on the sword. Psydeliner had hired the kind of person from whom you just couldn't wrench anything away. It was extremely hard to do, when they were god-knows-how-many-feet tall when they chose to be.

Grant Ward has posed:
The casually dressed Agent returns Diana's smile, briefly admiring the beautiful woman. He is actually about to flirt with Diana when everything goes sideways. He registers the possible threat before they even disable the first guard. He takes a step back and another two the side, putting a shelf of artifacts between him and the rest of the room. Diana witnesses it, and still has a view of him, however.

He calmly reaches under his coat and withdraws the icer, which resembles a silver pistol with a faint blue light emanating from the chamber. Ward clicks off the safety and watches silently, his brow furrowing ever so slightly as he takes everything in from the best he can from his hiding spot.

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
The yuki-onna girl Rory met a few days ago is also sketching, Rory notes absently as he traces a line of light with his eyes, then transfers it to the page in front of him with a cold blue and white ripple of color. And now who is this fellow who is practically crawling into his lap to see the sketch? Rory is about to ask him when the interruption comes.

On the floor! Wait what? What is WRONG with America anyway? GUNS EVERYWHERE!

Rory drops to the floor next to the sword case, and his sketchpad drops with him, his extremely realistic wax-pastel drawing of the sword showing on top. He quickly scrabbles a tiny sketch of himself on the floor with the wax -- not a great sketch, but the intention is good.

A jolt of energy into the sketch and ... some people might notice that the guy on the floor shifted position slightly. The illusion of Rory replaces the real one, who has just become invisible and rolled backwards away from the lines of fire. Hopefully the red-haired guy won't get shot too badly, and the yuki-onna girl won't freeze everything to death this time. He tries to figure out what's going on. Thieves? Something worse?

Holly Winters (64) has posed:
Holly Winters looks at Diana and smiles softly, "It really is pretty. I've never used weapons before but some of them look really cool." She states with a grin. Her attention goes back to the blade as she continues sketching. The poor sap of a guard gets her attention as he slams into the all.

The girls heart races as the temperature begins dropping around her. QUickly she moves, ducking in behind the sword display. Already she can feel the weather outside beginning to turn. "Come on, I can't do this. Just. The snowflake!" She whispers as she closes her eyes tight and visualizes a single snowflake. It helps her calm down enough to stop the snowstorm brewing outside. As soon as she is calm, she hears the call for hostages and the order for the sword. Nope! Not letting that happen. Slowly a thick layer of ice begins forming, rising over the display, covering it up and sealing its contents inside. The temperature around her drops much faster, reinforcing that ice. Still, she stays hidden though not exactly wanting to draw too much attention to herself.

Wonder Woman has posed:
As it tends to do when things go bad, they go bad quickly. A few days ago it was a dragon off the coast of Jakarta... now it was a bad of violent criminals looking to steal priceless artifacts with brute force and all the brains of a garden hose.

When most in the room went for cover and to follow the orders following the ear-shattering gunfire, Diana simply turned to face them and stayed there on her feet not budging an inch. She was between them and the sword... Her sunglasses covered eyes looked to Grant, then toward Rory and... to Holly, who seemed to hold more then meets the eye when it came to powers of her own...

"I... don't think this is a very wise decision." Diana spoke out then to the people with the guns. Her right hand lifted up to remove her large designer shades and she folded their arms together. "You should set your weapons down on the ground and then seat yourselves, back to back, until the authorities arrive." She spoke with a thick accented English, but with the sunglasses removed she was far more identifiable.

--

The second female would-be criminal charged to the front after Diana spoke. "Thats not going to happen, lady!" And a seocnd later this thug-woman began to GROW in size, shaking out of her hat and trenchcoat, she grew taller and taller until she nearly reached the ceiling that was at least fourty feet above!

"Giganta's here to play for keeps!" She shouted down at everyone in the Museum's fancy chamber.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
The leader's eyes grow wide when Diana removes her glasses, but she doesn't get to utter a word.

"Holy shit it's.... Wonder Woman!"

That? That was Tommy, flat on the ground close to Rory. It is a fact universally acknowledged that all it takes to baffle the human brain is to obscure a part of one's face with a small object- to whit, glasses, sunglasses or domino masks. With the designer sunglasses removed, Tommy found that face easy to identify alright.

He is so taken with the shock that he realizes what he has said five seconds later. The room being -deathly silent- in the wake of these events. Two of the three armed goons are staring at Tommy.

".... sorrysorry, never mind me!" the redhead says, blushing furiously. His phone is under him, he realizes, dropped in the scramble to lay down. This was gold! He could get video of Wonder Woman in action! He waits until he believes nobody is looking at him, and slowly begins to reach...

The other two men walk the room, choosing civilians at random to take as hostages. One of them is a terrified older woman, the other one...

Well. The young woman trying not to call attention to herself stands out like a sore thumb to the hostage-takers. It's a huge flag. One of them men moves towards Holly, the muzzle of his gun aimed at her. "Get over here," the man says gruffly.

"... Gi-..." Tommy swears again, quieter this time, as Giganta performs her mighty transformation. Psydeliner laughs and steps back, letting Giganta take the floor, "If she gives you any trouble... swat her away," she says to the giant, gesturing towards Wonder Woman.

"OhmygodIhavetogetfootageofthis..." Tommy mutters under his breath, struggling to unlock his phone screen and take video.

So he is completely oblivious to the third triplet, who is now aiming his gun at the redhead, "Put that down."

Grant Ward has posed:
Well, this is officially beyond something a single SHIELD agent can handle...even if that Agent is Grant Ward. First he recognizes the hot brunette to be Wonder Woman and then that other woman grows. Awesome. Unlike what a normal person would do, the man does not get visibly rattled. Instead, he acts. He cannot deal with the giant, so...

He steps from behind cover and swiftly, calmly fires several times. He aims at the hostage takers that are NOT enormous. The gun sounds real enough, but the effects of an Icer is a pretty heavy KO. He fires twice at each of the people he can as he moves from one piece of cover to the next, using skilled and well-aimed shots.

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
The taka-onna, or tall woman, is the yokai who stretches herself to peek in second story windows of brothels. This must be a less embarrassing cousin. Still ... nobody needs to see nostril hairs at that size, lady ... Rory is invisible. He begins sketching very carefully, black wax on the shiny black marble waxed floor, moving with monster speed, all the parts hidden slightly so the giant can't quite see them.

But once completed, things will become quickly interesting.

Holly Winters (64) has posed:
The young girl just looks with horror as the man points a gun at her. She still is freezing up the sword. Her gaze goes to the man. "I uh... If... If you really want me too." She stands and walks too him seeming to obey his words. As she gets close though, The man wouldstart glazing over due the sheer amount of cold. Then... A different form of icer hits him. He drops fast. She look to Grant and nods to him before she rushes back to her safe spot.

From there she starts to evaluate. "Okay. Maybe I can help with this..." She Focuses and with a quick motion it begins snowing in the room. Wind starts howling as visibility plumets.

Wonder Woman has posed:
Diana's light blue eyes watched as the woman grew to literal towering heights within the gala event hall. She drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out, muttering the word. "Wonderful." No pun intended. At the sounds of gunfire from the man she'd smiled at, she looked back down at him and then to his targets.. he was trying to stop the hostages from being taken... which was good.

"Fine." Diana said then as she spun around and slapped her left hand THROUGH the protective glass covering the invaluable ssword of legends. She would grasp at its handle and draw it out as alarms would start to go off and doors within the museum would start to be sealed.

Drawing the sword out, Diana would glare up at the 50 Foot Woman.

"You want this?" She said. "Come and get it."

And with that said, Wonder Woman would fly up, straight up and then forward, bursting through a window on the western side of the room!

---

Giganta's right hand SWATTED at Diana as she fled and then she released a loud frustrated scream that would rumble the hall. She charged toward the window... shrunk back to normal size... jumped thorugh it... then enlarged again on the outside to give chase!

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"That... was so cool!" Tommy exclaims. The goon threatening him had been taken down by some unseen benefactor, as was the goon threatening Holly. The third goon had managed to evade being hit by the convenient wind and impaired visibility raised by the weather-caster, and he started firing back in the general direction of the attack.

Thing is, the visibility affects him as well. Those bullets are coming nowhere near Grant.

It's at that point that Tommy noticed Psydeliner advancing towards the center of the room in a blind rage. "Goddamnit you stupid... GET THAT SWORD!" she shrieks into her comm as Wonder Woman flies away.

"AAAAH" a fit of rage from her, and a sphere emerges from her and knocks down cases and furniture in the wake of the psychic wave. "Goddamnit!"

Psydeliner hasn't even noticed the drawings...

Tommy briefly considers his options. They were now in the room with a supervillain and no visible super-hero. Except the guy with the gun. Maybe he needed to do something. He begins to creep away to a more hidden location. Fortunately the poor visibility helps with that, to the point that he doesn't even notice that Rory's illusion of himself has been covered in ice, partially.

Grant Ward has posed:
The two mooks drop, and Grant drops behind an exhibit to put something between him and the remaining goon. He glances down to check the energy level of his pistol before nodding to himself. He rolls out from behind his hiding place and takes aim at the place the baddie took cover behind.

He fires off a shot in an attempt to make the man move...and to slide right into the target of his next shot. Pew pew!

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
Rory's illusion replacement also didn't notice that he was covered in ice, but that's because he was a quick and dirty sketch, rather than something done with care and effort. The sketchbook, unfortunately, also has ice on it, which may be more difficult to get rid of.

Rory makes a fish-gaping face when Wonder Woman punches through the ice shell and the glass to free the sword, leading his intended target out of his reach, and almost doesn't realize that he's becoming visible as snow piles on him. A moment of intangible makes it fall to the floor. Then he shakes his head and hunkers down and says to the floor, "You can't get the big one, so grab the crooks, will you dear? The grouchy woman please?" and he indicates the aptly named Psydeliner. Tentacles erupt from the floor, black and red and reeking of the depths of the ocean, and (somehow avoiding the good guys) begin to harrass and attempt to enwrap and entangle her. They're entirely imaginary, but it'll be HER imagination. Oh, and if they can grab a mook or two, that'll also be fun.

Meanwhile, Rory ducks to the side because SOMEONE is shooting!

Holly Winters (64) has posed:
Okay. The Swords gone and in the hands of someone who knows how to use it. Thats good! That also frees up Holly to do something else. She stands up and sees the shoot out going on. Grant has this guy. He's already taken down two others. She looks toward the girl who is getting attacked by her imagination. One left to deal with then and she is awfully big. With all the bravado of a rookie, She takes off running right through the mess and out the doors of the museum.

Her gaze falls on the fight between the Giantess and Wonder Woman. Yup She wants some too. With a quick motion, a gout of ice and snow is launched toward Giganta's feet, hoping to freeze her to the ground.

Wonder Woman has posed:
By the time that Giganta got outside and re-enlarged herself she shouted at Diana. "The sword is mi--!" Her head turned right to left after she'd seen Diana floating there in mid air, not... holding... a sword. "Not cool." Giganta said. "Where is it?"

"Where is what?" Diana said with a darker tone. She flew at Giganta and swung her balled-up fist right at the woman's big face, right as Holly ice the ground up at Giganta's feet... the combined efforts caused the big woman to wail and go flailing backward, falling right down onto a newspaper stand that the owner had totally abandoned after the gunfire had gone off inside the museum!

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Psydeliner isn't very imaginative. You can tell because of her moniker. But one thing it is, is stubborn. Those imaginary tentacles look VERY real, and are subconsciously imbused with her own telekinetic energy. "NO! No, get off me!" she starts shrieking, trying to get free of the tentacles. In the process, shockwaves of Telekinetic energy shoot in random directions, taking down different artifacts and causing irrepairable damage to some.

The goon is no longer looking for Grant, he turns around and tries to fire at the tentacles to free the boss- and is nearly blasted by Grant's shot. He drops to the ground and tries to fire at Grant around one of the exhibition cases.

Tommy is nowhere to be seen. Outside, however, an unusual figure appears- an anthropomorphic feline in orange and red, wearing a black bodysuit with a Cheshire grin emblazoned across his chest. He emerges, in fact, from behind the doomed newspaper stand- a good place to dispel his human illusion, he thought, since it was vacant.

"And now, time to make a-"

The Cheshire cat stares as everything around him becomes shadowy. Because there is an enormous woman plummeting to the ground and ready to SQUISH him.

"Ohshit!"

And he sprints, hoping that his legs can carry him faster than gravity can pull Giganta to the ground!

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
Rory is appalled at the mess. The woman's got some sort of Poltergeist power and it's breaking shit. Making his way to where she's being constriculated, doing his best to remain invisible, trying not to slip on the wet and sometimes icy floor, and trying not to catch any stray bolts, it takes him much longer than he intended -- an entire 20 seconds -- before he can get into position and attempt to knock her out with a sleeper hold.

Because when his darling granny Onibaba (literally, demon hag, great family name, huh?) would get into the rice whiskey, she'd start flinging things around with her ghost power, and someone would have to put her in a sleeper hold, and Rory was usually the one to have to do that, he's at least had some experience. He was successful almost as often as she smashed him across the room.

Holly Winters (64) has posed:
As the Giantess hits the ground, Holly quickly moves to action. She begins forming a ball of ice, the largest she's ever formed. As she continues building it and working it, her nose begins to bleed. She's holding back as she keeps going. Finally with a quick motion the massive iceball flattens out and drops over Giganta, freezing her to the ground. Only a hold remians for her to breath.

Holly drops to her knees. Her head is pounding from using that much energy. Wielding her own power is still a real change for her and doing so like this? Even more so.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Psydeliner has never really had to rely on hand to hand combat- pushing things (and people) around with her mind has always been enough. She resists Rory's hold with the most feeble and pathetic attempts and a good deal of casting aspersions upon him and his genealogical line. Perhaps she might have been rescued by an opportune bullet from the last remaining triplet. Unfortunately, the icer has iced him good, and he is currently on the ground, visiting the Dreamtime for a while.

Psydeliner's protestations begin to fade, until she is finally limp and completely out of it.

Vorpal managed to miss becoming a decal by THIS much. The Cheshire cat pants, hands on his knees, never having ran so fast before.

And even then, he cannot resist his nature. Seeing Holly's jobb on the frozen Giganta, he trns to her and gives her a shaky thumbs up with his trademark grin.

"Hey... Cool job!"

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
Once the woman is out, Rory tells his illusionary replacement to stop taking up space, and he vanishes. The invisible oni doesn't bother to reappear though; he does pick up his supply box and sketchpad from the floor, making them vanish, and makes his way outside. Hopefully someone will take away these malefactors, but until then, he's not sticking around for it. Maybe the guy with the zap gun will use it to keep ... did she REALLY call herself Psydeliner? On purpose? Oh well, whatever, her karma. Maybe the zap gun guy will put her under. He's going to head outside. He turns visible as he turns the corner and sees ...

The giant frozen woman and the yuki-onna with the nosebleed and the what the... Neko Boy? It's spread this far? Well. Rory can't be too judgemental, he's half demon-tiger and half celestial-ox and half monster-spirit and half-human (so in other words, an Oni) himself. He turns visible again, pulling a clean handkerchief from inside a pocket and offering it to the snow woman.

"Good work, but don't bleed yourself to death or you'll end up becoming a yokai."

Holly Winters (64) has posed:
Holly Winters looks up at Vorpal. She wipes the blood from under her nose as she smirks to him. "I call this a solid performance. HOnestly I don't mean to give the cold shoulder but I need to get out of here." Her attention goes to Rory, "I'm fine. I just... I had some power complications. I was trying to hard to control. Anyway... Sounds like the cops are on their way. I will see you later!" with that she takes off running.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
And Vorpal realizes that his greatest contribution to capturing the gang was.... well. Almost getting squished by Giganta. This is not good for his PR. This is certainly NOT how he planned to make his heroic debut.

Which is why he fades into invisibility and begins to tiptoe away. Maybe people will forget he was (briefly) there, so he can get a take-backsies? In any case, today's great caper was frustrated by a group of unwitting heroes and Wonder Woman.