5264/Half In Shadow

Half In Shadow
Date of Scene:	29 August 2018
Location:	Bryant Park
Synopsis:	The magic of the movies receives an unntural enhancement from an unlikely source, turning a weekend in the park into pandemonium.
Cast of Characters:	87, Wonder Woman, Superboy

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Vorpal (87) has posed:
After 5 o'clock, Bryant Park becomes less of a lunch spot for office-goers and more of an entertainment venue for families during the summer. The open-air movie night never fails to draw a crowd.

Tonight, the movie in question is an adventure movie based upon the real-life adventures of a famous archeologist.

Vorpal, sitting in a tree, is munching liberal amounts of popcorn as the movie gets going, jaunty and catchy orchestral score booming out of the sound system across the park.

"Man, he makes archeology look... not boring at all," he mutters to himself, hidden from the rest of the public by the foliage.

Just a street away from the park, a young man is running. He is not running in a way that indicates he does this for exercise, with a leisurely jog at regular intervals, arms pumping just enough (but not too much)... no. This young man, with a package cradled under one arm, is running the desperate, irregular run of a man running for his life. He is also constantly looking behind him, but there is nothing that indicates he is being chased.

Unless, of course, you know what to look for. Shadows thicken here and there. Shadows flicker along the walls of buildings, and most passersby don't notice them at all- but they move, they move inexorably towards their target.

He stops looking behind and looks ahead of him for one, and sees, in the distance, the flickering light of a screen, surrounded by a large crowd.

Yes. He may be safe there.

With renewed strength derived from hope, the young man catches his second win and begins to race towards the park, dodging incoming cars and only missing them by a hair.

Wonder Woman has posed:
As it so happens, Diana is at the movie tonight, she'd come on a date no less... A friend of a friend, a Firefighter who'd been setup with her to go on the 'date of a lifetime' as he'd told her their mutual friend had pitched it to him. Diana didn't date often, but she did here and there because it was something the public liked to see in headlines and in pictures online. So here she is, out tonight at a table in Bryant park which is off to the side. She's got a black sleeves shirt on and a pair of white slacks that go down to her simple black shoes. Her hair is tied back into a ponytail and she's sipping on a drink that her Date had bought her.

A tickling on the back of her head gets Diana to tear her eyes from the screen and she just looks around... she 'thinks' she saw strange activity with the shadows but she's not sure. Either way, the man she's sitting beside leans over to her to ask if she's okay. So she affords him a smile and a little nod, then she asks him a question about the movie to show as much which leaves them in a small whispering discussion.

Superboy has posed:
     Few things would interest Project Kr as much as a movie would. And the prospect of seeing a real movie outside like an old drive-in was enough to let him convince Owen to allow him to go. Though not in uniform, Project Kr had done as best he can to not look conspicuous, gone was the dull white scrubs, now in a set of jeans, sneakers, and what some people thought was funny, a Superman shirt. Seems one of the boffins were keen on a laugh.

  The older teen however doesn't talk during he movie, that's just rude. But his head does turn towards the sound of a man struggling to keep his breath. The sound of cars honking as they whiz past the man with the parcel.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal is completely enthralled by the movie, which he hasn't seen since he was a kid. The reason he is hiding is simple- over the past few weeks his concentration has gotten worse, due to that persistent *thing* in his mind. He's afraod of getting too distractedd and exposing his secret identity, so he sticks to the tree instead of going all civilian.

Besides, it's fun to watch like this. The scene with the airplanes at the beach is coming up. It's one of his favorites.



The young man manages to dash into the park, an quickly begins running through the crowd, crouching low so as not to be conspicuous. He figures if he gets past the screen.... closer now, closer-

But he miscalculated. The shadows grow deep , in the park, unnaturaly so. The darkness is not just the absence of light, but a tangible presence that coils, stretches, and strikes. A tendril of this darkness lashes out and catches the young man across the ankles, which causes him to topple and fall.

"NO!" he shouts. On the screen, the fighter planes are shooting at the archaeologist and his father.

The parcel lands with a heavy *thud* on the ground, and for a moment the world seems to pause.

The package explodes in a flash of green-blue light that lingers in the eye for a few seconds after the flash has passed. There is no sound, no smoke, and no damage, but the parcel itself is gone and on the ground there is an egg-shaped objecct, growing with greenish light.

The young man struggles against the amorphous darkness that is trying to swallow him up, and the public is now very much aware of something happening in their midst, which immediately triggers the fleeing reaction as people grab loved ones and begin to run away from the epicenter of the glow.

".... Oh damnit. Really? Not even one night..." Vorpal grumbles to himself as he stands up, placing the popcorn bag carefully on the branch before leaping down.

And suddenly the glowing egg-shape begins to pulse, a tendril of its light flashing towards the silver screen which, in turn, begins to glow as well...

Wonder Woman has posed:
Diana hadn't seen this movie since... well, 1989 when it was first in theaters. She'd seen it in London where she was living at the time. She hadn't, however, seen the previous 2 in the series so she was a bit lost back then but now she HAD seen the others fairly recently while having a movie night for children at the Embassy. The kids had all requested this trilogy to watch, because they'd apparently been doing archaology studies at school. So at least things were making more sense to her. "His father is my favorite." Diana had just whispered to her date when things felt 'dark' again.

But that feeling was washed away by the scream in front of the screen, Diana reacts to it by immediately standing up from her chair.. then the explosive light blasts across the audience... and the Princess is forced to raise her hands up, shielding her face with her forearms to lessen the blinding effect...

Once that passes, she stares at the 'Egg' and tries to gather her wits about her before she glances to her date and he's standing now as well. "Be the hero." He tells her. "I'm sorry." She says to him. "Help others get away." And he's already on it.

Diana turns back to the 'event' and she suddenly rushes toward it, her footfalls as skilled as any olympic athlete's would be.

Superboy has posed:
     Standing up, Project Kr starts making his way to the darkness-snared man. Running to get to the tendril and focus his gaze on it. A short burst of heat vision shoots from his blue eyes. He was most focused on the victim here.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
The black mass reacts to the heat ray with a visible shudder. Clearly affected by the attack, the boiling darkness turns about and rushes Superboy, leaving the young man alone for the moment- unfortunately, unconsicous. The mass begins to zero in on Superboy, deploying many tendrils to try and grapple him.

As Diana approaches the event, the egg seems to sense something of extraordinary nature is approaching it, as it begins to pulse brighter and britghter.

Then, the spell is complete and the movie screen changes completely. It no longer looks like a flat screen, but it appears to be some sort of window into another realm.

Out of said window, fighter planes emerge and fly, dangerously close to the tree line. One of them opens fire on Diana with its atiquated machine gun.

"HOLY F-!" Vorpal swears, stopping dead in his tracks for a moment before realizing that people are now sitting ducks! Most of the spectators have fled, but there are some stragglers behind.

Trying to fight his concentration issues, the Cheshire cat begins summoning Rabbit Holes. He can't sustain their existence for long, each one collapsing just a few seconds after being summoned, so he uses them as quick drop conveyances, ambushing civilians and depositing them a great distance away. Being thus occupied with crowd control, he can't lend a hand in the more direct fight... it doesn't take him long to figure out who the young man shooting red beams from his eyes is, but the woman who is running towards the event... he has a hard time making her out, beause of the running people.

Wonder Woman has posed:
Diana's bracers of submission were inside of her black leather bag that she'd had with her at the table, and they're slipped onto her wrists quite easily so by the time she reaches the screen and it starts to change, she's standing right square in the center of the grass of the park, facing the screen as it goes from a movie-entertainment window... into a window to another reality? And then the plane attacks.

Diana's hands come up again and cross once more, but now she uses them to deflect the plane's incoming fire, one shot after another blazing off of the metal of her Amazonanian crafted wrist guards, causing the bullets to fly around her into the grass and up into the air, sparks shooting out in fanning showers of golden pellets!

When the plane roars over her head, she looks upward and then turns around to follow it as its now above Manhattan... A WWII German Airplane, now in New York City? "So much for Date night." Diana says, but she also takes note of the portals being open/closed nearby... is that a part of this too?

Superboy has posed:
     Superboy's ploy worked, now he was in the crosshairs of the darkness.

  The teen raises himself up from the ground, giving short bursts of heat vision to as many tendrils as he can. "You aren't getting him!" He calls out, looking determined to defend.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
The plane soars, but it seems to have some issues stabilizing. Diana may notice that the plane flickers slightly when it is out of the large cone of light created by the projector. Indeed, it retains a bit of a granular quality. Soon it has doubled back and seems ready to fire another salvo at Wonder Woman. Fortunately the park is all but evacuated by now.

The earlier demonstration of her abilities didn't pass Vorpal by, though, and now he knows who she is.

"Holy shi-..... that's... that's Wonder Woman-" the Cheshire cat says, standing awestruck under the tree.

The tendrils that gang up on Superboy are dispatched with haste, but more keep coming. Although the teen of steel is making admirable progress against it, and the black mass has grown smaller. Still, its tenacity is also not to be underestimated. One tendril manages to gain a hold of Superboy's left wrist, by virtue of advancing slowly at ground level in the shadows while the other tentacles drew attention.

As for the egg? It remains where it is, glowing.

Wonder Woman has posed:
Diana is looking over at Superboy, not outright recognizing who he is in this moment but she has other concerns... namely a potential Nazi Germany WW2 plane being unleashed on Manha--Oh, nope, its coming back for her? Tenacious pilot.

Wonder Woman has no intention of letting the pilot fire on her again though so she takes to the action now and she starts to charge across the parks grassy field and then lunges up into the air on a direct intercept course for the plane... except... she aims to soar right over it and hopefully land ontop of it on the canopy of the cockpit, eye to eye with the pilot himself!

Bystanders will definitely recognize her, such as Vorpal has now, but she's not technically in her armor aside from the shining bracers on her wrists!

Superboy has posed:
     Nothing to see here, just a normal everyday teenager...floating and shooting beams from his eyes.

  As the tendril grabs hold of Project Kr, his powers give out, falling to the ground and being dragged along. The teen pulls back on the tendril, however his strength is nowhere near its usual Kryptonian levels. "C-come on! Get off!" He says as he struggles with the darkness.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
This is amazing. This is totally amazing. Vorpal isn't even conscious of it, but he has whipped out his phone and he's actually recording Diana's stunt. It's a reflex from when he worked for that trashy online tabloid. "Wonder Woman, ladies and gentlemen," he says, as added commentary to the video.

The pilot is startled to find the Amazon on the plane and not, as common sense would dictate, on the ground. The German people are very much into logic and common sense (except for that nasty blind spot when it comes to world conquest, but nobody's perfect, right?), and so this display greatly offends him.

"Rabenmutter!" the pilot shouts, and quickly reaches into his cockpit to draw- yes- a gun. A gun which he tries to point at the woman who clearly just deflected a metric butt-load of bullets with her bracelets.

Maybe this guy does not share that strong a penchant for logic and reason.

And then Vorpal notices what is becoming of Superboy. The Cheshire cat looks at a loss of what to do for a moment, and then he runs forward, dropping his phone in the process. Conveniently landing at an angle that is sufficient to take in most of the action, because Chaos is sometimes your friend.

"Let him go, you - you gooey thing!" the Cheshire cat leaps in, slashing with claws at the tendrils that are holding and dragging Superboy. Like Superboy's intervention, this causes the tendrils to release the teen of Steel... and focus on the new attacker. "Hey!" Vorpal shouts as his ankle is yanked and he falls flat on his back, a black mass moving forward to engulf him.

Wonder Woman has posed:
Just another day in the life... a random WW2 plane showing up over Bryant Park with the NY Public Library right here too... Diana's not about to let such iconic locations get damanged on this night, this night that was meant to be happy fun relaxation time!

So when the pilot reaches for a gun, he gets greeted by a FIST! Right through the cockpit canopy, Diana's hand reaches in to grab the gun and bend the barrel upward before he can fire it at her! All while her other hand grasps onto the metal dividers of the canopy's glass and she just rips the whole cockpit wide open!

"Sie kommen mit mir!" Diana shouts over the sound of the plane's engine, telling him that he's coming with her. And with her hand on his gun hand she just leaps into the air to yoink the pilot out of his seat and his plane whole it flies back to the movie screen/portal it came from!

Superboy has posed:
     As the tendril forgets about Superboy, and focuses back on Vorpal, The Teen of Steel is able to use his powers once more!

  The black-haired teen's eyes glow red once more as he unleashes another bolt of heat vision towards the Darkness.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
The heat vision blast hits the black mass just in the right spot. Right as it is about to engulf Vorpal, it is blasted away into pure ash, fluttering in the wind.

The Cheshire cat blinks slowly and looks up at his savior. Not quite knowing what to say, he offers a sheepish smile.
"Hey..."

The execution is perfect on Diana's part, and the plane crashes through the 'window' of the screen, and crashes on the beach.

The archaeologist's father, played by a very well-known Scottish actor, looks puzzled in his close-up, and looks at the camera.
"I didn't get to do the thing with the birdsh..."

As for the German pilot, he screams bloody murder as Diana leaps off the plane. But when she touches down upon the ground, he burns away like a strip of film that is burned by the wrong projector settings. He disappears completely as the plane returns to its world.

The egg ceasess to glow and tumbles to the ground, and the young man who had carried it now begins to stir, waking up and sitting up with a jolt.
"Wha- wha- where..."

Wonder Woman has posed:
When Diana lands she watches the plane vanish back into the movie where it belongs and some part of her is glad that it doesn't crash into the archaeologist and the father, because... she likes them! "Well then, I think you best--" She speaks whilst turning her head to the German pilot, but she witnesses him fade away and it makes a confused expression cross over her face. "What on Earth--"

"Diana!" A female voice calls, a small portly woman with a British accent says as she rushes toward the Princess holding a sword and a lasso. "Diana!" As she gets near she thrusts them at the Princess. "Your things, mum."

The princess accepts them and she smiles softly. "Thank you, Patricia."

And now, the Princess walks toward the man who'd brought the egg here, she looks to the egg, then to him. "I think that you have a lot of explaining to do." She says in her thickly accented English, while the famous golden rope just uncoils down at her feet in the grass, as a warning. "Honesty is key." She adds then.

Superboy has posed:
     Once the Ash settles, Superboy blushes at Vorpal. Their last encounter was not the best. "Hey..." He comments, before he looks back towards Wonder Woman. "Is..." Yes, even a lab-bound experiment knew who she was. He offers a hand to Vorpal, and if accepted, helps up the Cheshire Cat, before walking up to Diana.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
The Cheshire cat takes Superboy's hand, and seems about to say something to him when the Teen of Steel walks away towards Diana. Clearly at a loss for what to do, Vorpa follows him. ANd he does a marvelous job of looking everywhere except Diana's eyes or face. Fortunately, she is currently preoccupied with the egg-bearer.

Speaking of which, he has begun crawling backwards, away from Diana.

"No... no, I have to go. They musn't take it..." he reaches out for the egg in a clearly protective gesture.

Wonder Woman has posed:
The man isn't going to reach the egg because its 2026 and there's been about 800 calls to the NYPD already and they're rushing the yard. Diana, also intercepts him on his way to the egg. "I... do not think anyone is going to be taking this little wonder anywhere any time soon." She says as she nods to the police officers. "He should be detained, some sort of magical outburst originating from this." She points to the egg with her sword. "I will have it contained with the Justice League." And the cops? They're all too accepting of them not having to take the wild things that these people in this world of magic and mayhem create.

Diana looks back to where Superboy was, while the Police move in to arrest the man who dumped the egg here. "Thank you for the assistance." She tells Superboy and she then glances in Vorpal's direction, she recognizes him. A grin shows on her red lips. "We keep running into each other in the strangest moemnts, you and I."

Superboy has posed:
     A small smile appears on Superboy's lips, before he gives a nod. "No problem." He says, sounding every bit as young as he was. "I'm glad everyone is alright."

  He then looks back to Vorpal. "I-am sorry about the last time we met."

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"I'm... I'm sorry too," Vorpal replies to Superboy. The young man is dragged away, but he keeps shouting over his shoulder "No! You don't know what you're doing! The winter court-"

The rest is indistinguishable as he is dragged away. Vorpal is about to say something when Wonder Woman. Speaks. To. Him.

"Er... I guess I, well..." he pauses, clearly failing several critical rolls. Treading water badly, he reaches around and suddenly wraps his arm around Superboy's waist and pushes him forward. "THIS IS SUPERBOY!" he says, WAY louder than he had intended to say it. He was just looking for someone else to deflect the attention to.

Wonder Woman has posed:
Diana looks between the both of them and she shows a faint smile but it is kept at-bay considering they are in the middle of a major disturbance in the city and there is all manner of emergency services and news vehicles around the park now, amongst other onlookers.

Diana levels her stare on Superboy when Vorpal shoves him toward her. "Superboy?" She asks with a raise of her dark eyebrows. "You should stop by the Justice League Hall in Metropolis sometime. We should talk there." She tells him before she dips her chin to the both of them. "I must assist the Law Officers now, gentlemen. Thank you for your assistance, and I am sorry that the movie was interrupted." Another quick and short smile is given to them both and Diana Prince turns to aide the emergency responders in understanding... some... of what went down here.