basic_powers | Seattle Summer Showoff

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Seattle Summer Showoff

As they exist from the narrow door of the linen closet for his apartment, Dinah will see two doors down the hallway to her left. One has a biohazard sign hanging from it, and the other is part-way open, enough that one can see the window and bed inside. There's a couple of photos hanging from the wall, one of Beauford and a blonde young woman laughing with the lights of a carnival in the twilight background, and one with Beauford and a reddish-brown haired man in a repurposed tan flightsuit, grinning in front of a college graduation ceremony.

To her right, she'll see that Beauford was infact not exaggerating at all about the shoebox size of his apartment's kitchen, as there is only a tiny island seperating it from the small living room. There's a well-used black futon and coffee table with a little black laptop on top of magazines and comic books. Against the wall there's a shelf with a flatscreen tv, several videogame consoles and a dvd/bluray player. Light filters through the curtain outside and Dinah can likely see the door out of the apartment with three bicycles hanging from hooks beside it on the wall, and pannier bags for the bikes hung with coats and hats from the coat rack.

It doesn't take much guessing to figure out that the blue and gunmetal bike is Beauford's from the homemade welds and adjustments given to it.

"Welcome to my humble bachelor pad...I'd give you the tour but this is pretty much it."

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And Dinah, with her aquarium backpack and plush octopus, is happy to be a tourist.

"How far are we going?"

"Up as far as Blessurd Blvd, then we're going to hop a regular shuttle up to a station about 2 blocks from my apartment." Beauford smiles, moving into line behind Dinah with his bag of goods from the aquarium and the leftover pizza box.

"And then I figure it's either naps and Milliways, or I spoil you with future tech video games."

"Video games," Dinah repeats. "Not sure I'm intrested. No good movies?"

"A few good movies, some french animations that Julie happens to like..." Beauford says as they get their tickets and head towards the trolley.

"A Monkey's Tale is alright, I tend towards more cheesy campy horrors."

"French animation sounds better than campy horrors," Dinah admits. "Though if it's bad enough, I could watch one of those too."

The empty seats are a little way down the car, and she scoots up next to the window.

"I only have good taste in movies, you'll see." He grins, settling into the seat next to her...and get up again when an older lady looks for a place to sit down.

There's a bell rung overhead, just after that, as the trolley driver starts the climb up the rails to the top of the hill. Passengers mostly look out the windows towards the coastline not that far off, and can be glimpsed briefly between the fabulous architechture.

Dinah stood at the same time, because talking doesn't work if one person is sitting, but she does leans down to peer at the sights on occasion.

"I'll believe you. But I reserve the right to call you a liar if it turns out you don't."

"Pbbht. I'll chalk it up to you having poor taste in movies then." Beauford replies, sticking out his tongue and pausing.

The trolley just shook, granted it's and older model of transport but...they're not supposed to shake like that.

Dinah doesn't know that, so her frown is just a passing one, unitl she catches the look on the old lady's face and turns around to look at Beauford.

Is that normal?

No, no that's not normal and it's happening again and again with greater frequency before Beauford has a look of realization. Those thuds sound like something running towards them and he's starting to yell as something that looks like the bastard child of a mutagenic threesome of a lobster, octopus and Godzilla crests over the side of a hill to the side of the trolley car.

"GET DOWN AND GRAB SOMETHING SOLID!"

Dinah does nothing of the sort. What she does do, though, is drop her backpack on the ground and glance towards Beauford, looking apologetic.

She has to; she hopes he understands.

Then she's heading for the nearest open window.

"No! Don't its-" Beauford's call to Dinah is drowned in the horrible noise of that thing rushing up the hill it's eight claws on tentacles clicking and snapping plows through everything in it's way.

Including the trolley, which was too slow getting out of the way as the monster clips it hard with enough force to snap it out of the tracks and it's line.

Dinah's cursing herself for not having a wig on her, but she just doesn't have time for a costume change. Diving out of the window as the monster clips them, she hits the road at a roll and leaps to her feet, crouching and staring at its retreating back.

"Hey, ugly!" She yells, just to get it's attention before taking a deep breath.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!"

And that's to really get its attention, by way of hitting it with a sonic tank.

....Yes, Dinah you have gotten it's attention. The Godzilla Octolobster just let out a howl of some crustaecean rage before pivoting on those jointed legs, tail fanning at the source of what just hit it. And then charging back at the source, screaming.

Dinah, if your plan was to bring it back....

Wait, where did the fireball that just hit the creature in it's eyestalks come from??? And that blue blur that just flew through the air that punched it right under the jaw??????

Turning her post-uppercut momentum into a turn about the creature's head, 84 takes a quick look about to gauge the scene.

"Guys, I said I wanted seafood for lunch but this is a bit much," she quips in a loud enough voice to be clearly heard from the street as a show of confidence will usually prevent any panic. "I think I might just have to share."

In a lower voice, for the Bluetooth in her mask set to the team's frequency of the day, she says, "Alterity, do a run around to make sure no one's seriously injured and see if you can't clear the area a bit. Sentinel, try and keep that things attention. See if you can't get it away from the tourists. No property damage this time. Did anyone else catch that sonic burst? I think we might have an anonymous meta, so keep your eyes open."

By the time she's finished her third sentence Alterity has cleared any seriously injured, elderly and children from the area and Steel Sentinel is blasting away at the creature while grumbling something like, "It was just a little bit of damage."

Well, it's about time a team showed up.

Dinah, understanding the importance of a team dynamic, and aware that drawing unneeded attention to herself would be a bad idea right now, does what every fibre in her body screams at her not to do.

She turns tail and runs, slipping into the crowd that are now gathering around at a distance mob-rule has decided to be a good compromise between safety and a good view.

There she stops, and turns. She wants to see how this team operates.

Two more players are staying up high, one large, armored, male, big brown-gold eagle wings is carrying a team mate dressed in something almost like a grey and white kimono, armored pants and a helmet. One who is notably starting to throw something firey at the creature before stopping, extinguishing and turning with her partner towards the crowd.

"84, Uplink says she's going to do a scan through the most recent uploads to Youtube and Twitter for any images prior to our arrival, Crusade and I will see if we can't move that crowd back a little farther." Hat Trick calls to the team leader, tapping her helmet.

"I will search the crowd from above, she can work the crowd from below." Crusade adds, banking down to carefully drop Hat Trick just inside of the border of the crowd.

"Alright folks!" The young woman calls out waving the crowd back with her hands, which if Dinah is close enough to see, are each missing the ring and pinkie fingers after the first joint. "Back it up, this could spread out..."

"Roger," 84 replies at the end of her orbit of the creature's head, "but let's focus on the creature. That's our main target unless the anonymous meta is controlling it. Wait, is anyone controlling it? And let's not forget the banter people. Remember the crowd needs to know we do this all the time and they can count on us."

She lets her flight carry her farther out and then comes zooming back. In a loud voice she calls out, "I call a claw!" before catching one and wrenching it into a painful looking angle.

Steel Sentinel cringes at the bad pun but continues blasting. "You want it cooked?"

"Or how about a tentacle?" Alterity calls, his voice oddly distorted by the Doppler effect, as he grabs one of the creature's tentacles and runs towards Sentinel to give him a shot.

Dinah smiles to herself even as she moves back with the crowd, not trying to press against it. She sees one speedster, whose doppler effect makes him sound like Barry. The girl who seems to lead could be J'Onn in disguise, or mayeb Superman from the powers. Carter, obviously. The first guy could be Hal... her parallels are running out.

And now the crowd is pressing and they look like they don't need any help. She drops back a few rows in the crowd away from the crush, cursing the summer weather for her lack of layers in case she needs to go more incognito.

The banter causes her to look up, and smirk. Maybe it's because she and the boys are always exchanging back and forth barbs. This souonds forced.

Everyone's a critic, really.

"You know, I think the FDA would like to have words with you about this!" Hat Trick shouts, loud enough for everyone to hear as she runs back into the fight. "This thing is OBVIOUSLY not fit for human consumption! Tweety, could you gimme a lift?"

She then takes three exponentially larger leaps into the air, to be picked up at the apex of the third jump by Crusade.

"Juggling electronic tasks is my specialty, boss, I can scan for abnormal frequencies AND hit up the internet at the same time." Uplink's crackly voice comes in over the frequency of the day. "Lobsterzilla has...oh, not one but five nodes inside that scurulous carapace..."

"Guys, why has no one claimed the tail yet? It's obviously the only thing keeping this sucker balanced enough to move." Hat Trick, added as Crusade threw her towards the back of the beast, skin changing from human to burnished steel scales and fingernails sharpening. "Seriously, one of these days I'll introduce you all to the finer points of cooking seafood."

And while the team is bantering away and focused on the monster...Beauford's slipping through the crowd to find Dinah as quickly and quietly as possible, with her backpack and their goods in his arms.

Well the team is still working some things out but they do work well together.

"Hey, if you wanna chase some tail go right ahead Hat Trick, I'm spoken for!" 84 calls out while she dodges a tentacle or two. She's still got a hold of the claw and is keeping a good watch for when Hat Trick does her thing so she can help through Lobsterzilla off balance.

Sentinel blasts at the tentacle Alterity had been holding for him as he calls out, "You girls have one track minds!" But then quietly asks Uplink to send him targets zones for those nodes.

Alterity keeps running around and making tentacles vainly grasp. "You can keep the tail, calamari's my thing!"

Dinah's near the back of the crowd now; she still has a view above, but she's gone from the crowd of spectators the the milling around of we wanted to walk down this street.

She looks over a shoulder and catches Beauford's eye, heading over at a casual pace.

"Thanks for watching my things."

"...No problem, hopefully there won't be any invasion to ruin the ride next time." Beauford says, handing her the backpack, pizzabox and his spare sweatshirt hoodie, before looking back up to watch the fight for a moment.

And for a moment, his expression is...something Dinah's probably not seen before on his face, but just... He's entirely focused on watching one person, and she's flying up there in blue and lavender.

"Honey, you know the only tail I go for is feathery!" Hat Trick laughs as she hits the surface of the tail...and unexpectedly shatters through the shell in steel shape, feet first into joint of the tail. "...oh crap, change of plans, I'm hip deep in this sucker...and augh! Okay! BAD PLAN."

At the crunch of it's tail being shattered into, Godzilla Octolobster starts bucking and thrashing trying to reach at the source of the new pain in it's existance.

"Hold on, Hat Trick. Sentinel, my big ol' lump of titanium armored warrior, I'm forwarding the location of the transmitters and.....oooh Hey, guy where this fella's heart is guys!" Uplink calls out. "No wonder he's spazzing after that hit, Hat Trick, you're only a few feet away from his heart!"

Crusade meanwhile has joined 84 in flying about and attempting to distract the tentacles from Hat Trick. "Then I say we turn this to our advantage, unless you have some qualms about killing this creature, 84."

Decisions like this are what make being a leader really suck. Time freezes for 84 as her thoughts race. So many ways to do this... She starts to worry about what to do but then that old voice speaks up in her head. Be the person people need not the person you worry people want.

"I'd rather not," she says out loud, all banter gone. "Is it too hurt to be saved? Any signs of sentience? And where the hell did this come from?"

Too many 'if's! But if it comes to the city or this creature, well the answer's much easier then.

Dinah pulls the sweatshirt on, tucking her hair in at the neck but not putting the hood up quite yet, as she stands by Beauford and looks up.

And then she grins. For a second, because she'd figured out what he's looking at.

"No containment," she remarks, using casual tone that's just a touch above a mutter to herself. "It's all offensive, no grapple. They're going to have to kill it, aren't they?"

The Justice League would have...

...wait, is she turning into her mother?

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