(Sort of) Friendly Skies

March 17, 2015:

A group of (mostly) flyers run into one another over Metropolis

Metropolis Airspace

Characters

NPCs: Streaky

Mentions:

Mood Music: None.


Fade In…

There is a dragon over Metro. Despite the fact that there has been a dragon living in the tri-city area for some time, folks don't seem to have really gotten used to the idea. It's not like he's in the sky every day, nor really a news item. And he tends to be in places where good pictures are hard to take, so he's roughly at the status of 'regional urban myth at the moment.' But, there is most definitely a dragon over Metropolis. A fire dragon, no less. Big leathery wings quite different from the six feathered ones he displays as an air dragon. He's swooping over Park Ridge at the moment, the old town area of Metropolis, admiring the architecture and generally enjoying the clear skies now that the threat of Atlantean invasion is over. "Met another Blue with those bouys you made me." He says to the passenger on his back.

***

Babs is becoming a little more adventurous… or at least, she's getting out a little more often… on dragon back as often as not. Tilting her head back, she lets the wind whip her hair back, before leaning forward again "Oh… did you? That's good news on both counts."

Peering over his shoulder, the redhead smiles "You've bought up to Metropolis?"

***

Misfit gets a Rowan sighting alert. One should never forget that first and foremost she was a hero stalker an very active on the bboards. She eyes the alert then wanders into the watch tower plopping down in the SEAT. She keys Babs comm and plays Oracle >You are getting pressM

***

There's an obsidian bird-person over Metro. Even with the fact that Metropolis has seen some crazy shenanigans of late, especially with the announcement of the Justice League: Avengers and their ranks growing this is a bit anomalous. It's not like the ancient avianoid entity Corvinus is visible all the time, and much like the dragon in the air it is more an urban myth or legend. Definitely much smaller than a dragon, to be sure. And sans passenger, too.

It is out seeking Shayera again, despite the fact that the Thanagarian has been making every effort to avoid it. It needs to get some readings off of her, and find out how she is doing because it has significant concerns as to her well-being. This is a juxtaposition of roles… up until very recently SHE had been hunting it.

One thing it is doing, though, is minding flight paths so as not to get sucked into jet intakes…

***

To be fair, a witch might be positively subtle by comparison. Rain sticks with her broomstick, wearing a long, elegant black duster coat, a black bandana over her face, goggles and a gambler's hat. Captain is on back, with his own tan trenchcoat and using the witch as a shield against aerial debris. Also, eagles may soar but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Rain seems to be traveling. Perhaps to pick up a present. Perhaps her monthly mathletes meeting. Who knows? There's a pause, as she spots Rowan. She moves over to wave. Why not?

***

"I like it up here." Rowan is unaware that Misfit is out there, texting Babs, nor that the chaos muppet could probably bounce onto his back with no trouble. "LIke I said, kind of pretty." He shrugs. It's odd seeing something with wings shrug midflight. "Hrm… I think we have company up here." He nods to Rain and Corvinus, getting the Witches attention to the bird thing before he goes into a dive to see what on earth the odd bird thing is. Curiousity. It's not just for Captain anymore.

***

Well, when dragons dive at a given body, the natural inclination is to duck and avoid such a big lumbering thing. Though, given wingspans, turn radii, climbing rates and all those complicated things one might expect the somewhat more agile avianoid entity to duck and weave… but no, it instead breaks hard to the right and *climbs* into the Metropolis sky, so that it can most assuredly get the 'bird's eye view' of whatever the dragon is, and any other fliers in the area. In three dimensions, altitude is important…

***

It's not really Oracle getting the Press, it's Babs Gordon… thankfully. As Babs communicator (through her tablet) pings her, the red head sighs deeply "We've been spotted, Rowan… " This might cause Gothams ex-Police Commissioners daughter a few moments of trouble.

Texting back to Misfit ~~ By Whom / What? If you're dropping in, remember my name :) ~~ Still gathering facts and data.

"I'm glad you like it up here, Rowan… oh we do?" Looking in the directions he indicates, Babs' eyes widen at Corvinus "Oh, that's Corvinus… it's sort of a friend of mine."

***

Charlie continues to play Oracle in the Clocktower. She rolls her eyes at the response and then pings the comm with text, who knows how well dragons hear. "You are so full of crap. Facts and data. I love you B but this is BS. He is in the biz. He knows you know me. I mean he aint dumb or nothing B." she watches all the feeds, tuning the spiders to focus on metropolis sky tweets and vids and such.

***

Kara is flying above the skies of Metropolis when she spots a familiar looking Dragon in the distance. It surprised her at first since she hadn't seen this particular dragon for a little bit of time, since she had almost died thanks to that Jerk Orm.

Noticing the woman riding Rowan and the Corvinus thing she had met at the Hall of Doom before she decides to fly towards all of them and see exactly what is going on!

***

Bird seems to be the word today. "Someone say bird?" Captain perks up. Mmm, drumsticks. Captain loves looking at things and he loves birds. Two great tastes! The two seem pretty fine with the whole thing. Though, they do a double take at the rider of the dragon. "Oh, wow. A friend of yours?" Rain asks quietly, as they follow along. Why not? Rain has never seen the lady atop the dragon, after all. "Redheads riding a dragon? Did we die and end up in Heavy Metal?"

A beat. "Did you raid my aunt's VHS collection…?" "… I don't even have thumbs!" Siiiigh. They wave, then. And wait, is that a bird? A plane? No wait. that's copyrighted. "I think I see someone," Is that Miss Kara?

***

Rowan tracks Corvinus with his eyes as the ancient bird-thing evades upward. And then is being told that they've been spotted. Well there's one easy way to deal with eyes on the ground. ALTITUDE! That's the way Corvinus is going anyway. He arcs upward in a graceful, reptilian motion, wings beating powerfully though how exactly something as large as Rowan gets airborne to begin with (let alone maneuvers the way he does) is a good question. Either way the dragon is trying to get a good view of the bird, and so winds up trying to get on it's tail. "Friend of yours? You have interesting friends. He's not one of your secret friends is he… wait… no. The computer thing you were helping. That's him is it not?"

Rain gets a grin and a large draconic tail sweeps near her. Come on! Follow! He doesn't get to fly with friends often. And he hasn't even seen Kara yet. He might not immediately recognize her. The first time he saw her really well, she was bleeding quite a fair bit.

***

The Corvinus continues to climb into the sky, though it is making a determined effort to avoid flight paths for commercial and emergency flights. Its flight characteristics could be *kindly* compared to something like a single-engine prop plane, but without the stalling issue. It's rather slow, though. As it climbs, it watches over the dragon to attempt to determine intent… does it have a hostage or is that a rider?… and then the broom rider… and the blonde from the Hall of Justice…

Yes, the skies are getting very crowded right now. The only question is… are any of them hostile? As the draconic entity falls in on its tail, it ducks down, making a thirty degree starboard turn before whipping around and cutting its speed by half, to let the dragon zip by…

***

Babs reads Misfits response and rolls her eyes, the teen is keen to ''out'' her to Rowan… and one day, she might do it, but not today. Frowning, the redhead taps back ~~ Don't play with my settings. ~~ Ignoring the rest of the chaos muppets commentary.

Recognising Rain from Peppers christmas party at least, Babs waves and smiles and then holds on for dear life as Rowan spirals upwards and then Corvinus lets them zip by. Laughing and hooting, Babs seems to be having a wonderful time.

***

Tweaks the feed to a camera, records herself sticking out her tongue, then sends that off to Babs as an image feed. She peers at the other feeds. "Hey Rain… birdbuy I dont know.. and Supesgirl… nice… is there evil to fight?"

***

Kara is keeping her distance for now, not exactly racing to catch up with them. She's unsure if she can hear Misfit, but there's no way she would reply to being called Superman's Girl, silly Misfit!

She pauses a moment and looks over her shoulder as a blur of of red and orange races up to her, it's Streaky! He meows loudly, too bad Kara can't understand the little cat.

***

Oh yeah! The Christmas party! Now Rain remembers. It was kind of fuzzy because a gathering that huge sends her circuits into overload harder than a copy of Win ME and 8 on the same machine. The *pop* was almost audible. Rain smiles, waves back. She lets her smile stay as the Rowan spirals. The tail flick makes Captain's ears perk, and the witch on her broomstick follows easily. It's a pretty nimble mode of flight, though it's like a motorcycle in 3D. It has its limits.

There's some curiousity. She watches Corvinus zip by. "Hey there!" A beam and a wave for Buddha Bird Buddy. He's a dear friend, in both feathery and not-so-feathery mode. "Oh," Rain will have some trouble working her app - her magic works on concentration and while the witchy gal is a formidable multitasker, well. She has her limits. "Should I have worn my pointy hat with the buckle on it?" She considers. "Hah." The cat grunts behind her. She does reply to Misfit, "Hey." And there's Supergirl, too! And awww, Streaky. "Oh hey," Captain offers.

***

Rowan can hear. Mostly because Babs is sitting on the base of his neck, just forward of his shoulders. "Should I go back to the tower and burn it down?" He murmurs jokingly as Corvinus twists by. Rowan lashes his tail out to try to get the Bird thing. Not too hard though. Just enough to tap. Or tag rather. Guess who's 'it'.

The dragon thing banks in the other direction and spirals upward, regarding Rain and Supergirl. "Well hello to you both." The deep voiced lizard rumbles. "Nice day for a flight, mmm?"

***

The tail-slap was probably a mistake. While the birdly being was turning to acknowledge Rain the appendage catches it across the back of its head instead of a limb or the like. That's enough to knock it off of stride and it tumbles downwards a few thousand feet before it rights itself.

Wait… did the Corvinus just get some sort of circuitry action on it, or was that a trick of the light in the sky? What does become obvious is that those 'hands' have much longer 'fingers' than they used to, and it is burning straight upwards towards the dragon.

"HOSTILE INTENT DETECTED! NEUTRALIZE TARGET!"

That was probably not loud enough to be heard by anyone save those with the best of senses…

***

The image received, Babs nearly losses her temper. Taking a deep breath, she texts back. ~ Don't let my trust in you be misplaced. ~ The OracleNet is far from a toy and it will take is one silly mistake to expose it, and Oracle.

"No need, Rowan." Babs laughs a little. Seeing Rowans tail snap out, gently, Babs closes her eyes "The Corvinus probably doesn't know how to play games, Rowan." Raising a hand, the redhead waves to the buddha-bird "Hello there Corvinus, remember me?"

Reaching Rain and Supergirl, Babs gives Streaky an amused look "Got a cat, now, Kara?" She's still seems to be having fun.

***

Misfit sighs mightily back in the clocktower ~Im totes careful mom.. shesh Im like a computer hacker expert who learned from the best…. and well…. Ill be carefully just on comms now ok~

***

Streaky flies over to Captain to greet him, giving him a little high-five with his paws and meowing towards him, clearly happy to see him, 'Hi. Wanna go catch birds?' is all that Streaky asks Captain.

Kara picks up on Corvinus' hostile words with her superhearing and notices him pointing at their Dragon friend Rowan so she flies up interposing herself between the two and asks Corvinus, "Who has a hostile intent? What are you talking about?"

She looks around for threats to see what is the problem is but it seems odd that Rowan is being pointed at.

***

Rain does smile, wave to Corvinus. "You look marvelous today!" Beam. Captain carefully returns the high fives. « I'm flying on this broomstick. But uh, sure, sometime that'd be cool. » Captain is a non-flying cat. And he pauses. They seem curious about what Kara is talking about. She is happy to follow along with them, though she seems concerned about Buddah Bird.

***

Uh oh. Rowan knows an aggressive maneuver when he sees it. "Hang on!" He calls back to Babs and tucks his wings in, dropping like a stone where he is. Hopefully the others will intervene or Corvinus will snap out of it before he's forced to defend himself via… other means.

***

SysAdmin Barbara Gordon in proximity to hostile entity. Probability Hostage: 60 percent. Probability Transport 30 percent. Probability Unknown Factor 10 percent The thought process takes longer to read than for the entity to cogitate it, as it starts to adjust its angle minutely to compensate for air flow and other factors.

Then suddenly a Wild Supergirl Appears!

Okay, perhaps not quite that dramatic, but it goes to nearly full stop and the talons retract.

" 'Supergirl', there is a threat present on this world that is potentially related to one. This one would warn one that — " It makes a slashing hand signal that looks eerily reminiscent of the Kryptonian house symbol of Zod while pointing at Kara's chest " — is present on this world and would know one's intentions regarding said entity."

The tone is almost mechanical, stilted, even as the bird-thing assesses the blonde woman intently.

Rain gets a polite wave and a 'thumb's up, even, as does Babs.

Well, that changed rather quickly…

***

Just on Comms…. heavens. Checking her tablet (before Rowan takes evasive action), Babs confirms it's not via the OracleNet. Tucking the tablet away at Rowans call, Babs holds on as the dragon drops… paling slightly at such an abrupt change in elevation.

***

Misfit doesn't really thinks she just acts, she bounces, thankfully in her full Batgirl Misfit armor and outfit. <PINKURPLE> and appears on Corvinus's back there with her arm wrapped around his neck. One moment no girl. One moment highly dangerous girl. "Stand Down BIRDGUY! Don't make me hurt you!". Misfit's don't seem to react well to Babs threats.

***

Kara takes a look around hoping to spot Zod if he was indeed in the area but she doesn't seem to be picking up any Zod-like activity, "My intentions with Zod are to kick him off Earth and try to send him back to the Phantom Zone."

Then Misfit appears and she raises her eyebrows, she was pretty sure she was leaving this to Corvinus, "You're popular, aren't you?"

Kara slowly begins to float away. Yep. Nothing to see here.

***

Birds are kinda fickle. One moment, they are your pal. And then they poo on your head. But humanity loves them all the same. Rain keeps steady on her flying broomstick. "It was good to see you," She waves to Kara. "Who or what is a Zod? We'll keep an eye out," Rain promises.

"Hey, at least nothing blew up this time," Captain offers. "Are you okay?" The cat asks Babs, his rich, deep baritone voice likely carrying better than Rain's. Rain smiles at Corvinus' thumbs up.

***

The dragon spreads his wings again about five hundred feet down and begins to circle back upward. He peers… no… murderous bird seems to be gone. "Er, maybe he doesn't like tag?" Rowan murmurs as he comes back to altitude. Wait… someone's on him. Someone else. "Oh. Hi Misfit." He rumbles.

***

Irony seems to be quite thick today. First a playful intention was misinterpeted, and then just as it was attempting to stand down and give a proper alert to the one bearing a symbol identical to the one that Superman wears the Corvinus gets jumped and told to stand down, along with a threat of bodily harm. There could only be two sources of this attack based on most recent intelligence, since Supergirl merely interposed and did not attack. The Dragon's descent was quick but not necessarily of hostile intent, and Babs' body language did not seem to indicate she was under any sort of physical duress. Based on criteria on hand, the only other entity that would be possibly intent on it standing down that did not ALSO have wings would be… Zod. Who… it just tried to warn Kara about.

This all, of course, is precluded by the very obvious and painfully pertinent fact that the Corvinus maintains its airborne properties by utilizing its flight appendages in a steady rhythymic pattern. When the wild Misfit appears smack dab in the middle of a beat - cycle, a few things happen quite quickly.

First, its altitude begins to drop.

This leads to the second issue, which is 'flight correction'. Which is interrupted by the presence of Misfit.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat. What's terminal velocity again?

***

They can't see Corvinus because… Babs looks up and slightly to her right… "Move now, Rowan! Straight ahead!" there's a crack of authority in her voice. The one that she uses when directing her teams… thank goodness for Oracles digital disguise. "The Corvinus is above us and falling…" She hasn't realised Misfit's bounced in yet.

Captains question, which caught somewhere in this mayhem gets a wan smile "I am fine…" at least she is, right at this moment.

***

Is surprisingly tactical Misfit, she clings until just about the last minute then bounces >PINKURPLE> appearing on Rowan's back behind Babs "Okay… why was bird guy attacking you two.. not cool birdguy.. not cool…." hopefully he can pull up right?

***

While Kara had learned not to take her powers for granted (mostly) after her brief loss of them, it still took her some reminding at times that not everyone was as 'Super' as a Kryptonian was.

In fact, it takes her a moment to realize that birdboy Corvinus flaps his wings; he just doesn't fly around with a cape fluttering in the wind.

When Corvinus is crashing down towards Metropolis and Misfit disappears, Kara facepalms.

In the next instant she's swooping down to help steady the falling Crashing Corvinus, he's not really much of a challenge for him to stop in terms of weight but she does have to strain a little to match his velocity and catch him.

Grinning at the birdman she asks, "Fly much?"

***

Rowan is larger and easily able to support the weight. He pulls up sharply and flaps harder, accellerating. He's capable of some frightening displays of speed. He's not quite doing that right now but he does want to be able to catch Corvinus if he doesn't recover. "Um… Rain, I don't suspose…" And then there's Kara. Whew. He's rather suspects Corvinus heavier than he looks.

"Er so, Babs, Misfit. Um… nice day?"

***

Rain doesn't seem to be a hostile in the slightest. Nor Captain. "Whoa, birds are not good mounts," Rain offers. WoW might disagree, but um. The witch is going to do her best to stay near, but without being intrusive. "In the future, it's probably wise to ask before riding someone," The witch considers. Rain isn't judging anyone. She just - figures. "… oh dear."

***

Artificial ancient avianoids don't have religion. There was never a need to program that into the matrix, though there were references of how such a thing could be used to help primitive cultures attain Enlightenment. There was always a caution, though, that such methods could ultimately backfire on the practitioner of such backwards practices. So it is that the plummeting plumaged one isn't praying in what appears to be its final moments. No, it is attempting to partition itself so it can isolate the trauma and shock of the impact away from the partner, in the hope that in the brief milisecond after impact it can swap out and let the partner at least have a chance at survival.

So it is that when Kara grabs it, the avianoid is startled briefly then blinks.

"This one does, but usually under this one's own power. Thank one for the catch."

It isn't fighting Kara as it lets her go to wherever. It'll need a few to regain its bearings…

***

Babs blinks as Misfit bounces in and asks that question "Please tell me…" she licks her lips and takes a deep breath "That you didn't try to save us from The Corvinus?" sighing deeply, the redhead shakes her head "A slight misunderstanding that we had dealt with."

Rowans question has Babs patting his neck "A lovely day, Rowan. Just what I needed, excitement and mayhem, with someone dear to me."

Glancing over to Rain and Captain and then to Supergirl and The Corvinus, Babs offers an apologetic smile "Next time, we'll go joy riding, not over the populated areas…"

***

Misfit looks innocent there "Hey…. birdguy was attacking you both… Im the hero in this story…." she looks sheepish there as she looks up and around not making eye contact.

***

Kara makes sure Corvinus is ready to fly on his own before letting him go, "You're welcome!" She smiles a little when she finally gets a chance to say hi to Rowan and Babs, "Hey, you two plus your unexpected guest having a nice flight?"

She glances back towards the city as she hears something on her communicator replying, "No, the city isn't under attack by dragons."

Then a smile as she looks back towards everyone, "You should totally get your flight plan pre-approved next time. There's been hundreds of 911 calls in the past 15 minutes alone."

***

"I think it was a misunderstanding." Then a smile back. "Don't sweat it. We usually travel this way because it's quiet, quick and comparatively stealthy," Rain offers. "But we have to go get some underwear gnomes and dryer goblins out of a couple of apartment complexes." Sigh. "See you guys around. You should drop by." Who she means? Probably any of them. But the witch is gonna have to go tackle one of the more embarrassing supernatural problems around. Still, people feel violated and upset when things are taken… it gets out of hand from there.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License