Well, That Happened

February 06, 2017:

Stilt-Man terrorizes Hell's Kitchen. Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Danny Rand, and Sofia Strange work together to stop him. Jessica winds up very arrested when it goes very wrong.

Hell's Kitchen, NY

A place where things often go horribly wrong.

Characters

NPCs: Stilt-Man

Mentions:

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

At a table on the sidewalk outside a small cafe, a large man answers a small phone.

"What's that?" Luke cage asks into his device. "Did what? Like a what?" Silence for a moment. "Aight. On it."

Luke turns to his erstwhile companion as he ends the call. "Yo, Danny. Interested in a job?" He grins. "You ain't ever gonna even believe it, either."

ELSEWHERE IN HELL'S KITCHEN

A man in a metallic suit walks on comedically long telescoping legs through the street. "STILT-MAN!" he shouts through an amplified mouthpiece. "Learn it. Love it. Fear it!" In his arms are a pair of large duffel bags not zipped entirely closed. Wayward billstwenties and hundredsflutter through the air down to the street below.

The sound of work fills the once empty warehouse as two men wander its interior talking. "So as you can see Mister Rand the the lumber you asked for has been milled and is ready to be put in place. And I can tell you it wasn't cheap." the man says pointing before he turns towards the young blond man looking around. "Its looking good Jack. Just like I envisioned it. Nice touch on the ceiling beams too." the younger man finally says. "And just so as were on the same page, everything up to code? The kids safety is the main…" But before Danny can finish Mikes cell goes off. "Sorry sir." Mike says as he answers. "Yeah? What? A robbery? Why are you still… What? Who? Stilt-what?"

You know what Jessica Jones had planned on? That's right. She'd planned on a nice, quiet day doing actual paying work. She's walking home with a phone full of photos proving insurance fraud, which is always a nice way to bring home a paycheck. And she's trying to bank those as fast as she can because of all the other things she's got going on, she's eager to get that work product submitted so she can get paid.

She turns a corner, hands in the pockets of her leather jacket, and squints as a $100 bill floats down on her head. She plucks it off and squints at it.

True story, she considers keeping it for a moment. Cause really it's not every day $100 just falls out of the sky. Then she connects the $100 to the yelling lunatic.

Her expressive face twists into disbelief and disgust. "Oh, what in the blue fuck," she asks. "Seriously. Stilts and a megaphone. This is your schtick?"

She shoves the bill into her pocket. What? If she doesn't she can't give it back to anybody, it'll be gone in a heartbeat, off with some homeless guy.

And even then? She really just seriously considers not doing anything at all. Sure, fine, she's been on 'trying to be a hero, round two', but…but…but really?

She siiiiiiighs. There are a long list of disappointed faces she can imagine staring at her right now if she lets some guy get away with a bank robbery or something.

But hey, maybe it's not a robbery. Maybe this weirdo is just a billionaire playboy giving out money to the masses. Right? Right. She can only hope. So she steps in front of the guy and pitches her voice upward. "Hey. You. Bozo in the stilts. Don't suppose you've got a valid deposit slip for all that cash?"

Her face is still twisted in the very image of 'what the actual fuck.'

"Does this seat go back any further?" he asks the driver from his tangle of folded arms and legs.

"Nyet," replies the impassive driver. "Do not touch the stick shift."

"It's my elbow, man," Luke replies. "I can't help it."

A FEW BLOCKS AWAY:

Stilt-Man wades down the avenue, his departure slowed slightly by the crowds of gawking pedestrians. "For the love of—get out of my way, peons! Your superior needs walking space!"

Behind him, a pair of policemen attempt to fire at him. Unfortunately their bullets ricochet off his suit and cause nearby residents watching from their windows to duck for cover.

The raven haired woman at Danny's side as he walks through the dojo spends the majority of the time on her bluetooth amd flipping through various things on her tablet. Normally, it's sending off emails to coordinate schedules for meetings and such.

However, the young woman is nothing if not attentive and so when that small tidbit of infomation hits her ears… Heartbeats later, she's twisting her tablet to show Danny the live YouTube stream from some idiot who is looking for a few moments of fame. Even as she does this, she's ending her own call and tucking the bluetooth into a pocket.

A brow arches at Danny. She's never seen him to donit but she can almost guarantee… "Remember you have a dinner meeting this evening. Be quick."

As he listens to Mike, Danny is quite curious. That is until Sofi shows up and shows him her tablet. As he watches he can help himself "Oh yeah this is going to be fun." Danny mutters to himself as he watches. "Mike keep doing what you're doing and remember money is no object." Danny says to the foreman, not looking from the tablet. He then turns quickly and he heads for the entrance. As he looks to Sofi a wide smile has formed. "Let the uhh… place their name here… know I may be late. Not too late, but late. Fashionably late. But late"

By the time hes walking out the door to the limo his jacket is off and tossed at Sofi. While his shirt is in the starting stages of being opened. "Okay, Sofi hop up front and tell Manny where were going. I have something to do in back." Yeah like put on some pajamas and get ready for a fight.

Jessica looks up as the guy just…steps over her. Her disgusted look deepens.

Then a spent shell casing rains on her head and she sighs again, flicking it off. Ok, so no deposit slip, and…maybe worth taking a little more seriously than she did at first. Big metal suit might be more of a problem than she'd initiall given him credit for. Her first thought is just…grab a leg and yank, but there are a whole lot of…people. And cars and things. And buildings. You know, a bunch of stuff she likes, perilously close to her home. The idea of just randomly causing a lot of collateral damage doesn't really appeal to her.

She looks left and right. Actually the idea of a big fight display in the middle of everywhere when she'd been trying not to advertise her abilities too much isn't that appealing either.

She slips into an alleyway, then leaps up to the top of a building, then jogs to keep pace with the guy. Studying the suit. Maybe there's a big battery pack that can just be pulled or something, freezing him in place. That would be nice. Just a biiiig battery pack, in and out, maybe grab the guy out of the suit and take him down to the cops. Or he'll eventually get back down to wherever he's heading and can be confronted there. Also less messy.

Stilt-Man slowly turns about to regard the police firing at him, but he ends up spotting the woman on the roof. "Well, well, well!" he booms in his amplified voice. "Looking to hitch your wagon to the Stilt-Man, eh?" He laughs.

"Probably a better idea than what most of these bozos are lookin' to do. Well, if you can keep up, we'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll even give you a piece of the pie." Stilt-Man holds up a duffel bag, teetering slightly for a moment, and offers a toothy grin.

On the street below, Luke's ride finally arrives—at least as close as it can given the unexpected traffic. A short jog later, the man with the bulletproof skin is only a few feet away from Stilt-Man's metallic telephone pole-like legs.

"Yo!" he calls. "Cirque du Soleil! You need to shut this down!"

Stilt-Man responds by attempting to step directly on Luke.

Money is not an… She looks over at Mike and shakes her head minutely. "What he wants but don't go crazy. I'm aware of the estimated numbers for this project…"
And then she's turning to follow Danny out. "You realize fashionably late is a term invented by stupidly rich people so they could feel better about being late, right?" The jacket is caught without a problem. "No more clothes coming off until you're in the car! Dear Gods, Danny…"

She's still shaking her head as she slips upfront and gives the driver the street along with showing him the image so they can be off. And she can make the necessary phone call.

As Manny, the limo driver, cuts his way through the streets he seems to be having a good time. Aside from most taxi drivers a limo driver doesn't get to have this much fun. Meanwhile in the back Danny is in his green and yellow outfit, but his mask is not yet on. Then the drive comes to a stop. "Mister Rand?" Manny's voice is heard. "Cops got it blocked off. I can't get any closer." As Danny listens, he wraps his mask over his head and replies. "Its cool Manny…" As the back door to the limo opens a man in a yellow mask with a green and yellow outfit that is low cut revealing a dragon tattoo steps out. "Ill hoof it from here."

"Wh…You think I'm out to join you?" Jessica growls, irritation flashing in her dark eyes. "Hey…don't step on that guy! You know what?…screw you, man. Halt. I'm a licensed PI and this is a citizen's arrest. No? Not going to halt? Yeah, didn't think so."

Because she's adamant that she's not a vigilante, thank you.

Her temper and impulse get the better of her. In lieu of seeing anything clever that she can do, she simply launches herself off the roof, rearing her fist back, trying to punch directly into the face plate of his suit. She'll just have to hope everyone gets the Hell out of the way. She'll just hope that he'll just kind of…fold over if he falls down, or something equally stupid and non-damaging to the good people of Hell's Kitchen.

"What the—?! Oh shi….!" Stilt-Man cries as Jessica slams into him and his torso bends backward over his telescoping legs, exaggerated all the further as Luke holds one of the suit's feet in his hands above his head.

For a moment, Stilt-Man stares straight terror into Jessica's eyes just as her fist begins to contact his jaw. Then, he smashes into a building across the street, creating a giant crater in the brick facade of a tenement building. One of the duffel bags goes flying, while Stilt-Man just manages to cling to the other.

"Everybody get back!" Luke shouts as bricks shower the sidewalk below Stilt-Man, obscuring him in a cloud of dust. "Get to safety!"

Of course he will…

"Get somewhere safe," Sofi says to Manny before she's slipping out of the car and weaving her way through the crowd. What? She's a good babysitter and likes the paycheck. Not about to let the boss get dead.
Now, this doesn't mean that Sofia's going to get involved if she doesn't have to. She's no… Crap!

The falling bricks, or as many of them as she can hold, are caught telekinetically. She can only manage about two hundred pounds though. Still… It should let some get clear. And it's something she can do without drawing attention to herself.

While the roads are blocked Danny has taken to the rooftops of the cars. As he jumps from rooftop to rooftop he makes good time and stops just in time to see the guy on stilts get put in a wall. "Looks like the right place." Danny remarks to himself. As people scatter due to the falling debris, Danny keeps his eyes on the scene. Know your enemy before you take action. The words of his Master echo in his head.

"Please have insurance, please have insurance, please have insurance," Jessica mutters, quite practically, to the unseen owners of that building. But immediately she doesn't care about Stilt-Man. Someone could be living there. What if some bricks went flying inside? What if there was a baby or some old person in the way? What if they got hit in the head?

Suddenly in a panic, she abandons that attack in favor of leaping for the fire escape of said tenament building, rather frantically, pulling open the window nearest the spot where Stilt-Man went down. "Is anybody in here? Is everybody okay? Fuck. Fucking hero fail…Worst hero ever…People are going to die because of me, I'm going to get fucking sued…Hello?"

She will not be able to live with herself if she got someone hurt with that ill-concieved attack. What if that part of the building is unstable now and the whole ceiling collapses? Shit, she's got to get everyone out of here. Shit, shit, shit shit.

It's safe to say she's never fought someone in a giant metal suit before. She has no frame of reference for this. It's been several months of 'firsts', but being directly responsible for horrible property damage and endangering lives while trying to do the right thing? That's new. Her already pale face is bloodless as she turns this way and that, searching. "Please nobody be dead, please nobody be dead…"

Suddenly, careening blindly out of the dust cloud are Stilt-Man's two telescopic legs, one crunching its foot into a nearby taxi that immediately slams into Luke and pins him against a bus. The other leg shoots upward, zippingcompletely unintentionallytoward the rooftop where Danny is located.

Inside the building, a teenager and two smaller children stare in fright at the growing hole in their apartment wall. The teenager turns toward the sound of Jessica's voice, but the trio is otherwise motionless.

Muffled voices from the floor above the trio sound like there are other residents at home as well.

This is crazy? Danny ponders to himself as he watches the devastation. This guy is just lashing out now. He doesn't care who he hurts. Hes gotta be stopped. And that's when Danny sees leg coming his way. With a deep breath Danny goes into a defensive stance and his hand begins to glow. Once the leg close enough Danny lets out a battle scream "AIEE!" and strikes towards the leg.

Once the people are clear, the bricks are lowered as safely as possible to the ground. Unfortunately, that means she can't stop the flying legs right away. And it's likely too late once her 'hands' are free. What she can do is help with evacuation. And so her mind reaches out to those in the building. There's no guaratee it'll reach everyone but…

.oO(Get to a central area to be gotten out. Aim for the floor with the big hole.)Oo.

It's a good thing she wore pants today because next thing, Sofia's lifting herself into the air and making her way to the massive opening. She can carry some, telekinetically hold others…

If Sofia can pick up thoughts as well as projecting them she'll feel nothing but revulsion for having her mind touched. It's an almost violent pulling back from the mental touch, coupled with a sudden blinding fury that would be palpable, a reflexive BirchStreetHigginsDriveGETOUTOFMYHEAD.

But Jessica is apparently not angry or repulsed enough to avoid sensible advice. "Go. Get to her. Go," she says, nudging the kids over to Sofia. "She'll get you down and out." She picks up one of the kids and just hands her to Sofia, shooting her a narrow-eyed look as if to further drive home how she feels about telepathy. There are some other things about Jessica which might strike Sofia's senses as interesting, but she gives the wizard little time to study them. She dashes through the apartment, banging on doors. The woman can't ferry everyone through the hole, and she's got other ideas. "Building unstable, get out,"

"Crazy in a metal suit, get the hell out, east side of the building…"

"Psycho knocking buildings down, you felt that right, yeah go…"

"Fuck this…"

She skids to the fire alarm and yanks that. That ought to get everyone the Hell out of the building and fast. She leaps down the stairwell to the lobby to block the door facing the street, directing people to the theoretically safer emergency exit that does not lead directly out to Stilt-Man's antics. "That way, that way, go, go, get out, go on, go!"

At Danny's punch, Stilt-Man's leg explodes like unto a thing of dynamite.

The other leg, meanwhile, contracts back into the settling dust cloud.

In the apartment building, the kids huddle together and nod, frightened, to Jessica's urging and the mental advice from Sofia. Footsteps out in the hall suggest others at home are doing the same.

Luke manages to push his way free from the sandwich he's been put in between taxi and bus. Seeing his shirt being torn open, he rolls his eyes and grits his teeth. "You've got to be kidding me," Luke says, striding toward where Stilt-Man probably still is—just as some bricks come flying his way, thrown by the barely visible robber, one bouncing off his forehead. Luke blinks.

As the leg explodes Danny is on the move. Leaping without fear from the rooftop, he lands on one of the few standing street lights. Perched like a yellow and green bird he watches from under the mask as he looks around. We have to stop this. He thinks to himself. Holding tight he continues to look around before leaping to the ground. As he lands he comes up and is already in a defensive stance. Ready for the next attack.

Funny thing… Sofia doesn't actually like using her telepathy and so she doesn't take the least bit of offense and the revulsion or the glare. It's actually met with a respectful nod of acknowledgement. It was the best option at the time, sadly, to reach as many in the building as possible.

The child is taken and another young one in her other arm and then the teen is lifted into the air and they're all carried down to ground level and put down in a safe spot before Sofia goes back for the next round. She won't be able to keep this up forever though.

She will, however, likely go until she damn near or fully passes out.

Stilt-Man's final gambit is to spring up on his one good telescopic leg … until he has to put his weight on the one that was ruined by the Iron Fist. His eyes are wide, with almost the same look of terror as before, as he begins to teeter forward, off-balance, like a tree that's just been cut down.

Standing nearby is Luke, rubbing his head, as he watches the robber's collapse. The remaining duffel bag drops like a sack of wet socks onto the awning of a bodega.

"Uh…" Luke calls to the police officers nearby, one hand cupped to his mouth. "I think you can cuff him now." Then, he turns to the perched Danny. "Not bad, m'man."

Meanwhile, the apartment building finishes its evacuation, and the tenants assemble together in front of the adjacent building. "What's going to happen to us?" one young child asks.

Jessica stares at this assemblage of suddenly homeless people. "Um. Well. The building's insurance policy should mean you get a new building, if the city doesn't just step in, and um…and if you have renter's that takes care of your stuff, and um…the city might well set up a shelter for you." Jessica just feels lower than low. She's done this; she's rendered all these people homeless.

"Yeah, and they wouldn't have to if it weren't for you."

The voice comes from one Sargent Brett Mahoney, who has his gun out. Jessica, not being bulletproof, does put her hands up.

"You're under arrest," he tells her, even though other cops are probably surging on the robber. None of the others had managed to cause a hole in the building, "For assault, for reckless endangerment…Hands behind your back."

Jones is so upset by this turn of events that she lets him cuff her and shove her in a squad car. Mahoney rolls his hand around, signalling for his partner to drive her on to the station, then joins the other cops who will no doubt have fun sorting the rest of this mess out.

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