Blowin' Up the Kitchen: Part 1

June 29, 2018:

Hell's Kitchen erupts into fire and fury thanks to a mass bombing. Here's the story of the heroes who tackled the Kitchen's south side.

Hell's Kitchen, 35th through 44th Streets

The rattiest part of a ratty place.

Characters

NPCs: Lots, emitted by Kingpin

Mentions:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

June 29, 2018

Hell's Kitchen

7:00 PM

The roar comes from all over. Like a thousand freight trains slamming through the neighborhood at once. Windows rattle and glass vomits itself onto sidewalks, even on the buildings that are not suddenly a mess of black smoke and towering inferno flames. Today, Hell's Kitchen lives up to its name, and it's hot indeed.

In the southwesternmost section of the Kitchen, an area stretching roughly from 35th street to 44th street, fires seem to be everywhere. Especially around the streets in the high thirties, where abandoned tenament buildings, slum lord specials, and struggling businesses ran rampant. A few Hell's Kitchen staples lived here. Sal's Deli, for example, known for some of the most amazing sandwiches in the whole damn neighborhood, has maybe served its last sandwich for the forseeable future, because it caught blowback from the apartment right next door.

Car alarms are going off.

People are screaming.

There are instant dead and lots of injured. And though sirens are shrieking through the neighborhood two minutes later?

Emergency response is completely overwhelmed. They aren't designed to deal with a mess like this. This is a mass bombing on an unprecedented scale, and it's bad.

If good people don't step up?

It'll be worse.

*

Due to the current state of affairs it's rare for Frenzy to leave the Twins' sides, but even she needs down time.

Or in this case, a grocery run to fetch a few items for that anticipated down time.

So, when the world goes to hell in a hand basket, Joanna Cargill is out and about and far enough away from the Twins that getting back to them is going to be a bitch.

But first Frenzy must deal with the shockwave from that explosion. It tumbles her right to her feet and for a split-second the Bruiser of the Brotherhood lays upon the sidewalk stunned. Then with a blink the woman's awareness returns and immediately she rolls back to her feet. The bags that were in her hands lay abandoned upon the sidewalk, as the woman rises back up. Her hands are already in front of her, balled into tight fists, as she automatically anticipates some sort of attack to come - only there isn't. Not directly at her, at least. Not as her dark brown eyes take in the hellish landscape around herself. "Fuck." She curses low, and then she moves. She breaks out into a quick clip, the slash of worry she feels tightening her features.

Worry not for herself but two others; her charges. Pietro and Wanda Maximoff.

*

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Luckily in this city, there are plenty who have the better interests of others in mind. They may not be the city's standard uniforms, but heroes seemed to like to dress up to stand out. Be identified. Colorful. Brighter. Flashier—

The blur of red and white that zips through the streets and between the vehicles clogging them up in the inevitable panic from the explosions doesn't belong to the renowned Speedster of Keystone City, but although only select few know him to be directly related to him, Impulse is ever trying to catch up to the expectations of those who might think to measure him up against his grandfather.

But this happens, disrupting the normal goings-on that people tend to get accustomed to, capes included. The busy city atmosphere has exploded, quite literally, plumes of smoke marking the devastation, an unspoken beacon calling for help, or simply mocking. While asking 'why?' is an expectable question, it's fleeting in a stream of thoughts and decisions made in split seconds as there's really no time to wonder. Just to act.

And acting is what Impulse does best.

He races in to brace a section of wall before it collapses on fleeing and injured. He pulls a person or two out of the way of a careening vehicle trying to avoid other panicking citizens. Clear the area, clear the people out- that seems to be the best thing right now.

*

UPPER EAST SIDE – Rooftop, Upscale Apartments

Thor stands shirtless and barefoot upon the rooftop his mighty hands balled into fists which rest upon his hips, elbow akimbo, as he surveys his crop of medicinal herbs. “A fine crop,” he says filling the silence with the sound of his own voice, “Ripe to mend both temperament and vision. Tis a shame we had not these herbs when the All-Father lost his eyes. Verily, I—”

The firmament trembles and in the far-distance belching flames leap into the sky as if the fires of Hel itself had been stoked beneath the slums and tenements spewing acrid smoke into the air.

Metal sings across the roof as Mjolnir leaps from where it was casually discarded next to the pile of recycling that doubles as goat feed and into Thor’s hand. Jaw jets and he spins it thrice with increasing momentum as Peggy Carter bursts onto the rooftop.

Nearby, a goat SHRIEKS. The whirling hammer slows and Thor gives the beast a look of derision, “Tis not a portal to Muspelheim,” Thor declares and then looks at Peggy and sighs, “Toothgrinder’s screams of terror will not cease until we show him the truth of this.” And then he has an idea.

“Peggy! Mount Toothgrinder! We will show him the moon makes no portals! For Odin! For Asgard!” Hammer begins whirling again.

*

While off-duty, Peggy has never really ever been off duty. Even when at home, she tends to have an air of alertness to her. This is possibly why, when the plumes of smoke to the southwest of her flat start to rise over the sky, there is little hesitation. Instead of going for the TV or the radio, like someone trying to gather the news, she makes for the closet. Grabbing her emergency kit - which is actually a large duffel - she makes for the roof, yelling as she goes, "Thor!"

She is not sure where her roommate is in the penthouse, but she is hoping that with the two of them they can do something. Plus, he has the handy transportation in the form of goats. She never thought she'd be relieved to ask for a ride on one of Thor's strange goats that appear on the roof, eat the vegetation and sometimes the walls.

Chucking off her blazer, she is pulling her shoulder-length hair into a ponytail and then shouldering the duffle. The shriek of the goat causes her to side-step as her hair is pulled back. "If anything it is a metaphor for Muspelheim, though I think that's just regular fire and terror, Toothgrinder." Is she talking to the goat? She's talking to the goat. "If there's enough smoke that we can see it from here, there's going to be a lot of people who need us." That one is to Thor. There is a look to the goat and then - she can't believe she is doing this - she climbs up onto the large goat and holds on. She's ridden horses before, this shouldn't be all that different, should it? If she's in for a penny, well, she's in for a pound, "For the Queen and SHIELD!"

And the pair are off to Hell's Kitchen and the destruction they will find there: determined to help.

*

Just moments prior to the chaos erupting, just over the top of the top of an aisle a pair of floppy bunny ears flop about. The ears bounce and bob with a sort of rythym even as a small hand reaches up to the top shelf to grab a bag of chips and yank it down. Out from the aisle comes not a bunny at all, but instead Molly with a pair of ear buds in her ears, the volume set super high as she bobs and moves. She next grabs a soda and spins once with it before making her way up to the counter.

"Whoa oh oh oh oOOOoh, I stretched my hands up to the sky! We danced like monsters through the night!"

Then Molly jumps up as if to emphasize the point and lands with both items being put on the counter as the explosions go off. She looks up even as the clerk ducks for cover and the store rocks. The front of the store's glass spider webs thanks to safety glass. Products hit the floor, aisles fall over, and drinks spill everywhere. Molly goes super still. She blinks several times even as she looks over the counter at the ducking guy and slowly pulls the earbud from her ear.

"I uh…I swear that wasn't me…" She then blinks a few more times as she notices fire in the mirrored surface behind the counter and then looks out the window. She can barely see through the spider webs and slowly starts walking that way. She blinks several more times as she opesn the door and looks around at the carnage and chaos.

"Ok…I know I didn't jump that hard." She nods with a slow sigh and then looks back at her snack with a frown. With a shift she reaches up to her hat and pulls at it. She has learned and most of her hats have a piece that folds down, ties back and creates a handy mask…with bunny ears.

"This looks like a job for…Bruiser!" She nods her head and then runs out into the chaos trying to figure out where she can best help. Ya know, in her jeans, shirt that says 'Yeah I like Rabbits…what of it?!' with a cute bunny looking aggressively at the reader, and a bunny hat mask.

*

Frenzy may find her trek across the Kitchen somewhat slow going. Debris. Panic. Traffic that was already clogging the streets. People unable to get out of the traffic, as Bart already observed, even as he began helping. And of course this is all highly needful, what Impulse is doing, though there's so much confusion that one or two people actually end up right back in trouble after they're pulled back out.

And yay verily, the arrival of the God of Thunder and his goat-riding SHIELD companion will most likely be welcome. From the sky, it's easy to see the emergency response. There are three firetrucks in this section of the city trying desperately to do the work of thirty. Others zoom ahead to other parts, but the underfunded department is doing what it can. There are 9 ambulances. Not enough by a long shot. Metro General stands, at least, in the central part of the Kitchen, though there's just no way that small of an emergency vehicle output can carry anyone sufficiently, and there's no way the hospital doesn't get overrun in just ten minutes. There are other hospitals outside the kitchen, but people would have to find a way to get people there.

As for places and ways to help, well, Molly can find just plenty of them. The building next door to the grocery is certainly already in flames, and shouts inside indicate someone is trapped under some debris that's keeping them from getting out.

*

For all that Frenzy is part of that 'evil' organization called The Brotherhood and for all the worry that sits deep within her chest for Pietro and Wanda, the chaos and the panic isn't lost upon her. It strikes a chord somewhere deep within herself and it stirs memories of other times. Where there was fire and bombs, explosions and bullets.

And that's what causes the Bruiser of the Brotherhood to pivot upon foot and step towards a broken car. It rammed itself into a telephone pole with the driver stuck inside. For some pulling a door off of a bent car frame might be difficult, but not for Jo. Jo simply reaches for that door and yanks it off. There's a squeal of metal as it snaps free. "Turn the engine off and get out." She advises the driver and once the driver is free, Frenzy turns away again. She intends to continue the trek to the Twins and as she takes a step, and a second, the shouts of more trapped people reach her ears.

Some might not see her as good people, but she is.

*

It's doing little good moving people within the immediate area of the carnage and chaos. They can't get the help they need if the help can't reach them. In such situations, having a Speedster handy seems good fortune, even if Impulse can only transport one person at a time at best, but given how fast he can travel, it's but a minor setback.

Of course taking the injured that he can manage to the closest hospital is to be expected. And quickly realized to be a problem for the influx of those who are able to make it there. "Grife," Impulse mutters, but if he must, he'll offer to ferry those with slightly less life-threatening injuries to the next nearest hospital to allow for quicker treatment of those arriving at the more local Metro General. But even that's some tough going for how difficult it is for emergency vehicles to get around.

He can't help everyone, but he'll sure try. Reuniting lost children separated from their parents in the panic, evacuating people from burning buildings- he'll just have to deal little by little. It feels like poking away at a glacier with an ice pick, but the one thing he knows is that he can't not do anything. That's not an option.

*

Look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s …

A guy wearing only leather pants being pulled through the air by a mystic hammer and a British lady riding a flying goat.

The hammer arcs downward suddenly pulling Thor towards the pavement. A breadth before impact he heaves it backward so that it carries him no longer and his feet impact the street the momentum of it causing him to jog three steps before coming to a halt. As he does so he looks to the pandemonium around him.

Thrusting Mjolnir high the mallet crackles in currents of flickering electricity which curl down Thor’s mighty arm. Enchantment weaves across him and as it passes it dresses him. Leather hauberk with four steel discs, leather boots to his knees, a red cape that flutters in the air.

Then it weaves upward. Darting across the discs of his jerkin, back up his arm, into the head of the mallet before lancing upward in a reverse stroke of lightning that spears the sky.

Although the sky has quickly become filled with smoke it darkens further. Black storm clouds flow outward where the bolt struck the heavens. Thunders rolls amidst the terror. The storm brewing across all of Hell’s Kitchen; and then it begins to rain. A heavy rain to dampen wood and stone. To undo the wave of heat which had plagued the city throughout the day. Not quite hard enough to hamper visibility and not nearly hard enough to put out the flames which already rage but certainly a boon to hamper its spread and to bolster the labor of the firefighters.

Lowering the hammer then he moves through the crowd. A stone amidst the sea of panic cutting a swath towards the emergency responders.

*

The British Lady on the flying goat lands is already glancing about at the panic, the fire and the smoke. Despite the manner of her entrance, the minute her feet touch the ground, Peggy Carter is all business. She's traversed war zones, she's seen horrors. While she truly wishes she was not seeing them in the middle of Manhattan, those are thoughts for another time when lives are not on the line.

The thunder and lightning do not bother her - after all, she's been roommate's with the God of Thunder for long enough - and instead, she tries to gather who is helping, who is running, who needs their help. The hospital is going to be overrun. Glancing around, a plan starts to form. While she certainly brought weapons, that doesn't seem to be what she needs. Finding a place on the sidewalk, she pulls out a flare gun and points it straight up into the sky and squeezes the trigger. The bright flash of light should be hopefully orienting for everyone - those who need help and those who wish to help alike.

"Thor, there's an empty school bus over there, we're going to need a clear path to drive it through. We've got to get people outside of the emergency area."

*

Molly staggers for a moment, this whole thing is…big. Way bigger than she expected to be involved in. She wasn't sure at all where to begin when suddenly she hears someone crying for help. SHe rushes over and takes a sharp breath before pulling the front door off the building and ducking inside. She looks around before spotting the debris that is blocking the stairs, "STay back!" She calls out.

She might get a few odd looks. I mean, she's not precisely dressed like a proper heroine but she then grabs a large beam that smashed into the stairs and hefts it up and pushes it out through the front door before simply using a piece of wall to toss aside the rest. A moment later the stairs are clear and she gestures.

"Head out fast and go left! The fires are further in, go left to safety!" She nods her head and waits till people pass before following them out and looking, "Everyone out?!" She waits for an affirmative before looking to a flare in the sky and tilting her head before looking back to the people. If they say yes, she starts running toward the flare, leaping cars and debris alike.

*

Certainly the people Frenzy is helping don't care that normally she might be referring to them as 'flatscans' and breaking their crap. There are in fact some grateful sobs from that driver, who stammers out her thanks, turns off the engine, grabs her baby and gets out.

Barry starts his triage and reunification act; and it's pretty much exactly like that. The glaciar with the ice pick effect. On the other hand it matters immensely to each person, and the fact that someone is swiftly routing people to other hospitals is going to make a huge difference to every medical professional at Metro General.

Thor's help will certainly make this all less perilous. The streets are clogged with a light rain of ash too, and swirling smoke, but the inferno effect is indeed dampened. The fire fighters are working hard and swiftly, but there's only so much they can do. In this little bit of time they've only got a handful of buildings down. A few members of the national guard roll in though, in this the governer acted quickly, and they bring some of their own firefighting gear.

Peggy's find of the schoolbus will likely be an immense boon once they get that out, deployed, and through the traffic somehow.

Molly's efforts are effective. Everyone alive is out. The eye does tend to want to skip past the remains of those who are not.

*

It's hard to say whether Frenzy spies Impulse zipping to and fro, so focused is she, but having been around Pietro for so many months now there are certain telltale signs that might possibly clue her in to his presence. Even if it's not precisely the Speedster she'd like to see.

The stammering woman is given a nod and the babe a perfunctory look, but when both seem well (if shocked) Frenzy turns her attention away.

The arrival of Thor and other heroes - and a goat?! what?! - earns a severe look from Frenzy and then she resolutely turns away. Others are here now. Others can rescue the people. Frenzy must make sure Pietro and Wanda are safe.

As the rain hits the burning city around, Frenzy is once again on the move. Conveniently (though perhaps not for her sake) the direction she runs in is the same direction of that signal flare. The brightness pulls her gaze upward a moment, then she's back to the business at hand.

*

+MEET: Atli has arrived via +meet.

*

Funny, he didn't remember rain in the forecast! And yet that's what happens when he steps outside, the rumble above giving Impulse enough cause to halt from his zooming about as amber eyes widen behind the yellow tinted goggles banding his head as he cranes his head skywards. He mops his suddenly sodden bangs away from his face, eyes roaming the now wet if still panicked people around him.

He looks back, and at least it seems that the sudden rainfall is helping keep the flame from spreading any further. The flash from Peggy's flare gun catches his attention quick, and he picks out the origin point, just beyond the sea of motionless vehicles.

"Come on," he says to the person that he'd delivered from the smouldering building behind them, scooping them up carefully before bolting for Peggy and Thor's position. The Speedster passes Frenzy, which wouldn't have been anything odd, except that the woman deliberately looks to be going in the opposite direction, and he can see she's made up her mind of something as though passing in slow motion, but in reality his mental processes are on par with his speed, and it's but a heartbeat that passes as he in turn passes her on and to the Asgardian and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and—

"-is that another space goat?"

As he comes out of his dash and carefully sets his passenger on their feet, that's of course the first thing he says.

t

*

What were the Twins in question doing at this precise moment? It's not terribly important. They might have been raiding the home of some pro-registration politician. They might have been hunting out Genoshan scientists hiding in the States. They might have been looking a little more deeply into a certain man with whom they made a fateful agreement, long ago, when they first moved into Hell's Kitchen.

Or they might have been taking a moment to look at some ducks at the zoo. Hard to say.

What is important is that Hell's Kitchen is by now networked with the watchful wards of the Scarlet Witch, and the moment those bombs go off, they know. It's only moments after that, courtesy of Quicksilver's speed, that the two are back in the neighborhood, though the first thing they do is circulate through the area to check on their people, their assets, their boltholes.

All untouched. Perhaps there were a few instances of injuries among their followers, but nothing that looked like anything but collateral damage from the explosions. Nothing intentional.

"Luck… or not?" he wonders at his sister, as they emerge from a warehouse near West 44th and 12th Avenue. As far west in the Kitchen as you get without dunking into the Hudson. Despite his outward look of calm, Pietro's blue eyes seethe with anger as he takes in the chaos. He and his sister have done their share of violence, but in pursuit of a cause they believe just… and without actively involving the average citizen, so much as possible. To stage a mass bombing in an area already so beleaguered, so densely populated with the less fortunate… the casualties are already plain. Families running through the streets as fire flanks them…

Pietro shakes off a memory — and a vague sense of guilt. "Was this us?" he wonders at Wanda. Did they bring this here? It was one thing to declare 'better Hell's Kitchen than Mutant Town,' but to see it…

Yet if it was about them, why are their things untouched? "I suppose we'll find out," he finally says. "Find Frenzy first?" He is already in motion before he even finishes speaking, heading deeper towards the center of the neighborhood where he sees the flares rising.

*

The road had been long. Mostly because roads in this city never seem to end. What fire or fury doth bring the Girl of Thunder to bear upon this day? Some disturbance, some call for help? A shout from a fool of a relative?

Nay, none of those things.

"Verily Toothbender, I do not understand it! For hours now we have circled this place, and yet despite the insistence of the oracle known as The Google, we have not yet found Hela's Kitchen!! By all that is old and new, I swear, once we-"

And something very fast zooms by, fluttering the map from her hands. Teasing her senses with a hint of kind, Jellyfish-soothing eyes and Perfect, streaming hair antennae.

There is a dull blink, and Atli turns every which way, oblivious to the red-orange glow of flames just, you know, a block or two over.

"TOOTHBENDER! QUICKLY, HE WILL BE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD BY NOW, HIS GLUTES ARE UNSTOPPABLE!"

And that is the story of how Atli Wodendottir completely, utterly missed the doom of Hell's Kitchen, a blast of rainbow goat-arse energy carrying her and Toothbender to somewhere outside of Taipei.

*

Atli heads out to West Side.

*

At Pietro Maximoff's side, Wanda is dark by firelight, wreathed by a constant shadow that never seems to leave her. Though, even its obfuscation cannot hide the paling horror from her face.

From the initial breaking of her wards, and surrounding shaking of Hell's Kitchen, her first thought was a self-centered one — though with fair reason. Not the first time their blood has been specifically and violently hunted. Her red eyes are up on the dark sky, a real fear in them, searching beyond this world with her witch's sight for any sign of the NIMROD Sentinel. It haunts her dreams, these days, and if it were to return —

But she cannot, even with her far-reaching senses, feel any familiar trace of it. This may well be something else. The screams and fire soon bring her back, and lost in the noise, it takes Wanda seconds too long to hear Pietro speak to her. She sees through him for a moment, a familiar terror in her eyes gone back decades ago, before focus brings her back. Was it them?

"Never luck. But it feels different," is all she says. The motion to find Frenzy meets no disagreement from the Witch.

*

The flare goes high …

Nearby, Thor steps in the path of one of the national guard vehicles. Which blares its horn as a reflex but when the Asgardian does not move one of the men exits, hurriedly, and Thor approaches.

“Greetings,” pointed look to the plan’s name which is stitched upon his fatigues, “Williams.” Thor looks the fellow in the eyes then, “I come from the League of Justice and my companion from SHIELD.” He jerks his thumb backwards towards Peggy, “We have come to aid you – come, so that we might work together.”

Then Thor begins to push his way through the crowd again bringing the national guardsmen and their radios radio to were Peggy has shot the flare. Luckily, it’s not too far away.

“Drive?” the god of thunder gives Peggy a queer look and then laughs for her having a good sense of humor at a time like this, “Nay. Fill the bus and I will carry —," then he seems to think on this and goes, “Ahh,” he shakes his head, “Drive. Good thinking.”

Trudging back over to the national guard jeep he bends down, CREAK-SNAP, and breaks the winch off its front, “Toothgrinder, come.” The goat flicks its tail, not at all off-put by the chaos but now very convinced that Muspelheim is involved and moves to join Thor.

He begins to unspool the steel cable which he then uses to harness the goat to the bus. Fashioning a length of it into reins. Standing upon the bumper he knocks out the window with his hammer and then hurls the reins inside.

Seeing Molly approach Thor holds his hammer high waving it to-and-fro as if such action were necessary, “Into the bus,” Thor directs to her posse of survivors and then to Molly directly he says, “Once full we shall require someone who can locate the hospital for Toothgrinder. He is unfamiliar with the city and will need someone to guide him lest he become distracted by his stomach. The reins are upon the front seat and worry not for he is magic and so this bus shall be his chariot.”

Then Impulse appears and Thor frowns, “Another?” And then looks distractedly to the sky as if expected that Toothgnasher had followed them.

*

Peggy keeps an eye on Frenzy as she notices that she is one running, but does not seem to be at all in a panic. While some might worry about her Brotherhood connections, either Peggy has not put two and two together yet or she simply does not care in a crisis such as this. The woman has helped pull people from cars, she's not about to check her ID or allegiances at this moment. "We need a path cleared for the emergency vehicles. We're trying to get as many as we can out, but we need to make sure everything is clear for the fire trucks and the ambulances."

In a blast of air, Impulse stops right in front of Peggy and if her hair were not already pulled back, it would certainly have been blown there. There is only a moment for a blink, but then she tells Bart wryly, "It is a space goat, yes." It's not hard to tell what he can do and she gestures toward the bus that Thor is…hooking up a space goat. Okay, sure! Rather than ask him questions she already knows the answers to, she starts to direct. "I need you to gather the generally injured that can wait to make it to another hospital and get them into that school bus."

Thor is already directing Molly toward the goat and she leaves the Thunder God take the movement of the bus and how it will get to another hospital in his capable hands. Flying the bus out via Toothgrinder certainly is more effective than driving it somewhere. The arrival of Wanda and Pietro are not yet noticed…there is quite a lot happening here, after all.

*

Once she arrives, Molly blinks and her eyes go wide behind her mask, "Whoa! You're Thor and…" She looks over at Peggy and tilts her head, "I don't know…" She then looks back at Thor, "But you're Thor! Sure, I'll get them on the bus!" She gestures to the people, "Get on Thor's bus!" She nods her head and then turns to blink at Thor, "Guide…a goat to…"

Molly looks at the goat and then back at Thor and then at the bus and then at the goat. She stares for a long moment and then says, "Umm, I could try to help. I mean, I can do a lot more than guide a goat." She looks back at Thor, "I'm Bruiser." She nods her head and then looks up at Thor's head a moment before nodding to herself.

After considering, "But if that's what ya need, I can guide…the goat." She looks again unsure.

*

Directed to get on Thor's bus, people are all too happy to file inside. Some are in fact too eager to file inside and get out of here.

Even space goats and bunny-eared superheroines aren't enough to really dissuade them here. It may take some effort to clear traffic but it's not exactly rocket science either. In short order they can get enough stuff out of the way for the goat-driven chariot of justice to have a chance at being effective at doing its thing. It's got the capacity for about 180 people, too, which is a nice good haul.

More National Guard trucks roll in. At the very least the inferno is about to be under some sort of control, though the truth is there will be people needing help well into the next several days.

*

Frenzy slows. She hears what Peggy says. A path cleared. While she wasn't planning on staying much longer, she can at least help with that as she goes. "I can handle that." She states resolutely and then, the Lieutenant of the Brotherhood, starts doing just that. It involves her physically moving the cars off to the side; either she shoves them off to the side, or she picks them up. Whichever gets the cars out of the way faster. It's as she's moving those cars, in-between setting one down and lifting another upward, that Jo pauses. Her eyes narrow and the woman half-turns - perhaps some sixth sense alerting her to the imminent arrival of Wanda and Pietro.

Of course, even with that sense of something's going to happen, Frenzy gets a look at the Goat-hitched-School Bus and the woman's typically stoic composure cracks a little. "Not even going to ask why a goat is here."

Again Jo turns away, though this time it's to make sure the path is clear, only it's not. Instead she finds it blocked by Pietro and Wanda. Others might jump, or scream, or lash out, but for Frenzy all she shows is relief. Because, let's face it, this isn't the first time Pietro and Wanda have suddenly seemingly appeared out of thin air. She is so-so-so used to it now.

"Pietro, Wanda." Jo says, emotion possibly coming through slightly with their names, "You're ok." Then her professional mask reasserts itself. "Bombs." She says lowly, "A lot of them. We're getting the people to safety, the injured to the emergency services." The dead aren't remarked upon - not right now. Perhaps later.

*

"One crashed into our Tower," Impulse helpfully informs Thor and Peggy, even as he casts an appraising glance at the goat that the Asgardian seems to be intending for the makeshift bus chariot. "Mnnn…yeah, different one."

His attention snaps to when Peggy gives him directions on what to do, a task he can certainly help out with. "Yes ma'am!" he says with a salute before disappearing from that spot. Between his efforts and those already filtering towards the Thor Express, that bus is going to be full pretty quick.

It's en route to find someone else that might need the ride after he's just dropped off another that Impulse sees him, and even though he's only met the guy once before, it's not someone he's inclined to forget. Surprise is clear on his face behind his goggles as he sees Pietro, perhaps the only other person that can actually catch more than just a glimpse of the young Speedster as they run towards and then by each other. Why's that guy here? Is he helping too? Or did they do this?

He comes to a stop not far from the gathering of the three, curiosity and concern winning out for the moment.

*

His sister's fear is a constant in his mind. Pietro kisses her hair in reassurance. "It's not here," he says. "I would have seen it."

A moment later finds them in the heart of Hell's Kitchen, where it seems most of the relief efforts have gathered. Perhaps under other circumstances it would have been much too dangerous for them to show their faces where the National Guard is rolling in, but it's quite likely they have bigger concerns than trying to pick fights while Manhattan burns.

They find Frenzy easily enough. Pietro notices the note of emotion. Few things escape his perceptions, even if he doesn't always process or respond to what he sees appropriately. This isn't hard even for him to parse, however, and it might contribute to the way he rests a hand briefly on Frenzy's shoulder. But he's quick to return to business himself, no doubt in large part because of the utmost fury still smoldering in his blue eyes. His sister was made afraid today, and that is unacceptable.

"Good," he replies Frenzy curtly. "I wouldn't see children suffer the way we did. Some of ours were hurt today, as well. We are going to find out who dared."

He touches Wanda's arm lightly. "Watch out for me?"

Quicksilver steps away a moment. He notices Impulse on route, and his eyes narrow with remembrance, hackles raising slightly. "Well, if you're not going to do it," he says… and then he bolts. Swinging into a breakneck run, he starts to circulate around an area bounding the worst of the flames, the ensuing near-vacuum conditions within meaning to starve the fire of its necessary oxygen. It may not fully quell the flames, as he is forced to remain mindful of the responders in the area, but combined with the rain, it should help.

*

Only Pietro's stabilizing influence cloisters Wanda into the here and now. Fire always makes her want to chase memory, relive old trauma —

When her twin alights them both in Frenzy's path, Wanda is the quieter of the two Maximoffs, taking peace in seeing their friend unharmed — but soon, consumed again by the plight of Hell's Kitchen around them, watching the burning survivors move in unending currents of panic and terror, watching the dangers of military brushing past, and so lost in the furor they do not quickly notice terrorists in their midst. Watching the fire, always, burn, dust, take.

Pietro's words bring her back. Wanda meets her brother's eyes, and by the touch on her arm, moves her hand to link their fingers. For an instant, she does not want him to go, afraid for him so close to so much fire. But she can feel the reason why, burning through his soul —

"Always," promises Wanda, reluctantly letting him go.

He is off, and she is immediately to work, summoning the scarlet into her hands, whispering it up into a hex into the towering foundations of the crumbling buildings — coating their cement and steel bodies with her will and that misting red, to help them remain strong.

Only moments later, she hears something at her periphery. Not screams, but broken sobs, and so familiar — the scene as paramedics try to work on the lifeless body of a child pulled from nearby wreckage. He is singed, and blue from smoke, unable to be revived. His mother screams out his lost life.

Without a sound, Wanda disappears from Frenzy's side. Walking a straight line, she calls her scarlet to telekinetically flick the paramedics aside. In full sight of onlookers, the Witch looks down on the body, whispers the red into her hand, and lowers it over his heart. Life surges back into cold flesh.

*

As people continue to run through the smoke, the flames and the rain, Peggy continues to direct them toward safety. There is no qualm or even a second thought that Molly has no idea who she is. That is generally the way of the spy. "Keep the path clear," she tells Molly. "Keep everyone on that bus safe." With fires and buildings, there is a tendency for structures to become unsound and large pieces of rubble to fall. The last thing they need is for a large piece of concrete to crush the bus filled with civilians they are trying to lift to safety.

Frenzy moves to help and that means that Peggy leaves her to do the job. While she keeps a general eye on those she has tasked to help, she doesn't feel a need to actively watch over them once something is assigned. Instead, she merely gives Impulse a momentary confused look as he tells her a goat crashed into his tower before he is speeding off again. Did Thor get drunk and crash into a tower? That's a question for another day. Instead, she stays nearby the light of the flare and keeps helping - directing those who need it - and even ordering about the National Guard should it come to it.

The sudden intake of oxygen by the speedster that is not the begoggled one immediately catches her attention. Her ponytail whips about her and she studies this, eyes narrowed. They, then, narrow on Wanda as red energy starts to pulse and it hovers over the lifeless body of a child. With purposeful steps, she moves forward.

*

Looking over at the others, she isn't really 100% certain who all those people are until Impulse stops and she blinks again, "Whoa! You're Impulse, right?! I'm Bruiser!" She calls and gives him a wave and then a thumbs up before looking over at Peggy and then Thor, "Don't worry, I got this!"

She then runs over and hops into the driver seat of the bus and pulls the makeshift reins of what used to be the windshield. Once she has them she hmms, "Umm, go goat go?" She gives the reins a little shake and urges the goat a little before considering, "I hope that works…I've never really driven a goat before. Can't imagine many have." She looks back, "Hold on folks! We're going to get out of here." She then looks to the goat.

*

There are actually a few cheers as Pietro starts doing his things. The fires are starting to come under control. Only the most stubborn of buildings are ablaze now. Of course, as our heroes work on these evacuation efforts, even going so far as to seemingly enact the Lazarus effect on a dead or dying child, well. There's certainly some question of how they'll continue to interact in this crisis.

Getting the bus out of there is no problem at their will, of course. They do have a flying space goat. Even, perhaps, with Molly's fit-and-start attempts to make it go!

More firetrucks zoom in, finally, finally rerouted from some distant area of town, finally able to make it into the Kitchen. The worst of this, at least, vis a vis the fire, is over.

*

Touch. It's something that Frenzy continues to struggle with when it comes to the Twins.

Her tenure with Magneto rarely saw comfort from him, let alone a comforting touch. Still, Pietro's brief touch upon her shoulder is silently accepted.

"Just tell me who and what needs punched and it'll be destroyed." Comes her low promise and then Pietro's gone. Frenzy's lips thin to a tight line, aware that he's off to help contain the fires. With one less charge to worry about, Frenzy focuses all of her attention upon Wanda, mindful of the quieter Twin. Aware of the increased responsibility she now has without Pietro here to help protect Wanda. It's enough to bring Frenzy a step closer to the smaller woman, ready to defend the young woman.

Her attention shifts, however, at the sound of a mother's scream. It's an automatic gesture and when her eyes return to Wanda, Jo finds the Scarlet Witch gone. There's a second that her expression truly holds a generalized 'WTF' look, but soon enough Wanda's slight figure is found and the Bruiser quickly steps after her.

Some might try to stop Wanda, or try to herd her away, but Frenzy does neither. Instead she let's Wanda work and for Frenzy, she maintains the watchfulness of a bodyguard. That watchfulness is what brings her attention to Peggy and when Jo sees the woman striding over in their general direction, she frowns. Then she steps forward to intersect herself between Wanda and the possibility of Peggy coming straight for the Scarlet Witch.

*

Okay, not causing this mess. So helping, then. That's good enough for Impulse. Although with Pietro's words and his actions to follow, it leaves the other Speedster scowling after the silver-haired one.

"I coulda done that," he grumbles almost petulantly, even as he turns around and starts off again. He just didn't want to run anyone over!

The bus seems like it's at capacity though, but at least it does take a good chunk of the injured and their families from this area. Impulse will leave the firefighting to Pietro if he wants to tackle the lingering flames. He'll scope out the damaged areas to try and make sure that no one gets left behind beneath the rubble.

*

Toothgrinder cranes its neck such that it regards Molly with one slit-pupiled eye looking at her as she looks at him. The beast’s flanks rise and then fall in apparent sigh as hoofs stamp impatiently upon the ground, twice. Head moving forward. Then back again. Then its ears flick. Then it shakes its head the steel cables rustling but it seems inclined to go no where of its own accord.

Well, maybe forward a pace. It begins to chew upon a parking meter.

Thor had briefly hurled his hammer and flown away returning with three people clinging to him. It’s fortunate the bus has not left because they climb down and onto it.

“Odin’s beard!” Thor exclaims seeing Toothgrinder eating, “The reins,” he looks at Molly, “Bruiser. Flick them with your strength and command him to fly.”

He moves, perhaps to assist, stepping over the slack in the cabling that harnesses the goat only to pause upon the other side. The flickering of crimson energy draws his gaze and he looks between it and then Peggy who strides forward. At Frenzy’s movement hand tightens upon his hammer causing it to bob upward slightly and then he starts forward as well. A grim look to his features as he comes to heel aside Agent Carter matching her stride but not blocking her path.

*

It's too bad Pietro is gone by the time Bart says that, he would have been smug for days. Though perhaps Bart can hold this consolation in his heart; at least he thought about the whole 'running people over' thing before he did anything rash.

Fortunately, Pietro doesn't run anyone over nor make things worse (this time), and shortly the flames start to quell. After so much negative press, so much hatred for simply being what he is, it's strange to find his actions met with approval: even adulation. He doesn't really know how to deal with it, so naturally, he doesn't. He can think about that later.

The thought gets put even farther back on the backburner when he returns to find Peggy Carter approaching his sister.

Immediately, Frenzy finds herself joined by Quicksilver. In a blur of speed, the young man materializes beside her to reinforce that wall between Wanda and the woman they perceive as aggressing upon her. Especially when Thor joins the Agent.

"Not here," he says, warning in his voice. "Not now, not today."

*

Life breathes back into that little body. And in the wake of what she did, the Scarlet Witch remains silent. Her face is blank, cold, and watchful, the hazy scarlet in her eyes feeding the red that spins off the ends of her curling fingers.

With one look back on the nearby, half-scattere crowd, she bundles her other hand to her skirts and rises back to her full height, stepping away to allow them access to the child, his first, renewed breaths shuddering free in weak cries.

Wanda spares it all one last glance, and then her attention —

— turns.

In the midst of chaos, the first agent of SHIELD and the prince of Asgard stand off against the Brotherhood. Behind the wall of both Frenzy and Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch lingers away, uncertainty and threat both darkening her red eyes. She holds still, head slightly bowed, raining ash falling through her dark hair.

The scarlet still seethes in the air around her fingers. Her head tilts, animal-like.

*

There are many things happening around them. The first quench, the rain continues to fall, the bus is filled by Impulse, the reins to the goat are given to Molly.

As Peggy approaches the Scarlet Witch, she does not attempt to shove through Frenzy as the woman steps in front of her - blocking her path.

There is a tilt upward to the formidable woman. This is not the time nor the place for a showdown, for a fight, for anything of the sort. The addition of Pietro is met with surprise and then a study. While Frenzy was given something of cursory once over, the sudden addition of Pietro suddenly paints a picture with the addition of the woman with the magenta magic workings behind them. It's a quick study and she realizes exactly what may be happening here.

The study, the silent confrontation, the evaluation all happens within moments. There is no motion, no hand out to stop Thor, but she tells him "Others need our help." It's clear from all their actions that they will help rather than hinder. In times as dire as these, time left arguing or posturing is time where people who need help do not get it.

There is no acknowledgement, nothing so liberal as a nod, but Peggy turns from the Brotherhood and directs others. "Let's get that bus out of here. Let's keep moving those that can be moved to outside hospitals. The fires are mostly out, we have to keep an eye on structures now. You, Speedy," she doesn't know Impulse's name just yet. "Can you search structures and pull however you can out of them? We need to make sure all injured survivors are outside buildings that might collapse." And if that speedster that is part of the Brotherhood hears her say that, too? Well, that is his own prerogative.

*

Tony Stark arrives from West Side.

*

Looking over at Impule, she notices him running off and frowns, "Oh…ok! You're distracted! Nice to sorta meet ya." She waves a hand and then blinks as Thor speaks up, "Oh right!" She then looks back at the Goat and gives the reins a flick. It's around her normal strength and if that doesn't work she does it again. It's only about a ton of force. If that doesn't work…her eyes begin to glow.

If necessary the goat gets a massive flick of the reins and she calls out< "Go goat! Go!" She yells, "We got places to be!" She nods her head and then huffs even as she looks around and swallows. This sucked…a lot. Hard. Totally, and completely.

*

One area down, ne— Oh, now what? Impulse had seen Peggy and Thor heading to confront, or look to confront the Twins and their +1. He more or less appears behind the Asgardian and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, holding his breath without realizing as he looks on, fingers twitching as he anxiously struggles over whether to say something or not. It's a noble effort, and thankfully Peggy breaks her silence and the tension before anything else explodes.

"Huh? Oh, yeah- was just doing that," he says when Peggy turns her attention towards him again. "Also, name's Impulse." J.S.Y.K. Also he's on file as an ally with S.H.I.E.L.D., at least by the late Coulson and Agent 13.

He turns about, throwing a brief glance back in the Twinsies' direction before racing off again, throwing a "Good job, Goat Girl!" to Molly in blurred passing.

*

The God of Thunder stands at Agent Carter’s right hand.

Silent. The Son of the All-Father bears witnesses to a miracle. The witch weaves threads of crimson and magenta into the tapestry of reality subtly altering its pattern and returning a mortal to life. In his centuries of life never has he witnessed such a casual display of profound charity for in all his adventures the resurrection of a being has always come with some price.

‘Others need our help.’

Blond brow draws inward and he slowly raises Mjolnir. Doubtlessly Frenzy moves between he and they as he stretches his arm outward parallel to the ground the head of the hammer seemingly mundane as the top of it is directed at their party.

There is a long moment of silence between Peggy’s words and his reaction.

Suddenly his grim expression evaporates and exhilaration fills his eyes. A wide grin splits his features and he laughs, “The Crimson Witch of Jellyfish!” He exclaims and then looks to Frenzy and then to … eyes go wider, “Mini-Man of Magnets?” He looks as if he wants to say more.

‘..need our help..’

“Know that I wish to aid you,” he says to Pietro stepping backward, “against the Mega Man. I shall inform Atli of our meeting so that we might all speak again, soon.”

Laughing again, he shakes his head, hammer to palm with a metallic THONK. Then he leaves them to work their miracles for certainly they need not his power.

*

Quicksilver doesn't need to look over his shoulder to know that scarlet still wreathes his sister's hands. Nor to know that Frenzy waits on a hairtrigger at the first sign of hostility. His gaze stays directed forwards, on the woman he knows to be the first Agent of SHIELD. A woman who could choose to, as they say, Start Some Shit.

She doesn't. And presently, still meeting Agent Carter's eyes, Quicksilver also lifts his right hand. The gesture isn't for her. It's a stand-down gesture for the two women beside and behind him.

That confrontation might have ended just as simply as that… if not for Thor, standing beside Peggy. As he begins to speak, Quicksilver's gaze darts immediately towards him, wary… only to widen in utmost incredulity at what pours out of Thor's face.

"You mock us—?!" Pietro starts hotly, before something clicks. The hammer. The lightning. The name the man — no, the god — speaks. Atli.

Pietro deflates slightly with realization. He has no earthly idea what "the Mega Man" is, but given how the Asgardians have already distorted his and Wanda's names, it could be anything at this point. "Well, if you're going to help," he says, a little crankily, but with less heat, "at least help us by our proper names. It's Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch.

He turns, intent on leading his people away. But not without a parting remark: "And tell that unconscionable woman as well!"

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