10918/Strength Comes From Within

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Strength Comes From Within
Date of Scene: 26 April 2022
Location: Somewhere on the Upper Westside...
Synopsis: Morgan and Belinda get themselves in to a pickle. Wonder Woman arrives to help them out of it!
Cast of Characters: Morgan Finn, Belinda Gutierrez, Diana Prince




Morgan Finn has posed:
It's a gorgeous spring day in Manhattan! The sky is blue and filled with white, puffy clouds. The sunlight streams down, bathing the many citizens and passersby in its rejuvenating light. Life is only just starting to get back to normal in New York City and people are taking full advantage of this beautiful weather.

Morgan Finn and Belinda Gutierrez have worked together on campus at Happy Harbor High School on some fundraising projects, but today is a day for relaxation. Morgan texted Belinda asking her if she wanted to grab coffee at the Crusty Bagel, and she was down. So Morgan is sitting at one of the outdoor tables waiting for her to arrive.

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
Belinda surges through the streets and daylight, delighted with the sunshine, revelling in every second of the daylight.

...only jaywalking two or three times to complaining, honking horns.

"Sorry, 'scuse' sorry!" the girl proclaims, worming her way across streets and proceeding rapidly apace. Very determined not to have her day spoiled by anything!

She holds back a squeal of delight as the outdoor cafe comes into view, along with its warm, familiar sight. She waves, quick and sure; practically gibbering before she joins, she pauses for a quick, energetic hug before she takes a seat opposite Morgan.

"It went well!" she practically, gleefully announces. "I knew that soaking the peppers in juice and then adding the juice to the chocolate would add that perfect spice to the brownie recipe--!"

Morgan Finn has posed:
He was sort of spacing out like he tends to do. But the honking horns and the familiar sound of Belinda's voice pulls Morgan out his thoughts. A brief smile quirks his features. Then she bounds over with that infinite energy of hers. A hug. Rapid-fire non-sequitur. All part of the signature Belinda brand.

"Girl, you are more random than particle physics," Morgan says with a genuine smile on his face. "And I should know. I practically failed physics last year."

A waitress came by earlier but Morgan told her he was waiting for a friend to join him. She returns, heading toward the table that the two Happy Harbor students are sitting at. Suddenly two black vans with the windows heavily tinted stop sharply at the curbside in front of the cafe. Morgan furrows his brow and looks at them. "That's...um...disturbing."

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
Belinda can't help it; she giggles in that ridiculous, wonderful, silly way before she draws a great, deep sigh, exhaling with a rush of breath. A blink, ready to start again-- a pause.

"Aren't those the police vans? I mean, no symbols on them, but shouldn't they...?"

She draws to a quick pause, glancing over quickly. "Did someone rob a bank on the way over? Maybe looking for someone?"

Morgan Finn has posed:
Morgan is still relatively inexperienced to this whole superhero gig, but even he can smell that something ain't right here. As the doors on both vans sharply slide open, he rises his feet. "Belinda, run!" he exclaim a moment too late.

Eight men in black clothes with black ski masks and gas masks over the ski masks -- four from each van -- pour out onto the sidewalk. One man from each van is carrying what appears to be a grenade launcher of some sort. *THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP* Several grenades hit the ground and immediately high-pressure gas starts to pour out of them, engulfing the entire area. Everyone who is sitting in the outdoor cafe enjoying the weather is rendered unconscious nearly instantly. Morgan is able to stay conscious moments longer, probably Belinda as well. The teen knows he's in over his head. He tugs out his smartphone to activate the emergency transponder, but the gas is affecting his eye-hand coordination. He blinks and stares at the phone in confusion long enough for one of the attackers to grab it and smash it on the ground. That's the last thing he sees before darkness takes him.

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
Belinda fights it. Fights to stay awake. It isn't the unconciousness of rest and peaceful slumbers, but a foul-smelling, pungent, choking, metallic tang. People might not smell it as such, but there, just at the edge of thinking--

The girl staggers, pupils widening as she quivers on her legs. One step, a shaky second; she manages to grab a carafe, dousing one of her attackers in freshly squeezed orange juice before muscles abandon their task, and the ground extends its swift invitation. Not sleep, but unconciousness, dark and dreamless, smothering, overwhelming.

Something howls in silent rage in mind's deepest depths.

Morgan Finn has posed:
Back at the Themysciran Embassy, up on the rooftop, the computers inside the Invisible Jet spring to life as Lanis -- the Jet's AI -- detects that Morgan's phone has gone offline. In Diana's office there is a gentle chime. "Diana, you asked to be informed if there is a problem with Morgan's phone," Lanis says through the speaker on the Princess' desk. "It went offline two minutes and 41 seconds ago. The GPS tracker in his shoe is moving very quickly away from downtown."

Some unknown duration of time later the haze starts to clear for Morgan. Any normal human would be out cold for an hour or more and would slowly wake up. But for the teen demigod, the gas wears off instantly about fifteen minutes later. His wrists are handcuffed behind his back, and his ankles are cuffed together as well. Without moving his body so as to not give away the fact that he's awake, he looks around and sees Belinda similarly bound. From the looks of it they are in an iron cage in a warehouse of some sort. There are several men talking nearby.

"She'll be here. She shows up anytime that little shit is in trouble. And when she gets here, we hit her with the sonic weapons. Then we help ourselves to the artifacts. I have two buyers already in a bidding war over the lasso."

There's a group laughter. "I got dibs on Wonder Woman once she's incapacitated. We can kill the kids." More dark laughter.

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
Eternity in that oily silence. Conciousness, wakefulness, slow in coming back; it is like swimming from the depths of the river of home, the surface of the water so far away, so difficult to reach. No breath to reach, and then...

Smells return first. Ugly, sweaty, oily smells. Concrete smells. Dusty smells. Gunpowder. Carbide. Car exhaust. Ciggarette smoke.

Sounds slither in next-- gutteral rumbles and harsh laughter. English words-- they take endless, eternal seconds to unravel and make sense in Belinda's skull, turning from earworms to language. Promises. Unpleasant promises.

Anger. Dark anger. Red anger. Danger. For herself. For friends.

/Morgan/!

Diana Prince has posed:
When the call comes in for Diana, she's standing beside the alcove in her office where she puts her armor and weapons. She's actually in the process of hanging her sword up after cleaning it off...

This morning had been another busy day. She'd been called out to the site of the Starport in the Atlantic Ocean to combat a four headed Hydra that was attacking the site's foundation. This was a concern, obviously.

When Diana ever starts a big new project, some kind of ancient Greek mythological beast takes notice, and inevitably tries to hinder her efforts. She's come to almost expect it. Today had been no different.

The beast had been slain. Its heads had been separated from its necks, and the monster had been put to rest at sea.

Now, starting the process of unwinding, Diana gets the call and draws in a breath through her nose. Her bare shoulders rise up, then fall.

Her face is reflected in the polished metal blade of Athena's sword. She'd just cleaned it, sharpened it, and mounted it to the wall again. Her hand reaches out, she grasps it by the blue leather wrapped handle, and she pulls it from the wall again...

"I'm coming." Diana replies to the Jet's beacon from the roof of the Embassy.

Morgan Finn has posed:
"The tracker has stopped moving in a warehouse district, at 2104 North Harbor Drive. It is 3.67 miles southeast of the Embassy. Estimated flight time is 104 seconds," Lanis updates.

Meanwhile, in the warehouse Morgan notices that Belinda has started moving. He whispers, "Belinda, please try not to move. We've been kidnapped." But it's all for naught.

"Hey, these little shits are awake," says a man with a shotgun who was sitting nearby and watching the cage. "How's that even possible?"

One of the men who is planning the ambush on Wonder Woman looks over, clearly annoyed. "Shit, they must be supers," he growls as he begins walking quickly in the direction of the cage. "Kill the girl, keep him alive at least until we have Wonder Woman." He holds his hand up in the air with his index finger extended and spins it around in a circle several time. "Let's spin up. Get those sonic weapons ready. Shit's about to go down. We trained for this."

The man with the shotgun cocks a round and moves toward the side of the cage where Belinda is lying.

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
Red. Anger. Smell. Sweat and gunpowder and heavy shotgun shells and the leather jacket the man is wearing and his raw, ragged, /stink/--

Cloth bursts. White teeshirt and denim unravel, splitting and flaring apart before a size they could never hope to contain. Muscle flares and bone stretches and the only thought is /Danger-Move-Now-Now-Now/

Handcuffs snap apart like toys; they could never hope to hold. Iron bars withstand her sudden charge for the perfect, briefest moment. Long enough for the sweet-sick smell of fear to rush from Shotty's frame; the gun drops from its cocksure place at his shoulder, and iron screams as it rends way to the sound of a detonation in her ears-- gunshot at point-blank range.

The sound hammers through the warehouse, followed by screaming shriek and deep-throated /howl/.....

Eight feet of silver-furred nightmare holds the struggling thug aloft by his neck, eyes bulging as the smoking gun steams absently, idly, oblivious to the man's panic. Blood glistens briefly from the simple, ugly mass at her torso..... Already fading, healing before terrified eyes as the beastman's own narrow.

"....ouch."

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana doesn't need the Invisible Jet to get somewhere fast, but it does often serve many valuable purposes, and has gotten her out of a number of pickles a little more unscathed than she may have been without it.

But in this instance, when Diana arrives in the general vicinity, it isn't on the wings of a Jet. No, its on the wheels of a motorcycle made of pure sky-hued-cloudy frame. From wheel to wheel, the motorcycle that Wonder Woman rips around the corner mounted upon, is alien in its design. Longer than the average motorcycle, with wide white wheels, and two side-mounted white-hued cannons that deploy as they get closer to the warehouse.

The bike's wheels squeal on the pavement, as Diana leaps in to the air, leaving the bike to patrol on its own, as she shoots upward in an arching angle that is leading her down toward the building in-question...

She definitely is on her way, and about to crash through the ceiling while the Visible Bike squeals its tires outside with its guns aimed toward the structure! A distraction, perhaps?

Morgan Finn has posed:
Gunshots. Lycanthrope. Screaming. Rending. Etc. It's all a bit, you know, much. Morgan's eyes are open wide as he peers at the monstrosity where Belinda used to be. Did it eat Belinda? Is she inside it's tummy right now?

Straining against his bonds suddenly Wonder Boy's body surges with the strength of Olympian gods. Much like the were creature did, he shreds the cuffs at his wrists and ankles. With a look of shock on his face, he stands bolt upright and glances down at his hands incredulously. "What th..."

But there's no time for that now. The heavy steel cage is quickly collapsing after Belinda tore her way out of it. With the same unexpected power that he used to free himself from his bonds, he tears the remaining structure of the cage apart and casts it aside like so much aluminum foil.

A man bursts into the warehouse from outside. "She's here....." He stops cold in his tracks, staring in primeval terror at the were creature. The better-trained, more level-headed of the men stick to their training and finish readying the sonic weapons. The others just run in blind panic. One of them turns to aim his sonic weapon at Belinda. He activates it!

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
Blind panic claims many, but others are of hardier stuff-- one thug levels his weapon at the monster from movies; the Uzi spits a stream of shells, copper and iron and brass all slugging flesh like a thunder of fists. Tiny fists. With about as much impact, as bullets rip through flesh and are spat out almost immediately, the holes healing as swiftly as they come. And then--

The effect of the sonic assault is sudden, savage, soundless-- to human hearing. The silver wolfman howls, shrieks, octaves leaping upward as she staggers back before the weapon. Hearing keen enough to hear the waves of devestation that gun produces, hot and hard enough to ravage her sharp ears.

The wolf falls back as the sonic onslaught grows, a second thug eagerly joining the ultrasonic chorus of annhialation. The wolfman falls back, a second step, a third--

A distraction all her own, as none spare an eye for wonders on earth or ceiling!

Diana Prince has posed:
A downward geyser of dust, rock, and debris suddenly bursts from above! Through it all, Wonder Woman corkscrews through the air until she lands upon the floor of the building's interior! With her round shield raised up, the Princess is covered in the rock, debris, and dust from the destruction she just wrought upon this place's ceiling.

Her powerful thighs flex, as her armored boots are far apart from one another upon the dirty floor. She holds her shield up, her brown eyes peering over its rounded gleaming metal edge.

She stands between the attackers, and the Wolf with Morgan.

There is only a moment to take in the sights, the sounds, the situation.

But a moment, is all Wonder Woman needs.

She lunges forward with rounded shield UP, intending to battering-ram the man with the sonic weapon that just fired upon the Wolf!

Her right hand comes up, and the golden lasso of Hestia bursts to life with a sun-kissed glow, that suddenly twirls around the Princess' body, then lashes out at another of the armed gunmen!

She is here, indeed.

Morgan Finn has posed:
Amidst the noise, it might be difficult to hear Morgan mutter, "Fuck yeah" as Wonder Woman arrives. He's probably going to have to put a dollar in the swear jar for that one. These idiots thought they could take out the likes of her with the weapons of man? They are hip deep in the literal worst day of their lives!

But Morgan has some tricks of his own. There is one attacker off to the side firing an automatic rifle at the wolf. Morgan rushes at him and back-fists him in the face. His strength is still cranked up to Ultra High and the kid has no clue how to attenuate it. The man goes flying about ten or fifteen feet into a metal support pillar then falls like a rag doll to the ground. "Oh my gods!" Morgan says as he suddenly realizes what he's done. He rushes to the downed attacker and drops to his knees. His hands go out to touch the man's head as the teen demigod's eyes sink shut.

C4 is pushed out of place and cracked. There's a heavy concussion. Left humerus shattered. The teen focuses. He lets out a strained grunt -- surely inaudible in the loud chamber -- as the wounds transfer to his own body. He collapses to the floor as the attacker blinks open his eyes trying to process what just happened.

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
Gunfire. Ears ringing like all the Devil's angels ringing their crooked triangles. And then-- blessed silence.

The Wolf groans as the sonic assault slacks off, stops, broken by rescue from Divine Princess. Falling to all fours, the silver beast moves back, letting their focus fall on one who can take it.

Take it. Morgan!

Eyes widening, the Silver casts a panicked glance back at the ruined cage, searching gaze locking on befuddled thug and Morgan himself, slack on the floor alongside.

Eyes narrowed, the beastman stalks for the pair, snarling...!

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana has years upon years of training with her strength. She's far beyond accustomed to fighting against 'regular people' in a way that disables them, and injures them at as little a level as possible.

The man she rams with her shield, is meant to direct his body down toward the ground, but also to send him sliding across the floor where the kinetic energy is dissipated across the action, but he still is sent in to a wall to make him think twice about getting up!

The one that she lassos is equally thrown across the room where he slams in to a pile of old rags and boxes, though they are filled with machinery that tumbles down around him, certainly painful!

What comes next is the dance of battle versus multiple targets. The shield is used to block sonic attacks, the lasso used to trip, snare, and throw men this way and that! Two such targets are even slammed together causing them to slump to the ground...

And outside? Where the Bike rests? Its cannons open fire upon two more men trying to rush inside to reinforce! The cannons fire out hot blue plasma that sends them scattering as chunks of pavement are launched in to the air!

Morgan Finn has posed:
It's not much longer before the chaos of the scene evolves into controlled chaos. The attackers know they are outmatched and the fight has been stripped from them. Anyone seeing Wonder Woman in action surely must know they are outmatched at the molecular level! Oh, also, did we mention there is a UW (unexpected werewolf) on the scene??

The man sitting on the ground near Morgan seems to instinctively sense what just happened. The teen demigod is essentially helpless on the floor before him but oddly he refuses to touch the kid, or really to move in any way because he can see how that's working out for his colleagues who attempted to attack Wonder Woman! He just...sits there staring at the unconscious Morgan.

In the distance, sirens can be heard.

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
The Wolf gives the man a single warning glance before turning her eyes down on the unconscious demigod. A decidedly lupine whimper emerges from her muzzle; she brushes thick fingers to his neck, quavering as they hold, press, struggle to feel for heartbeat. Her ears prick, nostrils flared as senses quicken. Focus, for attention away from fight. Wonder Woman has the battle in hand. No worrying. Trust...

...fight not to panic, as the wolf's eyes widen. Broken bones! Things! Hurts! What to do?!

Cue howling, anguished panic.

Diana Prince has posed:
A man goes flying outside of the building, only to get lasso'd and drug back inside screaming where his screams are silenced with a thud!

The two outside are pinned down by the AI controlled motorcycle as it keeps them where they are. The rest inside are either out cold, or groaning in pain on the ground.

Diana's armored wedge-heeled boot stomps down on one of the guns, crushing it beneath her foot.

She stares at the men on the ground, two of them hog-tied together by the lasso's divine twine.

With it calming down now, the Princess puts her shield on her back and starts toward where the Wolf, and Morgan are.

"What has happened here?" Diana asks in her Themysciran accented voice as she crouches beside Morgan to try and revive him, eyeing the man who he healed.

Morgan Finn has posed:
Already Morgan is starting to move around a bit. His metabolism is healing his injuries at record pace! He blinks his eyes open slowly but still doesn't seem fully conscious yet.

The thug who is sitting on the ground near Morgan, the one who Morgan healed, is staring wide-eyed at Wonder Woman. "Lady, I didn't do that to him, I swear." He's telling the truth. He did leave out the part where he was emptying an automatic weapon into Belinda. No need to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth quite yet.

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
For herself, Belinda-wolf looks on the thug with a jaundiced eye. There *might* have been something in the School Handbook about biting. Maybe. Possibly.

One last glare, then her eyes return to Morgan-- widening as her ears perk again, quivering with renewed wonder. Was broken? Could swear that bone was broken! It bent.... oddly.

As injuries heal before her eyes, she leans back on her haunches, relaxing by tiny measures. Safe. He is safe. And then she realizes who she is beside--

"Wrrrflewmmm!" she manages in strangled sound, head snapping to Diana's direction in shock.

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana can tell that Morgan is okay. She looks up toward the man when he speaks, then she looks him over. She nods toward his waist. "Put those handcuffs on yourself, then lay down on your stomach until the police arrive." She tells him in a calm tone. "Your compliance will be rewarded..." She says, in a way of also warning him.

Her eyes then go over to Belinda, who gets a moment of silent staring before Diana shows her a soft smile.

"ARe you all right?" she asks of the young one. "It seems you were a good friend to have along on this... unfortunate event."

Diana looks to Morgan then finally. "Are you able to stand yet?" She asks Wonder Boy.

Belinda Gutierrez has posed:
The Wolf blinks and shakes her head, words forced through rough voice and lips. "Can carry him--" she begins, glancing back to Wonder Boy with a chuff. Totally not fanning her tail. /Wonder Woman!/

"Are.. police...?" Slowly, haltingly, her words are cut off by the swift apperance of the Boys in Blue--- dark-clad SWAT men surging in through the broken door. At last!