12381/The Reavers: Pizza Surprise

The Reavers: Pizza Surprise
Date of Scene:	10 August 2022
Location:	Bronx
Synopsis:	Terry discovers the dead corpse was actually a living young man in the Bronx. Julie the cyborg also seems to be back from the dead. Terry's first try to abduct Josh goes a little awry. Josh's home explodes during a 'mutan't attack with his parents in it. Vorapal kidnaps Josh on the second try.
Cast of Characters:	Terry O'Neil, Joshua Foley
Tinyplot:	Reavers

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Terry O'Neil has posed:
If there is one thing the Titans hold as a mantram, is that there is no such thing as bad pizza, and there is no such thing as bad free pizza. Not everyone lives by that credo, though, and it is soon to be seen how true this might be for the Foleys.

"I'm approaching the place, Greenie," Terry speaks into his comm, "Just keep tabs on me, but I don't anticipate I'll be in much danger. If any." It has taken several tries for Terry to learn that you do not go off on your own without letting your team-mates know what's up. You also do not go off on your own without letting your /boyfriend/ know what's up. At least, you do if you don't want to be in the doghouse.

Terry should know. Last time, Gar even /bought/ a doghouse to make a point.

The Cheshire cat rolls up to the address in his rented motorcycle. It has been decked out to look like your standard Krazy Katz Pizza delivery vehicle, and Terry has cast an illusion upon himself to look like your standard pizza delivery boy: scrawny kid, probably college freshman, dirty blond hair and the red-and-yellow jacket of KKP. The pizza in his hands, though? The real deal. It smells absolutely delicious and Terry almost decides to forego his plan right there and then.

Just a little.

He steps up to the two storey house and looks for a doorbell to ring, and then he stands back, striking his most 'disaffected teen' pose he can get.

Joshua Foley has posed:
The lights are on in the house. A new Tesla Model S and an equally new, dark blue F-150 Raptor parked in the driveway to the side of the home. There is a black panel van parked in the alley behind the home with nobody in it. Terry can be fairly certain Ed Sheeran is being played inside. A man says something, a man laughs.

There is a moment after the doorbell rings and then the sound of footsteps approaching. When the door opens, Terry finds himself looking at a woman, about 5'7", dressed in Lulus and a loose fitting sleeveless t-shirt over a sports bra. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a pony-tail. The hair is probably real. The lips might be. The eyebrows are tattooed on. Given her frame, the chest is not real either. She has a diamond stud in one nostril and a decidedly confused look when she sees Terry the pizza delivery guy standing on her doorstep. From the smell that comes out of the house, steak is on the menu tonight at the Foley Residence.

"Babe, did you order pizza?" Grace demands over her shoulder without saying hi.

"We're having steak," Howard says. From his tone that was the stupidest thing he had heard all day. "Probably them downstairs. JULIE! YOUR PIZZA'S HERE!"

Only then does Grace look back to Terry. "I'm sorry. I don't think we ordered this, but we'll check with my son's friend," she says. It's not clear if she's being deliberately condescending, or if she just has resting condescending voice.

A moment after footsteps coming up some stairs, a woman in tight jeans and an equally tight blue t-shirt over an incredibly well-built frame comes into view. She is in her late 20's or early 30's. She is not classically pretty, but might be attractive if she were quite so scowling and suspicious. She has dark brown hair in a pony-tail, and it takes a moment to place her face. Terry has seen this woman before, but missing the top of her skull and the brain inside.

"Hey," she says to Terry without even looking at Grace. Grace moves aside to avoid getting bodily pushed out of they. "When did I order this again? Can I see the bill?" Julie asks gruffly. "Bet my buddy you'd be more than 30 minutes. He pays if I'm right," she says unconvincingly.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The pizza delivery boy gives his best grin. It is very much the 'teen boy trying to impress a girl' look. He even changes physical attitude from sullen and disaffected to standing at attention and puffing his scrawny chest out.

From within the illusion, however, Terry O'Neil pays attention. There were several conditions he could have found the Foley home in, and 'Something Rotten In The State Of Denmark' is duly checked off in his mind.

"Aw gee... this is for a-" he glances at the item on the pizza box. "Joe? No, wait." He squints, and giggles a little, nervously, "... I shoulda been wearing my glasses but the make me look like a dork, sorry. Joshua. I'm pretty sure it says Joshua." He offers her the bill. "'salready been prepaid an' all. This total fo-" he catches himself, "I mean, this girl came in and paid in dosh, I think she's sweet on him..." he points to the message option, which is often used to add delivery instructions. This one just says 'Call me already OMG! - S'

The teen scratches the back of his neck, "Isse here, though? She kinda made a big deal to make sure I gave it to him." He twists his mouth. "... bet he's some sorta jock or something," he mutters under his breath, and then he seems to realize he said that out loud. "Er... sorreh."

Joshua Foley has posed:
"I bet that's Samantha," Grace says, peeking around Julie to see the bill.

"Is that Samanatha's number?" Julie asks Grace. She looks exasperated.

"I don't know, it's probably in my phone," Grace replies defensively and a little offended by Julie's tone.

When Terry asks to see Josh, Julie's eyes narrow. She steps forward, relying on her size and presence to make the kid in front of her backpedal as she closes the door in Grace's face.

"What are..." Grace can be heard protesting before the door closes.

Julie smiles at the kid in front of her. Her biceps are easily twice the size of the scrawny young man's arms.

"Describe this kid to me," she directs Terry. She is watching Terry's face very carefully. "What did she look like. What did she say."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The teen steps back, and looks at Julie up and down. 'Whoa' he mutters.

"I d'no what she said, like, 'cause I was taking one outta the oven, but I saw her giving the order to Billy? He's at the cashier. Not allowed to work the ovens on account of that one time he almost burned the shop 'cause he snuck off into the supply room with Tina Rollings a- er, so?"

He holds up a hand, "She was a little shorter 'n me, short blond hair kinda asymmetrical but /cool/ style, like, totally not Karen-do, an' she had this green tank top and skinny jeans and she was f-" pause. "She had an-" pause. "She was totally s-..." pause. Uncomfortable shuffle of feet.

"She looked good," he says, striking a compromise.


Vorpal is quite aware of how powerful those muscles can be. Of course, she is not talking to an actual scrawny teenager, and the Cheshire Cat has tricks up his sleeve.

The teen suddenly narrows his eyes. "Wait... was she fuckin' punking me? Like... she made him up, didn't she?"

Joshua Foley has posed:
Julie is quiet for a second after Terry finishes. Then another. Then she puts on a friendlier, plastic smile. "Yeah, I think she was. Mean girls bullshit," Julie says. She fishes her wallet out of her back pocket, takes out a bill and puts her wallet away. She takes the pizza from Terry and hands Terry a $20. "Sorry, kid. At least she paid up front."

Julie does not wait for an answer, she just turns her back on Terry and opens the door.

A young man with blonde hair just past his ears, long jean shorts, some band t-shirt or another and bare feet is shrugging. "...she keeps texting. I told her I was busy," he is in the middle of saying to Grace at the end of the hallway. Then the door closes behind Julie.

There is no doubt, that was the kid Terry had seen.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Oh, something is fishy, alright.

The good thing? Terry has seen the inside of the house. He can Rabbit Hole imprecisely, when he doesn't have visual data, but with that glimpse, he does have the ability to Rabbit Hole with precision.

This required a careful approach. Mister Foley might as well be the old man from Spamalot, because he is not dead yet... which was a good thing, because dead men tell no tales. Wait, no, that's /another/ franchise altogether.

Vorpal dismisses the illusion and goes invisible. He touches the motorcycle and a spark of the chaos wave brings it to life. After carefully instructing it to drive itself around the corner and park, the cat gets to business.

He conjures up a Rabbit Hole. A teeny, tiny one, no bigger than the fish-eyed peep-hole found in most doors. He summons its sister hole, of the same size, to appear at ground level at the end of the hallway. Such a small portal should, in theory, not be easily seen. His intent? To follow the kid, who is hopefully going back into his room, in order to have a proper interview. Of course, he could easily just decide to hang out somewhere with Miss Metal Muscles. In which case, he's going to have to take some drastic measures.

Joshua Foley has posed:
"...at least it doesn't have mushrooms," Josh says with a shrug. He is holding the pizza with the lid open and looking inside.

"Your dad is grilling steak," Grace says, somewhere between a whine and admonishment.

"Let him keep Julie company, they're watching a movie. You and I can have dinner," Howard says playful from out of view.

Josh rolls his eyes at Julie and jerks his head towards the stairs. "Like, it's good pizza anyway," he says to Julie, who follows him down the hall, through a door and down the stairs.

The basement is finished much like the upstairs, white walls, light coloured furniture except the couch and chairs by the big plasma TV, which are black. Josh puts the pizza down on the coffee table, grabs a piece and settles in on the couch.

"It better be," Julie says and sighs, genuinely. She takes a piece of pizza herself and sits down on one of the chairs. Both of them have partly finished drinks on the coffee table. "Just a couple more days," Julie says to herself as much as Josh. "I can't wait to get back to work."

Josh looks downcast at that last comment.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Back to the lab, you mean, Vorpal thinks quietly. There is a lot he could do-- Julia is not human, her body is robotic. While the Rabbit Hole will not close around an organic creature, it will easily cut machines in half. One moment to maneuver the Rabbit Hole over her head, and then descend, enlarge it, shorten it and

Off with her head!

The Cheshire shakes his head. Maybe he is still carrying too many memories from back in Wonderland. There's information that could be forthcoming from that conversation- so he decides to listen a little more. If there is nothing promising, he has an idea of what to do... after all, Julie answered the door. It stands to reason that someone like that would be the gatekeeper-bodyguard.

What wasn't clear was what the hell was a kid who could come back from being a crisp doing involved in a lab that, according to Bunny, was targeting mutants?

~Curioser and curioser~

Joshua Foley has posed:
"Yeah... There's a lot to get done after all these mutie attacks," Josh says around bites of pizza. "Is there... Any word?"

Julie shakes her head. She looks at the TV and the movie starts playing again. Zombies are chasing a young couple through the decks of a futuristic spaceship. "It'll be fine. He knows you're solid, you stood up to that pig thing, that was ballsy," Julie reassures Josh. She sounds human for once. "Maybe don't save the mutie shield bitch next time though."

Josh smirks and finishes his pizza.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal's face is invisible right now. It is not a pleasant one, so it's probably for the best. Julie is once again a candidate for decapitation- which might seem cavalier and monstrous, except for the fact that she's not human and her brain can survive, so Vorpal sees it more as providing her with an inconvenience than anything else.

He needed a face-to-face with this kid. And he had an idea of how to do it, more or less.

He walks away from the portal for the moment and approaches the doorbell, and zaps it with his chaos wave, giving it a few instructions.

Then he approaches a car, parked by the house, and zaps it as well. A new set of whispered instructions later, he then proceeds to the final stroke:

An illusion of Bunny, the 'mutie shield bitch', standing just off the curb, but looking straight at the door. And right in the path of that car... should it, you know, move.

He walks back to the portal, peers in to make sure the players are still in their positions, and, with a smirk, he snaps his fingers.

Showtime.

The doorbell begins to ring. Once. Twice. Three times.

Out on the street, Bunny's illusion looks at the door, hands on hips, and a defiant smile on her face.

And the car, meanwhile... waits.

Joshua Foley has posed:
The doorbell goes once. Twice. Three times.

"Yep," Julie says to herself. "It was all bullshit. Lucky the pizza wasn't drugged."

She is still for a fraction of a second and her eyes go blank. Then she reaches into the space between the cushion and the arm of the loveseat she is sitting on and pulls out a black semi-automatic handgun.

"My parents!" Josh whispers harshly. His eyes widen. "Shit."

Josh gets up and drops onto his stomach. He reaches under the couch and comes out with a carbine. His movements are not expert but he has at least been taught. He checks the mag, slams it back in and looks to Julie.

Julie looks at Josh and shakes her head. "They'll be fine," she sasys reassuringly. "Best you can do for them is stop the threat as fast as possible." She tosses round cylinders towards the four corners of the room.

"Howard, there's..." Grace starts to say. Her phone buzzes. She looks at it and her eyes go wide. "Howard, they're here for Josh! Julie says to get upstairs."

Howard's face turns red, he is livid. He looks at the door to the basement then grabs Grace's hand and pulls her up the stairs. "I'll get my gun."

Nothing moves.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Impressive. Of course, these were the people who blew themselves up in response to an attack. Of course, it's /easy/ to blow yourself up when you can walk away from it all. Eventually.

Vorpal isn't about to give them the satisfaction, if he can get away with it.

The minuscule portal flies up in the room so that it is looking down at Joshua. This will require another carefully-timed distractionary illusion.

And there it goes. The door to the basement is splintered, seemingly, by a powerful kick.

And Wonder Woman, Diana of Themyscira, walks down the stairs, the light of the gods glittering on her bracers. "I am afraid I must ask you to put down your weapons and surrender," she says in that husky, famously accented voice, looking at Julie and Joshua with a defiant stare.

With that distraction, that's when Vorpal zooms the Rabbit Hole down towards Joshua.

His plan, if it manages to succeed, is to widen the rabbit hole to capture Joshua through it and dump him on the other side. Technically speaking, should he be caught, he'd be landing head first on the ground.

But the kid walked away from an explosion. Vorpal doesn't think that's going to be /too/ much of an issue.

Joshua Foley has posed:
Time is so slow for Julie when she becomes alert. So very slow. It was one of the hardest things to get used to. The meditation helped. She learned to just sit with the moment. In her vision, milliseconds ticked by slower than seconds. She could hear the Foley's running up the stairs in slow motion. Nothing else. No heat signatures. The burst communications back and forth. The map overlay in the top left of her vision with the moving green dot.

The door explodes in painfully slow motion. Target acquisition fails, visual recognition responds by the time the woman is opening her mouth. Category 6. The red path lights up, but Julie is already moving.

Julie moves at inhuman speed. There is a crunch from the ground below her feet under the force of the initial push off and acceleration. She does not slow or allow the instinct to pull back interfere. Her left arm hits Josh like a truck as she grabs him in passing. Cracking sounds. Something in the back of her mind seems to whisper 'broken ribs'. Ignore it, this kid will be fine. Sense of danger, anomaly. Ignore, evacuate. Burst update the others.

The cyborg does not even break stride when she grabs Josh and carries on. She simply runs through the door to the adjoining room, gathers Josh into both arms and leaps. She twists in mid-air and flies through the high basement window back first. The glass shatters as Diana finishes speaking. Julie slides across the pavement beside the house and slams into the side of the Tesla, cradling Josh in front of her.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The Cheshire watches Julie slide across the pavement and collide into the Tesla. Watch, he thinks, now /that's/ going to catch on fire.

But the Tesla manages, somehow, to not combust, disappointing absolutely everyone.

"What kind of person," comes a voice from above, hovering gently over the scene, "Would run from Wonder Woman?"

Superman gives Julie a somewhat sad, compassionate smile. "Maybe you should stop running and answer a few questions? This will be much easier for all of us. And you know you can't possibly outrun me." The boy scout looks, the fluttering cape, the perfectly still figure hanging in mid-air precisely the way bricks don't, glancing down at Julie.

Vorpal's illusions? Let's be frank: It is cheating. But when you are facing a robot murder-woman who is clearly programmed to be more obsessed than Overly Attached Girlfriend, you had to pull some cheats if you didn't want to get your paws dirty.

But this is also informative. Whatever is going on, whoever these people /are/, it's big. Is Julie a government-made robot bodyguard meant to protect a family that is involved in... what? Anti-mutant experiments?

Or is she a third party operative and who is on the FBI's wanted list?

No, wait, that doesn't make sense. If she were, she wouldn't have walked out of that brain-recovering operation and back to watching over the kid. There were spooks involved. And that was not good. And big.

Which means he needed to get the kid to answer questions without his toy soldier around. Somehow.

Joshua Foley has posed:
Julie pushes herself up on Josh as much as the ground. She comes up in crouch straddling the young man, with her gun pointed in the direction of the voice. Josh yells out in pain at the sudden weight on his damaged ribs. The cyborg woman does not even notice, but she does pause for a quarter second. No sounds of heartbeats, no heat signatures. Illusions. The combat counter in her vision continues ticking. Her brain can only handle the chemically induced surge for so long. A flood of tactical information and plans simply enters her mind. Tunnel vision is suppressed. She notices the rollerskate girl. The shot is already fired before the lack of heat signature registers. The bullet passes through her and the front window of the house across the street.

"Josh, they're using illusions," she explains and starts scanning the yard. "Take the car and go, like we planned."

Julie rises smoothly to her feet, listen and looking for the mutants she knows are hiding here somewhere. She can feel it. Her grip on the handgun tightens.

It happened so fast. The door was exploding, then his chest hurt and he was flying through the air. He looks down and his left leg and arm are bleeding heavily from sliding across the pavement. His chest hurt even more from Julie pushing herself up on it. Then the warmth. His body visibly relaxes. No more pain. Josh picks himself up and nods, dazed. "Okay, yeah, but my parents," he says as he tries to get into the Tesla.

"I'll protect them. Make the rendezvous."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
But Vorpal is not a mutant. That is, perhaps, the assumption that is weighing in his favor. Most mutants are 'one trick ponies', in that they have a specialized skill. Sometimes a secondary mutation. This, however, doesn't mean that mutants aren't extremely powerful- because they can be, and are. It simply means that it is less likely that an illusionist mutant might have completely unrelated powers, so an enemy would have an idea of what to expect, once the jig is up.

Metahumans can have all sorts of strange collections of powers, depending on whether they were squatted on by a God or they fell into a vat of carcinogens that gave them powers instead of death.

Magical creatures are a little stranger than metahumans, and they sometimes don't need to make sense at all.

Several touches here and there, and vehicles parked along the road come to life, ready to antagonize Julie. More illusions descend upon her- Hawkman from the sky, Zatanna casting a spell. There's even a Bat-hound coming after her.

But Vorpal has slipped out of the melee zone, leaving the animated vehicles and illusions to sow chaos as he attempts to Rabbit Hole himself into the back of the Tesla, invisible, in the hopes that he and Joshua can have a nice ride free from Cyborg Dearest.

They might even have a bonding experience, who knows?

Not likely.

Joshua Foley has posed:
Josh ducks reflexively as Hawkman swoops in. He scrambles into the front seat of the Tesla. Julie slaps the side of it and the car comes alive without Josh touching anything. A moment later, Josh peels backwards out of his driveway. The Tesla scrapes down the side of the F-150 and the truck's alarm goes off. "Oh shit," Josh groans, as if damaging his parents cars was his biggest concern. Then he puts the car into drive and slams on the accelerator.

<<Primary Objective: Psychological Reinforcement>> flashes angry and red across the top of Julie's vision. Every moving object, piece of cover, or potential threat is tagged, coloured and coupled with this almost instinctual knowledge. But the insistent letters refuse to be ignored. Julie holds her position, assessing each illusion as it present itself. Each one is ignored after quick analysis and leaves her a precious second or two to look for the real threat.

<<Primary Objective: Psychological Reinforcement>>

Julie winces slightly at the stab of pain. It feels like it runs right through her forehead. She purses her lips and looks at the Tesla. Josh is staring out of the window at the bound-hound.

Julie's eyes go distant.

In the basement, red light shines in a narrow band around the four cylinders Julie tossed earlier.

"Superman is outside?!" Howard says unbelievingly. He is holding a shotgun and keeping it pointed toward the bedroom door. "Get away from the window before something happens!"

Grace pulls back towards Howard.

The explosion rocks the house to its foundations. The bottom storey is just annihilated. The second storey collapses inward towards the erupting ball of flame. Debris sails in all directions.

"NO!" Josh screams. He watches Julie tumble through the air over the neighbour's fence. "No!"

The young man grips the steering wheel and rocks back and forth in indecision. Then he slams on the gas with tears streaming down his face.

Out of sight, Julie lands in a crouch. She had jumped just before the blast wave from the explosion. Shattered boards from the fence sail past her.

<<Primary Objective: Complete>> RTB. Avoid capture and sighting.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal remains quiet for some time. He carefully pulls the seat belt across his chest and takes a quiet breath, before speaking up.

"That girl said you were genuinely surprised at what they were doing at that laboratory," Vorpal speaks up, his mellifluous voice filling the car as he lets himself become visible, easily seen in the rear view mirror, the Cheshire grin logo plain and visible across his broad chest. "I'm not here to harm you. But I do need some answers, Joshua Foley."

Joshua Foley has posed:
The precaution was wise.

Josh starts and looks into the backseat when Vorpal speaks. He jerks the wheel when he does. The Tesla veers sharply to the right. The onboard computer tries to stop the vehicle, but already accelerating past 60 miles an hour, there was no time to stop before hitting the UPS van on the right side of the road.

The Tesla crashes into the van without braking. The van rocks and slams in the older pickup trick parked in front of it. The airbags go off. Josh gets slammed into the steering wheel airbag at full force. He had not put his seatbelt on.

Mutant in the car, heart in his throat, tears on his face. Then white, the airbag. Dazed.

Josh feels the increasingly familiar warmth spread throughout his face, neck and lower back. Vorpal sees the skin on the back of Josh's neck turn a golden colour for a moment, and the air around the young man takes on the same hue. Then it's gone.

"I'll kill you," Josh hisses. He is pulling at his seatbelt but so agitated he can't get it undone

"They're dead and it's your fault!" Josh yells. His voice is louder this time. The seatbelt release goes 'click'. Josh tries to turn around and scramble into the backseat after Vorpal.

Julie sprints four blocks, ducks into an alley. She takes a breath and the burst traffic goes dead. It is just her. She rubs a hand down her face and feels sick to her stomach. She knew that feeling, she had it a few times in Afghnistan.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
After impact, a frazzled Vorpal quickly tears off his seat belt, using his claws. He should have expected the crash, really, it's what he would do if someone startled him by appearing behind him in his car. But he has read so many stories where someone simply appears and, with panache, delivers a line such as "Now, Mister Bond, let us /talk/!" that he might have forgotten how ordinary people react to it.

"Look, dude, that was all your friend, I didn't fire a single-"

But it's too late. Joshua is on the ARRGHLEBARRRGLE reaction and aiming to grapple with Vorpal.

All things considered, the Cheshire cat has gone to great lengths from causing actual direct harm. He even resisted trying to decapitate Terminator Lady (something he regrets now). After all of that, though, he does have his limits. He could easily be very, very physically mean to the kid- two years of training with Harley Quinn, Troia of the Titans and a ninja turtle mean that behind the grin, the jokes and the colorful outfits, Vorpal isn't a pushover.

But he still chooses a way to try to minimize harm.

Both he and Joshua sink into the seat. Actually sink into it, because he opens a Rabbit Hole under them.

And they fall. Vorpal has his arms around Joshua in an attempt to stop him from grappling, but that may not be a problem since they are currently falling from an incredible height, far far above Brooklyn. The streets look like circuit grids, and cold air rushes past them as they emerge from the Rabbit Hole, hundreds of feet above the city. And then, suddenly, another Rabbit Hole opens and they pass through it, emerging in Times Square and cannonballing across, somehow conserving their momentum without suffering the gravitational internal destruction that would come from such a feat (magic is magic, after all). Another Rabbit Hole opens just before they splat into the side of a theater, and now they are flying upwards, heading towards the top of the Empire Estate Building, where another Rabbit Hole awaits them to send them yet into another whirl.

For Vorpal, this is just a Tuesday thing- he uses these Rabbit Holes for transportation. He is accustomed to the rapid changes, the roller-coaster ride, he knows that every 'near miss' isn't really so and that they are in no danger of actually splattering across a facade, or falling to the ground, because /he/ is in control.

His passenger, though? This is probably his first time aboard a ride such as this. The cat is counting on this, in the hopes that he will faint and then they can go somewhere safe, where they can have a proper /talk/ in which nobody tries to kill each other.

And where there might be shawarmas.