12473/Get Rich on Niche Twitch Glitch Lead to Sitch

Get Rich on Niche Twitch Glitch Lead to Sitch
Date of Scene:	18 August 2022
Location:	Upper West Side
Synopsis:	A teen hacker gets waterboarded by Black Widow, Ant-Man sends Captain Marvel for a loop, and Power Girl pushes his buttons until the balls run out.
Cast of Characters:	Scott Lang, Carol Danvers, Natasha Romanoff, Karen Starr

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Scott Lang has posed:
     "Hey out there to all my Ant-Fans, don't forget to like and subscribe and...this thing keeps moving..." grumbles Scott Lang, the Ant-Man, a true Avenger as he grapples with a Go-Pro mounted to his chest on a ridiculous looking selfie rig. Intent on getting a cut of the sweet streaming revenue pie he manages to get it where he wants it and tosses up an awkward smile. "Right so ahh, standing out here at the Ansonia Arcade Center in Upper West Side, meet some of my fans and show you guys some of what I can really do when it comes to a bit of pinball. Let me get the helmet cam going here too," he announces, his metal helm snapping up into place, overlays flashing to life before his eyes. "Oh see we got some messages coming in already. This one from DevilFu-Ok can't say that one aloud. But he says, 'Get bent, you been swatted. Learn bout firewalls Boomer.' OK so couple things about that..." Scott starts to correct the angry young hacker as sirens sound in the distance.
     Perhaps more jarring in the moment though he suddenly finds himself shrinking, then growing, then shrinking again at sickening speeds. It seemed running his streaming equipment by plugging a USB off them and into the suit with a jury-rigged connection while providing plenty of power, also posed a bit of a security issue. As the world started to spin as WELL as grow and shrink he grasped hold of the manual controls and wrenched at them, the suit's overrides kicking in stopping the nonstop size-shifting. Unsteady on his feet he wobbles in place in front of the mammoth arcade center which had been big before, and was now the size of a continent behind him as he remains fixed at an inch tall. "Oh you gotta be kidding me," bemoans Scott as he looks around, his mind racing on what next to do. "Uhh, never fear Ant-Fans, just a minor technical glitch here. Happens more often than you'd think in this line of work but we're always, prepared for...the worst. That is a lot of police," Scott's tone fading as a number of ginormous police cars and two honest to god SWAT vans pull up into the lot in front of him. In moments armed officers are streaming out and despite Scott's scale they seem to know exactly where he is as dozens of guns are aimed in his general direction.
     "Uh officers I think...why aren't my comms working? Hello? HELLO!" Scott rapping a fist on the side of his helmet, the internal microphone shutdown in the same breach. Now he was starting to sweat as an officer with a megaphone boomed out, "Darren Cross! You will surrender immediately! Do not resist or we will open fire!"
     "Darren Cross, that, that's Yellow Jacket guys! I'm not...what does Swatted mean? Oh crap, hey look we can work this out lets just..." As Scott is talking he is for a change of pace wisely raising his tiny hands. The not so wise part is he's still connected to the Twitch network, and the hacker. As his arms raise for a moment they're pointed at the officers and in that moment the hacker triggers the suit's stun blasters, a bolt of energy catching one officer in the chest and sending them tumbling backwards over their car. "Oh no," Scott whispers before the inevitable, "OPEN FIRE!" the sidewalk around him transforming into a hail of artillery sized bullets and chipping concrete as he starts hopping and dashing like mad to avoid the gunfire, doing his damndest not to utter the phrase, 'This couldn't get any worse.'

Carol Danvers has posed:
Carol Danvers is in costume, which happens to be a take on her old Ms. Marvel uniform, except colored in red and blue with a gold star, much like the coloring she uses with her Kree Starforce uniform. Her cape flaps behind her as she approaches New York City on her way back from WAND.

She hears the voice of JARVIS coming over her comms. "Captain Marvel. There are police reports of Yellowjacket fighting police officers on the Upper West Side. I am out of touch with Ant-man. Would you be able to respond?" he asks.

"Sure thing," Carol replies into her comms. "Send me the coordinates and I'm on my way." A glow of energy grows around her as Carol accelerates. It won't take her long to reach the spot at this pace.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff is finishing a separate mission and is riding along on a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle. A girl sometimes has to go over with the classics. So when she gets a commed report in by JARVIS in the Avengers network, she goes to tap in her tongue to reply.

<<I'm about seven kilometers away, I can be there in two minutes, twenty seconds>> There's the sound of the motorcycle engine revving, just as soon as Natasha is pushing it to more than two hundred kilometers an hour, starting to weave in and out of traffic at high speed.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Begrudgingly, as best as Karen can count, she is one of exactly eight people that she is aware of that could, when pressured, actively call themselves Scott's genuine friend. She's not about to admit it on camera, and god knows if the man ever claims it publically she'll be the first to call an actual press conference and start the legal proceedings for libel.

    But, nevertheless, as Scott's streaming channel goes live, there is an anonymous viewer that happens to be masked in its location. Of course, it all goes back to the private office of one Karen Starr, whom has the channel up on a spare monitor while she does paperwork. It's more of a gesture of good faith than anything, but from a cringily named account comes Scott's first subscription.

    In her spare moments, she takes a glance at the chat and listens to Scott's mention of being SWATted, and there's a pause. "Ah, for fuck's sake, Scott." She states, pushing up in her seat and taking a few steps towards the window. There is a moment of pause and then a loud snap in the sky as Power Girl books it in the air towards New York.

    Her comms light up, and she's curious about what she's hearing. "Yellowjacket? Police Officers? Hold on, I'll be right there. I think something might've happened to Ant-Man."

Scott Lang has posed:
     Grunts, bangs, shouts, it was a cacophony over the stream's audio as Scott tried desperately to dodge the gunfire. Meanwhile the arcade was being evacuated out the other side of the building by more police sending crowds funneling into the streets and only raising the chaos levels. Scott had to do something drastic as he dives himself for cover behind a tree which began to shed branches and bark in a hurry from the onslaught of lead. "Sorry guys, stream ending early this week. Signing off," Scott pulling the rig off himself and disconnecting it, and its less than secure Wi-Fi connection. His comms didn't come back on, but his blasters still seemed to be working as he checked them while officers began to circle around looking for a better shot.
     "Play pinball. All I wanted to do. Just play some Addams Family pinball," he self-pities, smacking the back of his helmet on the base of the tree. Even at an inch tall he had no doubt they'd find him soon. The arcade/amusement center though. Scott grimly sets his jaw and takes a deep breath. "Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" he more or less squeaks at his current size as he starts grass-hoppering towards the arcade while firing back at the officers with his stun bolts to give himself a bit of cover, even blasting another one who drops unconscious into a prickly bush making Scott wince. He could NOT be caught, his probation officer would be, unimpressed at best. Still a few more potshots try to catch him, blasting open the glass doors of the arcade, Scott using the chance to quickly leap inside.
     The interior is that simultaneous mix of high-tech and dated that an arcade in 2022 brings. Dim lighting, bright screens, most of the games two decades old or more, the skeeball and claw machines likely newer than anything baring the name Virtua Fighter on it. A massive prize counter full of junk on one wall, token machines, a multi-colored patterened carpet chosen more likely because it hides stains than it's easy to clean. Scott was home as he goes bouncing into the chaotic landscape, unaware at least three more Avengers were on their way and not one was happy with him while police began to take positions outside for a potential breach and clear.

Carol Danvers has posed:
The sight of the police car's revolving lights helps Carol zero in on the disturbance readily enough. She zooms down, just in time to see the glass door shatter and the cops gunfire gradually diminishing as they move to take up positions around the building.

The caped Avenger flies down, stopping in the air above the police cars. "Guessing he went in side?" she asks the nearest officer. "What's the situation? Any idea what he's after at a... video arcade?" she asks, eyeing the store while hovering in a spot should anything start shooting out at the cops, she's in a position to try to protect them. "I have more Avengers who should be arriving shortly," she tells the officers.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff is slowing her speed to let Carol and Power Girl approach first, letting the two heavies go in so she can see waht happens after them. They'll be the biggest targets and the ones that can take the best hits. And she'll also see how well Power Girl works with the rest of the team in a random encounter like this. And whether the aggressive girl would do her own thing or work wiht the rest of them.
    Another hopefully useful bit of information over for the psych profile.
    She goes to slow the engine of her motorcycle, stopping it a hundred meters or so beyond the police blockade presuming the place isn't exploding full on out. From there, she goes to take off her helmet, charging up her gauntlets, and moves to maintain a low profile. Going to stealth mode and stalking along silently, and as far as anyone that wasn't on the Avengers comm network or JARVIS, she might as well not exist or not be picked up by anything remotely electronic.

Karen Starr has posed:
    For those aware of Avengers and Justice League bylaws, rules, regulations, and so on, there's a rule or two about flight conduct. For example, one rule is that you don't slam your way past 50 times the speed of sound so that you can reach New York from Metropolis in less than a minute. This sets off a number of airspace alarms and is generally as to be expected of Power Girl, so much so that Tony has a specific radar profile for her that makes sure that she doesn't trip any alarms on the Avengers' security systems.

    This means that something approaching a human sized bullet speeds through the air above the big apple, before slowing down to something resembling normal speeds and then to a calm drift, as she lands next to Carol. "Ant-Man was just in this area." she does not, however, explain why. She'll let Carol learn later. "I think something happened to him because these police weren't called for the right reasons- maybe he was attacked?" she asks, looking around for a moment- the pair of police shot down by the two blasts from Scott's stingers do get her attention, but by now they're already receiving medical assistance.

    Unbidden, she starts making her way towards the front of the arcade, making her way in and going over the comms, "Ant-Man, are you there? What the hell is going on? Do you have eyes on Cross?" Stomping through the front doors first isn't the wisest decision, but at the same time, Karen is also one of the toughest people on the planet- if not beyond that. It'd be out of character for her to be anything other than confident.

Scott Lang has posed:
     Cowering under a Whack-a-Mole machine, his back pressed to one of the table legs wasn't how Scott expected this day to go but here he was with a bunch of giggling moles yucking it up over his head. The light on his helmet was thankfully working letting him take a look at the damage he'd done to the controls. And figure out fixing them by hand wasn't going to be easy. "This is such a load. Alright think Scott. Still small, just need to find a way out they don't have covered. No windows here, should be a ventilation system goes outside. Plumbing as a last resort," his nose crinkling at the thought. There was no dignified way to go down a drain.
     His hands clap together as he looks around and spies a quarter that was bigger than his torso, and he still reflexively starts to bend down to grab it before stopping himself. "No, no gotta go. Gotta buy some time. Seal the entrances, get the cops to hesitate. Can do this," he tells himself, bouncing in place as he starts to warm himself up when he hears the sound of someone shouting by the doors he came in. The cacophony of several hundred games all hollering for attention of course made it rather difficult to actually make out what they were saying though, but it didn't matter. Scott had a gameplan. Another warning shot or two should buy him ten minutes and then he could just sneak out, no problem. He charges his blaster, sucks in a deep breath and then pivots around the whack-a-mole leg, the stunbolt firing across the arcade...straight at Power-Girl's chest. One can likely assume she wouldn't even budge as Scott locks eyes on her from behind his helmet, his arm still held up ramrod straight as he stands there an inch tall on the floor.
     "Uhh...Power-Girl. It's me, Scott. You can hear me right? You can, that was an accident. I thought...you DO know it's me right? Yellowjacket isn't here," Scott's voice of course inaudible to any normal human being at this scale with his helmet's voice function broken. But Power-Girl could hear him, she could hear everything. Probably. So why was Scott backing up?

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Given that Karen is seemingly taking charge of this situation, Natasha goes to defer to her. <<I'll be your backup here. You want to take point?>> She would inquire over to the Kryptonian seeing if she would be coordinating them or not. She's still in full stealth mode to assess things, ready to backup the others.
    <<If you need it we can go in and extract him so that he's not in any danger and then neutralize the threat, whatever it is>> Still, she's conceding operational control over to Peeg. Which is a sign of trust or just seeing how well the woman handles it - or if she even cares to. But something in Karen's body language at least convinces Natasha that for whatever reasons the blonde does care here.

Carol Danvers has posed:
Both Avengers are given waves as they arrive. As Power Girl heads over towards the door, Captain Marvel says, "I'll fly around back and check for any other ways out. Going to be tough to contain him. I mean, he could flush himself," she says.

A slight frown follows at hearing about Ant-man. "He wasn't answering his comms," she says, "So be on the watch for him, he could be down or injured," she says.

Then Captain Marvel flies overtop of the building, noting what she can of ways in or out. HVAC unit on the roof. << I don't see a back door. Though if you need me to come in and surprise him I can come through the wall. >>

Karen Starr has posed:
    "Yeah, I guess I am." Karen staes, and the moment Power Girl is through the door, she hears a familiar voice, and her eyes scan the area for a moment- not quite expecting Scott to be Tiny at first, she is caught by surprise at the sudden slam of a bolt to her chest. It isn't exactly a very... Pleasant thing, but it doesn't send her reeling- at most, it is mildly embarrassing because while she is neither harmed nor knocked out, she is... Jostled, in an embarrassing way.

    Her eyes lock onto Scott in that instant, and there is a twitch to her eye. Taking a step or two forwards, Karen's vision zooms in on Scott and her eyes turn a somewhat more pale blue as she looks through the helmet with her x-ray vision. It takes her a second to sort through all of the arcade noises, but thanks to the fact that it's been evacuated, that is less intense than it would normally be.

    Her expression is still a deep, deep frown.

    "How in the hell was that a /mistake?/" she calls, not as yet going over the comms, "Please tell me that you were fighting Yellowjacket on the livestream and that he's hiding somewhere in this arcade. Please. Please tell me he just escaped you and that this isn't something far, far more stupid."

    Of note, Karen has not yet called off the other two very dangerous Avengers. To punctuate this, she calls over the comms, "Wait for my signal." There is no small amount of malicious intent to her statement. Boy, Scott had better have a great answer.

Scott Lang has posed:
     "I'm under a lot of stress right now! I thought I was just shooting a cop!" Scott calls out in a panic, pausing a moment as his words sink in to his own ears. "It was nonlethal! You know what I mean!" the unlucky Avenger squeaks, leaping up atop the Whack-a-Mole machine to get himself, well, waist-high with PG at least. "And no Yellowjacket isn't here! He's still in prison! I think. Some hacker called the cops and gave them a fake story and shorted out my equipment and, well, things got out of hand. In my defense I only shot the second cop, the hacker did the...wait were you watching my livestream!?"
     For just a moment, a solitary glimmer of time Scott seems to forget all his current legal and quite possibly lethal troubles as he looks up in amazement at Power Girl before shaking his head. "Talk about it later. Look you can just, fly me outta here right? Just, you know, tell the cops he got away and zoom. Before any other Avengers or something shows up and this gets really out of hand," Scott pleads, having little idea how out of hand things are already with an ex-Soviet assassin and a cosmic warrior preparing to take shots at him along with about a third of the NYPD. Behind him another Whack-A-Mole in demo mode sticks its head up briefly to let out a cartoonish 'Hyuck hyuck hyuck, try again slowpoke!'

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff goes to wait for a status update as Carol goes to check around the back. She goes to cue into her comm to Carol <<Acknowledged. I'll be on voerwatch to make sure that they don't try and bypass us to hit the authorities>> Still in stelath mode, Natasha is cautiously observing, staying out of notice if at all possible and crouched low to the ground and staying out of the way.
    <<Keep us updated on what you think is best>> While going to access what files they have over on Yellowjacket quickly through the data-net, a villain that she was only passinvly familiar with.

Carol Danvers has posed:
Carol keeps moving, flying around the sides of the building and over the top to try to keep an eye out. << This would be a great time to have some kind of telescopic glasses or something. Or, you know, a really big can of Raid, >> she suggests. << Almost rather deal with someone invisible than tiny. >>

She checks the roof again and then flies back around to the back of the building. <<Have you got eyes on either of them, Power Girl? >> she asks over comms. Captain Marvel isn't really too worried about Yellowjacket as an opponent. Short of shrinking her there's not a lot he's likely to be able to do to harm her. And even if he shrunk her, it would stop her from opening a Can 'o Whoopass on him.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Standing there impassively, Power Girl kneels down after a moment to very, very quietly, but very, very directly speak to Scott. On one knee, she's leaning over enough that Scott is face-level with the shrunken man. Her expression hasn't changed from that idle fury that Scott of all people is bound to be more than a little used to. "You tell /nobody./" she states, before pushing to straighten back up.

    Placing her hand to her ear, she speaks up over the communicator for the Avengers. "Stand down. Just... This is all one really, really stupid misunderstanding." she notes, "Ant-Man was... By his description, trying to make some money on the side, and he seems to have /stupidly/ opened himself up to a cyber attack. Yellowjacket isn't here, and never was. You both can deal with him however you want to, but I would avoid property damage. He's currently one inch tall on a whack-a-mole machine."

Scott Lang has posed:
     There's a quite definite step backwards when Power Girl kneels down to give him that 'I'm not mad, I'm just seething with rage' stare that maybe puts a literal tremble in his knees. What was she going to do? What hideous revenge would he be subjected too? It was worse than he thought though as she straightens to loom over him. She tells the truth.
     "Power Girl, no, don't! You don't have to phrase it that way! It wasn't that stup...wait both who? That's not, that's not the cops is it? Who's out there? PG, c'mon now," Scott begs, hopping up and down anxiously on the machine.
     A bad idea under most circumstances, worse when next to a spring-loaded gopher hole as his foot slips and he falls in. His weight was always a funny thing, physics never quite knowing how to treat him as the next second the mole launches up and sends Scott flying across the arcade, the next he was heavy enough to go crashing through glass. Namely the glass top of the Addams Family pinball machine which begins to flash wildly. Scott groans and sits up inside, the noises of the arcade suddenly a thousand times worse echoing inside the narrow glass ceiling. "What in the hell is..." he gets out before the first ball launches.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
There's a sigh along hte comms for a moment as Power Girl gives her update on the circumstances <<Very well, please ensure that he has adequate network security from now on and run a backtrace along whomever instigated it. Then please ensure that they're given the full 'treatment'>> By 'treatment' Natasha meant 'abducted, bags thrown on their heads, and disappearing in a van to be interrogated by wholly sadistic federal agents'.
    She didn't have teh time to handle it herself and they -really- didn't want to have her annoyance levels make it so that she would get involved.

Carol Danvers has posed:
When Captain Marvel hears what the situation is, she lets herself fall over backwards, doing a back somersault in the air before righting herself. << Well, I guess we know who is buying pizza for the next movie night. And I'm going to make sure Hulk is there and hasn't eaten all day. >>

Carol flies overtop of the building and down to land on the ground by the police. "Matter is taken care of. We'll go ahead and have our people liaison with you for your reports," she tells the officers. No doubt Tony has some creative people when it comes to dealing with such matters. The benefits of having your own PR firm.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Scott backpedals right onto a spring, and Karen watches and incredible display of incredible unluck as he is sent flying across the arcade into a pinball machine. "Yep. Will do. Just going to take a few minutes to do a sweep. Make sure everything's good to go. You two can head home, or do whatever."

    Idly, Power Girl goes over to the pinball machine. As the momentary hope of her being his savior begins to fill within his chest, Scott can hear and see as Karen taps the buttons on either side of the machine. The flippers swing heavily back and forth, and she nods a couple of times.

    "Good, good."