14261/Young, Just Us! Part 3

Young, Just Us! Part 3
Date of Scene:	25 March 2023
Location:	National Parks near San Francisco, CA
Synopsis:	A brief trip through space-and-time lands the Outsiders precisely where they're needed, to take down the monstrous Rip Roar!
Cast of Characters:	Tim Drake, Phoebe Beacon, Conner Kent, Gabby Kinney, Harper Row, Laura Kinney

---

Tim Drake has posed:
    The digsite they've stumbled upon is bustling, even at this now very late hour. As close as the team is now, even those without enhanced senses can pick up on the low din of noise that permeates the area; distant conversations, the steady scrape of various instruments against dirt, and the hum of generators that are no doubt powering the ring of standing lamps that bathe the area in light. It's bright enough to be daylight, or nearly so at least.

    Still, there's weariness on the faces of the workers, warring with something else: eagerness, or curiosity maybe, driven by scientific intellect. Most of the people down in the pit have coats or jackets on with UC Berkeley insignias marked on the chest.

    "Professor Dowd!" rings out again. The person who has discovered the Outsiders standing at the edge of the dig site is young, probably a student, and they're gripping a camera loosely in their hands. " Profess--"

    "Yes, yes, I'm here, what's all this noise about?" The professor is a woman wearing glasses and a puffy vest against the cold, despite the fact she's still in shorts. She looks frazzled, red hairs coming free of the ponytail at the nape of her neck, and her expression is pinched. The Outsiders, Tim at the lead, barely get a second glance from her. "No time for this, Murph. Get them settled in one of the tents. I have to get back--we're right on the cusp of an amazing discovery here!"

    With that she turns on the heel of her hiking boots, only to stumble and nearly fall as the ground begins to shake.

    KRAAAAAAAA----

                --AAAAAAAAAK--

                            ----OOOOOOOOOM!

    "AT LAAAAAAAAAST! FREE AT LAST! RIP ROAR... IS FREE!"

    Down in the pit, a giant of a man with a lion's mane of hair around his head stands amidst the remains of what looks like some sort of stone sarcophagus. He looks momentarily puzzled, looking at the various university staff and students who gape openly at him, before he lets out a bone-rattling roar and swings one of his four fists at the nearest worker, snatching him up only to toss him into the air!

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... holy cats, is he some kind of digimon?" Phoebe questions softly, and she stretches her arms out a moment, and in a hot minute she's on the move. She's also going to cheat, with magic as she looks back to Tim, and as she moves towards the battle she's changed with a sparkle of rose-gold across her body to black tac pants, a black stab-resistant hoodie and a half-mask that comes up over her mouth as she goes Mage Mode, and takes a leap to the pit.

    Out pops her wings as she gives a flap in the air as she goes to catch the airborne student!

    "I got you! Hold on!"

Conner Kent has posed:
"What is a digimon?" Questions Conner, who missed the early 2000 due to being a clone. "Do they have four arms and metal pants?" And maybe are kind of unfriendly, since the giant man just tossed a worker into the air.

Catching unwillingly flying people is usually his job, but since Phoebe comes with magical girl transformation and the rest of the outsiders are wearing plain clothes, Conner is going to let her catch the poor guy. "Archaeologists working at night? Very odd. Want to try to get the people out of the way, I'll draw Mr. Arms attention." Throwing a stone at him, a large one, at very high speed. "Hey you... wait, did you said Rip Roar? That is a name?!"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
There was little time to really let all that happened sink in for Gabby. The change in scenery, the change in smells, the ... university students. "Where the hell are we?" She mutters though she knows that getting an answer is unlikely. "Smells like old, stale socks..."

Just in time for that boom and Rip Roar to arrive.

Openly staring down at the man she watches him lash out, and then she turns to look toward the others of her group giving a very very wide shrug. "Okay, to be fair, Rip Roar isn't as bad as Condiment King. Even if it kind of sounds like a type of fart name."

Looking back to the pit she calls out, "Hey, don't throw people around! You should probably stretch first if you've been locked up that long." Her hands rest on her hips with a little knowing nod. "He's gonna get a charlie horse in like three minutes."

Harper Row has posed:
Harper screws up her face in confusion, her pierced upper lip hauling up like an invisible crane was giving it a yank. She's still freaked over the previous dark trek without a building in sight. Those sounds of industriousness and conversation, and her close companions, have helped dilute that earlier feeling of being in a unfamiliar situation. And now her brows are furrowing hard and she's craning, trying to get a look at what's being excavated.

When things go to heck, she blinks and coughs. It might not make sense to her, but her next imperatives are made for her. The kerchief around her neck, no longer damp from their hike, is tugged up over her nose to provide a modicum of anonymity, going bandito mode. She dashes, leaping some brush and grabbing for a makeshift weapon. A gnarled branch makes a good substitute thing to wave about. "Get back!" she screeches at the digsite workers, making a b-line around the Big Bad.

Laura Kinney has posed:
The nice thing about using civilian clothing for crime fighting, aside from blending into the background far better than yellow spandex does, is there's no need to change costumes when a fight kicks off.

Not that Laura was dressed normally. Her woodland camouflage outfit and dirt blackened claws blending into the forest like she isn't even there. Sadly she promised she would be good and not bring any weapons along with her. A promise she has technically kept! Of course that doesn't mean she didn't bring at least one potentially deadly tool. As if by magic a magnesium flare gun appears in her hands.

The former assassin doesn't wait for instructions. As soon as Rip Roar is throwing a random student her ands are up in a two handed marksman stance. A crack whooosh and there's a line of bright light from out of the bush she was hiding in. Streaking across towards Rip Roar's majestic mane of hair. Anyone that needs sealing up in a stone sarcophagus for who knows how long and comes out swinging will probably be fire proof to stop degree. But it's generally pretty distracting. And really that's all she cares about. Giving the dig team time to escape.

Tim Drake has posed:
    It takes literally two steps for Tim to back up into the forest again, and a couple of moments later he appears a ways down the treeline, his scarf pulled up around the lower half of his face. Like Harper, he's just aiming for the bare minimum of anonymity here. The chaos of the situation and their own very brief appearance prior to it starting should be enough to do the rest. "Media franchise from Japan about digital monsters," he calls out to answer Conner's question.

    Of course, in those intervening moments, Rip Roar wasn't still. Phoebe manages to catch the student thrown up into the air, but Rip Roar leaps up to swipe at them, the claws on his fingers wickedly sharp. As he lands, the ground trembles again. "WHO DARES TELL ME WHAT TO DO?" he demands in vaguely the direction Gabby's admonishment came from.

    This man, or whatever he is, clearly only knows how to speak in all capslock.

    "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Suddenly, that impressive lion's mane of hair is alight, and all four of Rip Roar's arms are up in the air, desperately patting at his head to put it out. That Laura, or the bush Laura is concealed in, is where the projectile came from in the first place seems to have gone over his head. Or rather... directly into his head.

    Then he's stumbling from the force of the rock that pelts him in the side. This time around though he saw Conner's hand rear back, so as he regains his footing, he points a taloned finger at Superboy. "YOU!"

    That's when Rip Roar leaps. His hair is still smoldering, charred black in places, so an arc of ashen grey smoke remains in his wake as he soars through the air and aims to land right on top of Conner!

    Meanwhile on the ground of the pit, Tim has joined Harper in trying to escort the civilians up onto stable ground in the opposite direction of Rip Roar and the hardier members of the Outsiders.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "HONESTLY it would be easier to list what they DIDN'T have!" Balm replies back to Conner as she barrel-rolls, and it is difficult to maintain with a live cargo, and she grunts, wrapping the glass-like wings around the student nd she takes the brunt of the landing, near Tim and Harper.

    Please remain panicking until the Phoebe has come to a full and complete stop, return your tables to the upright positions...

    The teenage mage releases the no-longer airborne student and looks to Tim, her eyes going wide with a 'this was not planned' expression, and then turns her dark eyes back to the four-armed lion man.

    "Greek Philosophy -- six limbs, insect?" she asks him for a moment of ridiculous levity before she brings up her magic shield to give cover to the escaping archaeologists, the eight-pointed star lazily spinning with the Egytpian hieroglyphs around it!

Conner Kent has posed:
"Yes, me!" Confirms Conner, waving to the four-armed and very angry giant person, stepping out of his landing place at the last second in a burst of enhanced speed. "Rip is okay as a name, but the Roar part is dumb," he offers, not sounding very apologetic about it.

"Now, what is your main problem?" He goes on, trying to keep the attention of the giant on him. "Seems to me you just got free and instead of being happy about it, you start tossing your rescuers around. Ungrateful much?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
The smell was an issue... a big one. Gabby had yet to really learn to control her sense of smell or anything similar. So she hangs back a bit, turning to the scientists and students to begin herding them away from potential danger. "Hey, over here! Come on," she calls out to a few stragglers while helping to hoist a few others from the pit using her tiny frame. Crouching and grabbing their arms to just... Push with her legs to drag them free from an area that wasn't originally meant to be 'the exit'. It was away from Rip Roar and the fight though.

Her hand covers her mouth grimacing at the smell that made her want to gag. "Uhg, I'm... just going to be over here for the moment," she calls out to her teammates while focusing on protecting.

Harper Row has posed:
Harper brandishing a stick is the least intimidating thing right now. She winces an eye shut at the roar from Big Rip, and stumbles down into a rolling tumble when the ground quakes under her feet. Back up and into a sprint, she hopes the least of her worries tonight will be the skinned knees.

When Phoebe unloads her living cargo, Harper helps to beckon and bully the student to hurry further from danger. Her sweeping gaze moves over the site, noting a few choice pieces of equipment. Her jaws hinges in thought, enamel grinding down, and she makes a dash towards the crane. "I'm gonna play out some cable!" Her feet kicking up dirt while the giant is distracted. Trying to eat up the distance to those caterpillar treads and the hopefully unlocked cab's controls.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Claws already popped Laura leaps and digs them into one of the massive trees, her foot claws also popping with another SNIKT, and scampers up it like she's climbing a ladder. Her sensible harness filled with energy bars and other camping supplies dropping away as she goes.

Once she's got enough height to leap out for a death from above strike she twists and hurls herself through the air. Like a flying squirrel. Without the flying part and a lot more adamantium. Using the attack on Conner to gauge where Rip Roar will end up.

Sadly she can't just aim for his head and end things with one strike. That would make Tim cranky. So she has to make do with trying to rake as many of her claws down his back as possible. Then somersaulting backwards before any angry arm flailing can strike home.

Or at least that's the plan. Who knows just how fast or strong this thing really is.... Still that's what a healing factor is for right?

Tim Drake has posed:
    "Think this one's going to be hard to squash!" is the called-out answer to Phoebe's joking as Tim just about wrenches his arm out of its socket in an effort to free one of the workers from beneath a heavy rock. Likely tossed aside during Rip Roar's emergence.

    But the aged man scampers free, and if Tim's sore tomorrow, he'll deal with it then. And a bruised shoulder seems to be the greatest of worries for him, as the rest of the team on the other end of the clearing are doing a fantastic job of keeping Rip Roar's attention.

    Especially once the behemoth of a man looks down and realizes there isn't a flattened pancake of a person beneath him. He spins, turning towards where Conner has side-stepped at superspeed to, and opens his mouth to--

    This is when Laura's claws rake down his back, and Rip Roar lets out a... well, a roar.

    "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!"

    Again Rip Roar spins around, his back clawed and bloodied but not bowed, not yet. The armor seems to have taken the worst of it, but whatever it is still isn't a match for adamantium.

    Clawed foot meets stomach as Rip Roar lets out a frenzied kick to the side, knocking Laura away into the underbrush of the dark forest beyond the ring of dig site lights. Then both sets of arms are raised into the air again. "NO MORE! NO MORE OF YOU PESTS AND YOUR ANNOYANCES!"

    With a great heave of effort Rip Roar pulls a massive boulder free of the ground and tosses it into the pit from whence he came, aiming to crack open Phoebe's shield. Then he twists, lowering himself down so that he can have another attempt at flattening Conner, this time with a running tackle.

    In the chaos, two young students scramble to grab hold of Gabby at the same time, each too eager in their attempts to escape to realize that they might pull her down rather than her hauling them up. Another of the workers has taken shelter inside the cab of the heavy machinery Harper is aiming towards. So the doors are unlocked, but she'll find a cowering man wedged down into the seat and very much in her way.

Conner Kent has posed:
Distractions only work if the angry idiot one is distracted is not stabbed. Conner will talk to Laura about it later. "Hey, I you, I am the annoyan..." And then Rip goes and tosses a huge boulder to Phoebe.

That does it. Hopefully the civilians are safe-ish, because if annoying Rip does not work, Conner is going to try something else. So, when the big brute turns to him for a running tackle, he finds out Conner is already flying towards him for a punch to the jaw.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe sees the oncoming rocks. Her eyes narrow, and she braces herself for the huge weight about to strike her shield, the shield glowing with increased power behind it as she bends her knees. The rock crashes against it, and she holds, her boots sliding back a few inches before the rock itself cracks, pieces taken by gravity down to a much more managable size.

    "Going to have to do better than THAT to get through me!" she snarls in challenge.

Harper Row has posed:
Harper reaches the vehicle's treads, and takes them with a big hop, the next upwards jaunt and her cheek is pressed up against the glass of the cab and peering in like a fly hitting a windshield. Oh jeez, it's still occupied! Her breath probably doesn't fog the glass, but her face-smear when the kerchief lifts is probably atrocious. She baps her branch against the frame. "Crane inspeck-shun!" Fabric over her mouth fluttering and twitching with her exhalations. And she's hauling on the handle, or busting it to reef the cab open.

Her cornflour blue eyes are intense, and the way she's carrying on, maybe she could be mistaken as a radicalized environmentalist. She huffs, "Sorry! Out ya go! The secret is to tuck your head! And don't stop running!" And with that, she ~assists~ the poor cowering individual by grabbing a scruff of clothes and expediting their egress out.

Once the cab is clear, pops her head out and hollers, risking attention but needing to offer her idea to her teammates. "Anyone want a tripping hazard?!"

Her hands go to the panel, which she hunches over like a crone. "Yeah yeah, just like at the Fair..." Cranking the ignition so big angry plumes of exhaust ~ploot~ and the engine roars. She hauls on the levers until she finds the release, dropping as much cable length as she can.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Flung through the air X-23 vanishes into the darkness. Crashing and rolling through the undergrowth at a speed which would probably be deadly for a normal Human. There's a moment of silence and then she slinks back into the clearing around the dig site.

Her arm is twisted unnaturally and she grips her wrist, gives her arm a yank and pops her shoulder back in, bones knitting back together. She rolls her shoulders. "He's a tough one," she pronounces. "No need to hold back."

She will, when confronted, earnestly point out that most people find being stabbed extremely distracting. But that's a conversation for another time.

This time she stalks into the clearing, arms wide to allow the light to glance off her claws, carefully studying how Rip Roar moves. How those wounds are looking. And how he fights. A hunter stalking her prey.

The noise when Harper starts hotwiring the vehicle acts like a starter pistol. And X-23 bursts forward into a sprint. Staying low so the lower set of arms will get in the way of the upper set. Darting in to cut and slash. A humanoid body shape usually means humanoid weak points. Ankles, knees and groin. All ideal targets for snikting.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Rock meets a hard place, and in this instance Phoebe's shield is enough to crack that boulder like an egg. It shatters into pieces and rains down around the circle of her shield, leaving a pile of detritus behind instead of the thousands of pounds of wrecking ball that Rip Roar had intended it to be. But now she has a new problem: how to get those that she'd sheltered up and out of the debris that has now been made around them.

    Of course, Rip Roar doesn't have the time to appreciate how his plans, as best-laid (or not) as they were, have failed. He's too busy taking one to the cheek, with enough super-strength behind it that he flies backwards, skidding across the ground like a skipping stone.

    The trees catch him, one gigantic sequoia actually cracking loudly as it takes the bulk of the impact, but it's still standing. Rip Roar is too, though his mouth is bloody now.

    Which only seems to set him off. He grins wide, sharp teeth flashing, and then slams one closed fist into his palm while the bottom set of hands cracks his knuckles.

    "OKAY, YOU LITTLE TWERP. YOU'VE GOT MY ATTENTION NOW!"

    He charges forward towards Conner, only to be met by the hunter's stalk that brings Laura in quick and low. She slices, she dices, she julienne fries! Basically she really cuts him up, and his reaction is to try and swat at her desperately, lower set of arms swinging to-and-fro in his frantic need to get her away. His momentum arrests and reverses, and he's so focused on the bite of Laura's claws where his armor can't even somewhat protect him leaves him wide open from the top set of arms and above. He's also completely unaware of his footing now.

    Which Tim, always observant, notices. He looks back to Harper and nods once, waiting for the cable to impact dirt before he goes for it. It's heavier than expected, given that it was probably brought on-site to haul that giant sarcophagus out of the dirt (you know, before it exploded). But with a grunt he gets it over his shoulder and hauls it towards another of the giant trees.

    Gabby somehow manages to haul up two people at once, and she is doing an admirable job of directing the rest of the workers away from danger.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe keeps her shield up. She winces slightly, feeling her muscles tighten as she turns to drop the star, its round glowing face coming down.

    "Go - go! Straight back, into the woods! Stay near me, don't wander off!" the woman garbed entirely in black says as she makes her way, tailing the people. Her job was to keep them safe -- unspoken. And hopefully without losing any more time.

    And just to make sure no one loses her, she lights up the night, holding her hand above her head with a brilliantly glowing mini-sun.

Conner Kent has posed:
"Pff... that was the plan, you idiot. You just don't have much attention spawn, do you?" Taunts Conner, this time standing his ground to receive Rip Roar with another punch. Only Laura sneak-attacks him first, which always ends up poorly. "Or, you know, you can surrender," he offers, wincing at the cuts.

Or he can stumble on that cable, in which case, maybe it is can be used to tie him up? It looks pretty sturdy.

Laura Kinney has posed:
If it bleeds she can kill it.

Thankfully X-23 doesn't have to go quite that far. Although she probably would if it wouldn't spoil the vacation.... Instead she keeps darting in and out. Whirling her claws around her to act as both offense and defence. Every time she numbly springs back from the sweeping arms she flicks her claws across them. Opening nicks and cuts that'll sting and weaken without serious risk of death.

"What good is having your attention," she wonders flatly. "When you're so predictable and slow?"

It's not exactly Spider-Man levels of trash talk. But he's called Rip Roar. Anything too complicated will likely go right over his scorched head.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The flurry of claws is enough to keep Rip Roar on the defensive, at least in the immediate moment. He absolutely can't do anything with his upper set of limbs to counter-attack because Laura purposefully keeps herself low and out of the way enough that he simply can't reach her that way, and of course the lower set of arms are too busy "being death by a thousand cuts"-ed to retaliate in any meaningful way. Trying to swipe at her like she's a particularly persistent fly certainly hasn't been working.

    He takes one step backwards... two steps... and then Tim just barely manages to secure the cable around the trunk of the tree, being fed line by Harper in the crane's cab, at the last moment. He clips the massive hook right around the cable and then jumps backwards just as Rip Roar's ankle catches!

    The cable goes taut all the way back to the crane itself, the tension sounding with a faint twang. He teeters, all four arms cartwheeling in the air, and then all at once Rip Roar becomes a victim of gravity as he goes tumbling down, down, all the way down into the dig site once more.

    And you know what they say about big things. Something something hard falls. Anyway! Rip Roar rolls all the way down in a cloud of dust and debris before landing with a loud crash. The noise is enough that everyone, even the most panicked of the escaping dig site workers (which would be the man Harper yeeted out of the cab), stand still for a moment in surprise.

    Slowly... the dust clears. There Rip Roar lies...

    Until he groans and raises a hand to his head. Then another. And another, and another. Two of the four are bleeding heavily and drop soon after, but then he starts climbing back to his feet. "HAH! I WILL NEVER SURRENDER! YOU VILE LITTLE CREATURES CANNOT TAKE DOWN RIP ROAR!" he yells, his mouth forming a grin of bloody victory. Until he looks around, realizing where he's fallen: right into the midst of what was once his stone sarcophagus.

    "NO!"

    The stones clatter as they lift from the ground as if floating on magnetic waves before they begin to fly backwards through the air towards their initial resting place, covering Rip Roar in layers of sediment. More and more stone piles on until he collapses first to his knees, then onto his back, right into the open cavern of the coffin. He's completely covered, immobile, and then in a flash of light that challenges the brightness of Phoebe's, the cracks and crevasses seal until they may have never broken apart in the first place.

    Rip Roar is, once again, entombed.

    After a long bout of silence, a stone skips downwards from the top of the pit as Tim approaches the edge. "Well, that wasn't what I was expecting to happen there," he admits, hands on his hips.

Conner Kent has posed:
"That was brilliant, or damn lucky," mentions Conner, elbowing Tim gently. "I guess we better call the League so when they dig that guy out again there is plenty of power to keep it restrained."

He looks around careful, "and why the hell were people digging here? Not to mention we got teleported in time and space. Are we going to look into this?"

Laura Kinney has posed:
X-23 has already vanished into the woods. Presumably to collect what few camping supplies she dropped while climbing the tree earlier. It would be bad to leave energy bars and other potentially dangerous items where any wildlife might stumble upon it!

"You mean this wasn't planned?" she calls out from the darkness. "I thought this was a special event RR set up for a little light team building..."

She is probably joking.... Probably.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "Can't claim this one, so Lady Luck gets credit this time around." Tim shrugs at Conner and then rubs his face with one hand, or at least the parts of his face visible above his scarf. The question about their little time-slash-space travel trip that got them here, though? Tim only looks uncertain when Conner brings that up. Side-stepping the issue, instead he points towards a jacket left on a, now-toppled, chair up near where they're standing, at the fringes of the dig site. "UC Berkeley people, so probably something university-funded. No idea why they're working this late, though. But you're right, this is definitely a Justice League issue."

    He whips out his phone and starts texting. Because even Tim doesn't have the JL on speed-dial.

    Except for Batman, of course.

    "Not planned!" he calls out to Laura, then signals for the team to start wrapping up. Time to head out. They'll of course have to wait beyond the tree line until the League can arrange pickup.