358/Hot Couture

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Hot Couture
Date of Scene: 08 March 2020
Location: O'Neal Ampitheater, Gotham City
Synopsis: Fashion Weekend in Gotham City gets crashed...and burned.
Cast of Characters: Summer Gleeson, Beatriz da Costa, Janet van Dyne




Summer Gleeson has posed:
"It's that time of year again. Time to set your clocks forward *and* time for the world of fashion to descend on Gotham City." Summer Gleeson hits the into as her cameraman starts recording the segment that will air Monday on Gotham Insider. "It's Fashion Weekend in Gotham City again. And backstage here at the O'Neal Ampitheater, the biggest designers are getting ready to show off their lines, worn by the hottest supermodels in the world." Behind Summer, deisgners and their models mill around, making last minute adjustments to outfits, hair, and make-up. "Let's see if we can get a few words from the stars here..." As the red light on the camera winks off, Summer lets out a bit of a sigh. She'd rather not do puff pieces like this, but her producer and the station both wanted it for Gotham Insider; ratings were good, but they could always be better. So, Summer started looking around for someone to get some sound bites off of.

Beatriz da Costa has posed:
    "Hey, Jan, does this look a little tight to you?" Bea flags down the fashion magnate as she gets ready for her time on the catwalk. "Look here." A hip shake emphasizes what she's on about. "When I move, it bunches on top. Can I get the seamstress to loosen a tad so it stops riding up?"
    So many years of being in the public eye and she's still got stage fright on her first show of the season. Like clockwork.
    "I mean, this is a really gorgeous design you've got here, Jan, and I feel really good about wearing it. I don't want it ruined by a bad fitting."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet's a one-woman perpetual motion machine. She's everwhere at once, and though she's not one of the models, she's still dressed to impress in an off-the-shoulder dress that would be almost businesslike were it not for the tight fit of the gold fabric and the 4" ruby-colored heels paired with it.

She's hailed by Beatriz and comes to a fast stop to examine the garment. "Bea, I /told/ you, if you're going to stick with that squat routine, you need to update your measurements at least once a month," Janet says severely. A leather sewing kit dangles across her chest from one shoulder, slung like a baldric. It's an apt comparison as a pair of gold shearing scissors are whipped out and Janet expertly snips the offending seams with them, using only her fingers and deft skills to keep from wounding the other woman.

Beatriz gets shifted violently back and forth as Jan resettles the fabric and with the same casual professionalism starts rapidly re-setting the seam while Bea's wearing the outfit.

She glances up at the Brazilian bombshell, then focuses back on her work. "Calm down," she mutters, in a slightly more conciliatory tone. "This isn't Milan. This is Gotham Fashion week. You can do this with your eyes closed," she assures Bea. Her tone is reassuringly firm, making it more premptory statement than casual affirmation.

The knot's tied off with dextrous fingers and she uplifts a chin at the woman. "You ready?"

Summer Gleeson has posed:
And just as Jan finishes the adjustments, Summer's right there with her cameraman. "Ms. VanDyne! Ms. da Costa!" calls out to the pair. Even though she's done many interviews with each of them over the past few Fashion Weekends, she's still trying to be a professional about this and doesn't use their first names. "Care to do a quick sound bite for Monday's 'Gotham Insider'?" Summer is usually confident, but the look on her face is saying 'please say yes...' as she wants to get this all over with as soon as possible.

MEANWHILE....

Up in the rafters, a shadowy figure moves about. The slender silhouete leans over the rails to scan the gathering crowd...searching...

Beatriz da Costa has posed:
    "Yeah, I guess," Bea says with a rueful grin. "Just ... I'm back on the vigilante scene so I started working out. Haven't had to update measurements in so long I forgot to do it."
    The busy room around her gets a sweep of her emerald eyes. "Not much chance of me doing the vigilante stuff in this space at least. Worst thing that'll happen is a catfight between some of the coked-up ones, and sorry, I'm not stepping in on that." Her eyes twinkle in amusement. "I can't think of a better way to destroy your lovely outfit than stepping between two feuding models."
    She looks at the TV monitors showing the news coverage on the fashion channel, watching some of the competition taking to the catwalk, only to be distracted by someone calling her name. She narrows her eyes a bit as she tries to place the face, her own lighting up as she recognizes.
    "Summer, isn't it? I told you last time to call me Bea! I guess the sound bite for me is more a twirl bite." She does just that. Twirls. "I was so honoured to have a van Dyne original styled specifically for my looks. It's not always we get the chance to put on a bespoke van Dyne and get our pictures taken!" She turns to Janet, saying, "And my insights are nothing compared to this queen of the industry." She knows which side her bread gets buttered on. "I'd love to hear how she even conceived of this!"

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Well, there's only room for one coked-up queen bitch to play diva here today," Janet mutters conspiratorially. "And I'm sure not letting one of these skinny Midwestern bitches step up to me or anyone wearing my outfits." She looks up at Beatriz and winks once in solidarity.

Beatriz also buys Janet a second or two to casually drop the sewing kit aside so it's not ruining her lines, and also to check for marking pencils behind her ears.

When Summer makes her approach, Janet turns to face the camera like the motion was rehearsed and stands in a practiced contrapossto posture that emphasizes her curvy ratios. It looks casual but takes endless hours of practice to pull off.

At least she and Beatriz share a more modest height compared to some of the women tottering around. A practiced smile pastes across her ruby painted lips as if she couldn't be *happier* to talk to Summer.

"Ms. Gleeson, it's so nice of you to ask," Janet says. She doesn't speak particularly loudly but there's a timbre to her voice that is one of a socialite accustomed to being the center of attention. "You know, I'm a New York girl at heart, but Gotham is a city that I think yearns for the summer colors," she says. "I see the way Gothamites shuck off the grey and black when winter finally rolls away. So we're not just 'springing forward', we're launching right into summer looks," Janet explains. A regal roll of her wrist, held aloft, illustrates Bea's outfit. "And as Beatriz can show you, this isn't high-concept fashion wear for Milan. Gotham loves real clothing on real women. Bea's rocking a new dress shirt cut that's perfect for the office. Pair it with a skirt and low heels and it works great for daily business. Spice it up with leather pants and some hot booties, and you can totally rock the club. Options, honey, /options/, that's what budget-minded consumers are all about, isn't it?"

Granted, Bea's wearing the shirt casually unbuttoned and it's a shade of green only someone with her complexion can really pull off-- but the effect is striking to say the least when paired with her honey-darkened skin.

Summer Gleeson has posed:
"Perfect as always, Janet; Bea. You both always do bring color back into Gotham after the winter season. Anything else coming up for either of you ladies in the next few months? I'm sure our viewers will want to mark their calendars to keep watch for another catwalk appearance from you, Bea. Or another presentation of your always stylish lines, Jan." Summer is feeling a bit more in her element, the relaxed warmth and confidence of the other two women rubbing off on her. For as much as she likes the hard-hitting stories, Summer has to admit that she sometimes misses basic chatting wihtout trying to get at the bottom of a scandal or conspiracy...

************

There! Right there! The figure in the rafters spies it's quarry. Sitting front and center, with a woman on each side...The three of them all look so cozy together, waiting for the show to start. That man took her youth, her innocence; kept her locked away. But now...Skein will have her revenge!

The woman leaps over the railing and glides over the crowd. Shouts and screams come from the panicked audience as a dark-haired woman in a skin-tight, open front bodysuit floats in front of Hollywood star Jason Reed, shouting at him in what sounds like a Eastern European language. Suddenly, Reed's tuxedo shifts and warps, changing into a cocoon of fabric that encases his entire body and covers his mouth. The man's eyes go wide as he starts to suffocate. The starlets sitting next to him scream and join the paniced rush towards the exits!

***********

At the sound of the commotion, Summer and her cameraman turn their attention towards the audience. "Charlie! Tell the network we're coming in with a live feed!" Summer shouts to the cameraman, and perparations for making a live report are made.

Beatriz da Costa has posed:
    "Well, Summer, as you know I split my work following distantly behind Janet's footsteps with a few paltry designs of my own, between bouts of modeling designs from a veritable fashion goddess." Bea's lubricating that relationship nicely in her inimitable style. "So in a few weeks I'll be holding a smaller showing of just my own designs. It obviously won't be as big a todo as this, but if you're in the ..."
    Her pitch is interrupted by a scream, causing her to break stride and glance in the direction it came from with irritation on her face. Then concern. Lots of concern.
    "Uh, Summer, I'm going to have to get back to you on that one," she understates. "It looks like there's some unpleasantness afoot."
    And then, unlike most people in the place, who are either fleeing away from or just frozen in place, she runs TOWARD the trouble.
    Which in the end is what differentiates the hero from the normal person, isn't it?

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Oh for *fuck's sake*," Janet hisses. She sounds more... irritated than anything else, and starts shrugging out of her dress. In the seconds it takes to doff the garment it's replaced by her more recognizeable heroic attire, black and gold with a skirt and corseted-style top.

"That bitch just can not let me have a fashion show without ruining my nice day," Janet huffs at Sybil.

"Make sure you edit that!" Janet busies herself for a moment trying to push the erstwhile reporter and her cameraman out of the line of sight, and then launches into the air with a leap. The fashionista vanishes with a *pop* of displaced oxygen and buzzes in Bea's wake towards the epicenter of the madness. The primary goal is to get the hostage away from the kidnapper and Janet sets herself up for a flanking shot on Sybil with a peppering barrage of bioplasma. Not turned up to full power, of course-- Janet's not one to recklessly murder someone in the middle of a fashion show.

And definitely not while cameras are rolling!

"<Bea! You take Sybil, I'll pull Jason to safety!>" The words are fired off in fast and heavily Bronx-accented Spanish; lacking a communicator for the green-haired model, it's the best they can do for short-term communication.

Summer Gleeson has posed:
"Are we live?" Summer asks as she recovers from getting pushed out of the way by the Wasp. She presses her fingers against the earpeice relaying communication from WGBS, trying to hear over the chaos. "Okay, live in 3...2...1...This is Summer Gleeson with an exclusive live report for WGBS. I'm at the O'Neal Ampitheater for GOtham Fashion Weekend, where moments ago, chaos broke out as an unidentified woman appeared and attacked one of the attending celebrities in the audience, prior to the start of the show. Fashion icons and public superheroes Janet VanDyne and Beatriz da Costa, also known as the Wasp and Fire, were on hand for the show and have lept into action! Let's get a closer look..." And while Charlie seems reluctant, Summer virtually runs to the entrance to the stage, taking a look at the scene. She waves Charlie forward, and eventually, the picture on the WGBS broadcast resolves into a front row seat for the oncoming battle!

*****************

"You keep me prisoner!" the distraught woman shouts at Reed in heavily accented English. "You keep me slave! Now I kill you!" She doesn't see either of the approaching heroines until Jan's stings hit her. Unable to see the diminuative Wasp, Skein waves at the energy blasts to try and ward them off. She does, however, see the green-haired beauty charging towards her.

And with a mental command, that oh-so-lovely VanDyne Original that Bea is wearing breaks apart and shifts to wrap tightly around her and immobilize her.

Beatriz da Costa has posed:
    And ... dammit! She was really going to try to keep the dress (mostly) intact with a hand-to-hand fight, but Sybil just changed the plans. "Oh, God, sorry, Jan!" she mutters to herself, before ...
    ...Scratch one Janet van Dyne original, immolated into such fine ash it might as well be gas. Nothing survives as green plasma swirls out of Bea's body, shaping into a vaguely human-like lump before pulling in to be, well, Beatriz da Costa, a study in green flame.
    "Wrong tool," she says, blasting herself roofward into a forward arc, heading straight for Skein. "Cloth beats human, fire beats cloth."
    Arm outstretched, she blasts intensely hot plasma at the crazed woman, letting the flames fan out and around her in a ring of superheated air, trying to create a small windstorm in the middle to distract the woman's attention while she closes in to take her to the floor.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet lands on Reed's chest with little mass but a lot of force. It slams him to the ground and she covers him with her petite frame as Bea's flames flash overhead. Janet winces at the rush of heat and clamps a hand over Reed's mouth.

"Hold your breath!" she orders him. There's another *puff* of air being displaced and the two of them vanish into thin air. Once again barely the size of a wasp, Janet makes a fast pace back to the backstage and rather casually tosses Reed onto the floor. Those expensive, heavy shears are retrieved and she starts slashing apart the tuxedo that's constricting him.

Janet looks up and into the camera lens, and her eyes go wide. "Eyes on the /fight/, buster!" she yells at him, and jabs an imperious finger at Bea and Skein wrangling and combating one another in midair above the catwalk.

Summer Gleeson has posed:
"Keep your focus on the fight!" Summer hisses to Charlie at almost the same time as Jan, since he panned away when Bea went...less than fully clothed? The cameraman dutifully re-focuses the shot, and Summer continues her report. "Wasp has just rescued the apparent target of the attack, while Fire is....oh God! The dress! The dress Fire was wearing seemed to be binding her, and Fire had to literally burn it off to get free! Now, Fire's surrounded the woman with a ring of flame..."

*****************

Skein throws up her hands to try and ward off the flames, the heat causing her to sweat extensively. She's finding it difficult to breath now, but she directs one of the curtains to come flying off the stage and wrap itself around Bea, trying to smother Fire.

Backstage, Jason Reed gasps for air and coughs as Jan frees him. "Thank you..." he gasps. "She's...she's insane...she's lying..." He's gasping out denyals as he panting for air.

Beatriz da Costa has posed:
    Dousing the flame is a good tactic. The kind that works. If you do it from surprise. Unfortunately you can't really surprise the person who's literally fighting you at this very moment. Someone who's focused on you, and on what you're doing.
    As the curtain tears off and flies toward Fire, she looks at it with a querulous expression on her face, just as if she's flabbergasted. Not at the attack, but at the idea someone thought she'd not notice it. Not notice the hundred pounds of blood red velvet tearing loose and flying toward her.
    The camera gets the perfect angle on her stance as she pauses mid-air to stare at the curtain. The afore-mentioned expression is caught at just the right time. And the microphones catch her statement of disbelief. "Bitch. Please." This is a meme that will never grow old for at least three weeks on social media.
    Twin streams of flame lance out of her eyes, immolating the curtain like the plasma had immolated her outfit. The only advantage Skein gains from this is the loss of that circle of plasma keeping her penned in.
    No, wait. That's actually a pretty good thing for her.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Surprise is the greatest advantage in any fight. The ability to move virtually un-noticed; to be silent and invisible when needed and then hit for the hardest effect possible when an opening presents itself. This is one of the reasons that wily individuals recognize Janet van Dyne as the most dangerous of the Avengers.

After all, you can see the Hulk coming a mile away when he's on a rampage. Janet is invisible until she wants to be otherwise.

Skein learns this the had way when Janet erupts to a towering twenty-foot height behind the kidnapper's position. Sybil's fixated on Bea, trying to snuff out the burning plasma that poses such a threat to her.

Janet claps her hands together around Sybil like she's swatting a particularly irritating insect. Not hard enough for Sybil to go *splat* but definitely hard enough to set the bells ringing in her ears.

Summer Gleeson has posed:
By now, the venue's fire supression system has been activated, and there's more shrieks coming from backstage as water rains down over a dozen or more models and their attendants who were taking shelter from the fight up front. Looks like it's not just the VanDyne Spring collection that's going to be ruined today...

"Fire bruns through the curtain that was tossed at her," Summer re-caps. "And...wow! Wasp comes from out of nowhere and swats the assailant out of the air!"

******************

Janet can feel the stunned woman in her giant hands. That double blow knocks Skein senseless, and she's slugishly writhing in Jan's grasp. "He must pay," she moans..."He trick me..." Sounds like there's a story there. And backstage, a tuxedo-less, and now wet, Jason Reed starts to move away from the scene...

Beatriz da Costa has posed:
    Fire watches the take-down with frankly appreciative gaze. She starts applauding ... which makes no sound because fire hitting fire ... but makes for a good light show. "Well done, Jan. That's what, 8.5 at least for captures?" She zips across and looks down at Skein curiously. "What's she babbling about? Trick? Who tricked her?"
    Looking around for the guy Skein was targeting, she asks, "Where'd you take the target? Is he in the clear?" Beat. "And what's he wearing, 'cause he looked kinda hot."
    Says the woman who can melt steel.
    Then...
    "The cameras are still rolling, aren't they? They just picked that up, didn't they?"

Janet van Dyne has posed:
"Whew! Bitch had it coming, setting my fashion show on fire," Janet sniffs. She's possessive about her things-- and regardless of whom else was participating, the petite socialite sure sees it as 'her' property.

"Ignore the cameras, honey, they get what they get," Janet soothes Bea as she shrinks to her correct size. One hand casually grips Sybil's wrist and she twists the Gypsy Moth's arm in a painful compliance hold and she drives a knee into the woman's kidney just for a little extra leverage.

"Summer!" Janet calls over to the reporter. Remarkably, Summer and her cameraman are pretty much the only others in the area who've kept a level head. Janet always speaks in an imperious fashion, but there's a premptory command in her voice when she hails the woman. "I need a fire blanket from the backstage for Bea, and I need the handcuffs from the security office," she adds.

"And if you feel like making -yourself- useful," she says, addressing the cameraman, "maybe make sure Mister Reed doesn't go running off. I'm sure the cops would like to get a statement from him, too."

Sybil mutters something and earns a twist of the wrist for her snide words, and Janet exhales wearily upwards to blow her bangs from her face.

"Did you really have to torch that outfit?" she demands of Bea in a conversational tone. "You are not easy to fit leather pants on, you know."

Summer Gleeson has posed:
"And it looks like it's over. Wasp and Fire have captured the woman. And...Is that Jason Reed she was after. Looks like there's lots more questions to follow up on here. I'll try to get some answers for the 11:00 news update. For now, this is SUmmer Gleeson, reporting live for WGBS." She pauses, waits for the camera light to go out, then signals 'cut'. "Charlie, keep an eye on him, like Ms. VanDyne said..." And then, Summer goes to grab a fire blanker, dragging the heavy fabric to Bea. "Ugh...we should have switched...tasks..." she grunts as she delivers the blanket.

By now, GCPD has arrived on the scene and is restoring order. GCFD is also here, shutting off the sprinkler system. However, everyone still in the ampitheater is now soaking wet. Summer's going to need to borrow a hairdyer for her report...

Beatriz da Costa has posed:
    The water vaporizes as it approaches the green body, forming a miniature health spa in the corner of the backstage area. "Jan?..." Bea's voice sounds really tentative, regretful. "Uh ... sorry about the outfit. I was going to tackle her hand-to-hand, but she got to me first and I had to burn out."
    With a cringe of anticipation, she asks, "Tell me you have another one on standby just in case?" A short pause while she lets that hang, before continuing, "Also, tell me it wasn't a whole lot of money, 'cause, you know, I can't afford to replace something REALLY valuable. You didn't use special ... I don't know ... Olympian fabrics and Asgardian dyes or something?"
    She surveys the chaos with a bit of a critical eye. "Nothing blown up, only one gown and one curtain burned up, no casualties beyond some guy's pride who may turn out to have been a schmuck. I'd say this was an incident well-handled."
    And that was clearly played to the cameras.