4007/Yippie-Ki-Yay Holiday: The Plaza

Yippie-Ki-Yay Holiday: The Plaza
Date of Scene:	03 November 2020
Location:	Goldman Sachs Tower, Jersey City
Synopsis:	A bunch of would-be thieves pretend to be terrorists when a heist goes south. Ghost Spider, Hawkeye, and Squirrel Girl sneak in while Cecily acts as a less-than-willing decoy, and Balista has her own motives! Thankfully, hostages are saved, noses are broken, and the only casualty by defenestration was an office chair...
Cast of Characters:	Cecily Winters, Gwen Stacy, Doreen Green, Kate Bishop, Leena Danvers

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Cecily Winters has posed:
    It's night in Jersey City. The hustle and bustle of Black Friday is over, retail workers still cleaning up the aftermath, stores preparing for the kickoff to full-swing holiday shopping with new(er) products and most offices closing or closed by now. The lights in Goldman Sachs Tower are largely out, save for some of the upper-level offices. An early Christmas party, after the Thanksgiving holiday, is going on so that the bankers and investors that work there can take long December vacations when the next couple of weeks come as well as to celebrate the day's events and sort out the mountain of transactions coming and going.

    Except...

    ...a fire alarm has gone off but there's no smoke. Fire crews and police vehicles surround the plaza, and there's a bustle of activity at ground level. The Christmas party has turned into something else entirely, as some small number of cell phone calls have indicated... there's hostages and some kind of militant group holding them.

    While violence has yet to erupt just yet, the police forces are coming up empty in ways to infiltrate and clear the tower, what with the security cameras in place all over and the threat of hostages being hurt or worse. No demands have yet been made, either, though hurriedand hushed 911 calls mentioned something about bonds, and servers, and valuable data. To say nothing of the groups of armed gunmen that have taken control of the structure from parking garage to rooftop.

    As such, radio chatter and the activity around the tower makes for quite a lot of light and noise across the airwaves and simply to an observer even on the other side of the Hudson...

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Four little words, to get me along.
It's a difficulty and I'm bitin' on my tongue.
And I keep stalling, keeping me together.
People around gotta find something to say now.
Holind back, everyday the same
Don't wanna be a loner
Listen to me, oh no I never say anything at all
But with nothing to consider..

They forget my name...

They call me "Spidey.."
They call me "Girl."
They call me "That one.."
They call me "Jane.."
That's not my name..
That's not my name..

The Spidey Web tingles with police sirens/radio traffic and it directsd Ghost Spider (That's my name... That's my name...) to the building now under seige. Landing on an adjacent building to get a better view of what she's working with, the hooded webslinger in white/black/pink AND AQUAMARINA, peers from her googly eyes at the windowed front side of the complex.

"So much for early night and shopping..."

Doreen Green has posed:
Doreen Green is once again in the right place at the right time! Her phone is out, she is livestreaming, "...and tonight the Nuts and Boots Army will once again save the day! The police, the fire fighters, everyone is waiting for heroes to arrive! The hostages will be saved and the bank's vaults will stay full for all those greedy old men!"

Doreen is really close to the bank now, "Get ready..." Tippy-Toe leaps in front of the camera, chittering excitedly.

Doreen turns the phone to give her audience a quick look at the bank and all the chaos, "As you can see.. this is once again a job for.. the Unbeatable.. Squirrel Girl!!"

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate had been hiding out at the main family lodgings in Manhattan in heer old room to avoid dealing with the fallout from Thanksgiving with her Father and Sister's collective. The great news is that her older sister is pregnant and expecting her first child with her relatively new husband. Which was on one hand good because it sucked up all the familial attention. Well most of it. On the other hand the judgement about Kate not even dating anyone was palpable. Not that her father wanted her dating randomly, but none of the right kind of people had been brought around.

So the alarm and police and fire chatter in not too far off Jersey City was a welcome reprieve and it sounded like something she could justify poking into and avoiding more family. Quick appologies all around with her duffle bagand she bailed and got on her bike speeding cross town, quick ferry ride on her bike, pause to gear up, and then drive the rest of the way.

The bike is parked a ways away outside the police line and the fully geared up Titan is stairing up at the building through her very high tech fancy glasses now. "Hmm" thoughtful noise.

There is a blink then and she looks down at the Squirrel girl. "Oh." this keeps happening. "Hey. Squirrel." she calls over.

Leena Danvers has posed:
The Goldman-Sachs Tower was a 42 story skyscraper in Jersey City. Not everything inside was owned by Goldman-Sachs. Null Inc. had set up a research lab on the 24th floor, away from prying eyes and mutant animals in Manhattan, in order to continue their advanced robotics research. Without knowing for sure what was going on at the building, when the alarms went off, Null had dispatched one of their key assets to Jersey City in order to lock down the area and secure the facility.

Ballista was under strict orders to ensure that Null's interests were kept safe. Everything else was fair game. Inside of the helicopter, the raptor was checking over her gear one more time as they were getting close to setting down, "What, we can't land on the roof?" She asks the pilot over the headset, "Negative. Police have the whole area locked down. We'll have to set you down nearby and you'll need to go in on foot."

Ballista muttered faintly to herself. She was never very good at dealing with cops. At least not without biting somebody.

Cecily Winters has posed:
    Keen eyes will spot a number of things. The still-lit windows do, sometimes, have people in them. Armed individuals in black, office workers in their business and clerical attire sitting in locked rooms under guard but nobody quite seems hurt. Darker floors still have activity, though, as those eyes, both technological and simply sharp will see more of those armed figures roaming, checking desks, computers, rummaging through just about everything they can find like common thieves.

    "They want -what-?" comes a voice on the police line, a woman in a smart skirt and vest combination, with fox tails, and a grumpy expression on her face. "...safe transit out or they'll blow the tower or defenestrate the hostages..." Cecily sighs, seeming to deflate a little. "...but they want a negotiator? And... you want -me- to... Chief, you know how many favors you owe me already by this point?" she folds her arms then takes off her sidearm to hand it to the man in charge. He shrugs, "Look, we don't have anyone available right now, and we need someone to distract while some of those capes and tights types do the stuff they do. Citizens take priority in there..."

    He glances up as a helicopter swoops over, and another officer in the line, lingering, shouts. "Oh hey! Squirrel Girl's here!" he holds up his phone, "Oh man she has the cutest live stream!" The ranking officer chuckles, "...see? Piece of cake... just wire up and get in there, they're already expecting -you-, not so much the other fluffy-tail and whoever else is coming in..."

    The fox shakes her head and then starts off towards the building, hands up, unarmed. The moment she gets in to the ground floor she's immediately yanked inside of the darkened lobby and has firearms pointed at her before being ushered off to the elevator. "Fuck. Let's just get this over with."

Gwen Stacy has posed:
"Squirrel Girl, eh?" Gwen is hanging out from the edge of the building. Palm flat, feet at an angle, one knee bent.. She's a pole. Hood fluttering gently in the breeze. "Well, problems solved, we can all go home now." Waving absently to an audience of nobody, because Ghost Spider doesn't have a stream or a reputation. She's only nominally even from this universe.

This is true.

She has a ton of high tech equipment in her mask though. Thanks Peter.

And other Gwen.

"Okay, lots of hostages, lots of cliche black clad ner-do-wells... Anyone else think this feels a lot like 2018s Summer Blockbuster hit, Die Hard?" Because everything is 20 years behind in her universe.

This is also true.

Ghost Spider leaps off the wall, fires a pair of weblines at the side of the building, and yanks herself across the great distance. Swinging in tight curves towards the upper edge of the roof where she can try and find a safer means of entering.

Doreen Green has posed:
Doreen Green gives a serious nod to Tippy-Toe, who chitters, and then starts to run towards the bank, "And Tippy-Toe is off on a secret mission. I can't tell anyone what that is because who says that bad guys don't want my show? Of course they do! That's right! I know you're out there! But you won't get any inside info on how your most dangerous foe works!"

She turns the phone again to face Hawkeye, "Hawkeye! It's Hawkeye from the haunted house! That's right subscribers! We have the heavy hitters with us tonight!"

Some feet away, Tippy-Toe is looking for a way into the bank that a small, and unassuming critter can fit in..

Kate Bishop has posed:
Well it is interesting. Kate looks after Cecily headed towards the bulding and then up at Gwen there when she says soemthing to Squirrel Girl. "We... are very animal themed today." is mused out loud. Then Gwen is off to find a way in and Kate looks up at the skyscraper. She is pretty sure if she tried to follow Cecily in it would be difficult, because well lots of armed thugs.

She also can't fly and even with her considerable skill shooting a grapple arrow to the top of the tower is a difficult feat. "I wonder if I can get Nadia to make me a jetpack." is the next thing mused outloud. Before she sighs and turns back to Doreen. "Want to go around back and see if we can make our way up through the parking garage Squirrel?" it is a questoin and kind of a statement really.

Statement because she leaves her bike, grabs her bow, and starts to angle wide and around towards the back of the building. She figures the under building parking garage might be an option, even if there will be resistence and she will need to move very fast and disable anyone before they can radio in and put hostages at risk. Also it is probably safer than Doreen scaling the building or whatever a Squirrel might do. Kate isn't honestly sure about it. Regardless while she tries to avoid the whole cameras and visible to windows she is probably easy to notice by the cops, firefighters, and Ballista at this point. Not that she stops to answer questions or think about if this is a good idea.

Leena Danvers has posed:
The helicopter lands not far from the police line, and Ballista hops out of it. She doesn't feel like dealing with the cops, but thankfully has been provided a layout of the building that she has on her helmet's HUD. She pulls open a manhole cover and drops down into the sewer. She puts her mask over her face in order to keep the smells out, and use tear gas once she's inside, and following the plans, treks her way through the sewers until she reaches a place to break through into a utility room in the basement.

It takes a small charge to blast through the wall..She's never exactly been much for stealth, after all, so she really doesn't care if someone knows she's here. She's not here to save the people, after all, but the charge is small enough that unless someone is in the basement of the building they probably won't hear it, especially over all the bustle going on outside of the building. If any of the others still outside want to follow her down into the basement, that's on them.

Cecily Winters has posed:
    An edifice of glass and steel, the Goldman Sachs Tower is the second-tallest building in all of New Jersey. For the Ghost Spider, that means plenty of surface area for webs to connect to, and a quick-and-easy route to the roof. While there's no helipad, there is most definitely a sunken-in courtyard of sorts full of ventilation equipment and expected access doors. As also perhaps expected, a trio of armed individuals, wrapped in coats for the chill, conversing in German while the occasional flare of a cigarette can be seen lighting up where they stand.

    Tippy-Toe will, of course, have an easy time finding a way in. Rainwater piping and vents aplenty, to say nothing of the weird exhaust piping jutting out of the front about twelve stories up.

    The police don't seem to give the costumed heroes any trouble, really. Some might growl or gripe, muttering something here about freaks in costumes, or something there about lawless vigilantes, but they don't raise a hand to stop anyone from heading in. They're just there to hold the perimeter and make sure nobody gets out--and be there to clean up the aftermath. That parking garage is blocked off inside by some large black SUV's, like the vehicles brought in by the group holding the building. As it is on the roof, the garage itself is populated by a handful of the armed individuals, some loitering near the elevator, others wandering around, listless and bored seeming. "You think they'll get the data?" comes one man lingering by the elevator. "Yeah you know how many transactions go through this place on black Friday? There's a treasure trove of credit cards and bank statements in the servers here, let alone what's in the safe deposit boxes..." chuckles the woman next to him, folding her arms. They all look to be equipped with compact sub-machine guns. Perfect for the close-quarters of the building's environs.

    The basement, at present, seems devoid of anyone. No patrols, no lingering people. Nothing even important down here. Just machinery, maintenance controls, utility closets. And now, one armed raptor. It's dimly lit and seems to be an echo of everything else in the building. Just too quiet.

    Quiet like the inside of an elevator, Cecily just holding her hands behind her back, fox ears twitching, eyes locked on the floor indicator. Up. Up. Up...

Doreen Green has posed:
Doreen Green finishes her stream, "...and we will have more updates for all of you brave soldiers soon! Squirrel Girl out for now! It's time.. to get nuts!"

She turns to Hawkeye, "Sounds good! It's up to us to save the day!" She pulls her goggles down over her eyes, "I'm ready!" Her climbing claws are also adorned, "Tippy-Toe is going in to have a look around and do whatever damage she can to those guys. They won't suspect a squirrel.. they never do.."

Meanwhile Tippy-Toe has found a way inside through a vent and is making her way into the building through the ventilation system. Hopefully it won't take her too long to find the terrorists and their hostages..

Gwen Stacy has posed:
GHOST SPIDER ADVENTURES!

If Ghost Spider should drop in, offer a witty commentary, and beat the heck fire out of the trio of Germanic villains, turns to page 127.

If Ghost Spider should slip in unseen, mumble quietly to herself about how inappropriate German sounds when talking about American Baseball, and leave the villains to smoke thier way into lung cancer, turn to page 77.

flip flip flip.

Gwen fires off another line, swings ontop of one of the roof access buildings and crouches above the trip. A little slip, web, and dangle has her sliding down in between them. "Guten Tag. Welchen weg ins badezimmer?" Her head alights with warning bells, dropping off the webline faster than even the muscular fellows might be able. She snatches a rifle from one of them, hurls it at another, webs the first foot to the ground, and double kicks the third in the chest. Springing off into the most badass Stone Cold Stunner on the unarmed, webbed footed, of the trio.

"Möchten Sie die Zeitung lesen?"

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate doesn't slow down for Squirrel Girl but doesn't try to lose hereither. "I ... can definitely see how no one would ever expect a Squirrel." okay there is definitely amusement in her voice when she responds.

She falls very quiet though as she makes her way to the parking garage pausing at the ramp past the gate and hugging a wall as she looks to get a better idea of the problem. She extends just her hand carefully around the edge of the wall and watches through a HUD in her glasses what is around the corner having motioned for Doreen to hold with her bow hand.

She whispers "There are SUVs blocking out path and armed jerks... some further in too it sounds like. I am going to hit them hard... Fast.. disorientate them and start taking them out. You do .. well I won't hit you so you do whatever it is Squirrel Girl's do and take them down as fast as possible. Goal is they don't get in the elevator and warn anyone."

Which is when the Archer draws an arrow and leans out to fire it, timing the EMP tip to go off right past the SUVs and admist the men. Hoping to knock their radios for a loop.

This is swiftly followed by the archer herself moving hot down the Garage Ramp firing two arrows very fast. The first of those two a flash bang explosion into the Garage and the second an armor piercer into a bad guy's shoulder.

So many more to deal with still though.

Leena Danvers has posed:
"Quiet. Too quiet." Ballista hates quiet. It's always the calm before the storm. And usually the prelude to an ambush. She draws one of her sidearms off her hip, opting for smaller scale stuff for the moment, and then heads for the elevator. She stops when she reaches it, however. Most likely they'll have these locked down, which means that either they'll control them from a centralized location or more likely just be turned off, save for perhaps an express.

She consults her HUD to try to find the security room. She can unlock the elevators from there, most likely. Plus take out anyone they may have watching the security cameras. It's not like she can sneak past every camera that's between her and the security room, so she's going to need to be quick about it.

She moves to the stairs, hopping up them as quick as she can manage. She figures she's probably been spotted by now, and without the element of surprise she'll need to instead use the element of speed and brutality. Preservation of momentum is an important thing in combat situations. If you let yourself get bogged down, it allows your opponents time to think.

Cecily Winters has posed:
    Tippy-Toe will have to travel some ways, up and up into the building. Up forty stories to the upper levels where the office party was being held. Up and up and up! She might be able to catch a ride on an elevator, since there is one moving...

    Gwen's friends are, amusingly enough, actually dicussing the recent World Series. In German, no less. Who knows if it's tasteful or not? But the sudden question about the bathroom makes one blink, one reflexively start to actually respond, and the third to try and open fire. The rifle is stolen, the others bowled over, and it doesn't take long to completely incapacitate the stunned men. They really needed to have more than one patrol up here.

    In the parking garage, the chaos begins. The EMP does more than knock out radios. Phones go out, too, and someone who had been watching Doreen's stream end is about to yell to the others, "Hey we've got in...coming...?" His phone winks off in his hand, and he stares at it, dumbfounded. "Ah hell..." he drops the phone into his pocked and lifts his gun just in time to be blinded--and shot through the shoulder. One of the guards by the elevator punches the button, but it's going to take time to come down...

    The lower maintenance elevators that Ballista runs into are off, but stairs never shut down. How convenient. There's a lot of cameras in the stairwell, though, and someone in the control room is already starting to make calls. The people searching the offices for things get messier, picking up their searching pace, overturning things and leaving drawers thrown on the floor as they hunt for security keys and passcodes and rip hard drives out of desktop PC's and shove them into bags. The core security room itself is floor twenty, not far off of the lab the raptor is hunting for. Higher up in the winding stairwell, doors can be heard slaming open and heavy boots hitting concrete echo down from high above.

    In the elevator, the radio chatter picks up, and the four men escorting Cecily to the top floor start to eyeball her. "Wha--" she starts, only to find her shoulders grabbed and she's shoved against the wall of the elevator, gun barrel pushed against the back of her head. "..the hell?!" she growls. "Call 'em off!" barks one man, making her wince, her sensitive ears making it all the louder. "I don't know what you're--" "Your mutant friends! Call 'em off! Cameras goin' dark and there's some-THING- hauling ass up the stairs! So tell 'em to lay off or you're getting thrown out a window!" "...there are... thousands of heroes... in the greater New York City area alone... you think I know ALL of them personally? -I- didn't call anyone... this isn't MY prob--mmp!" she's cut off by a rifle butt to the side. The head dirtbag grunts, "We're making it your problem," and gestures to the others to keep her held down as he looks up at the floor indicator. The fox winces, tails batting at the side of the elevator in an agitated fashion. "Fuck."

Gwen Stacy has posed:
"That's all?" Gwen asks from a crouch, surrounded by groaning Germans.. "Shame.." Not really. She takes one of their two'ways and flips it over to find the signal they're using to communicate with their cohorts, dialing the Spider-Web in so she can listen in. She also disposes of the weapons, just in case they wake up later... which they should.. but with all the webbing on their wrists and ankles?

Unlikely they could use them.

"You boys just rest up." After patting one on the head, Ghost Spider crawls into an airduct and begins to make her way down towards a level where she saw some of those hostages. "Come to this Universe they said... It'll be grreeeat... spend Christmas in Jersey City... What could go wrong..."

Doreen Green has posed:
Tippy-Toe is still in the vent however, and is unfortuantely unaware that there is an elevator moving in that direction. However the squirrel is really fast and is scaling floors as fast as she can!

Doreen in the meanwhile is right behind Hawkeye! When the other woman suggests fighting, Doreen is only too happy to agree, "Right! Like in an MMO! I'll tank and you DPS these thugs!"

Squirrel Girl launches into the air and axe kicks the closest terrorist so that Hawkeye can begin her ranged attacks!

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate is moving like she has trained for this. Whcih she has. I mean maybe not this specific set of goons with guns and this particular parking structure. But this is definitely not the first nor last time people with guns will be wanting to hurt her and speed is of the essence.

Her approach adjusts when Doreen leaps ahead past her launching into the air like that and kicking a terrorist. "Note. Squirrels vert good at leaping and kicking." is again muttered to herself. Her angle shifts and she fires a flash bang right into the elevator panel by the guy hitting the elevator button. The next arrow is a blunt tip but it is aimed right between the eyes of a bad guy who was goiing to try to shoot Squirrel girl.

Honestly this whole time Kate has just been advancing down the ramp and past the SUVs firing arrows while keeping her profile .. well a profile turned mostly to present a smaller target while Doreen presents a bushier one.

Leena Danvers has posed:
Knowing she's been spotted, Ballista makes her way as quick as she can up the twenty flights of stairs to get to the floor.

At this point she's sure the other heroes are working their way in, probably from the roof and possibly the street. So far she hasn't actually encountered anyone, but she expects that's not going to last very long. She bursts through the door on the 20th floor, rolling as she does so in case there's armed guards watching it, and moving for cover right away.

She opts for her shotgun instead of her pistol now, and assuming nobody is shooting at her will continue to make her way towards the security room.

Cecily Winters has posed:
    To use of Gwen is the fact that the lit floors with the hostages are on the upper levels. It isn't too many floors down from the roof access that the remnants of an office party can be seen and the agitated sounds of armed men and women can be heard as loud chatter on the radio seems to indicate other intruders have been spotted. Or something about a negotiator being some kind of plant.. The elevator containing four men and a fox opens and she's shoved out into the little between-offices landing zone. "You're going to talk to Jared, and then call off your hero friends.." "I told you I don't know who's... here... Jared? Your boss's name is -JARED-?" she stares. "Yeah? So what?" "You mean it's not like... Tony... or Hans.. or something...?" "What?" he just gawks at her in disbelief before pushing her towards one of the bank offices. "Just get going!"

    Kate and Doreen have... surprisingly little trouble. Some shots are fired wildly, but flashbangs cause more trouble than anything else, and most of the group aren't keen on accidentally hitting their fellows. They have some degree of discipline but aren't going to go completely wild. Incapacitation isn't hard, either, they're just wearing light body armor, and probably hadn't planned for the cops to get involved even... It's like the office party was unexpected, and even moreso the everything else happening now.

    The 20th floor. Security office. Server rooms. And a dozen armed individuals. Most of them are there to smash and grab hard drives and pilfer data from the network, as well as monitor the security room. Gunfire erupts in Ballista's direction, small caliber SMG's hosing down the hall in long bursts. "Get back!" shouts one, another barking, "It's the one from the cameras! Get any nearer and the crew upstairs will start tossing people out of windows!"

Gwen Stacy has posed:
I feel ya girl. I was expecting Frans. See, Hans and Frans is still very popular in Gwen's universe. SNL, Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman? "It's still a viable piece of popculture okay..." Don't have to explain it to me Gwen.

Seeing Cecily being shoved along, Ghost Spider frowns beneath her mask and crawls through the grate towards a hatch that will give her both a better view and allow entrance when the moment to strike is appropriate.

"Now I just have to give her signal to give me a signal." Seems simple enough!

*CRACKLE* - that's a fake sound, nobody uses walkie talkies anymore. Gwen actually forces the comms in her suit to do it.. she's a nerd. *CRACKLE I SAY*

>"Hey there Jared... you're not that guy from the Subway commericials are you? Picking on young super heroines is /not/ the way to get over the whole scandel... you know what you did.. don't make me tell your friends who you really are."

*CRACKLE*

Doreen Green has posed:
Tippy-Toe is getting really close to where the thugs inside are. She can start to hear conversation and other noise with her squirrely ears!

Doreen meanwhile is kicking butt and taking names! "YAH!" Another kick, another one, leap, kick again. Then a punch that comes out of nowhere when the next thug expects a kick! She tries to stay away from Kate's arrows as much as she can!

Kate Bishop has posed:
Well Kate is thankfully a very.. very good shot. She manages to not pin a Squirrel to the wall or any friendly fire yet at least.

One would be robber is glue arrowed to the floor and the rest well incapacitated one way or another before Kate walks over to elevator past the dazed thug that had so kindly hit the button. She taps him with a tazer arrow leaving it on him and him twitching on the floor.

<<DING>>

"Our ride is here Squirrelly" she notes chipperly and steps inside, waiting for Doreen before hitting the hostage floor button and whistling as she waits. The elevator music is nicely holiday themed.

Leena Danvers has posed:
"I'm not here for the hostages!" Ballista calls out in between bursts of gunfire that's coming her way, "So go ahead and throw them off the building if you want, that's just going to piss off all the actual heroes and then they'll probably kick your asses even more than I will."

"I'm here for one specific thing, so if you let me get it, I probably won't shoot you." She pulls a grenade off of her belt behind cover. She pulls the pin on it, but holds onto the spoon for the moment, "So what's it gonna be? Let me go by and get what I want, or are we gonna fight?" Their answer will determine her next course of action.

Cecily Winters has posed:
    "See, that's what -I- was saying.." Cecily responds to the radio crackling. Wait. Radios crackle these days? And... that's when the four men and the fox pause. "...wait... who said that?" asks the head dirtbag. "...I don't know," Cecily deadpans and sighs. "You do realize I could kill the four of you right now and I'm only going along with -any- of this because I'd rather not see anyone dead tonight. The hostages OR your mates.." she folds her arms. They never did restrain her.

    The crew in the parking garage was... very limited to begin with. A half dozen at best. Twice as many as the roof. With the threat of a hostage crisis, it's likely that they were just token guards to make sure the cops didn't do anything funny while the majority of the team was hauling ass through the building filling their bags with stolen drives from PC's and servers as well as loading thumb drives with hacked data from the secure intranet. As such, Doreen and Kate find themselves alone in an elevator, with jaunty music so common this time of year one can simply sing the words of these instrumental tracks to themselves. And thankfully, for convenince, these elevators do seem to go all the way to the upper offices, simply to make life easier for the workers.

    On floor 20, the gunfire stops, and the shouting of Ballista can be heard on radios across the building. As well as some chuckles from the dirty dozen holed up near the security room. Boots can be heard coming down the stairs, closer and closer to flanking Ballista. "Yeah, right. What could possibly be here that's more important? We're cleaning this place out and then getting out. Besides, how do we know you're not going to just shoot us in the back after you get by? Whatever you got that's worth coming in here, we're taking it too!" he barks at her. Maybe they're less actual terrorists and really just... well-armed thieves.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Enter the Spider!

Gwen pops open the grate and drops down in the midst of all of them in a low crouch. "SURPRISE! It was 'I', Ghost Spider, the entire time!" She knows most of them will have no earthly clue who she is. "... Oh come on... really? You know words can hurt, okay?" She gets all Oprah Winfrey with eye webs.

"YOU get an eye web."

"And you get an eye web."

Twisting, turning, firing under her arms. Hoping that the others they mentioned show up soon because she really didn't think this surprise attack through all the way.

Call it youthful exuberance.

"Squirrel Girl is here guys! USE YOUR WORDS!"

Running up a wall and doing a drawn out back flip, head web, jerk, head floor.

"Don't fight angry..."

Doreen Green has posed:
Tippy-Toe reaches the floor with the hostages and peeks out of the ventilation shaft. If anything she can launch herself down in a surprise attack once Doreen bursts into the room.. and Tippy-Toe knows her leader and friend enough to know that usually happens at some point!

Doreen waits in the elevator with Kate, "That wasn't hard at all! I didn't even have to use my tail! Their friends upstairs have no idea that New York's finest superheroes are coming to get them!"

She pulls out her phone and begins another stream, "Squirrel Girl here! Me and Hawkeye just beat down some of the robbers holding those poor people hostage! There are more but don't worry! We got this!"

Kate Bishop has posed:
Hawkeye humms "The weather outside is frightful.... da..da...delightful.." forgetting some of the words and mostly mixing humming along with the words there. "Well I mean you are very good at leaping and kicking butt Doreen and they weren't really equiped to deal with all that. Not like they were Warzoon or Brainiac drones or anything..."

Pauses.

"Honestly I think they didn't expect to take hostages or have a police standoff.. not enough gear really."

When Doreen pulls out her phone Hawkeye leans into the frame and flashes a peace sign and then well....

<<DING<<

She rolls out going low and off to the side.

Oh Look, Gwen is kicking all sorts of bad guy ass there. Also Grade-A quipping. Top Notch. Simply the finest.

"Right." and Kate shoots a mook with a pistol in the hand pinning it to his calf with a broadside arrow. She manages to not hit any arteries though. "Candygram!"
Deep call back. For some reason SNL quips seemed topical, probably a metaverse thing.

Leena Danvers has posed:
"Welp, don't say I didn't give you a chance." Ballista says, as she hucks the grenade around the corner from her cover. It bursts into a cloud of smoke that fills the coridor, and she switches to thermals on her HUD. She's probably not going to outright kill these guys, but they're not mercenaries and they're not terrorists. If they were the latter she'd definitely just finish them off.

She slings her shotgun and using the armored suit and her bare fists...And probably her teeth and scythe claw, using the smoke as a way to stay unseen while she cuts her way through them. A flurry of teeth and fists, should leave them bloodied and battered but mostly still alive.

Cecily Winters has posed:
    It's over so quickly. Gwen's spider-skills dropping the crew in a flurry of quips and web-goo. One guy manages to depress the trigger on his gun just enough to put holes in a line of 'Investor of the Month' photos but he's downed by webbing before he can actually aim at a real face. Even Cecily, though, isn't sure who this Ghost Spider is. But as she said, she doesn't have a huge list of heroes in her call book. Slowly, her arms fall to her sides and the elevator opens with a ding--and an arrow.

    And then... they're alone. Well. At least, alone without any functioning thieves. Alone together. The ones Gwen had dropped are either half-struggling or just resigning themselves to their fate. The one that takes an actual arrow is curled up in the fetal position on the ground. Cecily, to her credit, snatches up his fallen pistol. "Huh. Glock..." she muses, checking the magazine. It's jam packed. "Well they're using live ammunition... that's a thing... not even rubber rounds..." she tsks softly. "Goddess I feel naked without a sidearm..." she grunts and opts to hold it in her hand instead of stuff it down her skirt. That's just improper.

    "Right! Welcome!" she greets the trio of superheroines, then rubs her forehead with the heel of her palm. "...hostages, bad guys, big bad guy Jared, yadda yadda... Fucking Henry is going to owe me big for this... just... try to find the best-dressed guy in the place that isn't being handcuffed to--" there's a shatter of glass and a -scream- from one of the other rooms, and then sounds of struggling. "...something... Fuck."

    Down on floor 20, all hell breaks loose. The grenade is tossed, someone yells "GRENADE!" as one does to warn his mates, and then it goes all tits up and smokey. The armed men don't have any kind of special sight gear, and the flashlights on their firearms only turn the sudden cloud of obscuring smoke into a rave party. Gunfire erupts as they try to follow the last place they saw Ballista, but there's nothing in that spot to hit. These guys wouldn't survive a night in Jurassic Park, and if not for the raptor opting to not kill them, they'd definitely not survive the night. Their light armor is only good against bullets, not the piercing might of tooth and claw...

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Gwen does a little kickstep dance when all the goons are delt with. So what if it happens to be on the side of a verticle wall? Who are any of you to judge her disdain for gravity?

Cartwheel, she's down in a crouch, checking on arrow to the knee/gut/whatever guy. "I'm kind of disappointed that nobody has lost their shoes." Gwen says for the sake of the gathered heroines. Motioning around at all of their footsies.

Until she sees Tippie Toe... who is not wearing shoes.

Snap point at the Squirrel, "Yippie Ki yay, mother nutter."

Doreen Green has posed:
Doreen Green looks around, blinking rapidly, "Woah.. they all just dropped to the ground so fast.." She looks at Gwen, "That was so COOL! We really need to form our own Avengers squad!" She speaks into her phone camera again, "And that people is how it's done! I'm not the only hero around! Never forget that!" She turns the phone to face Gwen, "Epic!"

Kate Bishop has posed:
"Well I mean.." she looks at Doreen but the Squirrel is already live streaming again. "The Titans do get things done." she notes with amusment. "Also shout out, Ghost Spider is definitely epic."

Kate looks over towards where the scream came from and then dashes over that way, kicking the door right where one does to break it inwards with a loud BANG of impact revealing ... Hostages. More of them since this whole floor has not beeen cleared yet. Also a round of Bad guys whom probably need to be dealt with whom seem to be threatening the hostages with defenestration.

One bad guy gets a putty arrow to glue him to the hostage and the floor, no throwing out the window tonight then Kate dives behind a chair "Guys, backup!"

Leena Danvers has posed:
As the smoke clears, a dozen guys are laying on the ground, some unconcious, some bleeding, but all of them down for the count.

Ballista heads for the security room finally, and uses it to check on the status of the Null lab. Of course no doubt several of the guys in the smoke called for backup before she was able to bring them down, so she quickly starts going to work on preparing for the next wave of robbers to come down here.

In the security room, once she's done checking on Null, she'll go try to see what else is going on. Where the heroes are, or the hostages. Not that she /cares/ about the hostages or anything, but she hopes they're okay.

Cecily Winters has posed:
    "Is... is that a reference?" Cecily asks, bewildered, ears twitching. She's not so young to forget Die Hard, but it's the last thing on her mind. She rubs her face as things start to go south again, and watches Kate dash off to be dashing. "You two.... three?" she counts Doreen and Tippie-Toe as individuals, and rightly so, "Check the other offices, there's got to be at least one more group..." and hurries to help Gwen. Inside, there's... a skeleton crew. The workers are cuffed to chairs and desks or tied with clothes or jackets, and the majority of the hostage-takers are ... not here. There's three. Guns drawn. The fourth... is squirming on the ground. Two. Two with their guns drawn. Cecily lets loose a pair of rounds with her 'salvaged' pistol and nails one in his shooting arm and that shoulder. Where's everyone else? Aside from the other rooms, they're probably...

    ...bursting through the stairwell door to find the bloody, beaten mess that Ballista had left of that floor's 'garrison.' Some start to back off, it's another dozen people. "...we didn't sign up for this..." gripes one. "...this was supposed to be a quick smash and grab...!" shouts another. "Someone screwed up and got the cops and the capes involved..." a woman growls. "Look, we didn't kill anyone, we didn't -hurt- anyone... let's just..." they start to inch back towards the stairs, save for one or two, who are rubbing their foreheads. "..are you all SERIOUS?"

    Ballista will, perhaps thankfully, find that the thieves hadn't gotten to the Null Labs floor just yet, or its offices, and had been mainly focusing on the more financially-oriented office floors, but it's likely if they had gone on unchallenged, there would have been a breach.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
LET'Z GET ZE 'ELL OUTTA HE'AH

That's what Gwen imagines they scream.

"Epic." Double thumbs up for Squirrel girl, tiny little Spider, not realizing she's being streamed to an audience. Not caring if she is, of course, just not /realizing/.

But Cecily is right! There is screams afoot!

"Oh, true." Bobbing her head. She follows along, at a low crouch, crawling to one side and leaping up like Charlie's Angels when Cecily busts them into the last hold out of Germanics to remain!

"Oh come on guys..." Her wrist extends, hand bent, and web launches out to goo'up one of the barrels of a firearm. Yanking with all her sudden might to pull the man holding it off his balance towards her. She ducks to the side, leg extended, and watches him trip over her shin.

Whipping the webbed gun around her wrist on a shirt length of thready silk held in her hand. She spins into it, steps through a whirling, wraps it around her elbow, curls about so her other elbow takes a second loop, and grips the web just beneath the pistol like a chain-whip dart.

"In true action hero fashion, I'm going to Jackie Chan your ass."

The man snorts, barrels at her, and Gwen springs. Extending her hand out, uncoiling her whole body, and firing the pistol forward right into the bridge of his nose with the equivical force of a sledgehammer.

"Sweet Christmas."

Doreen Green has posed:
Tippy-Toe finally jumps down and lands on Doreen's right shoulder. Doreen gives the squirrel a brief nod, "Right!" She looks into her camera again, "And now it's time to finish putting an end to this dastardly evil plan of theirs! Hiyah!"

And with that she sets off towards one of the offices.

Kate Bishop has posed:
Hmm. No backup coming. Other offices to be searched.

Kate waves her gloved hand up quick, giving her a sneak peak at the layout and the remaining gunners in her office onto her HUD.

Honestly it is just flat out cheating. "Okay I count two." she notes to herself softly.

She then rolls out from behind the chair she is behind and fires off one and then two arrows.

she manages to get shot in her leg, but her armor is ... good. Though it will be leaving a WICKED bruise there.

The arrows. Well one of them slams right through the jerk who shot hers shoulder and pins him to the wall. Broadhead.

The other is another Flashbang, though she bounced it right off the last gunmen's forehead knocking him out with the concussive force.

"Fuck that hurts!" not at all mindful of poor Doreen and Tippy Toe's sensitive ears. Hope the streamers didn't hear that.

They probably totally did.

Leena Danvers has posed:
After ensuring that the Null labs are secure, Ballista can hear the group outside of the security room. She gets a bit of a funny idea in her head, and the moves over to the wall and flicks all of the light switches down, killing the lights in the security room and the hallway. Once they're off, she slips out of the door and purposely runs past a couple of the flashlights from the crew she had beaten before to project her shadow on the wall, and briefly illuminate herself in the darkness for a moment.

Then she stops in front of one of the flashlights, and it illuminates her, and she lets out a roar, showing off the raptor visage to the robbers who still haven't fled. Now's where they find out if they want to attack her or flee, fight or flight!

Cecily Winters has posed:
    At this stage, really, it's an easy mop-up for the costumed heroes. Cecily starts assessing the hostages in Kate's room, freeing them and getting them away from the open window, which looks like someone hurled a chair through. Gwen easily finds another group of dudes to beat up, though she'll be a little more hard-pressed as they've taken to using the hostages as human shields by this point! And not all of them are speaking German. There's a lot of others in the group, too. Kate's office is clear after that expletive-shouting raider is left with a concussion from a handgun to the face. And Doreen... Doreen will find two armed men, and one lightly-armed man in a nicer outfit. Cecily did mention the boss would probably be better dressed. It's like, tactical-business-casual? Don't ask. He's barking into the radio, "Just take what you've got and rendesvous in the parking garage! What do you mean the garage team has gone dark?" He's agitated. Severely. And his two guards are looking around nervously.

    As for the dozen that Ballista flexes her terrifying might on... most of them run. They'd maybe expected some resistance, MAYBE one hero if things went south. But a mutant raptor? No. Nope. They do the smart thing and start to rush down the stairs in an orderly panicked fashion, leaving their guns and gains behind. The two remaining 'strong men' that had tried to restore order just... begin unloading their small-caliber automatics at Ballista.

Doreen Green has posed:
Doreen Green happens to walk in on a very angry boss and two henchmen. There isn't time to do much else.. except.. "Let's get NUTS!" She's smiling, holding her phone in hand, and jumping into the air. She spins on launch, Tippy-Toe leaping off, and then landing on one of the thugs. The squirrel bites into the man's nose and claws both eyes with either clawed paw.

Doreen smacks the second henchman with her tail... like REALLY hard. Then she front kicks the boss and moves in to punch him in the face.

Next round!

Gwen Stacy has posed:
"Oh.. oh we're using hostages now." Gwen brushes her thumb across the lump that is her nose beneath her mask, strolling in like a tiny little UFC fighter with all the swagger of a spider... Room full of goons, check. Not as easy as just pouncing on themm, but it's not like she's never been in a situation like this before right?

When it pops off, it pops off suddenly.

Ghost Spider ducks to her right, then goes left, kicking off a wall and grabbing a conference phone from a desk to hurl over the shoulder of hostage, right into a goons kisser. While still airborne, she webs the hostage in the chest and pulls them back into a rolling chair. Rolls over her shoulders and spring kicks it through the door to safety. Right into a kip-up, round off over another pair of goon/hostage. Grabbing the German by the head as she sails over him backwards, both legs extended out to either side, she pushes back and down to bounce his brain shield off the floor. Putting herself between the hostage and the remaining pair of goons with their meatshields.

Both webshooters hook a line and she's in a short swing. stretching her body out like a dart, she launches OVER the other pair and rebounds off the window back in their direction. Bowling through ones knees, she rolls up and grabs the hostage and spins her towards the doorway like a tango partner.

Which just leaves one.

"Shoot the hostage."

"nah, I'm kidding."

THWAP THWAP.

Both launchers hook the light over his head on one side, yank it down, and smash him across the side with it. When the hostage stumbles away, she jumping roundhouse kicks him /through/ the glass window. But webs his chest with his feet teetering on the edge. "You know in the movies, the German guy does like an epic fall down to the streets below? That was the Nakamora Tower though..." Yank, back in, right into a knee aimmed at his solar plexas.

"Okay! I have had my fill of beating up Ze Germanz!"

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate walks out of her cleared office, leaving Cecily to deal with the hostages really since the gunman are all down. Rubbing her thigh as she walks. She isn't limping. She would rather fall over dead than be caught limping in front of two bit bad guys like this.

She pokes her head into Gwen's office. "Oh hey. Looks like this is all wrapped up in webbing and only needs a bow on it for the Cop's christmas party..." she smiles to Gwen. "Ze Germanz... speaking of which I haven't seen a well dressed one yet ... also where do you think Doreen got off to Epic Spider?"

Leena Danvers has posed:
Really? REALLY!?

Ballista growls as the guys shoot her. Her suit absorbs most of the damage from the shots, but it still hurts enough that she's getting pissed off. At this point she's too close to bail for cover again, so she's going to charge forward, and chomp down on the gun hand of one of the shooters.

Let's see if the other one wants to keep shooting after seeing his buddy's hand getting severed at the wrist by a giant dinosaur monster.

Cecily Winters has posed:
    Cecily seems to be the defacto liaison for the police when stuff like this goes down. It's not only that she used to be a cop, but she's pretty great at filling out police reports involving heroes. And knowing what to put and what not to put on one. "Hawkeye.. Ghost Spider... Squirrel Girl..." she rattles off the names, shaking her head, but smiling. "Being the bait really sucks, you know?" she grumbles to herself. But smiling. She's thankful. And nobody got hucked out a window. Even if her sharp ears hear what's going on elsewhere. Maybe someone did? Hopefully not a hostage. She finishes untying the ones in her room and, with a sigh, gathers up discarded guns and jams them into a duffel bag, disarming goons as she goes.

    In Doreen's Office of Pain, it's.... a pretty normal scene. At least, for anyone not the three other fellows. Being assaulted by a squirrel is not on one's bucket list, and he runs, screaming, right into a wall. The second gets the wind knocked out of him, sending him stumbling back into a water cooler as he drops his weapon. The boss? Drops his radio while doubling over and there's a very high chance that his nose will explode with blood if that punch hits him right in the snoot. Power boop?

    Gwen's group... is not ready for the ghost spider. They already find the whole human shield thing distasteful, and seem to be more okay with turning their guns on Gwen. Shots get fired, but the only casualties are a computer screen and someone's bonsai ficus plant's pot. These guys really aren't the A-Team, they just wanted to do a job, deal with security, maybe push around some people, and leave with loot. Not get spider-plastered to stuff and dangled out a window! "I'm not even German!" the panicked guy shouts in a ... well there's kind of a bit of a Hispanic accent there, actually. It's a multicultural group of goons. But he's at least not left to fall. Or dangle. And hits the floor in pain--an relief. The hostage stuck to the chair kind of just reels from the spinning and the motion and... "...ewww what is this stuff MADE of?" ..webbing.

    The retreating goons in the stairwell get to hear the gunfire echoing down after them, and then the scream. Oh it's a hell of a scream. Also the guy tastes pretty terrible as he loses a hand. There's a mess everywhere, but the shooting stops. Number eleven, partner to number twelve, just throws his hands up and drops the gun, flattening himself against the stairwell door that has, unfortunately, since closed. "No, no, no, no, I'm done. Don't eat me. DON'T EAT ME!" he screams. His mic is hot, and every radio across the entire building, even the ones upstairs, broadcast this to the rest of the heroes and hostages. Well. Sounds like business is taken care of elsewhere.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
You know what this moment is?

Dance part time!

Gwen goes into a wicked dance move, mostly the running man, and that dance that Turk does in Scrubs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wMYs4m39dE

Leena Danvers has posed:
Ballista immediately spits out the hand and starts to scrape her tongue off with her own hand, "Ew ew ew gross do you not wash your hands?!" She makes a face, ugh. So gross.

She grabs the radio off of the guy who dropped his gun, and then looks at the dude who's hand she bit off, picking it up and tossing it at the one with both, "I think you might be able to get that reattached if you go turn yourself in. Now scoot!"

She clicks the radio on and after a second speaks up, "Hey I don't know if any of you heroes got a hold of one of these dumbasses' radios, but if you did I took care of like a dozen of them on the 20th floor and the rest are running downstairs to turn themselves in now. So this floor is all secure, my work here is done."

She drops the radio and then goes to head back down stairs, to exit the way she came in.

Doreen Green has posed:
Doreen Green does indeed power boop.. and the boss gets a face full of blood! It's not like she's aiming the camera at the bad guys! Tippy-Toe leaps off of the unconcious goon she was biting into and onto the boss JUST in case he isn't put down by Doreen's punch.

With the boss on the ground, as well as the other two, Doreen finally holds the camera back up to talk again, "And there you have it Nuts and Boots Army, the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and a group of New York's best heroes stopped a bank heist, and made sure that the bad guys were wrapped and ready for the police to take home for dinner... um.. not like literally FOR dinner..." Tippy-Toe makes a high pitched "sigh" noise feeling SG's total mismatch of words..

Doreen catches herself, "They are totally going to jail! They wanted to get nuts... and we got NUTS."

Kate Bishop has posed:
"I wonder whom the mysterious stranger is..." Kate notes glancing at one of the radios. She picks it up off the floor and clicks it <<Roger Ten Four Good Buddy>> just enjoying a moment of repeating random trucker talk into the radio to whoever that is that took out the twentieth floor. Explains the explosions.

Dropping the radio again she looks over to watch Gwen dance. "Okay we need to update your moves. also you owe me some training time in the Danger Room later Ghost."

Oh, that sounded like a bad guy being beat on, she heads to look in Doreen's door. "Okay I think this is officially a wrap... good show team good show."

Cecily Winters has posed:
    Cecily, lugging a duffel bag full of guns seemingly effortlessly, leans on the door to the room the other three are in. She lifts a brow at the squirrel-eaten state of one of them, and of course the boss clutching his face, rolling around on the floor in pain--and blood. "...well done, dears... the police are starting to sweep the building, they'll be heading up here first to make sure the hostages get to the paramedics safely, and then will sweep it floor by floor... there's a lot of property damage.... to say nothing of the... trauma.." she glances at the hostage still stuck to a chair, quirking a brow.

    "...anyway... here..." she fishes into a poccket in her vest, passing out business cards. Simple white cards with a phone number and a stylized black outline of a fox's head on one side. "Call me if you need backup? Cecily Winters, security consultant." she winks. "And if any of you want to get out of here and not talk to Jersey City's finest, now's your chance..." she offers a smirk to the costumed crew, fox ears twitchin.

    Down below, the cops are dealing with the first tide of ten who were fleeing, easily giving the well-armed raptor an easy escape back through the sewers and out... The bloody mess on the 20th floor will take some clever explaining... and a lot of cleanup.

Doreen Green has posed:
Doreen Green takes the card, "Right! Can't have too much backup!" She glances at the knocked out goons, "It's all a work in progress.. ya know.. not hurting the bad guys so much." She glances at the hostages, "I hope they're okay.."