4503/Bad Santa

Bad Santa
Date of Scene:	27 December 2020
Location:	Bronx
Synopsis:	Surprised Saviors Stop Society of Sinister Santas
Cast of Characters:	Simon Lasker, Johnny Storm, Scott Lang, Michael Hannigan

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Simon Lasker has posed:
Simon Lasker The Broadway Plaza is packed today. The Christmas decorations are still up for a day almost as important as Christmas itself--Returns day! People are packing the stores to trade in the wrong-size underwear they got from the aunt they never see and the obnoxious political books from the uncle who is absolutely miserable to be around at Thanksgiving for things that they actually want. The air is filled with the din of people complaining that they cant return the phone they stepped on the day they got it and about the old lady at the front of the line who decided to pay for a widescreen tv with nickles and dimes.

Pyro is already in a bad mood from carrying all those boxes here on the train, and then the jostling crowd just made it worse.

"I swear it just gets worse every year. Death of retail stores my $##2551."

The list of stores ahead of him was daunting. What could you even get at an electronics store for $14?

Johnny Storm has posed:
Johnny Storm always gets what he wants for Christmas.

Which is to say, gift cards. No fuss, no muss, no messy emotional attachments. No, Johnny's here for a different reason, that being a messy emotional attachment. "I cannot believe." Johnny says to himself, walking through a crowd that parts and gasps because he's in uniform. "Ben chooses this year to actually be serious about giving up smoking. Man smokes like a bad tempered chimeny for as long as I've known him but no, he can't deal with the temtpation of a box of cigars matchstick, you'll understand when you're older."

Johnny adjusts his jacket collar in frustration, holding a box of extremely expensive cigars very carefully. "They'd better take these back or I'm MAKING him smoke them."

Scott Lang has posed:
Scott was also in uniform, but he kept his under his clothes, the tight outfit working just fine with hoodie and sweatpants which, layers never hurt anyone. Far less gasps and points, he is amazingly NOT returning something, but instead seeking something. "This is what I get for meeting new people two days before Christmas. Liquor store, liquor store, wherefore art though liquor store..." Scott mumbles to himself before he stops and actually looks around, at least three in his immediate vicinity. "Man that cannot be a good sign for this part of town," he notes as he starts for the nearest one which also proudly proclaimed they cashed checks and offered Lotto tickets.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Mike is one of the fortunate ones. There are no presents that require returning this year. At least, not immediately. But everything is still decorated for Christmas. And, without the looming threat of holiday bookings until New Years Eve. He's pretty much free up. Which might be why the knitcapped rocker isn't in any rush and is instead enjoying a cup of hot chocolate and a rather gaudily decorated sugar cookie in the comfort of the crowded food court.

Simon Lasker has posed:
Simon Lasker A suspicious white van with the words FREE ICECREAM spraypainted on the side in red letters pulls up outside the mall with a loud screech coming from its brakes. Out pop four different dangerous looking men in different colored santa outfits (Red, Green, Blue and Yellow) with obviously fake white beards covering their faces. They are each holding a large candycane that they hold like a real gun, and they each have an empty brown sack over their shoulder. They run out around to each of the main entries and run in freezing the doors shut with their candycane guns at the locks and hinges after they enter. The people inside would notice them soon after when they come in and cover the ceilings with ice.

"Everybody down! Give us your valubles peacefully and no-one needs to get hurt!"

Blue and Yellow then start going into the shops as Red and Green run crowd control.

Pyro is almost relieved when the trouble starts. A break from the forced cheer of the holidays it just what he always wanted for Christmas! He puts down his boxes before ducking behind a pillar to get his bearings.

For the most part people are co-operating with as much grumbling as they think they can get away with, but a few would be heroes have already been iced. This calls for dramatic action.

He peeks out and shoots flame at Green before the sprinklers go off and douse the flame. That did not go well.

Johnny Storm has posed:
Johnny is barely paying attention to idiots in costumes running around. He's in a mood and he actually TRIED with his gift this year and the ever loving blue eyed jerk just tosses it aside well he's getting eight days of nothing next year, Johnny can tell you that.

His ears perk up the shouts and cries of panic. Johnny looks up, about to make a quip, when someone quick on the trigger fires. The Human Torch feels a flash of fire from somewhere, which is odd but not unprecedented in a Manhattan robbery, and then the damn sprinklers turn on. Johnny gets wet, the cigars get ruined, and more importantly he'll have to burn off the water in order to flame on. It'll only take a second, but with how shoot-crazy these santas are...

"Hey, hold on there, nobody's gotta die." Johnny recognizes Scott out of the corner of his eye and does what he does best; moves to grab attention, walking into the open so everyone can see a Fantastic Four member is here, hands in the air. "I'm a better hostage than any three people in this room." Johnny says, and lies just a little. "And while these sprinklers are on I can't use my powers. So why don't you idiots use me instead of shooting some old lady in the knee like the heroes of crime you are."

Now he just has to hope Ant-Man, and whatever other do-gooders in the crowd he hasn't recognized, can take advantage of his setup.

Scott Lang has posed:
Sake obtained Scott steps back out with his bagged bottle of booze, a satisfied grin on his face...until the sprinklers kick on and douse him in water. "Wonderful. Demons, pro wrestlers, now this. No wonder malls are dying," Scott grumbles as he surveys the scene with annoyance only for Johnny Storm to catch his attention with his brave and inspiring speech. Scott meanwhile does what Scott does best...shrinks out of sight, leaving behind a hoodie and sweatpants on the floor alongside his bottle of sake which don't shrink with him. Clad in his Ant-Man suit, the now far tinier hero begins hopping and sprinting across the floor, cursing under his breath in his helmet.

"One, one normal day out shopping. That's all I want. God dammit, I need to get groceries tomorrow, I bet a kraken shows up," the whiny hero states even as he nears one of the baddies who has focused themselves on Johnny.

"And a one of these," Scott cockily chirps as he leaps up and kicks a mall bench which goes sliding as if pushed by a ghost towards the man's knees.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Guady as it may be, the cookie is delicious and compliments the warm drink quite well. Unknowing of the trouble setting up outside, Mike does get to finish enjoying his purchase and gets up to take care of the generated trash.

By the time he reaches the bins, the glimpse of a evil santas brandishing candycanes as weapons does cause him to give pause. The instructions uttered move him into action. Tilting his head down, he mutters to himself as he tosses the cup and wrapper away. All the while the angle of his face obscures the mirroring of his features. The grandiose response of Torch effectively eliminates the chance of anyone looking his way. He shakes his head, turning to head down the hallway leading to the bathrooms, vanishing once the walls block the view of what he's doing.

Simon Lasker has posed:
Yellow notices Johnny's speech and looks panicked.

"Oh (bleep) Oh (bleep)" he says into the air as he presses on something on his ear "Red, Red we've got Human Torch here, what do I do boss?" Anyone close enough now knows they have radios.

The bench that Scott kicked slams into Blue's knees. The santa screams and falls down while wildly freezing the ceiling. The sprinklers above him create a gentle coat of snow on the floor when hit by the ice beams. Blue looks around wildly-- confused as to what hit him.

Between the sprinklers, Johnny Storm and the general confusion, no one notices mike slip off around a corner.

Green turns his head towards Pyro and starts to make his way towards him, awkwardly stepping over civillians

"Red, Some idiot tried to use flame in a building with sprinklers! I am going to deal with it."

Red makes his way out of an electronics store with things already in his sack.

"One at a time, One at a time. I can't understand you when you speak over each other!"

"Well, crap." Pyro thinks to himself as he ducks back behind the pillar and grabs a fire extinguisher-- ready to either spray or hit someone with it.

Johnny Storm has posed:
Johnny swallows a grin, trying not to enjoy this challenge. The hurled bench was a great trick, just the sort of thing Sue'd do to mess with some armed men. At least before she got all 'just use a force-field Johnny, we don't need to show off!', ugh.

Speaking of secondary powers, despite not flaming on and still acting like he is a hostage, Johnny's eyes gleam red for just a second. Pyro's mutant power may well feel the pryokinesis at work, as Yellow's gun starts getting slowly getting hotter, building up to a temperature that's burning hot to the touch!

"Feeling a little uncomfortable, bud?" Johnny asks Yellow.

Scott Lang has posed:
The holidays are stressful. Scott was feeling it by this point, his life had gotten crazy over the last week and a half, which was saying something. And here, here was a chance to take it out on someone that wasn't an alien overlord. As Blue starts to sit up they'll feel a pinch on their ankle before getting swung by their leg, their butt sliding on the ground. SMACK into the side of the mall fountain, for which mall doesn't have a fountain? The blow isn't enough to knock them out though as the thug begins to panic now, grabbing their gun and pointing around wildly at the surrounding area...only for their beard to flip up in their face as Ant-Man skips around on top of them.

"And THIS is for besmirching Santa! Gimme that before you hurt someone!" Scott demands, delivering a more solid but miniaturized punch before kicking the gun from the man's hands and going after it as it slides across the floor. Hopping atop the gun he takes a look at what few controls there were on the side of it. "Just hit the safety here and my good deed...NOT A SAFETY, NOT A SAFETY!" Scott cries out in a panic, flipping a switch he thought would make things slightly safer. Instead it begins to fire out a constant stream while spinning on the floor. Combined with the sprinkler system, very soon a large swath of the mall floor was an ice rink while Scott rides rodeo on the wildly spinning weapon trying to turn it back off.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Now unseen, the phantasm turns around, heading out of the hallway he just ducked into. With a bit more freedom of movement, the man observes the surroundings. The Yellow santa appears to be closest to the rather loudly introduced Johnny Storm so... that guy's probably screwed. Blue looks like he's been hit so- Hank maybe? No... Pym is either getting ready to or is already doing that thing previously discussed so...someone else then. Maybe that Lang guy. Either way Blue's tumble has shown that the candy canes seem to be weapons so that's not good. Probably best to focuson that.

Looking up and down Phantasm sees the red santa emerge from the store, seemingly talking into a radio or something. Others seen apparently already engaged, he heads his way over there quickly, steps making no sound.

As the floor visibly turns into ice the unseen figure jumps and slides, making note not to look directly at the blasts coming from the direction of Blue. Yep. DEFINITELY Lang.

Now, upon reaching Red, Phantasm doesn't slam into the guy but instead reaches over, touching his hand to the top of the candy cane gun, loaning out his ability to that object alone. Time for a case of disappearing candy cane!

Simon Lasker has posed:
"Torch is attacking me!" Yellow squeeks before firing his gun in to the cieling while waving it wildly to cool it off. Smoke comes off his gloves. The cold blasts coming out of his gun come out in fits and starts until it cools off.

"He must have gotten past me!" Green says as he turns arount to go towards his compatriots.

"Invisible Woman took my gun!" Blue says after a grunt of pain. Shortly after that the spinning gun covers his arm in ice. The sprinklers appear to limit the effectiveness of the gun, especially when it isn't staying on the same target for too long.

After a few tries the spinning gun stops firing... but now there is a loud hum with a steadily climbing pitch.

Red does not immediately notice that his gun is invisible until he tries to aim it at Johnny Storm. At that point he discovers that he can't see the sights. "Oh crap its the Fantastic four! Guys we gotta get out of here before The Thing shows up!" He then throws his gun at a wall and tries to run. The gun starts to hum like Blue's

Pyro sighs in relief when Green walks away. He then runs to an exit and torches the door open. He runs back up to some people and starts directing people out of the newly openned exit.

Johnny Storm has posed:
Johnny sort of looks at the guy refusing to let go of a burning metal gun and shooting it in the air instead.

"I mean, okay." Johnny says, and takes a swing directly at the Yellow Santa's jaw. It is a good old fashioned haymaker, learned from the boxing gym of the ever loving blue eyed Thing himself.

And then the other gun goes off. "Woah!" Johnny shouts, slipping for a second as he kicks into the air, feet flaming on despite the sprinkler to keep afloat. This may give Yellow Santa a second to recover!

Scott Lang has posed:
The spinning stops as does the wild firing. Scott Lang has victoriously defeated a Salvation Army reject with a candycane firearm. "I probably shouldn't mention this to Natasha," he gripes, zapping himself back to a normal height as the battered and partially frozen Blue looks on. Scott making sure to take the time to point at him and note, "Not to worry sir, even I won't make ice puns."

"What are you..." is as far as the fellow gets before Scott blasts the poor helpless soul with one of his wrist gauntlets. Only then noticing the humming that has begun at his feet. "Oh c'mon! I wanted to take this home!" grasping at his hair a moment as he looks down at the weapon which has begun to jitter a bit on the icy floor. Think think, what would Hank do? Yell at Scott...no that doesn't help. And then Scott's eyes widen as he pulls out a small odd looking disc from a pouch on his suit, looking entirely too much like some high-tech fidget spinner. He presses something on it and then drops it on the gun, the firearm promptly proceeding to shrink down until it's scarcely visible, along with whatever effects it was about to unleash.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
When Red freaks and throws the gun, it becomes visible as it goes sailing mid-air towards the wall, smacking it. Crap. Phantasm should have made the gun intangible to him as well. Should have grabbed on to it too. The change in sound coming from the gun gives Phantasm a sinking feeling.

Not really having a plan for the beeping yet, Phantasm swings a fist for Red's face. Maybe if HE can't leave he'll tell them how to turn off the beeping for them.

Simon Lasker has posed:
After that hit, Yellow doesn't need to be told twice to run. As soon as the room stops spinning he gets up and runs back towards the van.

The humming from his gun has Blue's face turning as white as his beard. He tries to run away from it in a blind panic before being blasted. He then gets up again and attempts to fling himself down to the lower split level of the foodcourt.

Green gets to see what happens to his compatriots and he runs towards the back room of a store.

Red was not expecting to get punched in the face at that particular moment and falls on his butt. He then rolls over and turns towards a different store and runs towards its back room.

As Pyro gets back up to the main level, he sees the villains scattering--

As do the people in the mall who panic and attempt to all scramble and run away from the Candycanes. Some of them are running towards exits -- most will be dissappointed to find the exits sealed -- others are just running.

Pyro runs towards the nearest gun. His eyes glow red as he summons up a small finger of blinding white flame that he attempts to use on Red's gun. Its shell melts away and an ice beam shoots out of its side and into the wall as the humming quiets down some.

Johnny Storm has posed:
Johnny Storm looks over at the clear use of pryokinesis to blow up one of the guns; he takes a good look at Simon, for a moment, his mastery of all things fire causing the mutant's power to stick out like a sore thumb when used. Johnny decides that whoever this kid is, he's helping right now, and that's good enough for him.

Time to catch some mall Santa's.

As Yellow runs for it, Johnny shouts, "Flame on!" and goes fully ablaze, steam flying off of his body as the sprinklers try in vain to douse him. The Human Torch goes flying after Yellow Santa, simply blasting the door apart if it's still stuck.

"Don't run!" Johnny shouts, crowing a laugh, "Don't run!"

Scott Lang has posed:
"That oughta do it!" Scott being 'extra' cautious today as he dumps out one of the mall's potted plants and puts the overturned pot over the location where the shrunken gun lay. Well, probably lay. It was quite small and he'd taken his eyes off it to get the plant pot. He blinks unsurely and adjusts the pot once, then another inch again before saying, "The hell with it," and turning attention back to his own goon.

"Hey! Where ya going?!" Scott hollers rushing to the railing and looking for a moment like he'll heroically dive over it after the man who has crashed into a table below which still had half a pizza on it. Despite brief daydreams of an elbow drop though Scott shakes his head and takes the escalator down. As the groaning Santa goon begins to pick himself up Scott goes for the next best wrestling move available, grabbing a food court chair and just smacking him in the back of the head with it.

Which still left the problem that there were other humming guns in the area and sealed doors. "Dammit, move people, move! Avenger coming through!" SOME people didn't have fire powers, but as Scott run to the sealed icy entrance he goes for the next best option, picking up a cup of steaming coffee. Another disc from his belt, this one meant for growing, he flings the cup with the disc, the 3/4 full cup suddenly becoming a deluge of steaming liquid which smacks into the doors like a small wave before spreading out across the floor in a messy but delicious smelling warm pool. It's enough to soften up the ice as the crowd surges at the door again and it crackles and gives way, though it ruins more than one pair of socks and shoes that day.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
With someone who seems to know how to deal with the candy canes taking care of the one Red dropped, Phantasm is now free to continue pursuit. He is momentarily baffled by the Santa's persistence but soon takes off after him.

The silent footsteps move quickly, following into the store. He gives chase before the feet plant, launching the Phantasm in a high jump, leaping over the red Santa to get in front of him.

It would be an impressive sight. If he were visible. But... well. For a performer he's not in a mood to be that flashy today.

The Phantasm spins around, arm extended to clothesline the fleeing Santa.

Simon Lasker has posed:
Being chased by a flying flaming man is not great motivation to stop moving. Yellow runs out the door and tries to enter the van before realizing that he isn't the one with the keys. He then with eyes full of fear attempts to turn toward Johnny and shoot him.

Blue goes limp after being clobbered on the back of the head.

Red does not get clotheslined... mainly because he runs right into Phantasm.

Green makes it into the back room and shuts the door behind him

Pyro finishes cutting into the gun and it freezes the space between it and the wall into a solid block of ice as the humming stops. He lets out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. He stands up, and looks around to see the relatively empty mall floor.

"Guys, Where did Green go?"

Johnny Storm has posed:
An ice beam is a legitimate threat to the Human Torch, and Johnny responds appropriately, which is to say 'by being able to fly'. Once out of the mall, Torch just flies up and over the ice beams while Yellow is panicking.

"Hey buddy, part two!" Johnny shouts, and aims a beam of focused heat directly at the candy cane gun, aiming to outright destroy the already damaged weapon!

He also throws a fireball at their van's roof, melting it. Just to be kind of a jerk. "Seriously, surrender. I've got people to melt out of those dollar store freeze rays."

Scott Lang has posed:
PEW. PEW. Scott is in a CRANKY mood as he blasts the already unconscious crook with two more blasts of his wrist gauntlets. "THAT is for making me late for..wait what time is it?" Scott asks aloud in a panic as he taps the side of his helmet, a time display appearing on the goggles. "Are you kidding me?!" he hollers in a panic, scrambling up the down escalator and sliding haphazardly across the ice to his clothes and the bottle of Japanese booze which he picks up with undue caution. He was NOT going to drop it on the ice. Which just left...three goons. And three heros. A more than fair fight, and by now the sound of police sirens was evident outside. Scott could help. By all rights he SHOULD help as an Avenger.

"You got this guys, doing great! Remember, eat your vitamins, stay in school, and when the bad guy says he's going to surrender, he never does!" he wisely informs them before he takes off out the nearest melted entrance, quoting the White Rabbit, "I'm late, I'm late..."

Michael Hannigan has posed:
As Red manages to avoid getting clotheslined, the phantasm momentarily pauses in reaction as Red manages to pass through him. Turning once more he grabs at the man's shirt with the intent of using it to swing him off balance. He shoves a nearby clothing rack into the guy afterwards. Did the guy see him? How? "Do not make me angry." A disembodied voice lowly growls in warning. "Stay down."

Simon Lasker has posed:
The gun would have exploded if it weren't being heated up that much. Instead it melts. Yellow drops to the ground, with his gloves stuck together with molten polymer. That is the exact moment when a sweatty man with fake white hairs all over his neck and face comes out of the building looks at Johnny and freezes. he looks at the van and back to The Torch. He puts his hands behind his head and kneels down.

Red hears pyro and momentarily gets a smug look on his face. It immediately dissapears when -- instead of an earth shattering kaboom -- about two feet of snow blast out of every air vent in the mall. The police arrive shortly after to take the sinister santas off to jail.