4669/Another You: May the Force...

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Another You: May the Force...
Date of Scene: 09 January 2021
Location: Somewhere in Chinatown, N.Y.C.
Synopsis: May, Morse, Carter, and Coulson go chasing after May's evil twin, fully intending to take her down. It turns out, when Melinda May goes Evil, she also levels up like a boss. The Agents are definitely in trouble.
Cast of Characters: Melinda May, Bobbi Morse, Peggy Carter, Phil Coulson




Melinda May has posed:
The quinjet is probably overkill. But it's stealth. And it's quick. And if it happens to take up a goodly patch of a rooftop parking deck... OH WELL! No one likes to park on the roof, anyway.

The ramp lowers and May steps out onto the pavement, head to toe in black -- tac suit, ICERs, a few other toys (just in case) -- with a black leather jacket over the whole thing. She has no good way of tracking her doppleganger on the ground, unlike SHIELD's ability to track the good agent herself, thanks to Bobbi's clever thought about tagging May with an identifyable isotope. But she can make some educated guesses about how she thinks.

The one curiousity? May's thinking doesn't usually lend itself to 'walk through the middle of a market knocking heads together just for the helluvit'. She doesn't usually open that can of whupass unless she's walking in the front door of a Hydra base.

But there, on the street below, is a small Chinese terror, swinging a long, heavy white staff and threatening to take someone's head off, if they don't direct her to "wherever the hell Melinda May lives".

A deep scowl settles on Melinda's face as she observes the scene below. "Okay," she snarks. "In the first place? They don't know. But in the second..." She steps up onto the edge of the halfwall that rings the roof.

"Hey!" she yells down at... herself. "You lookin' for me? Come on up and get me." Bitch.

There might be a smartass gesture or two to accompany that invitation.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    As soon as the ramp is down Bobbi is tossing one of the dwarfs up in to the air to get a better view. Tactical goggles on, wings activated, heart rate monitor steady. All systems are go for Agent Morse. "She lacks the tact you possess," she comments on how easy it is to tell them apart. When May gets strung out she can get like that, but it's a rare sight indeed.

    "Let's not spook her too much. Spread out, let her walk in to our trap. May be she just wants to give herself a hug and be on her merry way..." she adds that last part with a smirk. Not much chance of that happening. She heads over to an SUV and crouches down behind a wheel for quiet cover as she watches the tiny feed in her tactical glasses from the dwarf.

Peggy Carter has posed:
As the orders to spread out comes, Peggy bites back any clever statements she had on the tip of her tongue. Of course, May is going to use herself as bait and temptation, which means hopefully the other three of them can flank without being too noticable. Peggy's got several weapons (some lethal, some not) attached to her hips, one of the heavy plasma rifles across her shoulder, and is wearing a tac suit in attempts to keep all her own parts inside.

She moves fairly silently across the roof, to the north east side where she can slip over and down the side of the building in the shadow and chaotic crowd. <<I've got her north east flank. Going to keep eyes on her and start closing in without being noticed, hopefully.>> Peggy's moving as stealthy someone with her decades of training can, using the urban landscape around her to hide, duck, dodge, and mainly stay nothing but a shadow to most people's eyes.

Phil Coulson has posed:
Moving off the ramp relatively quickly, Phil looks around. There's a brief pause as he hears May call out to the other self below. "Now, that's one way to get the attention of the one down there," he offers, before he nods again at Bobbi's words, moving a bit off to the side, ready to move when it's needed.

Melinda May has posed:
Down on that street, May's doppleganger looks up in time to see the taunting gestures and hear the shouted challenge. Her response is less than articulate, but entirely immediate. She takes a running leap, landing on a car, planting her staff in its roof, and using the motion to propell herself in a high-jumper's arc through a gap in the support wall on the third level.

May, still standing on the half-wall surrounding the rooftop, blinks. "Huhn... That's a trick." Somehow, it blunts the edge of her anger just a little, replacing it with... morbid curiosity.

May backs off the ledge, glancing over to her teammates. "If she's up here with us, the worst we get is property damage." Unless someone throws something down onto the street. "If we go down there... it'll get messy."

But, oh, she has no idea how messy...

May looks around as she starts walking toward the rooftop access door, looking for something to use against that staff she knows is incoming. She stoops to pick up an abandoned piece of rebar. "It'll do..."

There's not long to wait. Before it really seems possible -- even taking into account how fast Melinda herself can move -- the doppleganger is bursting through that door, staff swinging. Melinda ducks underneath a hit and blocks with her rebar. "Nice trick."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    "That was cool," she says and then shrugs defensively to real-May, "What? it _was_ cool." She double taps her comms, "Everyone ready? As much as we'd all love to watch May fight with herself, we should try and end this as quickly as possible." She angles the drone around, getting curious about that staff. The zoom isn't quite detailed enough but she can make out norse like engravings, "Huh. Neat."

    Bobbi takes out her staves and connects the two ends together. Staff v staff seems a sensible move against this May who appears to have a pet walking norse stick. The doppelmay is here soon enough. May is scary enough as it is - but a hostile May carrying a big stick. She's glad they have a team for this. Over comms she says, "Wait for it, don't jump the gun.. give it a few moments."

Peggy Carter has posed:
While comm chatter is nice, Peggy is trying not to draw any eyes to her in the crowd at all. Everyone else has flashy toys -- the most flashy being that staff, though. The only advantage she's going to get is the one of surprise. She's now crouching a bit lower, making herself shorter than most of the crowd around as she weaves her way through in the direction of the side of the building. She'd already gone down just as the other May came up. It'll lose her some time, but maybe keep her some surprise.

Now, she's carefully scaling up the backside of the building, listening for the sounds of the fight above as she tries to figure out where May is in opposition to her partner. Peggy's using two grappling hooks, tech that makes her a bit more mobile around the sides of the building than if she was just trying to take the fire escape again. She goes deadly slow and silent as she approaches the very edge of the building, listening for a good moment to spring, but not wasting her chance. <<Waiting. I'm on the north east wall.>> SHe subvocalizes, so her TEAM knows where she is, even if Dopple-May doesn't.

Phil Coulson has posed:
Phil Coulson frowns, waiting and listening. He grabs something to use as a melee weapon if that's needed, but still seems ready to draw out ranged weapons if that's needed. Staying crouched behind the wall, he lets out a bit of a breath as he waits. <<Waiting...>> he echoes, frowning as he watches the fight.

Melinda May has posed:
Melinda's exact words to the team, before they left were: "I have a plan. Find her. Punch the hell out of her until one of you stun both our asses into unconsciousness. Then send her home." Consequently, she's seriously hoping one of them has the gumption to start shooting an ICER or two. She doesn't care if she goes down, as long as they *both* go down.

Of course, if the doppleganger gets away because Melinda got knocked on her ass by an ICER round... there will be *words* later. Probably a lot of four-letter ones.

Regardless, EvilMay pulls no punches. She launches a flurry of strokes at Melinda, slamming at her with that staff. Melinda blocks and dodges, proving she's got the speed to match the interloper. But there's something in the way the SHIELD agent moves that will suggest to anyone who knows her fighting style well -- which is basically all of them -- that she's fighting something of a holding action. EvilMay is fast, viscious, and hopped up on supernatural rage and adrenaline. Melinda has only her regular levels of anger and standard rush of adrenaline. This opponent is actually a little tougher than she expected.

And it's proven when the doppleganger gets a direct kick to Melinda's torso by swinging around the staff like it's a pole. Her heels connect solidly with Melinda's chest and the agent flies back a good 20 feet to slam into the hood of a car. "Ufffnnn!"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi watches May go flying in confusion and says over comms, "Riiiight. Everyone engage," she says and draws her ICER. She moves out of the cover of the SUV, keeping the stave-staff hidden behind and simply shoots her in the side. And shoots her a second time in the side. And a third and fourth just to be sure.

    This results in one very pissed off looking doppelMay and a slightly confused Bobbi who puts her ICER away and says, "May from another Earth put down the staff and surrender quietly."

    The Earth-technology staff she's carrying becomes visible as she brings it in front of her. It's going to be no match for whatever that staff is other-May is carrying.. and now she's not even sure stunning her will work.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Peggy waits exactly 1.5 seconds after Bobbi gives the order for everyone to engage, and then she swings up, rifle in hand, and opens fire immediately on the May who is carrying that strange staff. She'll have many apologies to make if it's the real May who has disarmed her doppleganger, but Peggy was only going to get one shot at surprise and so she took it, whether it works or not.

Phil Coulson has posed:
It only takes a few moments from those first ICER rounds fired until Phil fires off some of his own, just to be sure. Who knows, maybe more hits would work. "Okay..." he mutters, stepping back a little as he nods at Bobbi's words, eyes carefully on the doppelMay waiting to see her reaction.

Melinda May has posed:
It's amazing, really, what a supernaturally-enraged, adrenaline-fueled Inhuman can shrug off. (Oh, did that piece of info get missed? Yeeaaah...) The doppleganger's general response to the various shots that impact her is a flash of anger and rush of rage that sends her hurtling forward at a dead run towards... well, whomever's closest.

And that means Bobbi.

The dendrotoxin does absolutely nothing to the woman but piss her off. Not the shots Bobbi fires, nor even Phil's offerings. Oh, sure, she staggers back a little under a sustained barrage. That's just the reality of knockback. But it doesn't last.

Instead, staff spinning in a deadly arc, she rushes toward Bobbi with murder in her eyes. Her blows are furious and faster than anything Melinda May as anyone here has known her has ever produced. More that that, they're merciless. This woman has no problem whatsoever killing the Mockingbird.

However, she also, perhaps, has never met Peggy Carter. Peggy, who -- over several months of team-ups and trials -- has learned much about just how dangerous Melinda May can be. So, while the others make believe regular ICER rounds will get the job done, the former Director comes prepared with the hardware to unequivicably put down one of the most dangerous women she can conceive of: Melinda May Gone Bad.

*FOOM!* The stun blast hits DoppleMay square between the shoulderblades. (Let it never be said that Peggy doesn't know how to shoot.) She pitches forward into Bobbi, the kick from that round something serious, even if it is only set to *stun*. It stuns her, alright. Just not into insensibility.

Pushing away from Bobbi, she turns away from the blonde, ragestaff clutched in her white knuckled right hand. She reaches out her left hand towards Peggy and her splayed fingers snap into a tight fist she twists and jerks -- as if she were grabbing hold of fabric and tugging. She's not, however. She's far too far away from Peggy to touch her physically.

Emotionally, however, is another story. The doppleganger, apparently, has some fairly impressive empathic powers. And she fully intends to drive Peggy out of her mind with fear.

Meanwhile, the real May, now in a heap on the pavement, groans and struggles to her feet. What. The Hell. Just Happened?

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Aww heck. This is far worse than a pissed off May. She has fought with May plenty of times and usually comes out on top. Mostly due to her being younger. But this May.. just shrugged off a half dozen or more dendrotoxin rounds. Her staff meets the rage staff and *clang* a chunk of her stave breaks off and bounces to the ground.

    Bobbi ducks and waves as the staff is spun and thrust about. Now that she's up close and has seen it in action - and can hear it moving through the air, it is painfully obvious that this is not of Earth origin. It's alien.

    Bobbi figures she's in for a penny, in for a pound. She does a flip over the staff as it swings toward her and she tries to grab it off of EvilMay when she pitches forward from Peggy's plasma stun blast; who promptly turns sharply and strikes her hard with the staff. Bobbi goes flying backwards off of the edge of the building and hits the building on the far side leaving a human sized crater in its wall.

    Bobbi slumps and starts to fall. $$ EMERGENCY AIRBRAKE $$ the wings system running on Falcon's operating system spring to life, her loose cape snaps in to the shape of wings and glides her gently down to street level where she groans to her hands and knees. She spends the next few moments trying to catch her breath.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Well, fear is something Peggy has dealt with her entire life. Maybe not exactly THIS kind of fear, but close to it. Even if it's been decades since this ice cold, certain she was going to die, certain all of her friends are dead fear invaded her veins and made it hard to breath. Panic fills up Peggy's throat, stumbling messily backwards until she hits the edge of the roof. She jerks in surprise at the touch of that concrete, but realizes what it is a moment later and whips back around towards the doppleganger.

No words. No ability left for complicated logic. All that is left is the ability to fight, to put down the thing causing the terror. She instinctively bumps up the plasma rifle's stun setting to something that could probably stop someone's heart -- more elephant than human level, but still isn't meant to fry internals. Yet. One level higher and then she's firing repeatedly in the dopplegangers direction, unable to even scream around her heart in her throat.

Phil Coulson has posed:
Phil Coulson winces as he sees the actions happening, and holsters the ICER, instead pulling out an ordinary pistol. "Okay, we asked you nicely..." he remarks to the alternate May. "Now you have one more chance. Stand down, or I'll shoot!" Holding the pistol ready, aimed for the shoulder of the doppelganger. And then those shots from Peggy's rifle comes in, and he frowns momentarily. Hopefully that'll do, right?"

Melinda May has posed:
May -- the *real* May -- watches Bobbi go sailing over the side of the building and sees the fear build in Peggy's eyes before her friend lets loose with a veritable volley of increasingly powerful stunshots. That her doppleganger shrugged off even one of them, never mind whatever follows, blows Melinda's mind.

She watches Phil pull out a live round pistol and, frankly... she thinks he may have the right idea. "I can't take that much punishment," she says, audible over comms as she speaks. "How the hell is she able to take that much punishment?"

Now, to be fair, DoppleMay is not *completely* a tank about these things. After getting hit by the first of the renewed stun shots Peggy sends winging her way, she moves quickly to avoid the rest. Rolling over the hood of a car to get into a different aisle, her arms and legs pump as she pelts forward, now heading straight for Peggy. She plants that staff on the pavement, as she did when she kicked Melinda herself, and launches herself at Peggy feet first, coming at her from an oblique angle.

Even as she starts to run, however, May is scrambling after her, unwilling to leave Peggy undefended. (Especially since Peggy brought the BFG. It's not lost on May just how much respect Peggy obviously has for her abilities. 'Cause... damn.)

She dives forward to knock the base of that staff out from under its center of gravity. Two things happen as she does. The first: DoppleMay's trajectory is ruined, which means any collision she has with Peggy, now, will lack the full force that would otherwise have been brought to bear. It will also be an uncoordinated tumble, rather than a well-formed kick.

But the second? Melinda's hands wrap around the base of the staff to yank it away from the doppleganger. As they do, her eyes widen and her body stiffens. Her mind reels as she experiences the worst moments of her life in full and living colour.

She was not expecting that.

But a viscious kick slams into her face, snapping her head back. Her doppelganger, on her side on the parking deck, yanks the staff out of Melinda's hands and slams her with another kick and another, until Melinda throws her arms up in front of her face and rolls out of reach.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi shakes her head. She shakes it off. "So that's how Steve does it," she murmurs to herself and rises back up as the people in the market place step back from her. Some taking pictures of The Mockingbird. She grits her teeth, this EvilMay needs to be taken down.

    The wings glow purple as she shoots back up in to the air and to the top of the parking garage once more. "Hey MirrorMirror," she says and then notices Phil has switched to lethals. There's a nod from her in agreement and she says, "Everyone be careful, that staff is alien and clearly giving her superior resilience." Peggy is apparently the target. She starts in to a run and dive tackles EvilMay.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The most dangerous animals are not top predators, but ones terrified for their lives. (Or mother bears, but Peggy is ALSO in a protective headspace). Tasting the sort of bone-deep fear that her brain tells her they all very well could die has set every fight instinct possible in Peggy's head. It's not a *clean* fight, and she'd probably be in a lot more trouble if May didn't body check the other woman before she collides into Peggy, but even as jerks back, she slams the weapon in her arms straight into Dopple-May's face.

She's fighting dirty and desperate, barely aware that Bobbi's coming in now or Phil is changing out to heavier weapons. She's using everything she has, hitting any bare surface of May she can find, slamming the butt of her rifle into the woman's head space repeatedly, jerking her foot to kick into the back of her knees. Anything desperate hit she can land, she's trying to land, without thought or care for her own body. Her terrified brain thinks she's dead already. She might as well go out fighting.

This close, Bobbi might realize something is wrong. Peggy's fighting is rather more sloppy but also faster than normal. However, what gives it away are the tears. Terrified, overwhelmed tears cutting down her face as she scraps out every inch of life she can get.

Phil Coulson has posed:
"Thought so..." Phgil mutters as the doppelganger doesn't stop. Well, it was worth a shot. And then everyone seems to be in close together, so he can't get a shot off, and instead moves forwar with whatever he has decided to use as a melee weapon. Nodding as he hears Bobbi's words about the staff. "We need to get it away from her somehow..." Moving in at a run now, also attempting to knock the doppelganger down with some kind of bodycheck.

Melinda May has posed:
The fear the doppleganger aimed at Peggy begins to flow out toward the others as well, as the empathic doppleganger finds herself piled on. Her face and forehead bleed freely from where Peggy's rifle collide with her. But she does not quit. Instead, she transmits fear, rage, self-loathing, guilt, and overwhelming despair in a wide net -- the sensations amped up by whatever the alien staff does to her to make her as strong and fast as she is.

A berserker who can turn her opponents' emotions against them.

The strength the staff gives her allows her first to throw off Bobbi -- sending the woman careening into Peggy -- and then to snap up to her feet. Phil comes running in for a body check and she counters by using the staff as a veritable baseball bat to knock him sideways. Her follow-through is ruthless, a full 360-degrees of torque meant to keep her personal space clear enough for her to flip back out of the immediate fray to land atop another car. She begins to run, hopping from hood to roof to trunk without regard for personal safety or property damage.

Like her doppleganger, Melinda is bleeding freely from her nose, lips and a gashes on her head and cheek. She wipes her face across her sleeve, looks to her companions, and then sets her jaw, starting to run after her.

Truthfully, though, given the waves of negative emotions the empath sends at that, she holds out little hope of catching her. Anger she can manage. Fear, too, much like Peggy. But the self-loathing, guilt, and despair are much, much harder to fight. And as she runs, she stumbles.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi was not expecting to be thrown in to Peggy. Her eyes wide in confusion.. of fear, of anger, of self hatred and hatred of others. She shoves Peggy back and turns to grab at EvilMay who is already trying to make her get away. She takes two steps to chase after her and then feels her insides drop.

    Bobbi has some pretty hefty fears and they are playing out like a feedback loop as she lifts up her wrist to look at her heart rate, even as she can see it on the heads up display in her goggles. "Oh shit,..." she says as her legs wobble and she flops on to the ground.

    Bobbi was meant to be keeping her emotions under control and this is anything but. Whatever EvilMay's Inhuman ability did, amplified by that alien staff, it blacks Bobbi out entirely. She lays slumped on to the ground and an emergency signal is being transmitted back to the Triskelion.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The hardest, most violently fight in Peggy suddenly starts losing wind, especially as Bobbi is knocked into her. If she can't even avoid getting her teammate hurt, how can she be a decent agent? Even her best fight wasn't enough. Will it ever be enough? She turns the plasma rifle, trying to take one last aim at the woman as she dashes away, but then there's the other May in her line of sight and some cars and... it's too late. She's too slow, too late. Too old.

"...Bobbi..." She breathes out raggedly, a new set of moisture cutting down her cheeks as she tries to roll over in her colleague's direction. One hand reaches for the woman's throat, going through the proper motions because triage is important when a team member is down. But all sense of urgency is gone from her. The fear as well. It's like someone has cut Peggy's strings and there's nothing but numb muscle memory left.

<<Morse is down. I...lost my shot. I'm... sorry... everyone. Shit. I'm useless...I'm sorry.>> Peggy breathes out over the comms, shame and guilt almost more choking than the fear.

Phil Coulson has posed:
Wincing as he gets hit by that staff and knocked down, Phil winces. He gets his pistol out again, firing a few quick shots after the doppelganger, hoping at least one of them could hit something. As he hears the words over the comms, he winces as he gets to his feet. <<How bad is it?">>. Moving over to Peggy and Bobbi to check on tghem, quickly.

Melinda May has posed:
The doppleganger staggers as one of Phil's bullets hits her in the shoulder. She cries out in pain and turns around, bearing her teeth, preparing to return to beat the shit out of whomever fired that shot.

What she fails to count on, however, is that Melinda May -- the *real* Melinda May -- is the god damned fucking Cavalry. Melinda hates the name with a passion that verges on holy. She hates how she earned that name. She hates the respect it gives her in the eyes of her fellow agents. And she hates that she still lets the impulses that gave her that name drive her relentlessly forward when all she wants to do is curl into a little ball and disappear.

She stumbles forward, but she doesn't stop. It's only when she hears Peggy's voice -- the tattered and forelorn despair and self-loathing that echoes how May, herself, feels -- that she truly finds her feet again. Because she will always respond to a hopeless cause. Always. She can't help herself. Because it doesn't matter if she dies. It only matters the others live.

She lunges forward to grab her doppleganger by the collar and stop her from charging Phil. "Who. The Fuck. Do You Think. You Are?" She punctuates each phrase with a heavy fist into other woman's face.

EvilMay absorbs the hits before she spins her staff and slams it into May's gut. May cries out in pain. Her doppleganger turns towards her and lashes out with the staff again, catching her hard across her ribs, sending her careening into a nearby pickup. She hits Melinda one more time, the butt of the staff catching her beneath the chin and launching her a dozen feet backward, where she crashes into a windshield, glass shattering beneath her weight.

"You," the doppleganger replies, disdain dripping from her lips.

She strides forward and frisks May's now unconscious body, extracting her wallet from inside her coat and shoving it into her own.

She hits her one more time, for good measure -- just in case she's not dead yet -- and turns away.

Another strike of the staff shatters the driver's window on a sleek black sports car. She swings herself in, tossing the staff beside her, hotwires the engine... and speeds away.

As far as she's concerned, the real May won.