8629/Metropolisn't: The Crass Menagerie

Metropolisn't: The Crass Menagerie
Date of Scene:	10 November 2021
Location:	The Zoo (New Troy)
Synopsis:	There's something very strange going on at the Zoo in New Troy, and the Titans and their allies rise to the occasion. Things are weirder than usual- even for Metropolis.
Cast of Characters:	Terry O'Neil, Megan Gwynn, Michael Hannigan, Koriand'r, Kara Danvers, Karen Starr, Wanda Maximoff, Kian, Victor Stone, Donna Troy, Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Gar Logan

---

Terry O'Neil has posed:
It could be argued that, by the strict definition of the word, there really isn't such a thing as an ordinary day in Metropolis. No other city in the world, it seems, attracts such a confluence of the extraordinary and the unsual with such frequency and with such spectacular results . Some say Paris, France, is a strong second contender with the rumors of supervillains that can turn people into monsters if they happen to experience negative emotions. Anyone who has spent a busy evening riding the Paris metro and has experienced Parisian hospitality will immediately know to disregard such rumors, however, because reality would dictate that the city would be nothing more than a constant roiling mass of superpowered monsters before lunchtime.

Against all odds, however, today seems like it's going to be an actual ordinary, not-terribly-eventful day for Metropolis, which is rare for a Saturday. No reported punching of people through buildings, no alien invaders, and no magical experiments gone awry. Just a pleasant Autumn afternoon at the New Troy Zoo, which as of late has been very active in drumming up its publicity campaign as a partner with big cat conservation sanctuaries, boasting updated modern accomodations for its large felines. The effort has attracted some celebrities to the cause. Today, the Zoo is innaugurating its new, gussied up wing for its tiger habitat, just your ordinary Saturday with your ordinary exhibits, and your ordinary (and occasionally extraordinary) visitors. What could possibly go wrong?

"--and in conclusion," Mathilda Valse, the face of the Executive Leadership Team for the zoo, speaks from her podium before the gathered crowd under the pale autumnal sun, the new habitat having just been freshly unveiled behind her, "we would like to thank all of those sponsors who made this possible..." there is, of course, the subsequent droning off of private individuals and groups. A perfectly ordinary ceremony, for all intents and purposes. The tigers in the habitat certainly seem to think so, most of them are yawning.

But to those who are attuned to strange things and sights unseen, there might be a sense of something, a feeling in the air....

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Alright, time to visit the Metropolis zoo! Megan had actually won free tickets to the zoo after entering a random raffle draw and here she is, exploring the massive grounds of the zoo in a massive city. Although, Woow, Soo many people here today, but that's pretty normal. And ooh, so many cool animals too! She can't help but peer this way and that as she wanders about, but pauses to listen to the announcer on the podium, curious to hear about the latest exhibits to check out...Of course, she's pretty sensitive to magic's, and she can't help but shiver just a little. Something strange in the air..Or is it just her imagination?

Michael Hannigan has posed:
While Mike may be a New York resident, there are plenty of things that can pop up to make him end up elsewhere. Such is the case tonight. Due to his tendency to befriend persons of the feline persuasion, that he was attending a publicity event related to a big cat conservation was likely inevitable.

And so, here he is, in his Nick Drago persona. It's not quite a suit, but his attire is a bit nicer than one would normally wear when attending the zoo. The event pretty much called for him to dress up a little. A little. There's still no tie or jacket. But the pants are nice. Shirt's even got a collar. The folding kind. Yep. Getting pretty fancy here.

Although of a powered sort, Nick does seem to lack a sense for certain things. So. He's just smiling politely to the presentation, sipping a cup of ...whatever it was they served earlier. Some type of punch. Pretty fruity. Kind of tasty.

Yep. It's a nice peaceful NORMAL afternoon...

Koriand'r has posed:
A Zoo! And Earth creatures don't quite have quite so many acid spitting or feroucious pincers for hewing limbs from prey to disolve....but there were quite a lot more who were fluffy and adorable! Of course, she -had- to be told that she wasn't aloud to pick up and hug that penguin earlier...but lessons learned and the bright orange girl with green eyes was still excitedly making her way around the Zoo.

There was no hope for Kori of blending in or looking like any other human, but that hardly bothered the alien dressed in her shorts and midriff-baring shirt. Instead she excitedly made her way towards the big cat enclosure.

It's always an exciting day when she could be out with friends!

Kara Danvers has posed:
It's a perfectly normal day in Metropolis. And perfectly normal reporter intern Kara Danvers is at the Zoo, covering the new expansion for the Daily Panet. And while she writes the pertinent information in her notebook, the reporter with the mousey brown hair and glasses wonder if she should ask any follow-up questions of the zoo's PR flak. And what questions should she ask? It's all pretty basic so far. Just an everyday press conference that's going to be back page news in the Planet...

Karen Starr has posed:
    Let's not beat around the bush: Metropolis is odd.

    Bank heists happen at midday. Said gangsters run the gamut from Dude With Gun to Teenagers riding Weird Hover Platforms firing Alien Laser Weapons. Alternately on some days you can get caught up in a grudge match between Superman and something you're entirely certain is definitely the Hulk, or on one day a two-foot tall caricature that you /swear/ sounds like Iago turns you into a sentient credit card the purpose of which is to make whoever is spending the money feel bad.

    And that's just if you happen to be a /bystander./

    Nevertheless, even if you've contemplated the oddities of Metropolis, sometimes you have days like today, where the actual oddest thing going on is that nothing odd is currently going on. Nobody's trying to blow up the planet /specifically/ from Metropolis. There isn't any one of fourteen individuals running around shouting for one of multiple Kryptonians while throwing cars and brandishing a green rock. Instead, Karen Starr is at the Zoo.

    She's here to watch the unveiling of the new habitat, something for which, through the usual shenanigans, she's helped funnel money into. She's hard to miss, the rotund-seeming woman at the side of the crowd, not-quite-with the regular people in the masses, clapping exhuberantly at ever opportunity and wearing a salmon-pink pantsuit, in pinstripe.

    The actual question is, who lets her out of the office?

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
What's an Avenger to do on a Saturday in Metropolis? Wanda's private visit to check on an old friend passes leaves a smile on her face, and those two other appointments ahead of her promise more of the same tone: relaxed and fulfilling. The incessant reminders on her phone hasten her steps away from the car that gave her a lift to the zoo, and she hushes the chiming alerts with a swipe of her fingers. Fashionably late? What luck she is directed to a booth that just happened to open up for the crush.

Some moments off the mark and she falls into the crowd seeking to admire the expanded big cat habitat. She might be recognizable here, meeting double-takes smiling or with a mouthed hello. Following Kori is a straightforward enough action since the taller woman parts the crowd a bit.

Helpful, for her eyes are wide and gazing over everything with intent interest. Striped cat, striped shirt, empty air, all perfectly normal for a witch wrapped up in the Sight.

Kian has posed:
    Kian actually had not been to the Metropolis Zoo before.  Well, there had been a lot of other things going on that pushed it down the priorities list.  What time there is that hasn't been spent Titaning has been spent trying to figure this planet out.
    So yeah, priorities.
    So there he is, strolling along with Gar and Terry, trying to take in the breadth of animal life on Earth -- granted, spending time with Gar gives him a leg up on that, and he has been very good about /not/ asking whether Gar has been this animal or that before.
    He did *not* like the aviary, on the grounds that closing birds into buildings is not the way birds are meant to be treated.  He did at least admit that they were well treated, and didn't sound unhappy.
    But still.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Victor Stone is all but impossible to miss. He doesn't bother trying to hide who he is much, because how can you possibly hide the chrome? So he's right there in the crowd, watching the unveiling of the tiger habitat, clapping along with the others, hanging with his friends, trying to make sure Kori doesn't pick up penguins.

    No, really, Kori, stop trying to pick up the penguins.

    He doesn't have any mystical senses or anything, so he won't notice anything's amiss until it's tangible to physical (if very, very heightened) senses.

Donna Troy has posed:
    MEANWHILE, up in the sky... is it a bird? Is it a plane?

    It's a plane. A sturdy old KLM 737 -700 flying out of Metropolis International Airport en route to Schiphol. On board, an assortment of business-folks and tourists travelling to Europe stare down at the urban sprawl of Metropolis and the gleaming waters of Delaware bay approaching. The pilot, captain Anouk Bakker, stifles a yawn and considers the possibility of getting a few hours shut-eye once they're over the Atlantic.

     Below it, Donna sits on her bike where Gateway Bridge meets the I-9 at Oakham, idly watching the plane fly overhead and waiting for the lights to change and let her onto the bridge road. Half a mile to the bridge, across Hob's River, another mile across St. Martin's and home. Donna can fly, but it's not something she does as a matter of course. Her journeys to and from New York and the Themysciran embassy are often done on a motorbike. She enjoys riding them, and does so at speeds that some might consider dangerous.

    She taps the broadcast button on her T-Com, for a low-priority general hail. "Titans!" she announces. "It's me. Just getting back into town, about ten minutes from the tower. Anything exciting going on? Anyone need me for punching or lassoing duties?"

    Are a bunch of Titans visiting New Troy zoo today? Look, she can't keep track of /everything/.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
At the zoo with the other Titans is Nadia! Because like hell she was going to miss Zoo Day! Zoos are SCIENCE! and SCIENCE! is awesome!

She's dressed in her usual fashions, stompy boots, a black and red plaid skirt and her favorite 'Just a GIRL who loves Wasps!' T-shirt, under her pink and red bomber jacket with a metal decal of the GIRL logo on the back.

Nadia knows better than to try and pick up the animals, or does she? Some of them are just so darn cute! She manages to behave though, mostly, running here and there pointing with wide eyes and then standing and clapping for the unveiling of the new tiger exibit.

"They're not Unicorn Kitties, but still kitties!" She asides to Vic.

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan didn't need any excuses to go to the zoo. For the past few weeks, he's been letting his social media followers see the literal menagerie of animals he can be. The Titan has been leading Kian and Vorpal around to different exhibits, explaining some of the things he knows about the different species to them. It's a chance to show off, but he's also in his element when it comes to this stuff. His entire ability set hinges on his knowledge of the animal kingdom, after all.

"...and you can see how those guys are standing up? They're on sentry duty," he explains of a couple meerkats he gestures toward.

Koriand'r has posed:
They were so teeny and fluffy! But sure enough Kori was corralled onwards by her equally obvious companion in the form of Victor. Of course, Gar too would get a wave over the crowd with that same exciteable energy, easily spotable by Terry and Kian both before a glance over her shoulder does indeed sweep her gaze over Wanda.

Now there was a comlink going off and a complete luck of a subtle bone in her body has the Tamaran woman reaching to key her T-Com.

"Donna! We are at the Zoo, seeing the enclosures of cute animals and cats that are large!" A pause, she actually seems to take a moment to consider her surroundings before continuing. "There are no punches needed so far!"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
That sensation in the air becomes more palpable, more intense. So much so that it might be perceptible even to those who are /not/ of a magical persuasion.

"-and we owe a debt of gratitude to Mister Dragon, who has joined us-" Miss Valse is still going on. If she is aware that she has mis-pronounced the name, she doesn't give off a hint, looking every bit like the polished PR person for whom a mistake isn't a slip, but an intentional metatextual commentary intended to draw attention to the person's /actual/ identity, which of course you did because you noticed the mistake and therefore her strategy was perfectly successful.

"Sentry duty, that sounds like us every time Caitlin cooks something and we have to stave you off from eating it until others have had their go," Terry, Vorpal shape, elbows Gar gently and winks at him. He is about to tell Kian not to be so crestfallen when Donna's voice chimes into their ears. "Hey, D.T., we're at the zoo. Nothing much to remark, we're just having a day out. And Kori is trying to pick up some penguins. Oh... Miss Starr is here, too. What /is/ she wearing?" Dona is obviously getting the Joan Rivers commentary.

And then there is a strange feeling, a gut-wrenching wave of nausa that passes very quickly, its source uncertain to most-- but Wanda and Megan will certainly feel that it was a wave of sorts, its epicenter somewhere just beyond the enclosure, and expanding quickly.

It leaves things changed, in its wake. For starters, the tiger enclosure. The enclosure is no longer properly enclosing anything. if, anything, it has become an unclosure, its walls coiling open and invitingly, disclosing the cats which, at one point, where in closed quarters. There is a brief wave of panic, with people screaming and pointing, realizing that there are now gigantic murderous beasts that will soon be closing in on them.

But there is something strange about /them/ as well. The tigers actually do leap out of the disclosure, but their wide bodies seem rather... flattened, akin to creatures made of origami, their stripes printed onto their papery bodies as they lunge towards the public, either hungry for freedom, or the public.

Other cages and enclosures are suffering similar effects. There are loud screams coming from a building called the BAT CAVE (apologies to Robin), as people file out running and screaming. "The bats got out! The bats got out!" followed by the sound of shattering glass.

The windows all break, as large bludgeoning implements with leathery wings swarm out, swinging wildly in dangerous and uncontrolled patterns, threatening to conk out people.

If things weren't bad enough, several tall fences are obliterated by some sort of ruckus, laid flat by what appears to be several large pairs of bears and bulls meeting in violent clashes, while strange humanoid shark-like creatures grab those passersby unlucky enough to be knocked down by the alteractions, restraining them by their feets on stocks that have seemingly grown organically out of the well-manicured lawn.

Vorpal stares at all of this for a second, trying to take it all in. "Um. Donna..." words fail him. Then, "Bystanders! Guys! Bystanders! Help them!"

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn yawns a bit as she watches more people gathering, listening to the speech drag a bit. "Alright already, I'm ready for a tour..Come on I wanna sees the pretty peacocks and bats and lions.." she peers around and, ooh is that Nick Drago? She giggles at the mis pronouncuation and waves cheerfully towards Nick. "Drago! Hii!" she calls cheerily..But as that uneasy feeling sweeps over the area, her smile quickly turns to a frown as she peers around for the source of that magic..

"Huh? What's going on..?" hey, that's not just her mind playing tricks on her, looks like some sort of reality warping magic..? And oh no, not the tigers! Her eyes narrow, slipping out of her jacket as she unfurls her wings and takes to the skies, rushing towards the tiger enclosure even as people scream and flee.

"What the heck..Origami tigers?" all the same, maybe she can slow them down Orr..Something..She hovers over them, beating her wings rapidly, shedding glittering pink fairy dust on them, trying to confuse them with illusions..Who knows what they might see but hopefully so,etching relaxing like unicorns..Or dancing marshmallows..Who knows?

Michael Hannigan has posed:
While enjoying the drink, the rockstar's eyes scan the crowd. Seeing a couple familiar faces, the polite smile becomes a bit more legitimate one. The cup lowers while the head tilts in a nod towards the Vorpal, Gar, Kian trio. As the reference to his stage name is mispronounced, pale eyes shift over, looking to Miss. Valse. Hearing the correction shouted out, he turns his head to see the familiar pink haired wonder. He lifts a hand up to wave. He seems amused for a few moments before an odd sensation registers to him. And if HE can sense something is up...Well crap.

There's not much time after that realization that all hell breaks loose. But if there's any bright side to any of this, it's that there's a good chance no one is looking at him right this second. Dumping the drink out of the cup, Nick leaps into action, moving over to a recycling bin to put away his cup.

And to Phantasm. Yes yes. He's doing that too.

Koriand'r has posed:
Kori had heard the expression of 'Paper Tigers' thrown around here on Earth, but she was still rather certain this display wasn't normal. Screaming bystanders, warped monsters seemingly made from animals and general chaos fills the air. The call comes out as the Titans spring into action and Kori takes to the air, eyes already blazing green and fists clenched.

Dangerous or not, if there was a chance these were real animals she didn't really want to start throwing starbolts, but those shark creatures? Those felt like something she could do something about.

Sweeping to try and intervene and pull people free, Kori strikes out with impressive force. "Release these humans Angry Fish-thing!"

Kara Danvers has posed:
And of corse...things go wrong. Kara doesn't sense the magical energy so much as reacts to the crwd as the enclosure, and the zoo, start to warp and change. She starts pushing through the crowd, "Excuse me...pardon...sorry..." And Kara eventually manuevers herself to a storage shed. "Looks like a job for Supergirl..." she mutters as she moves behind the shed. And around the other corner, Supergirl appears! "Okay, I'm at the zoo..." she says into the Titan's communicator as she flies above the scene. "I'll handle the bears and bulls..." and, the Maid of Might flies down to grapple a paper bull by its horns and tries to muscle it around t block any more of it's fellows from advancing on the crowd.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Karen Starr, for the most part, is clapping like an idiot. However, there are moments- some might say ominous moments, indeed- where she notices some things. Specifically, she notices that one of her newest hires has made an appearance with, what looks like, two accompaniments. One of which is a Bird.

    Depressingly, for some reason, they have not invented a crowd that can hold back one Karen Starr. Once she's noticed Terry, despite the fact that someone is giving a speech, Karen pushes her way forward, weaving through the crowd much like the salmon swims upstream. Fitting, really.

    "Teeeeeeerry!" she calls, with all of the tact of an airhorn and none of the pleasantness in tone. "Teeeeerryyyy~! I didn't think you'd BE here you HAVE to introduce me!" Less appealing then than many of the more maligned signing of birds, Karen Starr bursts from the crowd and approaches Terry, just as a wave of imperceptible, unfiltered and entirely pure Shenanigans washes over the zoo, and entreats everyone present to a ruined day.

    Just as the Origami Tigers start to burst free from their uncages, Karen's holding her arms wide to give Terry what is soon to be the biggest, most uncomfortable hug of his life... And then the others notice the presence of dangerous animals.

    She twists, looking over her shoulder and making several sudden calculations. What can she do in the immediate, and how can she shed the Karen Starr identity in time? Luckily, the moment she begins thinking this, several others come out of the woodwork to serve as heroes. For once, Power Girl fears it may be most prudent to keep herself to Karen Starr for the time being- this time.

    "Oh my GOD!" she calls, pointing at the obvious, papercraft predators. "Someone help!" Supergirl is already /here/ but she might as well try and motivate everyone in her current company to take initiative. Not that she needs to.

Kian has posed:
    "Can we not jus' have a quiet day where nothin' goes wrong?"  Kian gives Terry a look that clearly says, 'this has got to be your fault somehow'.  Which, under the circumstances is really not implausible.
    Of course, he immediately takes to the air to try to figure out where he can be most useful.
    Bats.  Flying things probably are his problem.  He dives in front of the flock to get their attention and draw them away from people.  What he's going to do with them remains to be seen, but he leads them over the nearest space that isn't over innocent bystanders, drops low, and then gives them a weak burst of electricity to stun them.  From this height, the fall shouldn't hurt them.
    Yes, he's worried about not killing flying baseball bats.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Something /weird/ is going on at the zoo, Troia," Victor says into his comm, using her 'codename' to indicate that it's a serious situation. Kori takes off into the sky to handle the origami animals, Supergirl's got the bears and the bulls, Kian's going after the bats. Nadia's probably on the insect house. "Gar, can you help me get people out and safe?"

    Vic steps forward, between the crowd and the animals, leveling his sonic cannon at the tigers. It's tuned to disable rather than hurt--so he doesn't hurt anyone in the crowd, and who knows what's up with the tigers.

    "Terry, what did you--"

    Vic's sonic cannon is suddenly not spewing out /sound/ at all. It's giving the tigers a laser light show, swirling rainbow colors playing along the unclosure. "What the /hell/?!"

Donna Troy has posed:
"Yeah, zoos aren't generally good territory for punching," Donna replies to Kori, rather inaccurately as it turns out. Not that Donna is particularly averse to punching a lion if it gets troublesome. The European Lion lives on in Themyscira, and sometimes they're troublesome. It's a /zoo/ though. There are fences and walls and things keeping the animals separate from the humans, so punching is rarely needed. "And nobody is to bring home any penguins. The tower is enough of a menagerie as it stands."

    Terry's "Um. Donna..." is really all that needs to be said. After all these years in the Titans, she's alert to the way the world works, and knows a phrase like that is prefix to /something going wrong./ With a faint sigh she hops off her bike, picks it up, and then starts running through traffic with it, dodging between honking cars. She gets up onto the sidewalk and sprints past the jam of vehicles at the interchange. As she rounds the corner onto Bridge Road and away from the tangle of vehicles she launches herself up into the air. Forty seconds later she touches down in the lot at the Tower, puts the bike down on its kickstand and locks it, then takes off again. Moving at a comfortable two hundred miles an hour, she crosses St.Martins and the water of Hobb's bay to arrive in New Troy and hover above the zoo about a minute and a half later.

    Below is pandemonium. Donna takes her lasso in hand and descends.

    With Kara engaging the bulls and bears, Donna decides to give Kori a hand with the dangerous-looking shark-men. While Kori tries to free the victims, Donna goes for a perp -- golden lasso dropping out of the sky to hook one of the shark-men and yank it up into the air.

    The shark-man thrashes about on the end of the line, legs kicking wildly. "Hey!" The shark man calls out. "Let me go, you crazy broad! We is honest businessmen and youse guys are interferin' with th' entirely legal pursuit of our business-type interests! We are simply collectin' on certain money owed to use by dese here louses what entered into an entirely legitimate financial arrangement with us and are attemptin' to renege on said arrangement!"

    The general public - those not immediately engaged by loan-sharks at least - have largely cleared the immediate area, but there are other bystanders showing less concern. A pair of lions strolling past on their hind legs, wearing monocles and top hats, stop to survey the scene. "Tosh and nonsense!" one of the lions declares in Donna's direction. "That fellow you have there is no such thing! An honest business man indeed. I recognize that rogue's face! Why it's none other than my disgraced uncle Lester. /Personally/ responsible for the Exxon Valdez oil spill back in the '80s, right-hand man to Adolf Hitler during the second world war, a notorious member of Hamas... and a damned cannibal! Ate three Scotsmen in a single sitting one time."

    The other Lion lifts his monocle and raises a hairy brow at his fellow. "You have an uncle Lester? What a marvellous coincidence! I have an uncle Lester too. Splendid chap. Invented the limerick."

    Donna hovers above all this, the shark-man swinging like a pendulum on the end of her lasso, his struggles taking him on wider and wider arcs. "Wut?" she says, blinking.

    Donna takes a deep, deep breath.

    "TERRY!"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia just stands there in awe and amazement for awhile, really this is a lot like that time Janet gave her acid, but she's pretty sure there are no drugs in her system unless some sort of airborn agent has been released. "Woah, the tigers have gone all paper. Paper kitties!" But then they're pouncing people out of their enclosure and Terry is shouting.

Shaking her head, Nadia slaps the sides of her face. "Focus." She tells herself, "This isn't Janet's ...candy and we need to help these people."

Nadia flicks the back of her necklace and in the blink of an eye seems to vanish. She doesn't really vanish, of course, she just gets very small as Wasps and Waspettes are want to do. In a feat of mid-air acrobatics, she quickly dawns the tiny Waspette armor that had been stored in her necklace, before reappearing at full size and flying off on Bio-Synthetic wings to help the bystanders in trouble. <<Titans Together!>> She calls through the T-comm in her helmet.

First things first, she closes her eyes and focuses her mind. Two honestly adorable little deely bopper antenna extend from the Waspette's helmet as she puts out a mental call to the members of Order Hymenoptera in the surrounding environment, Bees, Wasps, Hornets, Ants, they flock to her like some sort of insect General. "Come my friends! We have people to help!" And she flies upward to get a better vantage on the scene directing her insect forces here and there to harass the paper tigers, dogfight with the bludgeon bats, and sting a particularly portly dancing hippopotamus back where it belongs. When in doubt, send in the Murder Hornets. Except minus the murder.

<<What? Come on! What if it's just /one/ penguin?!??>>

Gar Logan has posed:
When it all goes chaotic, Gar gets that look in his face akin to 'Here we go again.' He follows up on it by saying, "Here we go again." Just in case it wasn't clear. Paper tigers, literal baseball bats, and suddenly there's a roaming pack of wolves singing a popular Duran Duran song.

No, not that one.

"The union of the snake is on the climb! Moving up, it's gonna race, it's gonna break, through the borderline!"

It's the pythons singing 'Hungry Like The Wolf.' It makes no sense. Nothing does.

"Yeah, dude. You got it. Crowd control. And please, nobody hurt the animals! Even if they're not what they seem! They didn't cause this!" He's interrupted by Vic's efforts to use a sonic attack on things, only for it to turn into a laser light show. "Uh, malfunction much, buddy?"

He turns into a green elephant and trumpets out a call for attention. "Follow me! This way!" Anything trying to get too close, he's going to provide a large obstacle. "Who's getting those people free?" he adds of the ones getting caught in the stocks.

Kara Danvers has posed:
For a moment, Kara has successfully corralled some of the bulls and bears. But then, there's another drop in the market...or in the enclosure, more precisely. The far side of the encosure vanishes into nothingness, and the pent up bulls and bears start flooding out that new exit. They spill out into New Troy, with the accompanying screams of citizens fleeing. "Darn it..." Kara gives a 'love ap' to the bull she's wrestling with knocking it unconscious. "Guys, I've got the escapee..." And she zooms after the critters before they make a run on the Fiancial District...

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The paper tigers are admittedly a potentially formidable threat. It is, therefore, a Very Good Thing (tm Martha Stewart) that Megan's fairy dust does its share to confuse a sizable number of them. Nadia's airborne brigade also does its job of distracting them from potential two-legged meals by causing them to roll on the ground, to rid themselves of any paper cuts incurred by the stings. And then, Victor has the decency to turn into the designated Titan Laser Pointer, his light show luring the tigers to pounce on the Dots That Can Never Be Caught, steadily moving back towards their disclosure. After they have tried to pounce a laser dot for the umpteenth time, some of them collapse on the ground in the grip of some existential ennui or another, the stripes on their papery sides suddenly comprised of black text that, on closer inspection, turn out to be the opening chapters of Baudelaire's "Fleurs du Mal."

But who has time to look /that/ closely? when Kian's offensive powers raise his batting average, as the hybrid creatures drop to the ground in shock. However, Kian doesn't have long to celebrate, as two burly bird-people with owlish features and vests appear, trying to grab him by the arms and screeh at him:

"No dallying! You must come with us!"
"Parliament's about to enter session and you are needed!"
"A veritable who's-who is waiting!"
"Your shocking qualities are /desperately/ needed!"
They attempt to drag Kian towards two houses, which had formerly been two sections of the aviary, which seem to be fighting among themselves, threatening to crash into each other until becoming completely undone.

?And then somebody screams for Terry.
"IT'S NOT MY FAULT!" the Cheshire cat shouts, just as he is almost about to be engulfed by a Karen Hug. All hell breaking loose means that the hug is postponed, and that his boss is in danger. "Miss Starr, get behind me!" he says, leaping forward and doing his best to put himself in the line of danger. Kori and Donna are doing a fine job of dealing with the sharks, and the Maid of Might is doing a wonderful job handling the market forces. So there does not seem to be a direct threat to Karen- except that suddenly the Cheshire Cat and the Software Mogul are surrounded by a veritable sea of little creatures of a decidedly mustelid appearance, pushing them towards the pond right off the path.
"You oughta be a better hero," says one squeaky voice, "and protect her better."
"But don't you dare hurt anyone, it's just not something you /do/!"
"You ought to not wear that, you are an executive!"
Terry looks at a loss of what to do with the oughters, but as they are almost pushed into the water by them, he summons a glowing purple raft. "This way!" he says, pulling Karen along and getting some distance from the little creatures.

Things seem to be going well. And then, they don't. As gar is leading civilians out, the panicking stampede disturbs some of the flora, and suddenly glowing dots of intense heat fly out of the nearby trees, forming an agitated, massive swarm. The fireflies angrily dart towards the Titans and their allies (or is Mike a victim?), setting trees and other things ablaze as they pass- fortunately not people. Yet.

Megan Gwynn has posed:
Megan Gwynn continues to dart around, circling the paper tigers and trying to corral them back, producing her soul dagger as a brilliant beacon of bright light as she uses it to try and chase them back from the fleeing civilians. But glancing around, she can tell that the rest of the zoo is as messed up as the paper tigers. Thankfully it seems that Nadia and Cyborg are here to assist her with the tigers while various other heroes corral the other..Critters from fleeing crowds.

"Woah what the heck is going on? I mean, this is a gong show, not a zoo!" but there is definitely something very wrong with this picture, but with all the chaos going on, it's hard to focus.

"Okaay, are these animals even animals anymore? Perhaps..This will work.." she jerks her dagger at one of the approaching tigers, a dagger that can disrupt magical spells. If this creature be a magical construct, it should unravel right away. If it's a be spelled tiger, with any luck the paper tiger will go back to normal. Hopefully she doesn't kill a tiger though..

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Facing away from the chaos, the transition over to Phantasm is somewhat anticlimatic. Most of the noticable changes are hidden away. But being the 'nice shirt' he wears isn't full sleeved, the scar appearing on the lower left forearm is visible.

But if someone's watching him as he's putting a cup in the recyling bin with all the other craziness going on, they probably should be reassessing their priorities. If they survive today's incident.

Well, he's already shown his support for the big cats, he's recycled, so that leaves just one more heroic thing Mr. Drago can do today. He vanishes. Well, not literally vanish. He just acts like a scared patron of the zoo and ducks behind one of the food kiosks.

Everyone still distracted by running for their lives? Ok good.

A purplish black bird with a wingspan of about three feet and tail feathers that form a wedge shape errupts into the sky. For the briefest of moments the bird's outline is haloed by the sun producing what would make for a very cool logo.

With a flip the bird dives down, joining alongside Kian in the task of controlling the stray portions of the bat problem. The raven uses the occasional display of aerial agility and talon work to grab a bat and toss it into other bats that may have escaped Kian's electric burst . Fly. Swing Bat. Re- Ok so only one time. But still. FLASHY.

Sorry for the late arrival. Preserving kind of secret Identities is HARD.

"Does Terry know what's going on?" The raven asks Kian.

His head tilts to the side as he hears the name being repeated again. "Guess s-."

And then there's the vehement denial in the style of Terry voice. He turns his head, missing the approach of the owl men, "ARE YOU SURE?! THIS FEELS A LOT LI-"

The raven pauses. "...No."

Growing still, he focuses, stepping forward and vanishing. Only to be spat out of nothingness just past the tiger cage, shooting by like he's on a Slip'n Slide, "OH YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME-"

After smacking the fence, the bird peels himself off and waddles a little painfully from whence he came. Coming to a stop, he looks down and holds a wing towards it.

Waddle waddle.

Bingo.

With a turn, the bird makes a grasping motion towards something.

Koriand'r has posed:
With Donna's help pulling shark 'things' backwards, Kori's rescuee is pulled skywards, dropped off near the 'Green Zone' of Gar offering safety before Starfire is back into the mix. Between her strength and flight it wasn't that hard to sweep down to the next bound and caught citizen in trouble...right up until the moment one of the bats swoops -her- and smacks against her face.

An audible exclaimation from the orange-skinned woman and a frantic flailing sweep of her hand that sent the creature rocketing across the park.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Admittedly, Power Girl /hates/ Magic. Nothing about it makes any particularly logical sense, even the Ordered kinds of magic have insane requirements that seem like you're building a clock out of foreign components using instructions in a third language; That is to say, Karen is not happy with the situation as it is unfolding. In a literal and figurative sense.

    Worse still, she and her new copywriter are now stuck on a raft, surrounded by a pun, and Karen isn't allowed to punch them into orbit right this second, something that makes her instantaneously regret her decision to remain Karen Starr as opposed to Power Girl.

    "Is it all puns? Is... Is this whole thing puns?" she comments, doing her best to shrink in behind Terry. Meanwhile, the Oughters give off some perplexing comments.

    "You ought not to have lived!" one says, its voice creaking and straining.

    "You ought to have saved them!"

    The childish chiding doesn't seem to be making any kind of contextual sense regarding the people present, but who can ever judge what in the hell magical creatures based off of comical homonyms are on about anyways? It takes but a moment for Karen to respond, but when she does, "What are they talking about? Is it safe to attack them? Are they still real animals? Can we just go back to where the others were?"

Kian has posed:
    Satisfied that the bats have been taken care of in a minimally damaging way, Kian pulls up.  "I do not know, but this seems like something he /should/ know," he replies to the raven, not even thinking for a moment that there is a talking raven that is not green.
    When he does notice that, it distracts him from the pair of owls.  And even when he does notice the owls, because they are birds, he hesitates.
    By the time he realizes they're coming for him, it's a little too late to evade them cleanly.  The pivot-and-wingflick that Gar saw him put to good use in their /qihar/ match on his world comes too late, and one of them catches Kian's wrist.
    Kian is used to Vorpal's mind.
    He once accidentally contacted Harley's, and that staggered him.
    This, however, is raw and unfiltered Wonderland, cat brain turned up to 11, maybe even 12, even worse when the second owl grabs Kian's other arm.  He has enough time for a startled "*Kya*!"... and he offers no further resistance to being hauled off towards the aviary.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Cyborg blinks rapidly as the laser pointer thing... kind of /works/. So he guides the tigers back to the enclosure, trusting his allies to do their own parts.

    Except one of those allies is being /kidnapped by owls/.

    With the tigers back in their... unclosure?... Vic turns to run toward the squaking owls. "Hey!" he calls as he starts to fly after them using his rocket shoes. "Let him go!" Yeah, sure, like /that's/ gonna work.

    There's a chain of logic that /kind/ of makes what Cyborg does next make sense. Owls are night birds. They have large eyes. They probably do not like bright lights. So he turns the rainbow-laser-light-show cannon on the owls trying to steal Kian, hoping to dazzle them enough that he can swoop in and grab the bird-man before he's captured.

Donna Troy has posed:
    It takes a long time to construct a good enclosure for a zoo. It takes skilled designers and dedicated craftspersons to come up with an enclosure that does the job well -- that keeps the animals well beyond biting distance of the public, while at the same time protecting the animals from whatever insanity the aforementioned public might attempt to wreak on them; that provides an environment that does not seem to enclosing to those creatures closed within, yet is secure from any attempt to escape.

    It takes a lot less time for magic to turn an enclosure into an unclosure. A matter of seconds. While Kara wrangles bears and bulls and once Donna feels confident that she and Kori have whittled down the loan shark problem, Donna sets about making a /reclosure/.

    A 'reclosure' is a work-around. It has none of the craftsmanship of good zoo enclosure, except what was left behind in the conversion of enclosure to unclosure. It is not designed to be a lasting solution, but while it is not quite so quick as magic, it is relatively quick. The construction of a /reclosure/ involves Donna tearing out large chunks of fencing intended to channel visitors one way or the other, and using it to repair the gaps in enclosures by resorting to bending bits of metal around other bits of metal.

    It won't last long, but hopefully it won't have to. It does however provide somewhere to marshall bears, bulls, shark-men and paper tigers where they can be locked away from the general public until some more secure method can be found, or they turn back into their original selves. While Kara starts herding the bulls and bears into one reclosure like the World's Mightiest Sheepdog, Donna rises up into the air to get an overview of the situation, and start trying to organize things over the comms. Megann and Vic seem to have the tigers sorted by now. The bats are a minor problem, but Kori can probably manage and probably wants revenge. Vic seems to be dealing with the Kian problem. That mainly seems to leave the fireflies and the oughters.

    "Terry, if it's not your fault then that means there's some other barely-sane magic-user in the area doing this. We need to find them and stop them. Any ideas? Can you sense any magical nexus or something like that? Also the west side of the zoo seems to be on fire. It's... oh. Fire flies. Of course. Anyone else noticing a theme here?"

    Donna narrows her eyes in thought. "Flamingos," she announces over the T-Com. Anyone near the flamingo enclosure? They may be able to make the flaming go." Without waiting for an answer, Donna swoops down on the flamingo enclosure, grabs one squawking pink bird in each hand, and advances on the fireflies with them, dual-wielding the perturbed birds in an attempt to use them as the world's most flamboyant fire-extinguishers.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Above the fray Nadia continues to marshal her insect allies to multi-task the situation as best she can. Various flying and stinging insects continue to assist harrying all manner of transformed animals, keeping them away from bystanders, whether it be the paper tigers of a vicious band of Canadian Mongeese drunk on maple syrup. Where did they even get that syrup anyway?

Nadia barely has time to wonder about this when a message comes over her Insect Comms. >>Queen, the Bees have abandoned the field!<< The voice of a wasp buzzes into her brain.

>>What? What do you mean? Wait where are they?!<< Nadia looks about frantically for a moment. This is highly unlike the Bees, they're usually so reliable and goal oriented.

>>Well... they were lured by pancakes from the church breakfast...<<

Pancakes?! Church?! This makes no sense, well the pancakes kind of do, Bees love sweet things after all.

Turning her gaze in the direction indicated by the wasp soldier, Nadia is for a moment dumbfounded to see an actual church where the insect house should be. The building's doors have been thrown wide open and inside a grand pancake breakfast has been laid out upon tables piled high with food. Feasting on the food however is not the bees. No, the poor bees are left outside by the large milky white wasps wearing crucifixes inside: WASP wasps.

"Go away!" The WASP wasps tell the bees. "This is our food! You are not of us or our god! You may have nothing!"

"Please, just a taste!" The queen of the bees pleads with them on behalf of her people.

"NO!" Screeches a particularly bulbous and fat WASP wasp wearing ministers attire. "It was bad enough when those Mongeese stole our syrup! No more! We have nothing for the likes of you!"

<<Are you guys seeing this?>> Nadia asks into her T-comm. <<Becuase that, that's a lot.>> She doesn't even know where to start with what she is seeing.

Gar Logan has posed:
With things threatening to spiral out of control into further insanity, Beast Boy keeps it together and utilizes a few different forms to continue leading zoo visitors to safety, branching off a couple times to help push back an oncoming advance of twisted creatures. "You know, as far as weirdness goes, this is really getting up there quickly," he calls out to everyone, yet no one.

With an attempt being made to take Kian off to the aviary, he nearly breaks away to deal with that before it's too late, but upon seeing Victor move into action he nods and keeps an eye on things just in case, but aside from that he returns his attention to helping those who need it first.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Don't worry, Miss Starr, I've got this-" Vorpal prepares to do /something/, but is interrupted by Donna over the comm.

"Troia, I'm not a /magician/, I just think up stuff and shit happens. If you want detailled magical analysis, you need Raven, not me- but that seems like a... logical solution."

He doesn't say /why/ it seems like a logical solution. Fact is, throughout this entire thing, everything has unsettled him not because of how alien and strange this all is, the way his team-mates are probably feeling. No.

It's because it's all too /familiar/.

Donna wielding the flamboyance of flamingos seems to have a powerful effect, indeed, as the fireflies start floating upwards, and away from any flammable elements. Flame buoyance achieved, the bulls and the bears contained, and Kori finally subduing the battering bats, it is now only a matter of rescuing Kian- which Victor manages to do in the nick of time.

This is teamwork!

Meanwhile, Megan's magical daggers find their target in one of the tigers and, indeed, just as it is touched, it reverts to type, a full real tiger instead of a paper tiger, dispelling the bespelled beast. This indicates that, indeed, Donna might be on to something.

Which is why Phantasm does what he does. He continues grasping for something that, seemingly, isn't there- and in a moment, the loudest SCREEEECHing sound resounds throughout the zoo.

And those who are sensitive to certain things will /feel/ that some great amount of strange magic just, suddenly, /stops/, like some faucet has been closed and now it's only the wake of the remnants, followed by a quick plunge down the drain.

The insect house returns to normal, alas no pancake breakfast for anyone, and all animals return to how they were meant to be, the stunned owls fly away, now their proper shape and completely puzzled as to what the hell they are doing out this early, and the aviary has stopped fighting with itself.

The ground is covered with dazed little adorable bats, which cannot take flight when grounded, but all is well- some zookeepers, who are quick on the recovery because (after all) they live in Metropolis, start rounding them up again to take them back to their enclosure.

And then ,there's Terry, who finds his Cheshire form leaving him as part of the sudden drain of magic in the area. Thoroughly inexplicable. He and Karen are left adrift, floating on an artificial island in the middle of the otter pond. Dry, but surrounded by a dozen adorable, squealing little otters.

"Um... Troia?" he says into the comm. "... can someone come pick us up? I... can't transform. Right now."

Kian has posed:
    Kian wakes up, sort of.  He says something in his own language, and the mental contact with Vic is not helpful.  Fortunately, it's also weak, as he's not concentrating very well just yet.
    As he gets more coherent, he pulls his mind back behind his own eyes.  "What happen?  I thought there were owls tryin' to... and when they touch me... nnh.  You are Vic," he says obviously, still getting his bearings.  "Maybe I shoul' let you put me on the groun'.  I am still dizzy an' do not think I will land well."
    Kian admitting he shouldn't fly?  Whatever hit him, it must have been intense.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Cyborg saves Kian in the nick of time, and quite literally gets thwacked across the (human) eye by a pocketwatch carried by one of the parliamentary owls. He's going to have a black eye now, thanks to the magic of puns. Nick of time indeed. But then they're just /owls/ and the aviary is closed behind him and Kian, who he brings back out to set down near Gar and the assembled civilians he's been saving.

    "Yeah, I dunno. Seems like... a Vorpal sort of thing." He says that with heavy significance, but also... he sounds worried. Terry admitting he can't transform? After /that/? What's going on?

    Into the comms: "I think we're gonna have to call a meeting, see if anything else weird has been going on. I mean... you remember that talking cat Donna saw the other day? I get the feeling we might not have seen the last of this sort of... weirdness."

Donna Troy has posed:
    As quickly as it had begun, it's over. Apart from the clean-up. Supergirl is now ushering in the last of some now rather confused and tamed beasts into pens, and zoo keepers are on their way to take over, now that the animals seem to be... well, the animals again.

    "You've got a point, Vic," Donna responds over the T-Com as she flies across the zoo, eyes open for anything out of place on the way to the otter enclosure. "I mean I saw a couple of talking lions today, so the talking cat... yeah. We may be facing some kind of animal-based weirdness."

    She switches her T-com off broadcast for a moment as she comes in to a close hover by Karen and Terry. "Though I am not convinced this isn't your fault in some way," she tells the chaos cat, smirking slightly. "I mean the magic goes away at the same time your magic goes away? That's just a little suspicious. You may be losing control of your powers a bit. We'll have to investigate."

    She offers a hand down each to Terry and to Karen, to fly them from the little island in the otter enclosure and to dry land beyond. "Ms. Starr," she says with a polite nod. "Can I offer you a hand out of here?" It's not necessary of course, but maybe it'll be a novelty for Karen to be the one carried away from danger for once.

    The T-Com comes back on. "Everyone in one piece? And yes Vic. Meeting. Definitely."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia watches the insect house go back to normal and just stares for a moment. She's really starting to wonder if Janet might have slipped her something during brunch, but for all of her eccentricities doesn't think her step-mom would actually go that far. <<What the?>> The Waspette begins pulling up environmental scans on her HUD. <<I am not detecting any known hallucinogens in the air. But that was definitely really similar to the time I accidentally used some of Janet's mushrooms in a salad.>>

The wild wasps and bees are thanked for their help, promised some tasty favors in the future, and asked to disperse back to their usual hives. The Waspette then spends some time helping the zookeepers round up a number of the escapees from the Insect House, before reuniting with her teammates once more.

<<Do we have any idea what could be causing this level of mass hallucination? Could it be magic? It's magic isn't it...>> Because most times when things don't make sense it almost inevitably turns out to be magic.