Justice Avengers: Jump City at Dusk

“You can say that again.” She-Hulk grumbled when she did not get a chance to fight. And to make it worse, her red doppelganger was now gloating. “Excuse me? You throw one car and you think you are a hero? You better shut up because with all the stuff that’s coming out of your mouth, this place is gonna start to smell!” She replied, pointing at Red She-Hulk's face. “And I'm ten times… everything more than you. You're just a cheap copy who spent too much time on the oven!”

Red She-Hulk grabbed She-Hulk's hand from in front of her face, and twisted it roughly out of her way. "All day everyone's been calling me a clone or a copy, and I'm starting to get a little annoyed of it. You put your hand in my face, or try to talk shit again and I'll kick your ass until you're as red as I am...You big. Green. Slut."

edited 2nd Oct '14 8:19:57 AM by Saturn

After hearing the slut comment, She-Hulk blinked and then shook her head. "Oh, I'm sorry, hun. I won't get my hand on your face anymore." She-Hulk said, raising her hands and showing them to Red She-Hulk... before quickly following that up with a punch aimed at her face. "You never said anything about fists!"

edited 2nd Oct '14 8:22:35 AM by TheBigBean

Red She-Hulk took the punch, taking a step back to balance herself. She brushed her hair out of her face and glared at She-Hulk with her glowing, yellow eyes. She then quickly tried to grab onto She-Hulk's ankle, and slam her into the concrete as hard as she could.

"That was weird." Flash commented when HIVE disappeared. "Everyone, keep an eye out for anything weird. HIVE might still be around, which means we have to—" He was interrupted when a fight seemingly broke out between the two Hulks. "Oh boy. Well, good news. Some thirteen year old's dream just came true. Hawkeye, if you got anything to restrain, use it on red! Majestic, take green out of here! Katana, Wolverine, evacuate everyone, no citizens!"

He ran over to where the two She-Hulks were, holding his hands out. "Please, ladies, please, can't we at least maintain some kind of diplomacy?!" He tried to yell over the fight, wincing when the first blows were exchanged. "Oh. Oh boy. This is gonna be bad."

Clint sighed. Man, all I'm asking for is five minutes of rest today. Can we go five minutes without a fist fight? "I've got just the thing," he answered as he pulled an arrow with a syringe-head from his quiver. "This ought to calm Red down," he muttered as he aimed the arrow at Red She-Hulk and fired.

Red She-Hulk turned around when she felt the arrow hit her. She reached behind her back, pulled it out of her skin, and broke it on her knee.

"Yes, he did attack me, but wasn't the first time I got shot at," Wolverine said to the Knight. "He's a pill popping idiot who may be a hobo, but that doesn't make him a villain!" Then he heard a loud punch and looked over to see the She-Hulks going at it.

"Oh for the love of Christ," Wolverine groaned as he walked over to the crowd, "alright everyone, move along, nothing to see here," he said to the civilians, "I'll give autographs just as long as everyone leaves in a calm and orderly fashion!"

“What was that about ‘gramps’, small fry?” Peter said with a smirk as he watched Impulse get enraptured in the game. His mouth made a go at another taunt before his brain was violently side-lined as a lagging overhead light flickered on, revealing a zombie rail shooter nestled in the corner.

Peter never realized how incomplete his life was until that moment, watching the screen-saver-esque sample gameplay sweeping across the screen in a montage of poorly-rendered guts and stilted dialogue. His seventeen-year-old self might have literally killed for something like this. Peter floated over, almost in a trance, reverently guiding his hands along the machine’s boxy sides until they arrived at the coin slots; one for each light gun, one for each player. He slipped a quarter into each.

The opening narration started up, only to be muffled as Peter slipped in his headphones. Peter grabbed both of the garish orange pistols, rippling his fingers up and down the grips. He gently pulled them out, savoring the click, before hefting them to either side of his head, raising an eyebrow as the song cued in. “I’m an alligator~” He sang, before following up the next line with a rhythmic barrage of pulled triggers and virtual zombie guts. “I’m a mama-papa comin for you~”

His world shrank into a closed space of psychedelics and raw, unfiltered hand-eye coordination. The game thought there were two players, and thus supplied twice as many enemies. It made the game harder; it also made it fair. Peter’s face lit up as he claimed a piece of his pilfered past.

Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, reload. Head, head, arm, leg, leg, health pack, reload. Snipe the two-by-four, take out a row of zombies with a circular saw. Blast the propane tank. Pistol whip their eyes out of their sockets.

“Keep your electric eye oooooon me, baby~”

He was making good time too; the song was only mid-way through the second loop before he made it to the first boss, a cyclopean horror hefting an orphaned wrecking ball in one hand and a malfunctioning cement mixer in the other. He smiled and spread his arms wide, making the game think the players were strafing in different directions. The monster’s wave of cement froze as his attack animation slowed to a crawl.

“Put your ray gun to myyyyyyy head~”

Peter was treated to a jerky reimagining of the world where he saw something a full second after it happened. While disorienting at first, he managed to catch the outline of a hint about to disappear from the screen. He craned his arms and focused his shots where the environmental interaction was supposed to be.

“Press your space face close to miiiiine, love~”

Peter’s arms pressed together as the “two players” circumvented the arena and reunited, reorienting the frame rate. Peter crossed his wrists, lined up the reticules on the screen, and fired a layered shot at the crane support. A glaring flash signified a cut scene, and Peter slid back to strike a pose as the crane toppled over and crushed the Cyclops. “Freak out in a moon age daydream, ohhhhh yeah!”

The game screen erupted into an appropriately colorful celebratory display as Peter began playing the ensuing drum beat, with the gun barrels as impromptu drumsticks.

He swayed back and forth to the beat, then used a gun barrel to nudge out one of his headphones. After Impulse’s next game, Peter would hold the gun out to him with a giant grin on his face. “You want to give it a shot?

edited 2nd Oct '14 9:32:27 AM by Uncandescent

She-Hulk yelped when she was thrown against the concrete, creating a rather deep person-sized hole. Her breathing got 'angrier', as she glared back at Red She-Hulk, her sleeves getting a little tighter as she gripped the floor and jumped back into action, trying to kick Red She-Hulk with both feet on the way.

Slowly, Ambush Bug regained consciousness, mumbling. "Oh......What happened? Hey, a superhero fight! He teleported away, then returned to a safe point, eating a big bucket of popcorn. "I hope more heroes start attacking them! Or maybe not. Maybe I should run away, in case they try to attack me."

Flash winced with every attack from one of the She-Hulks. "Reddy, please!" He yelled to Red She-Hulk. "We had a deal, didn't we? Green, think about what you are doing! Will both of you please STOP?"

Peter didn't need to wait for Impulse's next game, as the boy was standing behind him, watching his game intently. He had pulled down his costume's helmet, revealing his messy, squashed red hair, and his goggles were resting around his neck, so his eyes were focused on Peter bobbing back and forth. "Pssh." He tried to scoff. "I had much more advanced games in my time period. This... this is child's play!"

He grabbed the gun, gingerly holding it right in front of his eye, holding it completely wrong. "Just you wait. I'll get even more points than you have." He said, just as the ironic echo of Fix-It-Felix's game over screen played in the background.

She-Hulk's kick connected to Red She-Hulk's chin, and she stepped back. "Screw your deal! I'm going to teach this cocky bitch a lesson about being a Hulk!" She charged straight at She-Hulk, holding onto her as she ran farther and farther back, pushing her with the force of a train, breaking right through the stage, and straight through the building behind the stage. Observant eyes would notice that no civilians were in Red She-Hulk's path.

Ambush Bug yelped and escaped from the stage, just barely avoiding dropping his popcorn bucket. He foolishly teleports to the first place he can think of: Sitting on Wolverine's head. "Uhh....Hi?"

Majestic put on a burst of speed, hoping to God he was strong enough to stop this madness. He put himself between the two Gammazons, putting a hand on each of them and pushing apart with all he had, planting his feet firmly in the street, digging into the pavement.

"STOP IT." He barked, trying his best to sound more in charge than he really felt. "You are being children." It was all he could do not to think of the hypocrisy of that statement by noticing just where he had, unintentionally, put his hands. "Why does one of you have to be a "copy", or a "clone"? Superman's an alien, I don't go to Tibet and beat him up for being a Majestic rip-off. Hawkeye has arrows, Green Arrow has arrows. I'm sure they've never been in a shoot-out for being too similar. This is ridiculous."

edited 2nd Oct '14 5:00:33 PM by SonOfSharknado

"-But!" Nonexistential Knight tried to protest when Wolverine disagreed over capturing Ambush Bug, and before he could say anything, his target had teleported away. "Aw, never mind."

His pieces reassembled, and White Claw approached him, to discuss the HIVE attack, when the fight between the She-Hulks broke out. Both of the young heroes gasped, as this was exactly what they feared was going to happen all along! Hopefully Majestic could keep them from demolishing the plaza...

Suddenly, The Bug reappeared, and now he was apparently teasing Wolverine -what, was he suicidal!?- Knight once more broke apart, hoping to capture him this time. He had an idea: if he could blind him, he might be unable to teleport away. So, he aimed to land one of his body parts, preferably his helm, over The Bug's head.

(Note: if he succeeds, Knight will accidentally discover that he also has the ability to possess people who "wear" him- which might also be useful to keep people like Red She-Hulk under control.)

When Wolverine discovered Ambush Bug on his head, he did the following action with surprising calm: He grabbed Bug by the torso, simply slammed him headfirst into the ground in front of him, regardless if Non-Existent Knight's helmet was on the teleporter's head, and just walked a short distance away.

Suddenly, the armor appeared over Ambush Bug. It immediately started attacking him. "Ow!" Whack! Son of a-" Thud! "Blorgghh..Hey, mama, the monkeys're eating me..." Ambush Bug fell unconscious again. That can't be good.

edited 2nd Oct '14 6:48:57 PM by MiscellaneousSoup

"Look who's talking, you little overacting bitch!" She-Hulk yelled back, gripping Red She-Hulk's head, ready to perform the strongest headbutt she had ever done when Majestic stepped forward. However, that didn't seem to calm her down in the slightest. "Except Superman doesn't dress the same as you do except for one color and call himself Supermajestic, does he?!" She grabbed Majestic's hand, swatting it away. "Besides, this b— woman marches up to my city and starts insulting me?! I won't take it." She cracked her knuckles. "I won't take it at all."

"I DON'T WANT THIS!" Red She-Hulk screamed out as loud as she could. "I don't WANT to be associated with you! I don't WANT to be She-Hulk! I just...feel GOOD when I'm red! I'm sorry if I need a little help controlling myself! I'm not a bad person, damn it! How do you think I feel, when I'm just trying to be left alone and everyone starts calling me a Hulk? You should know how that feels...At least you get to be a good guy. I'm just a clone. A copy. I thought I would finally be done with being associated with my husband...But with this now..." She indicated to her own body. "I'll never be able to escape him..."

Majestic slapped She-Hulk's hands down, putting a finger in her face. He was not in the mood to play nursemaid, but apparently, he was the only one strong enough to do it.

"Yes, you will." He said, though he tried to soften his voice. Making her angry at him wouldn't fix anything. "Come on, She-Hulk. I know you're better than this. Don't go down to her level." Then he spun around at Red She-Hulk. "And as for you. You want us to believe you're not a bad person? Don't do....everything you've done from the moment you showed up. Screaming and name calling and breaking things...you use filthy language to pretend you're adult, but you act like a brat. You think that just because you don't put your hands on people, you're not hurting them. Even to me, that's naive." And now, without even planning to, he was ranting. He wheeled on Flash now, without even thinking about it. "And you! Did you even ask anyone else about...all of this? Was this ever up for a discussion? If we're a team, then the team should have some input on whether or not they want to be paraded around like bearded women!" Then he pointed to the Hero Duo. "And what's with you two today? You're threatening people and assaulting anyone who...who even looks suspicious!" Lastly, he looked at Hawkeye. "And I don't even know you all that well, but all you've done is complain about how little you want to do...anything!" Majestic ran his fingers through his hair, trying to calm himself down. He wasn't even really mad at anyone, this was all just a buildup of days worth of unresolved anxieties. "I just...I just need...I...AAAAAARGH!" Majestic let out one last cry of frustration, and then there was a crack as the pavement exploded under him when he flew into the sky, and then another crack as, high above the city, he broke the sound barrier.

After an appropriately awkward silence, Damien leaned on Flash's shoulder, once again as if from nowhere. He picked his nails with what looked like a laser pointer, if the laser part were solid.

"Now, I'm not much experienced in all this...superhero stuff. But I am your PR man. So how about you lovelies just pop on back to your clubhouse and talk things over, while I try and see what I can do about all this, hmm?"

Meanwhile, high in the ivory tower-like skyscraper of the headquarters of Pacificom Industries, the leader in bioengineering studies in the world, James Wyvern◊ watched it all, wringing his hands and smiling like the cat that ate the canary. It was all too perfect.

"Stupid little Kherubimite can't figure out who he is for more than a week, and he's already starting to crack." He muttered to himself. An excellent start to his day. Very Excellent, indeed.

edited 6th Oct '14 11:56:53 AM by SonOfSharknado

Footsteps.

Wolverine approached where the Shulks had their fight right after Majestic had his epic breakdown. He looked up, scanning the skies for the superhero. He then looked between the two females. "Congratulations," he said, "ya both broke the Amish kid, in front of a large group of civilians we just rescued. Hope you two are happy," he said, his voice mixture of scathing snark and genuine disgust.

He then turned to Hawkeye. "Don't take it personally," the mutant advised. "He'll apologize once he cools down a bit."

edited 6th Oct '14 12:04:17 PM by UdtheImp

Clint raised his hand towards Wolverine, signalling for him to say no more. "It's fine. Majestic's right, anyway. I don't want any part of this team, and I've done nothing but whine because of it. I think it's time I just went home and left you supers to sort out your... issues with each other." Clint motioned to walk away from the group, before stopping and turning back to speak once more. "Hang on... is there really another guy who uses arrows? I mean... really?"

"Yeah, the Green Arrow," Wolverine said. "Used to hang around Star City for a couple of years, but then recently dropped off the map for some reason. There's a void right there you can fill, not to mention our team is lacking the long range department that aren't energy based."

Robbie and Suzie (Knight and Claw) stood dumbfounded after Majestic's outburst. "Wow... I think we broke him" she said, as they watched him fly off.

Knight looked at the unconscious Ambush Bug, and couldn't help feel guilty. Even thought he still believed he acted logically. It just happened at the wrong time and place.

"So, what do we do about him?" he asked the others. "I still think he's too dangerous to let loose. The next person he feels like shooting with a shotgun might not have a healing factor" he said, looking at Wolverine. "Can the police hold him, or would he teleport away? I have a few ideas on how to restrain him, but I want to hear if you guys agree to it first."

edited 6th Oct '14 2:42:37 PM by Sijo