The Ghostly Ghoblin Strikes Again!

Summary:
August 4, 2014: The Ghostly Ghoblin has a beef to pick with the manager. Will he get to say his piece? Continue and find out.

41st Street Bank

A bank on 41st Street in Midtown Manhattan.


Characters

NPCs
Ghostly Ghoblin
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Mood Music:


New York, New York, the city so nice, they named it twice. It's rush hour in the city that never sleeps, with cars blocking every which way. The streets crawl along, moving slowly. A white and yellow ice cream van tries to change lanes, causing congestion for two lanes. But of course, most people are less upset about that. It's the song. It won't stop. The driver's shouted that it's broken to people, but they don't believe him.

Meanwhile, just down the street from that commotion, a masked man appears in the sky, riding on a platform. He laughs out loud, "Hahahaaaaah, hehehah, hahaheeee, hahahahhhh!” and the throws a small spherical object at the turn style doors to the 41st Street Bank, no doubt killing or at least injuring the security guard by the door, and creating an opening for him to fly through. His glider leaves a trail of smoke that can be seen for miles around, and while the cops are no doubt called, the only ones who’ll be able to make it will be on foot or bicycle.

After last night's party, Garth had made his way to Midtown to see Frank's Fabulous Fresheners, New York's Finest Cleaners TM. He was hoping that they'd be able to get the stains out of the carpet, but he was not hopeful. Being only half a block away from the bank, he hears the explosion even through the closed door. It’s not airtight, and that was a big one. “Woah,” is all he says at first, caught completely off guard.

*

And in that bank is one young woman, named Courtney. She recently got a second job working at a food truck down the road. Her timing seems to be quite awful, what she thought was going to be a routine deposit of the food trucks breakfast and lunch earnings has turned into a big hot mess. As the explosion rocks the bank customers begin to yell and do what they do best in a situation like this, panic. Even the tellers are a bit freaked out, robbers with guns are one thing, one with bombs is another matter. The only one that seems to have any sense of control is Courtney and she has crawled under one of the marble tables and is basically ducking and covering for the moment until the dust settles.

*

Perched, ever vigilant, is New York's most famous and beloved hero: Deadpool. Okay, well, maybe he isn't a hero. Semantics. Wearing his trademarked red and black suit, masked, and armed to the teeth, Wade sits on the edge of a three story building across from the aforementioned bank. His legs dangle off the edge of the building as he carefully folds a newspaper. Beside of him is a brown paper lunch baggy. Across his back are two swords, and several guns are neatly strapped to his body.

For now he doesn't seem to be doing much else, though he does glance at the explosion before resuming his folding. "One," he says out loud to no one in particular.

*

That building over there, the one you can't see because the bank with the smoke where the door used to be, is in the way? That's the Baxter Building. Famed for being the home of the best chocolate desserts in NYC. Also, for having four crazy costumed science adventurers living on the top half. One of these, not currently in costume but rather, in 'civvies' consisting of chinos, a white polo, vibram toe shoes and a Storm Front (racing team) shell jacket, is Johnny Storm, who is just coming from the bathroom in the bank. The boom meant he didn't have time to wash his hands, so they're on fire, because really, fire works better anyway.

*

Inside the bank, the dust kicks up, creating a foggy soup. Anyone near the door might have been hit by shrapnel, but those further in are fine. They might be coughing, they might be scared, but they aren't hurt, not like the poor security guards. There have already been two fatalities this day. Would there be more?

The man on the glider swoops in, landing his device. The man… doesn't seem to be entirely corporeal. He's there, and yet he's not. Could it be an illusion like Mysterio, or is he really only partially in this dimension? In this situation, nobody cares to think of those things, for he is the Ghostly Goblin, and he's come for your safe.

Stepping onto the shards of glass, tile, and remains of concrete, he holds up some kind of high tech ray gun, which he holds upwards, pressed against his shoulder. "Shut up, be quiet, and nobody will get hurt," a glance to the dead security guards, "nobody else will get hurt. Now, which one of you would be the bank manager? I've come to unlock my security deposit."

The man seems a bit unhinged, laughing away, resting his left hand against one of the signing tables, doodling, 'the Ghostly Goblin was here', though the writing seems to be only partially there. It's like the pen disappears with his fingers intermittently during the writing. Another figure comers through the door, looking similar to the Goblin, but different. This one wears a skull-like mask he does not laugh, nor does he seem unhinged in the slightest. He probably notices the man with the hands on fire. But the Ghostly Goblin does not.

Excusing himself from the man he had been speaking to at Frank's Fabulous Fresheners, New York's Finest Cleaners TM, Garth makes his way down the street. A lot of people have been running towards the carnage, all with smart phones. New Yorkers, an explosion goes off and they want to video it on a smart phone? Even worse, most of the people in the traffic jam haven’t even noticed. You’d think this sort of thing happens regularly to them.

*

Pulling the collar of her Property of Met-U Cheer Squad t-shirt over her face, Courney peeks up from under the table where she hides. The bad guy is /right there/, maybe even standing over the table she is under If that were the case the last thing she wants to do while everyone is still in freak out mode is draw attention to herself. Or maybe she does, if his attention is on her maybe some of the customers can flee without him noticing. She begins to cough as if the dust and smoke were bothering her…maybe they are.

*

"Two," Deadpool recites in some deadpan tone. He finishes folding the paper pirate hat, which he neatly places on his head. On it, written in thick black marker is "D.P." The brown paper baggy is neatly tucked into his belt pocket. Everything's checked out? Yeah? Looks good, looks good. With a slight shove, Wade freefalls to the pavement. He lands fairly silently, perhaps with a slight sickening -crunch- as he combat rolls through the impact to cover behind one of the gridlocked cars. That occupant probably screams and runs away.

Peaking up, Deadpool takes stock of the situation at least one more time before punching through the passenger side door of the car, unlocking it, and climbing inside. Oh, this station wagon is already running.

*

Unspoken, Oh shit, because Sue would wash his mouth out with soap - even now, Big Sis would find out somehow if Johnny 'imitatable behaviour' Storm were to use vulgar language where it could get out to kids everywhere. Spoken, "Flame on!" and the racing jacket and the chinos and the polo are GONE. Fortunately he's wearing his Unstable Molecule Briefs and the shoes were treated this morning, or Johnny would be demonstrating a different kind of imitatable behaviour. He aims a pencil-thin jet of flame at the pen being used by the Ghostly Ghoblin… wait, just Goblin. Man, that's gonna drive the proofreaders at the Bugle nuts. Maybe it'll make him drop it, maybe if we're lucky it'll explode the ink all over his costume and we can laugh at him.

*

Taskmaster usually isn't one to openly display himself in scenarios like this. These kinda hijinks and shenangins are a thing of the past, he'd thought when the Ghostly Goblin contacted him this was going to be a smoother, more professional operation than a bank heist. The visible display of his skull-mask is a faulty hiccup in his image inducer. One he has stopped to toggle with so it corrects itself, his normal outline warbling and waving briefly before it reshapes in to the image of a purple and gold-to-yellow suited man with a backpack on and a weapon in his hands, Paste Pot Pete's old costume. The one Taskmaster remembers seeing him in last.

Pasty Pot is a schmuck and the Task-man has not one iota of guilt in using the man's image to look like a complete jackhole. That masked gun in his hands not actually a glue shooter it's a Beretta LTLX7000 shotgun loaded with less than lethal rounds. If he wants to kill someone hes got swords, knives, grenades, real bullets and of course his bare hands.

It's Johnny Storm the man notices first but dealing with the image shift has him unable to much, yet, at least. The woman under the table coughing unseen as is Deadpool. Knowing he is hear Taskmaster just might leave anyways. Wades a fruit, a rotten one that not even rabid squirrels would nibble on. Just all around bad for business.

*

The cough is followed by a look, and then a smile. "And what do we have here?" asks the Ghostly Goblin as he leans over the table to see the youthful co-ed hiding from him. "Awe, are we scared? What's your name, sweetie?” While he sounds nice, he sets his gun down to grabs her by the wrist, pulling her up to her feet. One up, he points the gun at her. But not in the conventional sense.

He takes his finger off the trigger to hold it out to her like a microphone, so the barrel of the gun is just beneath her chin, “why don’t you tell the audience your name, and see if you can get the bank manager to come out from his hiding spot. After all, Mr. Manager, you wouldn’t want to see this little girl hurt because you were too stupid to let mE INTO THE SAFE?” He smiles through the mask, which seems to move and contour with the movements of his face underneath.

You'd think a driver would scream and run away after seeing someone do a three story freefall into a combat roll behind their car. But this is New York. A pedestrian, who nearly got hit, screams and runs away, but the driver, a man with a thick Bronx accent, rolls down his window, pointing his handgun at the ‘hero’, “Back away from the caah before ah put a cap in yah ass, motha… something.”

But then the Merc with the Mouth punches through the passenger side door. The driver sees the katanas, the guns, the fact that this guy wasn't backing down, and he has an abrupt change of perspective, “Fine, whatever, keep the car.” He opens the driver side door and begins running off, slowly. He's carrying around way too much weight to do it any faster, and the poor man has to pull up his pants as that big butt of his wiggles as he runs.

Not having noticed the burning man up until this point, the Ghostly Ghoblin's pen explodes from the jet of heat being directed at it. He hadn't even known he was still doodling with it, but the ink gets all over his gloved hand, onto the table, and some of it splatters onto the back of the young woman he seems to think is a hostage. How wrong is he? His attention now diverted, he looks to the Human Torch, “now was that nice? NO! What would your sister think. You endangered poor, oh, what was your name, sweetie?”

"Pasty Pete," the Ghoblin gets the name wrong, “why don't you glue that young man's mouth shut and make him go stand in the corner. Actually, better not, he might burn the place down. Just, deal with him. Now,” and he raises his voice, “I HAVE A COMPLAINT AND WANT TO TALK TO THE MANAGER!” Then with a normal, calm voice, “I didn’t get my toaster, and hot pants over there doesn’t count.”

There is the clang on the rooftop of the station wagon as Garth runs by. It was easier to jump over the cars than to try and work his way around them, with all the shouting, commotion, doors opening, closing. Everyone seems to have an opinion, everyone’s mad, and they’re fighting amonst each other more than focusing on the goings on at the bank. Finally arriving at the bank, Garth, dressed in blue jeans and a white t-shirt begins waving his hands. He sets off the sprinkler system, using the water. But, instead of their normal operation, the water seems to come out directed at Paste Pot Pete and the Ghostly Ghoblin, aimed at their faces, so the Human Torch shouldn’t have a problem. If he can blind them, then they’re less of a threat.

*

Courtney does let out a convincing cry as she is grabbed by the wrist and jerked out from under the table by Goblin. As she is pulled against the villain she does a quick glance around, taking in the recognisable Human Torch across the room and being all hero like. So it's two against two at the moment, she is agreeable to those odds, to bad all banks have cameras so she is going to have to keep her heroing low key, she takes that secret Id stuff seriously. "I'm Courtney." she answers as she reaches up to wrap her hand around the barrell of the gun under her chin "And the bank manager should honestly just tell you to shove it." she is rarely without the belt that gives her super strength, today is no exception, her grip on the gun becomes a crushing one as she rips it from Goblin's grip.
*

Thanks dude, I owe you!" Deadpool shouts as the guy flees. That'll work.

From the background, the roar of a grannycar V8 fills the background with noise punctuated by horns and scraping metal. A cacophony of noise that reveals itself to be a station wagon at full throttle, forcing its way through gridlock by just sheer torque. Free of the other cagers, the wagon hops the curb with engine still roaring, nose lifted as it rapidly accelerates in a path for Ghostly Goblin. The radio blasts Queensryche, a hit from a local radio. Even should the vehicle fail to hit Goblin, it will continue to accelerate through the bank.

Before it finally comes to stop by smashing full-speed into the vault doors, neatly crunching the frontend of the car in a cloud of radiator steam and a lot of smoke. Deadpool comes flying through the windshield, hitting the vault door by face and then back as he slams into it, and then the crunched hood of the car. Gasping for breath, he tries to sit up as his bones mend themselves, a hoarse laugh slowly becoming more bodied as he shouts, "V8 ENGINES! More between you and what you're hitting, right?!" Somehow, the paper pirate hat is still on his head.

*

Now that's just lame. Some see-thru Green Goblin Wannabe is trying to invoke the Wrath of Sue. Wait, there's no way that isn't Sue being all cray-cray like that one time with the Psycho-Man? No, Sue wouldn't endanger another woman, she'd have picked the guy with the yellow-stained pants trying to crawl away… poor sap.

The Torch decides to take out this Ghost Ghoofus first… clearly the imminent danger, since Paste Pot Pete is… waitaminit.

"Hey PETE, I thought you were in jail again, didn't Wonder Man glue your sorry self to the wall with your own glue pot the other day?"

ADD is such a terrible thing for a hero to have, because he forgets to tackle the Ghost to try to keep him from shooting the girl. That is, if tackling worked, and if it didn't make the gun go off anyway.

*

That weapon in his hands lifts, aims and fires at the Human Torch only to go wide as he takes a face full of water, the blast of it from the sprinkles causing him to sputter past the disguise and underneath his mask, to actually stumble and fall over backwards until it's no longer there. Probably threw his shot a little wide but he's sure he hit somethin, maybe, he's the Taskmaster, he ain't supposed to miss right? Right, wait, no thats another guy.
It's that trip and kiss of ass to ground that has him narrowly evading getting rammedby Deadpool's kamikaze car assault.

*

With the water spraying in his eye, and Courtney’s efforts, the Ghostly Ghoblin loses his grip on the gun, and as Courtney rips it away, it moves right through his gloved hand, instead of knocking it away. The rain passes through him as well, probably soaking Courtney. It's like he wasn’t even there. "Darn it, Courtney, look what you made me do?” Shaking his head, he stomps off, heading towards the safe, he marches right through the teller station, and towards the safe at the back of the back.

Except he doesn't. He walks right into the safe, smacking his face on it, and falling backwards. While still on the ground, his fists raise above the teller station, and he calls out, “Damn you Spider-Man!” Oh, his origin has nothing to do with Spider-Man. But, it’s a long story, and he thinks Spider-Man caused the accident that left him partially corporeal.

The Deadpoolmobile proves to be well made. As old as it is, it forces its way through, easily displacing the newer plastic cars, damaging fenders, trunks, just moving by torque. A few pedestrians who had been videotaping the whole ordeal are forced to run for cover, hugging the walls, jumping into the safety of the gridlock. The car speeds through the gaping hole that used to be a turn style doorway. Garth has to jump out of the way, “what in Poseidon…”

The car travels through the bank, forcing Courtney to move, some other people to scurry out of the way, though Taskmaster's avoidance probably takes the cake. The Deadpoolmobile smacks into the teller station, coming to a stop overtop of the Ghostly Ghoblin and crumpling into the vault. The tellar station kind of disappears, folding in on itself under the car, and ruining the Ghostly Ghoblin’s day. He crawls out from under the car, looking like he just got run over by a station wagon. He coughs up some fluids. “Where… is… the manaGER?”

Having jumped out of the way, Garth knocked over a fake palm tree, which smacked into the main security feed. There are a few others, but the explosion and the Deadpoolmobile driving through the building seems to have cut power to the building. The lights go out. But at least it's still a bright day, with a big bay window in the front where the entrance used to be. Slumped over like that, Garth rubs his forehead, “Did anyone get the licence plate number of that thing?” Then, as he rises to his feet, he chides himself, “That sounds like something Arsenal would have said."

*

Courtney moves alright, she isn't as fast as the usual speedsters that do their work to keep the city safe, not even close, but she is certainly faster than a normal human could ever hope to be. Running toward the teller counter she flees the oncoming car, it's an easy jump for her to get onto the teller counter and she flips forward as the car takes it out but not her. Landing on the trunk of the car it's another flip to the ground as it impacts into the vault doors. The front of her shirt is no lie. Lucky Met-U. Fleeing the car she has lost track of the bad guys so she glances around again, Goblin is run over but seems to be unaffected by it and is ranting about Spider-Man and Paste-Pot Pete..or whatever his name is still on the ground. Oh and look another hero has shown up. And suddenly its dark, perfect. She raises her hands toward Goblin and a series of blinding star blasts shoot forth toward the ranting villain. To a normal person they would not only be blinding, but hurt like all heck. Since he is only partially corporeal they might not hurt, but seeing anything for a while might be an issue.

*

Hopping off the station wagon, Deadpool will likely land on or through the goblin, almost completely agnostic to his existence. The brown paper baggy is opened and DPiddy makes his way over to a teller desk. "Ignore me, I just need to rob this real quick." Kneeling down, he pulls out a teller drawer as if make it look like he's robbing it. In the darkness, it's probably very well played out. In actuality, Wade removes a flash drive from the paper bag and plugs it into the back of a teller computer. They never said the power -has- to be on. What does he care if their plan works or not.

He gets paid either way.

Standing, he waves, "Yeah, it was nice meeting all of you but Dancing with the Stars is on and I can't miss Kirstie Alley. Ciao!" Then he just sort of walks to the employee exit, and finding it locked, kicks the door down and wanders outside singing "Yo ho ho, it's a pirate's life for me!"

*

Less than Lethal is generally hardened rubber shot, sometimes mixed with capsaicin or other tear gas agents. At the distance from Tasky to Torch, that's easily still a partial-hit, even with Johnny having his attention on Fakepot Pete and ready to dodge the stream of glue. The thing is the flame armour. About a third of the payload hits against the thin shell of 3000+ degree heat; the rubber vaporizes into a stinky burning mess, while the metal beads underneath melt and splash all over Johnny's right arm and shoulder. It's a little sting, but it's not gonna really hurt the Torch. Maybe it's a good thing his clothes burned off? It's really hard to get slag out of a nylon shell jacket.

No, the real problem is the capsaicin which vaporizes and spreads out as a cloud of smoke. The Torch tries to get control of it, but there's too much water vapor confusing the issue, so there's a small but spreading cloud of hot-sauce-gas now.

Something… "KIRSTIE ALLEY HASN'T BEEN ON DANCING FOR TWO YEARS YOU FRUITCAKE!!" Johnny yells, trying to dodge the smoke.

*

In and out just like that Deadpool is gone. Task's dealt with enough Clowns lately he's pretty well-relieved, unpredictable and chaotic is… tedious. The drenched image inducer is luckily still functional and his shots went off at Human Torch, working in an alternate method.

"Check the numbers here, Ghost. We're out of safe working parameters." That shotgun takes aim on Johnny Storm again as The Trapster sort of casually walks towards the large vehicular made portal.

One shot.

Two shots.

Three.

He's just pounding away at it now. It's not lethal to the man that’s been proven but it's annoying and it's working on drawing attention and crowd suppression, definitely not a glue gun. "I'm starting a timer then I'm out." Not one to cut on contracts (often) but this one’s gotten ugly.

*

The Ghostly Ghoblin pushes himself up, shards of broken glass, splinters of wood, bits of plastic, papers, it’s all fallen on him, but he tries to get up. Deadpool lands on him, and he falls back down, smacking his face into the cut tile. His mask tears a bit, not all the way through, but his mask has a scar now. Great. The Ghostly Ghoblin’s going to need some work on his complection. And it didn’t start out too good in the first place.

He tries again, he moves to rise up, grabbing the Deadpoolmobile, he uses it to staggers to his feet. He’s probably got some internal bleeding, maybe a broken bone. He reaches for his bag of tricks, and winces, “Ouch!” He broke a finger it seems, and swears, “Darn you all, darn you all to heck!” Yes, he says heck. In his deluded mind, he still doesn’t go for the good stuff. That would be impolite. What if there were children present? There probably are, cowering in the corner, hiding, trying to keep safe.

Garth is still near the entrance, and he gets struck by the glue. Covered in it really. It sends him flying, smacking into the nearest wall. "What is this, abuse Garth day?” He’s not having a great day, or a great week really, but he tries to free himself, struggling against the glue. He finally decides to just heat it up, but he can't even move his hands with them. Oh, he can move them, the glue is stretchy enough, but he can’t seem to cast one of his spells, it’s quite the distraction. So, he does the only thing he can. He starts to use his eye beams on them. A purple ray emits from each eye, like Superman’s heat vision, except this is pure force, just pushing the glue off of him, and… sadly taking his shirt too. What is he, William Shatner?

*

The Star Blasts light up the unlit, shadowy bank as they flash through the air. The timing is near perfect as they hit Goblin as he darns everyone to heck. The impact doesn't stagger him as much as it would normally, but he yells out more heck's and darns as he flings his arms up to cover his eyes, but the temporary damage is done. For at least a minute or two all he will be seeing his stars.

A bit of breathing room, with Trapster claiming to be fleeing and Goblin blind for the moment. Not that Courtney wants to breath, with the hot-sauce cloud taking over the bank. She isn't sure if she should be trying to get below it or above it. Smoke usually rises, do hot sauce clouds do that too? It's a conundrum. She decides to drop, a long staff materializing in her hand and with it a force field around her. It won't stop the cloud or maybe not even slow it down but it makes her feel safer.

*

Three or four more blasts his way, and Torch has made a fire shield as a disk between him and the material, which means he's now covered with a fine spray of metal dots over his body. That's gonna look all Neo-Vamp or something, but really the nasty part is the capsaicin gas… Johnny is making the smoke and gas slowly collect together, so it's forming a blob in the air rather than spreading further, but while he's doing that he can't stop the Trapster Who Uses Someone Else's Weapons from escaping, because its taking all his concentration to do the other two things.

*

The "Trapster" has to stop in his assault on the Human Torch due to magazine size but that doesn't stop him from tossing a couple glue bombs out. These actually were once the Trapsters, Task kind of won them in a bet. They're what the once Aqualad just got to deal with. At the doorway his forearm comes up and he shouts,

"Tick tock, Ghost. This is my last call before I blow this popsicle stand. Too much heat!" Literally, c'mon one of these guys is on fire. The other is an Atlantean and someone in there just lit up a strobe-light of eye seering blur. Nothing on any level he wants to stick around for, he's a coward somewhere past all the bravado but he's also a smart one.

The shotgun discarded (it lands on the ground and no longer is covered by the image inducer) and a handgun is drawn. This has actual killin' style munitions.

*

Scratching his backside after he gets up yet again. First Deadpool, then Stargirl, or Courtney, who’s going to be the next one to try and smack him down? He rubs his eyes, trying to see clearly, and winces in the pain from that, what was it, a starburst attack?

Garth began to cough at the gas, his lungs not being quite as hardy as a human’s. He’s freed himself of the glue, only to bow over, trying to get some air. The gas rises, so he tries to breath in from the ground. But then Torch seems to deal with it, collecting it into a ball. Once he’s recovered a little bit, breathing normally again, he fires off a blast of heat at the Trapster's weapons, or whoever the Ghostly Goblin’s friend might be.

"All right, all right,” the Ghost crankily calls out, “toodles,” and he sets off in a run, picking up his glider, and slipping his feet into the holsters. “But I’ll be back, I’ll get you next time, Bank Manager, and I’ll get my little toaster too!” With a maniacal laugh, who is this guy, he fires up the glider, flying through the open window, and… did he just leave the Trapster? So much for honour amongst thieves.

*

With the toxic, at least to eyes and nose, cloud under control Courtney gets to her feet as the Goblin decides to give up his mission to rob the bank or whatever his big plan was that went all Titantic on him. "I assume we don't want him to get away right?" she asks the population of the bank in general as the force field around her drops and she gives the staff a twirl and flicks it out like a whip and she was Indiana Jones or someone. A thick rope of energy comes out of it, sailing through the air in the direction of the fleeing Goblin. The hope is to wrap it around him so she can yank him off his little flying skateboard thing. What is this, Back to the Future?!

*

"Yeah, if we can stop him," Johnny says. He can't move the cough-gas but he can fling fire at the Ghoblin. A little sphere of fire arcs around the spraying fire-sprinklers before it explodes near the immaterial terror.

*

The blast of heat fired by Tempest has "The Trapster" executing a sidelong dodge he witnessed Black Widow pull off months ago, the weapon left behind as nothing but a pile of slag on the ground. Reflexive like he throws a dagger back at the young man mid-tumble.

It's crouched on one knee that he watches Ghost Goblin plough through the window and the do-gooders continue fire on the man. "Screw it." He mumbles.

Coward? Yes. Professional, also a yes, vengeful? Pretty much. As focused as they are he'll slip out the front door and run fire off a line towards a catwalk opposite the road, one that he can latch on to and sling towards while bounding off a vehicle and pulling his body up the ledge.

Ghost Goblin is going to get blacklisted by Task for this. Abandon him after a badly planned heist. He's worked with some screwballs before and this guy ranks right next to Stilt-Man. Word carries a lot in the criminal underground and at the Bar With No Name later Taskmaster will make sure to spread his own opinion of this dingus.

A few more grapnel style Spidey-esque slings away and he drops in to a crowd, firing up that image inducer again to blend and vanish. Hell with this.

*

The staff and the patrons of the bank are all in favour of capturing the Ghostly Ghoblin, though most of them are too scared to even nod in agreement. A cowering old man nervously clutches at a nameplate in his finger, it looks to be made of gold, or a reasonable facsimile. When Stargirl asks the people, he abruptly slips it into his pocket to hide it. He couldn’t have been more obvious. He’s the manager. He’s scared as he’s ever been. And he’s probably innocent.

The Goblin's leg is caught by the thick rope of energy, and he is yanked back. The glider continues to move, going upwards, pulling the rope taut, and he begins to turn back around. He screams out in the pain as the glider and the woman on the other end of the rope fight for control of him. He’s tied to them both, but, then, he didn’t get his name for nothing. The constantly switching, phasing in and out has perfect timing, and the rope goes loose, falling through him and the glider. There’s probably a scientific reason for why the rope falls through, but the glider dematerialises like him, but it would take someone like Reed Richards to explain it. The fact is that the rope falls, and Ghobby gets away.

Though before he goes immeratial, the Human Torch is able to set fire to his cape, which continues to be aflame long after he dematerialises, “What, darn, darn, darn, DARN!” He kicks the glider into high gear, hoping that the wind would blow it out, but the wind doesn’t seem to affect him when he's phased. “Oh my,” is the last thing heard, in a total George Takei-like voice, as he disappears behind one of New York’s many skyscrapers.

With Trapster on the run, and Ghobby seemingly gone, Garth moves to the other two heroes. Torch might be able to catch him, but Garth isn’t about to suggest it. There probably isn’t a non-lethal way of stopping a guy flying through the air on a glider with fire.

Extending his hand to the Torch, he offers, “that was some good work there. I know you’re busy with the Fantastic Four, but, we’ve been working on forming a team. Would you be interested in a sidegig?” And to Stargirl, he also offers a smile, a hand when she comes nearer, “And miss,” he heard her name was Courtney, but doesn’t want to say it again in front of the civilians, “there’s a place for you as well… you handled yourself well. My name’s Tempest.” He says that in his civvies, but then, he has no secret identity to worry about.

*

The sudden release of the end of her energy line causes Courtney to stumble back a few steps, but she manages to catch herself before she totally falls on her backside "Oh for the love of…" she stops that line as she is approached by Tempest, who gets a once over "Uhm okay?" yes she finds it odd that some total stranger just came up and asked her to join a team, but she guesses that's how this things works, but having only been part of duos and never a group she really has no clue. A nod is returned to Johnny "Thanks. You have a little something," she gestures with a circle of her hand to indicate all over "there." she means the now vulcanized rubber bullets that impacted on him. "I've got to go….away from here" and away from police questions and what not since she isn't in costume "Feel free to call me and we can discuss this team thing." she picks a deposit slip and pen from the floor and jots her number on it, handing it over to Tempest. On her way out she picks up the deposit bag from under the table and once outside quickly takes to the sky.

*

Torch has come to the same conclusion. He doesn't have one of Reed's all purpose gizmos for stopping villains, because that wasn't why he was here today. He was depositing the Four Freedom Foundation receipts for the last week. Hopefully they were all handled before the power went out.

"I might be," Johnny says. "You're Tempest, right?"

He nods to the girl with the staff. "Hey, nice work with the flares."

*

“Yeah,” Garth replies to the name Tempest, “I have to introduce you to a friend of mine. I want to see what’s stronger, fire or ice.” It’d certainly make for an interesting training session to pit the Human Torch against Iceman. The shirtless Atlantean reaches into his pocket, pulling out a phone and handing it out to the Torch in one hand, while Courtney offers him her phone number on a deposit slip in the other, “Uh, you can make your hand not be on fire, right? If so, then can you put in your number, we can talk more about it when we’re not in such a public place?” As Courtney begins to head away, to protect her identity, Garth makes a mental note to talk to the manager. He’s going to see if he can arrange for any portion of the security tapes that includes Courtney be removed. The bank owes them one, and it can probably be arranged.

*

Johnny, now that he isn't both flying and shielding himself, and so easier able to compress the smoke to a lump, he burns it away. When Courtney points out the splattering, he sighs. "Yeah. I'm in the book under Four Freedoms Contact Info - COO. I've gotta go shower now, get rid of this stuff… Wait, Fire or Ice? You don't mean Iceman? Dude, I'm stronger. He hasn't even started training hard yet. I'm sure he'll make me look like a chump when he does finally catch up though."

Johnny takes the phone and puts one hand out. Easy, he does this all the time.


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