Summary:
March 01, 2015: Tar Pit tries to steal the championship banners at Madison Square Garden.
Madison Square Garden
Home of the New York Knicks.
Characters
NPCs
- Tar Pit
- Cisco Ramon
Mood Music:
Reptilia, by the Strokes
Yes!
Boys night out.
Barry Allen has his long legs scrunched up nearly to his chest as he hands the beer over towards Cisco Ramon. Both men are dressed to the nines, or dressed as well as either of them can be given their incomes.
Down below them, under the brightest lights the New York Knickerbockers are taking on the Toronto Raptors. There's some yelling and that squeaky sound where sneakers swipe against the hardwood. It is the second quarter and things are just getting interesting with the lead having changed several times over in the last minute.
"So, I'm thinking we start at the Ringside," Cisco says as he takes a sip before pushing his long black hair behind his ear. "All the hottest girls hang out at the Ringside."
"Doesn't really matter to me," Barry says to his friend, "Tonight is about you and the eternal search, Cisco."
"Like Indiana Jones," Cisco says.
"Like Indiana Jones," Barry repeats.
"They ain't the Kings and they ain't the Miners," Leonard Snart tells the bar-buddy who happened to have an extra ticket to the Knicks game. "But hey. At least it's not the Celtics, right?" And while the bar-buddy may not care much for either the Kings OR the Miners — few who don't live in the Gem Cities do — he is a New Yorker, and, like most New Yorkers, he's not a fan of Boston sports and thus shouts his approval.
Snart is clothed in typical street style, a Central City Miners sweatshirt that's getting him a few dirty looks, blue jeans. Nothing fancy. He's got a plastic cup full to the brim with beer in one hand — good ol' American Budweiser — and is balancing a plastic tray of nachos on one knee. Let nobody say that Captain Cold doesn't know how to have a legal good time.
Bobby is… honestly, really just looking to enjoy himself. Might be a good time to connect with some of the X-ers he doesn't get to see much though. Games are good ways to do that. He's got decent if not great seats and so far it's been an exciting game. Dinner definitely might be a thing later. Hrm. He wonders if any of the other guys from the school came to the game. Time to ask…
Night out!
Kitty Pryde does not know very much about basketball. She knows hockey and ice skating, but she is not one to pass up tickets to a game and a chance to get away from the Mansion on an adventure that doesn't involve bullets or large bugs. Though not dressed to the nines, she is no longer dressed like a private school teacher (which is what she is but for the night she can pretend) and Lockheed has the night off.
She and Quicksilver are seated right behind Barry and Cisco and she turns slightly to her silvery haired companion, "I didn't know you liked basketball. Is it all the running?" Her eyes scan the crowd, thinking she spots someone she knows - is that Bobby? However, her attention is quickly diverted as she attempts to cross her legs and manages to kick the man right in front of her squarely in the back of the head. Damn these narrow aisles. "Oh my God, I am so sorry!"
"I don't know anything about basketball except what I read on the internet," says Quicksilver around a mouthful of popcorn. He offers the bag over to Kitty and slurps from a cup. He's wearing white jeans, white sneakers and a gray and silver threaded sweater. His poufy silver jacket is draped over the back of his chair. "So there are dinosaurs versus…um, what's the animal for the other team?" That's how this works, right? All the teams are named after animals?
"Oof!"
The knock to the back of Barry's head knocks him forward; his hand immediately comes to grip the back of his skull as it seems that Kitty kicked him a bit harder than it originally looked. Cisco's head turns in a moment of shock, but almost immediately a look of flabbergasted-ness comes over him. After a brief moment of speechlessness, he rebounds, and asks, "Did anyone ever tell you that you look like that girl from that show?" It his earnest attempt at a compliment.
"Oh, it's okay," Barry says even as he's rubbing his head. He's downplaying the knock for sure, but then something happens that catches all of their eye.
He was camouflaged against the black curtains that line the pathway from the locker room to the court, so no one really noticed at first, but as Joey Monteleone, better known as TAR PIT, steps out onto the court, melting it away with his giant tar-like form, he gains everyone's attention rather quickly.
The court clears out as the players and coaches, as well as the first few rows of people head out, making a run for the exits on the other side of the arena.
"Barry, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"If you say something about being hot, I'm going to slug you," Barry says, looking concerned despite his joke.
Snart identifies Tar Pit the moment he makes his presence known, and the words he utters would never been heard on the five o'clock news — unless Ron Burgundy were involved, of course. Ron Burgundy and a teleprompter that's been tampered with. He takes a moment to drink down the last of his beer before shoving his companion toward the doors, away from Tar Pit. "Go," he says. "I gotta do somethin'."
Supervillains tend not to carry their costumes with them. It's particularly awkward when one's costume is a parka and snowpants. You really can't wear that kind of thing under your clothes without looking fat. Or like you're wearing a parka and snowpants under your clothes. So Captain Cold is without costume today. He uses the confusion of Tar Pit's arrival to discard his Miners sweatshirt and put on a pair of his trademark specs. Collapsible cold gun. Check. Couple cold grenades, sized down — no more than cold cherry bombs, really. Check. Good enough for the moment. "Joey," he grumbles under his breath, "if you ain't got a damn good reason for this, I am SO not keepin' your ass outta the fire."
Bobby glances back behind him. Oh! There's Kitty and Pietro and… that guy in front of her that she just kicked looks familiar. Then his attention is diverted to the center of the court. He sighs as he stands and moves away from the crowd into the isle. If there's trouble he's gonna have to rain on someone's parade, quite literally. And folks don't tend to appreciate when he gets all chilly. Speaking of people who don't have their costumes…
"Then why did you have tickets to the Knicks game?" Kitty grins at Quicksilver. "And, uh, pants. Knickerbockers are old timey pants. So, not so much animals as clothing. Like the Red Sox." Then, she's leaning forward to try and apologize some more. Even if Barry wasn't downplaying the knock to the head, she would still feel really badly about it. "Oh, man, I really am sorry. I wasn't paying any attention. I—what?" Her apologies are a bit interrupted by Cisco's sudden question. "Er, no, I don't think so. What TV show?"
Luckily, this awkward conversation is quickly interrupted by the entrance of Tar Pit. She quickly glances at Quicksilver and then over to Bobby. It's the makings of at least a small X-Team of sorts. "Man, even on a night off?" And her without her katana. Or her dragon. To Barry and Cisco, she gestures with her head toward the back. "You guys might want to get out of here."
Quicksilver doesn't react like everyone else. His silver eyebrows arch, but he keeps on crunching and slurping. He watches the…creature? Person? on the floor with a perplexed expression on his face. "So what is that guy supposed to do? Is he going to throw the balls? Is this like the shark show during the football game?"
His accent is so good it's easy to forget he didn't exactly grow up in the US. Or somewhere with a strong telecommunications network.
Then he clues in to the reactions of the people around him. "Wait. Um. Should we…?" he motions from the popcorn bag over to the court. Then he lowers his snacks. Ahem.
"Yeah, I think you're right," Barry says heading for the exit. STAR isn't too far from here and he can be there and back with the suit in under 30 seconds. So when he gets past the seats and into the crowd, first he's there and suddenly he's not.
But Cisco, Cisco just can't stop himself from being chivalrous.
"Here! Let me get you and your friend out of here," he says, trying to be a hero in his own right and attempting to usher Kitty and Pietro towards the exits.
"Snart," the big black monster with fire for eyes and a mouth says to his sometimes associate.
"Jack wants the banners from the two championships. They'll go for even more on the black market if there's a scene. You know that." Tar Pit seems to give an upwards nod, "You want in?"
A scared woman stops and takes a look at Tar Pit as he talks with Snart, and looks as if she's going to say something.
"RAARRARRWRRR!" Tar Pit screams in her face, sending the woman running.
"Works every time."
"Um guys." Bobby says to Pietro, Kitty and… what is that guy's name? He should know it. It's going to bug him for a while. B something. Come on Bobby… he'll figure it out eventually. "Maybe we can talk about getting to safety later?"
The ice nerd ices up and ramps off over the court, circling. "Come on guys. Couldn't have waited till after the game?"
"Joey, you flamin' idiot," groans Cold. "When somebody wants an inanimate object that's always in one place, you go in when the place has a couple security guards, tops. You know. AT NIGHT!" It's the sort of thing that would make the Captain slap the kid upside the head if he weren't on fire. "And how were you plannin' to pick -up- these banners when your HANDS ARE ON FIRE!" Muttering under his breath he climbs down off the bleachers. He's tempted to ice bomb Tar Pit, take the banners and head back to Jack himself. But he's a Rogue. Rogues support each other, even through heaping piles of verbal abuse.
"A scene ain't worth the dough if you get caught," he adds, looking around to make sure there are no heroes on scene yet. No visible ones at least. "Keep an eye on the kid over there, the one chattin' up the girl who looks like that Annie chick on 'Community.' He looks like he might decide to play hero. DON'T hurt him." Unless he really makes a nuisance of himself, of course. That goes without saying. "I'll get the damn banners."
And then there's another ice guy on hand. Perfect. Just what he wanted. "Don't blame me. Blame the hothead," he says as he takes advantage of Bobby's ice ramp, popping the skate blades on his boots and mounting the ramp to climb toward the banners.
Despite the panic around them, Kitty can't help but laugh. "Yeah, we should. This isn't a halftime show and he's not with Katy Perry." As Cisco attempts to usher both Kitty and Pietro toward the exits, she gives him a bit of a smile. Once she's seen that Barry's moving with the crowd, she doesn't track him. At Cisco's insistence, she frowns, glancing to Pietro and Bobby. "No, we'll be fine. Go get to safety. Find your friend and apologize for me again for kicking him in the back of the head." Giving Cisco an encouraging push toward the exit, she glances over at the Iceman. "Well, if you've got a plan, I think now's the time. I'm missing a few essential things that help me offensively." Though, she is keeping and eye on the civilians, making sure they're not in harm's way.
"So um, is this the sort of thing we usually…o-kaaay then," Pietro interrupts his own thought when Bobby jumps into action. He stands up, bends over and tightens his shoes, rolls his shoulders back and then tosses Kitty a wink.
Then, he disappears - to regular eyes, that is. Any civilians who find themselves in harm's way might find themselves with a little bit of whip-laaash (though he does his best to mitigate it.) He'll leave the fighting of the boiling dude to the dude with the ice powers. He's an expert civilian-clearer.
"I got some guys, Snart, they're coming in after I clear the place. You know as well as my brother, when word of this hits the news it'll drive the price sky high."
Tar Pit nods to Captain Cold as the latter agrees to join him. "When we pull this off, there's gonna be more than enough money to go a— agh, who the hell is this dipshit?"
He motions New York style towards the iced up Bobby.
"Fuckin christ," Tar Pit says. This put a cramp on the timing for sure.
A giant glob of tar heads towards Bobby, smoldering all molten like as it tracks towards him. "Why you gotta make this a thing, IceFace?"
In goes Cisco's ear piece, "Barry? The hot girl who kicked you in the head? She's not leaving. When you get here, make sure she's okay, would you? I don't think my heart could take it if anything bad happened to her."
"Be there in just a second," the Flash says as the blurred lines of New York City buildings swerve behind him. Before long he's on court with Monteleone, Snart, and Iceman.
"Cold, you too?" the Flash says as he straightens and sighs, "I thought it was just this lughead."
"Who you callin' a lughead?"
"That'd be you, big guy."
"RAAAAAGHR!" Tar Pit sends another splash of molten lava that destroys the scorer's table after the Flash dodges.
But just then, the Flasher's eyes peer as there seems to be /another/ speedster here. One of Tar Pit's friends? Was this a whole rogue thing?
"Wasn't my idea," Cold tells the Flash. "I was just watchin' the game when lughead showed up. I tell him, you wait 'til the place is empty to pull this kinda thing! But you gotta work with what you got, right?" But with the presence of the speedster — times two — and the other ice guy, he's going to have to up his game. He knows this. Well. He's got a way to deal with the speedsters, at least, if not the other ice guy.
"Joey! Leave the Flasher alone, lughead! Deal with the other ice guy!" Ice vs. fire can go either way. Cold doesn't know the other ice guy, but he appears young. Cold would prefer to be working with Heat Wave on this job, but doesn't have that option just now. He's just going to have to do his best. His pocket cold gun flashes out, coating the floor in ice — not a lot of it, because this is a big arena, but right around him it's pretty dense, and spreading out from there it thins. That should help him for the moment.
"Welcome to the team," Kitty grins at Quicksilver and then he's gone. She's running after him in much slower manner. As people run in a panic up the stairs, they pass right through her and keep going. Without her katana or Lockheed, she doesn't have much of a way to do offensively, but she does know ice. As a kid she used to ice skate and run out onto frozen ponds. As she reaches the court, her feet slip and slide, but she makes adjustments, much like a car trying not to fishtail. Using the momentum and sliding to her advantage, she goes skating right toward Cold. What she does have, though, is the ability to mess up electronics with the right amount of phasing. Her trajectory will hopefully push her right through Snart and mess up his gun as she does so.
Normally when Quicksilver is going out for a jog in the winter, he wears deep tread boots, sometimes even with a pair of YakTrax. Because, yes, hitting ice while moving at blurringly fast speeds is not a whole lot of fun. He's just finished dropping off a civilian when he darts back on to the court. He tries to make a quick stop and…fails tremendously. He goes skidding across the courts and bounces off the barrier. Ow. Ow. He flails around a bit and tries to get to his feet. The flailing is all silver and blurry and he does make headway, but then just slides again. All right, what's the big idea?
He watches how Kitty handles it and goes, "Huh." Right. He stands up and then tries to slide off the icy patch and back on to hardwood.
Bobby blinks. Ice Skates? Who brings Ice Skates to. You know what, never mind. Iceman reaches a hand out to block Cold. No one uses his ram-ACK! No time to throw up a wall. Dodging hot tar instead!
His dodge isn't perfect and a bit of that hot tar gets on his coat. "Seriously?!" Bobby armors up. "Fine. Look. Chill." And with that a stream of cold heads down toward the Tar man.
"You watchin' this?" Flash murmurs into his headpiece.
"Ice floor. Time to get your Nancy Kerrigan on," Cisco says. Somehow he's found his way into one of the luxury boxes and is eating some of the abandoned shrimp that rich people get at these things. Hey, it was going to go to waste anyways.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Flash says with a bit of a grin.
"No way, are you gonna try it?"
"Why not?"
"There about 1,434 reasons I could come up with but I don't think any of those will stop you."
The Flash frowns at Captain Cold, "Well if this is the way you want it. He steps up onto the ice before falling down onto his back. With quick circular bursts from his hands, he begins to whir around the arena floor, almost testing things out.
"See if you can get a read on that other speedster, I gotta find if he's a good witch or a bad witch," Flash says to Cisco, all the while, motoring around on his back, trying to figure out a way to get close enough to Cold to give a swipe at him.
Just then, Quicksilver totally eats it onto the court. "Guess that answers that."
"Barry! That girl!"
Flash's eyes go wide as he looks to find Kitty out running on the court. Like a good hero, he makes a bee-line to go 'save' her, by trying to knock her off her feet and carry her off the court.
Tar Pit and Bobby go at it in one of those epic things with important music as both men try to out do another, molten fire lava crashing against ice and cancelling each other out despite each man's efforts.
Let's not forget, Nancy Kerrigan got her knee broken by Tonya Harding — somebody even more trailer trash than Captain Cold. And that takes a lot. But it's not as though Cold can hear what Cisco is saying to the Flash, and he's got ice kid trying to throw him off (though distracted by Joey, at least for the moment) and Annie Edison trying to get her hands on his gun.
Nobody takes his gun.
"Honey, I was thinkin' it'd be Mr. Chivalry standin' up to us — not you. Any other time I'd love to stick around and tell you why once you go Cold it never gets old, but I'm kinda busy at the moment." He whisks the gun out of her way, drops one of his cherry bombs — which bursts into a ball of ice spikes a meter or so in diameter. Not that much, but it'd be a great obstacle if she were, you know, solid.
"Flasher, I didn't want this. Not my fault lughead's got the timing of a stopwatch without a second hand. Tell ya what — we call this now, we get out of here, I put him in time-out for a couple days."
Bobby has to concentrate to keep moving. Has to concentrate to not get FRIED by Tar Pit. He hopes to hell that the guy following him doesn't just knock him on his ass. He doesn't have any attention to spare unless his disengages and that seems like a bad idea right now. "Shadowcat? Quicksilver? You guys okay over there?" Whoah… wait. What was that that just blurred toward Kitty?!
As Pietro goes tumbling and falling on the court, Kitty winces. If she weren't already sliding toward Snart, she would try and stop to help him. However, once on the ice it's best to just keep going until momentum stops otherwise she'll be falling all over the place as well. However, just about at the same time a bunch of things happen at once. Since she's been phased in anticipation of phasing through Snart, Barry's attempt to rescue her means that he instead passes through her. Surprised, as she can still see Pietro trying to get to less slick ground, she jerks slightly, slipping on the ice and falling right through Captain Cold and his ice spikes. As she falls onto the ice, she's solid for the moment, otherwise she'd have gone right through the floor. "Ooowww," she echoes Pietro. "Just…sore…" she mutters to Iceman, slowly pushing herself up. "Trying to get that guy with the ice ray."
Pietro takes a moment to compose himself once he's got his feet back under him. He checks his footing, then looks over in time to see…someone else moving like he does? Well, that's really interesting. His face breaks out into a big smile. Sure, there are villains and burning and they're trying to steal something and there are no sharks? Forget all that. There's someone who can actually move at a pace he considers normal.
"Yeah, fine, fine," he calls up to Bobby. "Don't worry about me. Just keep icing. Just…maybe not in front of me, okay? That shit's no good for moving fast."
He examines his surroundings, then decides on a move. He zips over to the side boards and goes up on to the edge, betting that the bad guys might not think to ice that. He makes his way around the side and waits for a moment to try and reach out and snag Cold's ice gun. His passage is made slightly less stealthy by the chunks coming off the boards.
"Oh snap!" Cisco says into the microphone. "She's a meta! /She's a meta!" The idea clearly excites him. Meanwhile, the Flash is well aware of the fact that the Parks and Rec girl is some sort of superhuman. But that's really beside the point.
He's not interested in making a deal.
Especially after someone gets Cold's gun. Flash gets to his feet and looks as though he's about to apprehend his old adversary, but just as he is about to make his move, a giant wall of tar and fire rises up from the floor and puts distance between Tar Pit and the others. Looks like Monteleone is going for the getaway and has positioned the wall in such a way to give Snart a way out too.
With a angry look on his face, Flash tries to huff, puff, and blow Tar Pit's house down with a pair of spinning arms. No avail.
Nobody has Cold's gun.
Kitty falls through him, and while Cold manages to get his gun out of the way, his second cherry bomb is still in a pocket, and THAT thing blasts. It rips a hole in his pocket, traps his hip in ice, and, unless the speedster manages to get out of the way in short order, it catches Quicksilver right along with Cold.
Ah, goddammit," Cold says. "Joey, I am so kicking your ass when Mick posts bail!"
Bobby hops off his ramp and amps up the cold. He's not aiming at Tar Pit anymore. Just trying to build a nice snow globe around him. With one hand. His other hand is busy making an.. ice sword? It's cold. Kitty's wearing gloves, right? "Shadowcat! Catch!" Pietro seems to be able to handle without weapons.
Wait… no… no snow globe. Just snow. Or more accurately, hail. With those spinning arms going Bobby starts to manifest tennis ball chunks of ice in front of the Flash for him to blow and bat into tarpit. Any one won't do anything but sizzle. But get enough? That'll cool him off in short order.
Kitty is, in fact, not wearing gloves - they're in the coat pocket of her jacket she left back at their seats. However, she is wearing a long sleeved shirt. Slipping and sliding one way and the other, she pushes herself to a standing position and then pushes off with her back leg, sliding back toward Snart and now Pietro. Pulling the sleeve down long enough, she catches the ice sword and then yanks hard enough to rip the sleeve off. Wrapping the ice, she has a good enough grip on it that it'll work. "Thanks!" she grins, moving back toward them, passing straight through the ice shards. If she can get to Quicksilver in time, she'll try and grab and phase him through the lance.
From Quicksilver's perspective, the ice expands from the bomb like one of those stop motions of a slow blooming flower. In normal circumstances (ie, if he had his ice spikes on or was on solid ground) he would be able to stop quickly enough to avoid that expanding spray of ice. But with a total lack of traction, he sees it all about to happen (quite literally in slow motion to him) but is unable to avoid it.
The ice folds around his foot and jerks him to a stop. He lets out a choked "Huuugh…-" sound. He flashes a smile over at Cold and waggles his fingers. "K…uh…Shadow…cat," right. Codenames. "Lil help?" Preferably before Cold decides to shoot him on purpose.
Flash sees what Bobby's doing in slow motion, and though not quite as perfect as his teammates might do such an operation, Barry is an old pro at this sort of thing. Small cyclones erupt from his finger tips as the snowballs explode into Tar Pit (not ready). Within about 12 seconds, the lava man begins to expand quickly, becoming a sort of ashen grey, and getting real puffy. Like those snake-fireworks you used to buy as a kid.
The way Joey starts turning into a giant snake firework sort of thing makes Snart smirk, at least. Kid's getting what he deserves. Plus, he knows the justice system. Tar Pit is probably going to be held with high bail — if he's given bail at all, and if he is, the Rogues will likely let him stew an extra day or two because he was a dumbass. Captain Cold iced the floor — that's vandalism — and tried to impede superheroes — not a crime, since none of these guys are duly appointed legal officers. He might have tried to steal the banners, but since Pit the Putz said he had guys coming to do that later, he stopped. Slap on the wrist crimes. And Waller will have something for him to do if he gets any time. "Whatever," he mutters, tossing down the cold gun in his hand hard enough that its more delicate pieces shatter on impact. "Seriously. I just wanted to watch some freakin' basketball."
Bobby isn't particularly interested in icing down someone who isn't a threat, so once Tar Pit has turned into Puffball Man he stops and steps back. Good thing X-Red is public or explaining this might have been kind of a headache. "Nice one there… Flash, right?" He grins, turning to see if Kitty and Pietro are okay.
Kitty's right there as Quicksilver gets pulled to a stop, reaching out and pulling him through the ice trap on his foot. "You okay?" she asks. Luckily, it doesn't seem like there's much danger in any more ice coming from the ice ray at the moment, but it never hurts. "Hey, you're telling me," she tells Snart. "You guys are the ones that decided to make your own halftime show. Is that a thing in basketball? I honestly don't even know." Making sure the cold gun is out of Snart's reach, she gestures with the ice sword for him to step away. While she keeps her attention on Leonard, she glances over at Bobby to make sure he's okay, too. It looks like this whole thing has blown over.
She glances over at the Red Blur that's now formed a person and smiles. "Flash, huh? Thanks for the help." Then, her attention is drawn back to the other speedster: "Maybe we should, uh, get going," she suggests. Since neither of them are on X-Red at the moment, it will be a little harder for them to explain their parts in all this. "It alright if you've got it from here?" she asks Bobby.
"Yeah uh, you handle the PR stuff, OK, Iceman?" Cause Pietro doesn't even have a green card, let alone a snazzy superhero identity. And they're not going to be left to play for long. He murmurs a thanks to Kitty for freeing him from the ice trap, then cautiously side-steps away from Cold, the ice and the poufy lava guy. It's all waaaay more exciting than watching Team Pants and Team Dinosaur play a game he doesn't understand.
"You ready?" Once Kitty says she is, he'll gently brace her neck, then zip them both off, away from any cameras or cops.
"She is so hot."
"Cisco. Focus."
Flash nods to Bobby, "Yeah, the Flash. Thanks for the assist in all of this. Really glad you all showed up." He can say you all because he's from Missouri and that's basically the south if you look at Civil War maps.
Barry snorts as Cold talks. He's right, Barry knows, but that doesn't mean that Snart is going to get the satisfaction of agreement. "Well here's hoping the SRD has something to stick to you for a little longer than an afternoon." Despite the Flashes best efforts, Cold has always stayed remarkably clean when it comes to evidence against him.
The Flash can only wave as Quicksilver and Kitty make their exits. Who they are, and where they went, he might never know. But it'll probably kill poor Cisco up there.
Tar Pit will be okay, but the temperature is going to have to level out and that will take him some time. He sort of shifts around a bit. Still alive, in pain, and getting what he deserved.
And all the while, the Knicks championship banners still hang high and proud at the top of the Garden.
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