THE WHEELS OF STEEL ARE TURNING

[capemods]

WHO: These lucky contestants
WHERE: Various boroughs of the City, and the demon dimension.
WHEN: Tuesday, August 21st, 11:54 am and onward.
WARNINGS: This post may contain graphic depictions of violence, psychological horror, and adult themes; it will definitely contain adult language. Viewer discretion advised.
SUMMARY: Vulcanus tries to blow up a collection of buses around the City in order to incite anti-imPort rioting; Lachesis mixes things up again. see here for details.
FORMAT: Go crazy, kids.

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Each bus will have a labeled thread in the comments. To recap:

Bus W will explode. Lachesis will teleport these ImPorts to a location near the bus just after it explodes. Those who are assigned to this bus, you must be the heroes that the City demands. The damage will carve a hole in the street, and civilians are at risk for debris/fires/etc.

Bus X will yank imPorts inside of it and induce a week-long power switch. From 8/21 at 12 PM to the following Tuesday, 8/28 at 12 PM, characters will have their powers switched with another ImPort passenger. All characters on this bus have their new powers assigned.
Correction: this bus is located in Brooklyn.

Bus Y will yank imPorts inside of it for one minute, and then transport its imPorts to the demon dimension until midnight. Envision Dante's Inferno as the setting, but with the twist that ANYTHING CHARACTERS IMAGINE WILL MANIFEST IN THE WORST WAY POSSIBLE.

Bus Z will yank imPorts inside of it for one minute, and then with a LOUD SCREECHING NOISE, it will infect imPort minds with radio signals, songs, dialogue, AND IMPORTANT PLOT-RELATED INFORMATION THAT VULCANUS DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW for the rest of that day. There is no way to turn this off for the entire day. ImPorts will be returned to their prior locations at the end of one minute. All characters on this bus have their unique mental broadcasts assigned.

Comments

BUS W - EXPLOSIONS

[capemods]

Wherever you were before, you're not there any longer. You catch the echo of a very big boom, and as you stumble to fit your footing you see it all happen like a slow-motion movie: orange flames leap up from the charred remains of a bus, rising from melted skeletons that gape in horror against metal cinders. You hear things, terrifying things. People screaming. People crying out, agonized. People running. Bus debris shoots upwards only to fall back down over the heads of civilians. There's a crater in the street. Parts of buildings, stone and steel, begin to fall.

You're in Midtown Manhattan, by the Rockefeller Center. And people are dying.

Black smoke scars the sky; it's thick and heavy and you can barely breathe, but you know you have to do something. There's no time to call in help, there's only you.

In the distance, a man begins to shout: "THEY DID THIS. IMPORTS DID THIS. THEY DID THIS TO US."

[reference: the sign-up roster]

[jailbrake]

[she was close by to begin with, which is really just her luck. she's thrown back by the blast, falling on her ass momentarily, and the first thing she hears isn't the agony--her ears are still ringing too hard for that. what she hears is her own words, played back in her head. thrown back in her face, more accurately.

oi, do i look like a hero? that ain't something i want to get into.

Michiko staggers forward as if drunk, the tips of her hair singed, a long scratch on her cheek from whatever shitty piece of shrapnel tore its way across it.

's not my business til they make it my business.]

Shit. [she can hear the screams now, and the thundering crash of debris hitting home. Michiko coughs raggedly, trying and failing to clear her lungs.] Shit!

[it's still not her business, she's thinking, there'll be someone else here with shitty powers and a dumbass matching outfit to help. she doesn't have to do shit. she can go away and not deal with it. and if Hatchin was there, she'd do it in a hot second--but she's not, and with her goes any personal illusion of selflessness. right now, running's not for anything but to cover her own ass.

beyond the reasoning process, however, is the all-eclipsing memory. there was a bus explosion before, eleven years ago. when she heard about it, she had fallen into real hopelessness, a black despair which only a Polaroid had been able to guide her out of. and even though Hiroshi hadn't died there after all, there had been other people who had--real people. funny, and fucked up, how she only thought about that now. she knows what the right thing to do is, even as she knows she doesn't always do the right thing, and...]

OI!! You better shut your damn mouth before the shit coming out of it makes us all sick. It's those Vulcanis bastards who did this! Everyone knows it, and if they fuck with us one more time I'm sending them on the express route straight to hell! It's a promise.

[it's to shout really loudly and obnoxiously as she makes a beeline for the remains of the bus.]

[newbvampire]

[Seras was further back, but still close enough a piece of the bus came hurtling toward her and a group of civilians. Quickly raising up a shadow to block it she grimaced as it impacted and almost knocked her off her feet.

Once she recovers and makes sure the civilians near her are okay she finally hears the idiot spouting the anti-import nonsense. Vulcanus might as well have put out a big sign saying we did it! At least somebody was already telling him to shut up. That didn't mean she couldn't join in though.]

You! City PD! Shut up and get out of the way, or I will arrest you, you idiot!

[That done she starts running toward the crater where the bus was, grabbing her radio and keying the mic.]

This is Sergeant Victoria at Rockefeller Center. There's been an explosion. I need ESU down here NOW!

[jailbrake]

[Michiko's immediate reaction to the presence of an officer of the law, naturally, is less along the lines of relief and more along the lines of ABORT MISSION FUCK THE POLICE--but, she reminds herself quickly, it ain't her they're after. not anymore, anyway, or not now. not here.

at least somebody's got their priorities right. but she's past that line of thought now, still sprinting towards the wreckage. when she gets close enough, she doubles over to catch her breath and wonder where the hell she's even going to begin. she only knows of one of her powers, and it's not worth shit here.]

Jesus. [she says it under her breath, amazingly enough. the next part, however, is shouted at the top of her rapidly shrinking lungs:] OI! YOU, POLICE LADY. HOW LONG ARE THEY GONNA TAKE?

[this is, and most likely will remain, pretty much the only time in her life when Michiko's been anxious for the cops to show up. she might appreciate the irony of this more readily if she wasn't quite as preoccupied with not throwing up.]

[newbvampire]

A few minutes. Until they show up we need to do what we can. That means I'm going in there to see if there are any survivors so you can help me do that, or pull some of these other people away from this damn fire.

[motherfucked]

[Here is a short list of Things Jessica Jones Is Not:

a) the Louisiana to anybody's Mississippi
b) a child of the 1970s
c) a superhero

So the standing-around-in-the-flaming-wreckage feeling isn't familiar. It's just numb, really, numb and slackjawed and stupefying. How did anyone make themselves do this, day-in-day out? How did she think she could do this, once? She stands there, hearing somebody shouting in the distance, words falling out of her, but not loud enough for him to hear.]

What the fuck? I wasn't—

[recurve]

[Barely a second passes after she is transported to the scene before Kate starts sprinting toward the wreckage, running as fast as she can with her heart pounding so hard she can barely hear anything else. The instinct to do everything in her power to fix the world that is falling apart around her is too strong for her to even consider hesitating. In fact, retreating never even crosses her mind.

Instead, she's rushing past Jessica, trying to lift a piece of rubble off of a wounded civilian. It's heavy and it burns her hands it's still so hot. But it's hurting the person trapped beneath it more than it's hurting her.

Her bow and quiver have been cast aside, forgotten in the chaos and smokey air. She struggles to life the twisted piece of metal, but it's simply too big for someone without any enhanced strength. Grunting, she calls out to the woman she knows from home. In the heat of the moment, she doesn't even pause to question why Jessica is here, how long she's been in the City, why she's never said hi, etc. That can wait until after everyone is rescued and patched up.]

Jessica! Help me! I need a hand!

[motherfucked]

Oh, right.

[She didn't want to come here, she didn't understand how she had gotten here. But she wasn't going to let people die. This… this teenage girl seems to know what she's doing, so okay. She ran over in Kate's direction, growing more sure with each step that it was the right thing to do.]

Okay, okay— what do you need me for?

[Jessica doesn't stop to think about how Kate knows her name.]

[recurve]

This-- thing.

[She struggles to lift the piece of debris, only managing to lift it slightly. It's enough to get the person trapped beneath to gasp in relief, but there's no way Kate would be able to remove the piece on her own. With a life on the line, pride doesn't rear its head.]

I can't move it.

[motherfucked]

Duh.

[She mumbles, mostly to herself, mostly out of frustration with her own obliviousness. But she can lift the big fucking rock. It's hard, even for her, but after thirty seconds, she's got it off the guy.]

[kickpushbaby]

[ There's that weird, wildly disorienting moment right after the blast nearly sweeps her off her, screams filtering through the ringing in her ears, where Jesse's relieved she had her shoes on. She stumbles again, staring at the flames climbing higher. This is different. This isn't going in and getting shot at or stabbed at. There isn't an identifiable enemy here.

That doesn't stop the screaming. Well, fuck. She finds her footing and breaks out in a run towards the screams. ]

[jailbrake]

[Michiko is also running, creating a total time paradox when you take her thread up-page into account but who even cares. as she pelts in the direction of the wreckage, however, she fails to take into account the possibility that other people might just be doing the same thing. the smoke and debris obscuring her vision aren't helping much either, and all of that adds up to result in her narrowly missing running straight into Jesse.

she dodges to the side just in time once she realizes what she's doing, hissing a couple of curses under her breath as an aside--and then looks around her shoulder, still running. she'd thought so before, but this confirms her suspicions--it's a kid. under normal circumstances she wouldn't bat an eye at that, but Michiko has an inkling that what's up ahead is a little more graphic than even Vermelha's usual.]

Hey! [she's still moving as she shouts in Jesse's direction, which lends an awkward rhythm to the words.] Oi, you! Kid!

[kickpushbaby]

[ Constraints and laws of both space and time are generally ignored during Events (ask anybody), but considering Jesse hasn't gained any miraculous growing powers or puberty, it's still entierly likely that any number of people might run over her. The upside of being so short for your entire life and also a trained martial artist is Jesse has the ability to dodge just about anyone on a crash course with her, paradox or no.

She ducks around Michiko without missing a beat and nearly falls in stride with her as both of them head at a dead run straight into the whole mess.

She can pretty much guess at the reason why Michiko is shouting. ]

Lady, it is really not the fucking time for that you're too young bullshit!

[jailbrake]

Aa?!

[she keeps on running in step with her, her eyebrows rising behind her mirrored sunglasses.]

You got it wrong. I don't have the time to yell at every snotnosed brat who wants ta play hero, kiddo! [she is completely full of shit and nobody is surprised] I just don't see how you're gonna lift anything up alone, with those shitty arms of yours.

[kickpushbaby]

[ Jesse might have laughed, if they weren't in the worst of the smoke and that probably would have been a bad idea. She grins instead. ]

Hey, fuck you, lady, not like you can do any better on your own.

[ There's a big black something right in front of them and screams that are sounding closer by the second. ]

Guess we better find out.

[liverletdie]

[ Tony'd been minding his own business, retrofitting his suit at that very time. Small changes, tweaks. Always more tweaks, but then there was the rush, the sudden shift in temperature, and the noise, the noise. He's suddenly glad he wasn't in the middle of something else.

Shifting, observing, not with just his visual cortex, but the satellites he had on the city zoomed right in on the area, but the data wasn't what was important. Not at this particular second. What was important were the people. The blame could be shifted later. He was in casuals, but he wouldn't be the only one there, Tony Stark counted for two people, when he wanted himself to.

And it was almost a minute, a long, agonizing minute where he dashed as fast as he could to the first person he could find, picking them up in his arms. First thing would be to get them to safety, he was already making the necessary flood to emergency staff, informing them through their routing information where there would be people, picking up the larger groups.

A resounding boom, boom, boom cracked over head, the suit hitting its brakes before careening down to do the same thing Tony was doing. Find people suppress fires, the suit could handle the more dangerous temperatures without sustaining injury. ]

[insufferablysmug]

[ Someone else could handle the dangerous temperatures too, using her telepathy to guide her towards the next victim to be rescued, tearing aside wreckage as she searched the remains of the bus. The ones outside the bus she left to the people who didn't have her abilities.

Iron Man was worth having in there, and she caught sight of him as she flew someone out of the danger zone to place them down, slipping them out of consciousness with a touch of her mind. (The victim was 60% burns, he might as well sleep through this.) ]

Stark, there.

[ She snapped it at the suit, not even noticing Tony himself to the side as she pointed at a splintering pile of wreckage. ]

Three people are under it, the balance is difficult.

[ A two person job, essentially. ]

[liverletdie]

[ The suit's head snapped up, and with a quick burst, it was over there and working to grab one end for Monet to grab the other. ]

Ready? [ The suit asked, just like Tony's own Iron Man voice with no changes. ]

They're alive, but the quicker we get them out of there, the better. Their vitals are starting to go erratic.

[insufferablysmug]

[ She grabbed the other end, looking over to make sure he was ready. ]

I can feel them, yes. On three. [ No pause to make sure he's not arguing that, because this is Monet she assumes nobody's going to argue with her. ] One, two, three.

[incendere]

(Roy was just turning a corner in his patrol car when he heard and felt the explosion a few blocks away. Even with the sirens going, it takes longer than Roy would have liked to get through the rest of the streets towards the scene. Weaving in and around other cars is easier done when there's actually some place to move. After honking too many times to get people out of the way, Roy hardly has the car completely parked before stepping out and examining the situation.

Flames rising higher and higher, skeletons the color of charcoal, their owner's faces contorted into their last moments while chaos reigns around them. These were not sights Roy was unused to, but that didn't mean it made it easier to accept. The smell was always the hardest to ignore.

A piece of falling debris ignites some screams near him, grabbing his attention. Roy raises his gloved hand and snaps in its direction, blowing it up before it can even get close to the civilians' heads. It was amazing how, even in times of crisis, some people were always curious to stick around and see what happened next rather than joining the others in running away.

The sound of nearing sirens gets louder, and as a few officers begin to show up, Roy starts addressing them, always keeping an eye out for any cascading debris.)

I want officers on crowd control immediately. Start evacuating these people and setting up a boundary--don't let anyone get within a six block radius. Anyone injured should be given medical attention, as much as we can do until the medical units arrive.

[insufferablysmug]

[ She felt an urge to track that man down and make him either shut up or help, but there wasn't time for that now. Victims everywhere - she assessed the situation as quickly as she could, determining where she would be of the most use.

In the middle of it, she decided almost immediately. There were others here who would be able to help people on the edges, but in the middle of the problem was someplace fewer would be able to go, and she was one of them. Her telepathy made looking for the possible victims under the wreckage simple, her strength made lifting the wreckage possible.

She set in to work, silent and furious. (Of course they're being blamed for this. Of course they are.) Once this was done - once she was done here, she was finding that shouting idiot and shutting him up. ]

[tch_duh]

[There was no way Jade accidentally transported herself to all this death and destruction. That power involved popping into the action--flashy fighting with ridiculous catchphrases and magic--and this was definitely not action.

She was this close to giving that shouting moron a good butt-whooping when she noticed a woman lifting the wreckage with her bare hands. Talk about cool. But there was no time for fangirling.

Rushing to the middle, Jade started levitate the wreckage with all her strength.]

Looks like you could use some help, lady!

[insufferablysmug]

[ She glanced over, didn't quite double take. Children, again. It was always children who wound up fighting the battles, but this one was even younger than she remembered her and her teammates being.

Levitation, though, that was useful. ]

Don't lift anything too recklessly, there are people beneath. [ It's hard and peremptory, and she stoops and picks up the two people revealed by the wreckage the girl's lifting, flying them out of the danger zone before returning. ] Stay with me. How much can you lift at once?

[tch_duh]

Right! [She concentrates hard on the task at hand. As soon as Monet flies the people to safety, she tosses the wreckage to the side.] Tch, I bet I could lift all of this if I try hard enough! [To be honest, Jade has no idea if she can but it's too late now. She's gotta live up to her word, save the civilians, and impress Monet all at the same time.

With all her might, Jade tries to levitate the heavy debris around her. She's successful at first, lifting them pretty high off the ground. But she starts faltering a few minutes in.]

[seeksherownsalvation]

[It's an ordinary Tuesday, which means that at 11:53am Kyouko is leaning on the concierge desk in the lobby of the Four Seasons, grilling a suspicious hotel employee about the details of room service while he debates whether to call the cops and ask them to investigate where she gets her money. She's about ready to ball up her empty bag of Cheetos and throw it at the guy behind the counter to show him what she thinks of his uncooperative attitude, but first she holds it up and peers inside to make sure there's nothing in it--

--and then it's 11:54am.

The bag drifts out of her orange-stained hands as she freezes, staring at the smoke and the flames, hearing the screams but not processing what the words in them are because she needs to focus for the translation power to kick in and why should she focus now? It's not like there's anything she'd need to hear in this awful chaos, anyway, like...someone screaming that she and everyone like her should be blamed for this. Probably nothing like that is going on.]

Hey...this ain't happening.

This isn't happening, right?

[This isn't her concern. She doesn't do anything for anyone who isn't her. That's the sort of person she is, right? The smart kind of person who looks out for number one?]

But I mean...it's not my problem...

[Someone is moving weakly under a half-shredded lump of metal.]

No--

[And Kyouko's moving at absurd speed, her clothes flashing out of existence in midair only to be replaced by a color-coordinated dress and a spear in her hand before anything indecent can be seen; she flips the debris off of the unfortunate soul beneath it with a flick of that spear and a single huff of effort.

Then she finally remembers her translation power.]

Why don't you get out of there already? C'mon, how stupid are you!