Arcade Ire

[ngm_foes]

It had been a nice, quiet weekday afternoon in New York. For once, it actually seemed as though there wasn't going to be any kind of trouble afoot.

That would have been nice, had it been true.

It happened suddenly, as things of this sort tended to happen. Out of seemingly nowhere, it appeared in the middle of Chinatown. A large, hulking, two-dimensional being stomping around.

And it only yelled one thing as it started to wreak havoc.

"DESTROY ALL COMBATANTS!"

Comments

[tangledwebs]

Spider-Man had been chasing Electro to Chinatown when this had happened.

"Videoman?!" Jesse hadn't seen him since the company that published the games the character appeared in had folded back in the day. He'd been a favourite character of Jesse's, but somewhere along the way, the company had lost focus and...well. None of that mattered.

The way that Videoman was causing destruction, he was certain that this wasn't some sort of promotional thing for a revival.

Electro was behind this. Had to be.

Didn't matter, though.

Wherever Videoman had come from, Jesse was going to need to take him down.

Determined, he loosed a grabbed a ride on the nearest bit of wind and rode it towards the large, digital monster.

[symkarian_princess]

Nika had been in Chinatown to eat at Great N.Y. Noodletown to grab a late lunch. Except her lunch was being interrupted by two-dimensional stomping. She set her chopsticks on the table with a sigh. She supposed she should slurp her soup up and go help the heroes.

Could be good publicity for the mercenaries at any rate. She picked up the bowl as other customers went to the front windows to see what was going on.

[hellkitten]

Liza was in Chinatown to do a little shopping when the big, flat... what the hell was that thing, anyways? Whatever it was, it needed to be stopped. She sighed, and slipped into an alley, shopping would have to wait.

Quickly changing into her costume, she climbed up the side of the alley wall, then tossed her line out to catch a nearby building, and swung out towards the...

She still wasn't sure what that was.

[dazzle_daybreak]

Well... there goes a perfectly good grocery trip. So much for peking duck for dinner tonight.

Josephine pulled her hood up, put on her sunglasses, and dove into the fray.

[tangledwebs]

Okay. Videoman was shooting things, blowing things up. He was like the Staypuft Man, except far less cute about things.

That he kept on yelling "DESTROY ALL COMBATANTS" wasn't helping. So far, there were no combatants.

Though this was New York. Jesse knew he wouldn't be the only one making his way towards Videoman. Maybe that hot Black Cat chick would be there.

That was history, right? Spider-Man and Black Cat?

He landed on a rooftop near the Videoman and paused, looking down. Cars were abandoned. People were fleeing.

It was pandemonium.

Thwip, thwip, he thought to himself before leaping off the roof and loosing a spider-line.

[symkarian_princess]

Nika stepped out of the restaurant, wiping a bit of soup from her chin. She gestured for people to stay back as she reached for her concealed gun. She was doubting any of her hand-to-hand weapons would do anything to the towering... flat man.

Well, at least she wasn't shopping for clothing this time. She took a breath and tried to wend her way through people fleeing from the shouting giant.

[dazzle_daybreak]

Josie chewed her lip as she focused her power, peering around a corner at the.... flat man. Settling on an initial tactic, she put her hands out and created a long tether, weighted heavily at one end.

Coming out from behind the corner, she started whirling it over her head, before letting it fly at the attacker.

[hellkitten]

Liza clung to the side of a building, eyeing the rampaging giant. Was that thing even solid? It looked like a video game sprite.

Only one way to find out. She grabbed a chunk of loose brick and tossed it at the thing.

[ngm_foes]

A chunk of loose brick.

Some kind of tether.

A venom blast.

Suffice to say that Videoman was not pleased.

"DESTROY ALL COMBATANTS!"

He walked past an abandoned video arcade, and that's when it happened.

Something snapped into place. There were others there. Trapped. Confined. Closed.

He would free them.

Digital energy surged forth from his hands, setting the building that housed the old arcade on fire.

And then, released, were Paperboy, Mrs. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and the Space Invaders.

Four bosses.

Four heroes.

Videoman bellowed again. "DESTROY ALL COMBATANTS!"

The Paperboy

[ngm_foes]

Normally, the Paperboy was a friendly kid with newspapers, trying to deliver them to their rightful owners without any property destruction.

Today, the Paperboy was all about property destruction. His newspapers, you see, exploded on contact.

And the first place to go was a brand new Chinese restaurant.

Mrs. Pac-Man

[ngm_foes]

A large yellow head with a bright pink bow on top? Yep, that's Mrs. Pac-Man! And currently, she's chowing down on cars in the street.

Donkey Kong

[ngm_foes]

He was the classic. The first foe Mario the plumber ever fought.

Donkey Kong.

Currently, he'd crawled his way to the top of the nearest building. Magical barrels were forming out of nowhere, and the eight-bit, two-dimensional giant ape was throwing them all down willy-nilly.

Re: Donkey Kong

[dazzle_daybreak]

Oh my gosh! She was going to fight a gorilla!

...why was it wearing a necktie?

Nevermind!

She dodged a barrel, which was actually more of a signboard, considering it was 2-dimensional, which shattered on the street next to her. Well... okay then. She ran for the nearest fire escape, shimmying up the ladder. She reached the landing, and then had to jump over a flatbarrel as one came rolling towards her.

[ngm_foes]

Donkey Kong was not happy.

(Granted, that was his general emotional state, but regardless.)

He wasn't fighting the little red plumber. He was fighting...wasn't that the girl he was supposed to have kidnapped?

With a roar, another barrel went a-tumbling towards her.

[dazzle_daybreak]

Too close to jump over, so Josie makes an energy-hammer and goes to work. She smashes the next barrel apart, and hurries up the next ladder.

"I just want you to know, this is the weirdest fight I've ever had!"

[ngm_foes]

Donkey Kong didn't really speak.

He did bellow and yell at Josie, though. It sounded like a bad video game voice, that yell. There was no air to it, no breath.

Of course there wasn't. He was a digital construct, not a living thing.

But hey. More barrels!

Space Invaders

[ngm_foes]

Okay, so the Space Invaders were kind of adorable.

They were also kind of evil, multiplying and attacking any free citizens who so far hadn't been touched by the other four.

They needed to be stopped, quick.

Re: Space Invaders

[symkarian_princess]

Nika looked up and blinked. Well, that was something new. Though it was better than dragons or over-sized bugs. She reached into her messenger bag as she scooted down the street.

Her hand-to-hand weapons wouldn't do any good, but the pistol she pulled out of her bag would.

"CLEAR THE STREETS," she shouted to get New Yorkers out of the way. A little Chinatown heroics could look like good PR for SSI. Nika took quick aim at one of the aliens and fired.

[ngm_foes]

Oh please. Like the aliens weren't used to this? They dodged the bullet and went right on attacking.

Although one did set it's sights on Nika.

Video game sound effects were heard as it fired on the mini-Sable.

[symkarian_princess]

Oh, come on! You stupid, moving little... shit.

Nika was less than pleased she missed. And it was worse when one of them opened fire on her. She dove behind a car that rocked with the force of the alien blast.

"No, never pick the easy fight, do you, Nika?" She crouch walked to the other end of the car and popped up to fire off a couple shots at the alien.

[ngm_foes]

She could have picked worse? She might have gone after Donkey Kong. The easiest would probably have been Mrs. Pac-Man.

One of the aliens went down, but it was likely that HYDRA had been inspired by these aliens, for where one was shot down, another two took its place.

And now, instead of one, Nika had two after her.

[symkarian_princess]

Some day Nika would learn that pink bows and sloppily put on lipstick would be a sign of an easy target. She dropped her aim when she got two angry pixel aliens coming at her.

"Shit fire and light a match," she cursed in Symkarian. She glanced around to see where the civilians were at. Then she made a break for a free from people spot.

She fired a shot at the alien on the right as she considered calling back-up. She wondered how 'I went out for Chinese noodles and got attacked by video game aliens' would go over considering the HYDRA pizza parlor debacle.

She needed a narrow alley. Something to funnel the aliens down if they kept multiplying. Keeping an eye out, she tried to keep the aliens' attention on her.

[ngm_foes]

Not necessarily. Imagine Poundcakes in pink bows and badly applied lipstick. Still a dangerous one, she was.

Sure, she could head for an alley. Some of the aliens would follow.

Others would continue wreaking havoc in the streets.

But the ones that followed? Boy, were they enjoying trying to shoot the Symkarian princess up.

[symkarian_princess]

Nika did not have a machine gun with her, so she would have to work with some of them. She ducked and rolled to try to avoid the alien blasts. As much as she appreciated Felicity's last patch job, she did not want to go through another one.

Though the graze across her arm stung like a bitch.

Once into the alley, she dove behind a dumpster...

... and right into a homeless guy's lap.

"Sorry," was the quick apology she made before popping up over the edge of the dumpster to fire at the pursuing aliens.

[ngm_foes]

They swarmed in behind her.

That homeless guy who'd just gotten a quick little happy?

Well, that was cut short.

In the background, Videoman could still be heard commanding his newly created minions to destroy all combatants.

The thing was, if Nika paid attention, the army of space invaders were staying close to the ground. None of them thought about flying up into the air.

The painful sadness of being mostly brainless two-dimensional figures. You didn't really think about dimensions in any other way.

[symkarian_princess]

These were supposed to be flying... well, falling aliens. Nika wondered why they were staying so close to the ground.

She glanced around and saw a fire escape not too far from the dumpster.

"Stay behind the dumpster," she told the grimy guy as she jumped up on it. She fired a couple more shots as she tried to figure out if she could make the jump.

[ngm_foes]

The joys of 2 dimensions, that.

If she made the jump, she'd find herself at the perfect vantage point to shoot them down.

But, how to stop their swelling numbers?

[symkarian_princess]

Nika jumped and scrambled up. All without firing her gun into her body somehow. She got to the railing, aimed at the paper-thin creatures and paused.

Shooting them just made them multiply. She couldn't hammer a screw in. She needed a different tactic. Well, if shooting paper-targets didn't destroy them... maybe she could roll one up and beat the others with it.

She doubted it. They seemed flimsy enough to want to fall apart and then she'd have two angry aliens for the price of one baton. Nika put her hand up to call Felicity to maybe get an idea on how to help.

Then she got an idea. These things were like paper with zappy tendencies. What would water do to them?

She looked around for some source of water. She spotted a jug a couple landings up on the fire escape. She climbed as quickly as she could toward it.

Nika just hoped the alleyway aliens stayed in the alley.

[ngm_foes]

They did. Nika would find that water caused them to fizzle, spark, and...dissipate.

But was it really going to be that easy?

[symkarian_princess]

"Yes!" Nika pumped her fist in the air for a moment. Until she realized she did not have easy access to water from her perch on the fire escape.

She doubted spitting on them would have much effect. Also, she wasn't as accurate with her loogies as she was with firearms.

Which meant... she needed to get back on the street. And that was past the aliens. Looking down at the ones waiting, she decided to go up to the roof, across a couple rooftops and back down to the chaotic streets. She was still in Chinatown. There had to be a store with squirt guns or an outside hose or something, right?