nextgenerationmarvel | (no subject)

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"Y'know," Sofia Strange said in a conversational tone to the zombie whose butt she was currently kicking, "All I really wanted? Tonight? Was a pastrami sandwich. Maybe a can of Cel-Ray." She threw her left hand up and a trio of marble-sized fireballs flew forth, twirling around each other before smacking the zombie straight in the face. Its dead skin started oozing off of its face, showing bone and wiring underneath. Whatever this thing was, it was a lab-created zombie.

A mix of science and magic.

Sofia grimaced. That was never good.

"Instead? Instead I get you." She attacked with a savage backhand, empowered by a surge of mystic lightning. The electronics in the thing fried. Whoever was watching wouldn't see the rest. "Not the kind of dead meat I was craving." Sofia conjured up another trio of fireballs, these ones glowing hot-white, and sent them at the zombie again. These pierced his chest and set his heart on fire.

Within moments, the zombie was ash, its electronics charred. Still, Sofia cast a spell of telekinesis, and the charred remains of the electronics flew up to her. She took them and shoved them into embroidered mirror-work messenger bag. Maybe someone on the Avengers would be able to help her track down whoever was building a zombie army.

Given how badly this one was made, though, there seemed to be no sign of any zombie hordes coming right away.

She could, thankfully, still grab that sandwich.

If the place was still open, anyway.

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Tonight had been mostly quiet. Vesper had done the rounds of his usual spots and gotten nothing exciting. Even his sometimes target wasn't giving him a lead. Instead he listened to a French accent plot some other criminal's downfall. As that wasn't remotely one of Vesper's interests, he cut out of his hiding spot early.

He was on his way to go harass Reginald Crane in some way. He wasn't sure how, but Vesper figured he would think of something by the time he checked out Crane's usual haunts. Sage had been very helpful in tracking the man's habits.

Though all of those sorta plans went by the wayside when something screeched above him. As Vesper was 40 stories up, he was particularly concerned. He tried to twist around to see if he was catching a jumper or getting a face-full of some villain.

The man dressed as a bat did not quite get turned around when something smashed into him solidly. It jostled his body enough that he accidentally hit the button to close up his wings. As he was plummeting, he heard more screeches from above him. Not counting whatever the hell was covered in feathers and screeching at him as he fell toward the streets.

Sofia heard the definitely-not-human screeching. She wasn't far from it, after all.

And there goes my pastrami sandwich, she bemoaned as she took off into the air, the evening breeze rushing past her. Sofia wasn't much of a fan of flying under her own power, but moments like this, well, it was a necessity. It wasn't as though she knew where the sound was coming from. Even Sofia couldn't teleport to the unknown.

There it was though. Claws. Wings. Head of a woman.

A harpy.

A harpy in New York City.

FML.

There wasn't just one harpy, though Vesper that that was more than enough considering she was clawing at his armor. He could pick up sounds of others heading his way as he plummeted between buildings.

He swiped at the feathered legs scratching at him. He tried twisting his body around. He managed it in a sense. Enough to see he was going to be street pizza soon.

He hit the button to open his wings. They opened with an urgent sching as he tried to turn his dive into a swoop.

It did take the sorceress a few moments to notice the other harpies. She may have cursed out loud.

The non-magical kind.

She also noted the...was that Vesper?

It seemed like Vesper.

Yep, the sching of his wings, that was definitely Vesper.

Well, hello, teammate, she thought to herself as a blast of fire surged forth from her fingertips, hitting the wing of the nearest harpy.

"So, just so you know. You're giving females a bad name," she added, following up the blast of magic fire with an elbow to the face. "I mean. All that screaming and cawing and shrewing? Makes us look bad."

Extending the wings knocked the harpy off. Swooping up kept him from becoming two-dimensional on the pavement. he felt the rush of air as a different bird woman dove right past him. Her screeches got a bit more hysterical when she missed her target.

Vesper applied the jets of his wingpack tp help him climb faster. He heard someone talking in midair and wheeled that way.

"Hey! Strange woman! What's going on?" She had known at Central park. He figured she would have a clue right now.

"Something unpleasant!" That was knowledgable enough, right? "What did you do to piss off your ex-girlfriends?" As she spoke, a harpy came up behind her and smacked her down on the shoulder. Sofia cried out in pain and whirled around in mid-air, tossing out another trio of fireballs, catching the harpy in the face. "Back off, granny."

He quirked an eyebrow at the vast knowledge being laid out by this one-time teammate. Though he had to laugh at the question about his exes.

"There's not enough of them for my ex-girlfriends to be responsible." He was so glad his vocal-modulator stripped away his distinct accent. Also, he was glad he did not sound like a French skunk this time. He raised his right arm.

"Cover your eyes." He fired a flare sabot out of his bracer and into one of the harpies. It streaked toward its target and flared brightly right before it made contact with plumage. It smelled like burnt feathers between those buildings.

Sofia waved her hand in front of her face. An image of Lady Gaga with those iconic sunglasses of hers appeared in front of her, shielding her face from the blast.

The image faded a moment later and Sofia was back to hand-to-claw combat with the harpy that had shouldered her earlier. "Of course you're a playboy underneath that," Sofia laughed. A shock of lightning swirled around her hand before flying towards the harpy and incinerating her. She turned to the next one. "I have a feeling these ladies were meant for someone else." They'd just unwittingly intercepted someone else's package.

"Naturally," he agreed with her assessments. The better to hide his secret identity and sleep better at night.

He heard the screeching and burning as the harpy tried to put out the part of her body on fire. Vesper was busy trying to change the ammo on his right bracer as he looped around. He had almost all the ammo out when a harpy popped up in front of him.

Vesper yelped and fired off an armor-piercing flechette into the ugly face. He grimaced as the harpy plummeted like a sack of potatoes.

"Secret identities," Sofia said. "I can dig it. Don't ever need one myself, because the public witchy-poo thing works well for me, but I can dig it." She held a hand out, once more, lightning surged around her hand, this time melding with fire and a gust of wind.

A moment later, she was holding a short, but lethal-looking, broadsword.

She swung it at the nearest harpy.

"This is so much more fun than the mummy I accidentally loosed in the Sanctum last week."

Vesper loaded more flare sabots into his bracer. Though the never-ending line of harpies seemed to be thinning out some. He aimed and fired a flare at another. It wasn't a direct hit, but the flare went by close enough to catch harpy hair on fire.

"Wait. Mummy? As in Imhotep? Remind me to never make any house calls to your place."

"I mean, it wasn't Imhotep, but yeah. Bandages. Decaying, if preserved, skin. Still thirsty for the alcohol. I guess being dead does that to you." Punch, block, punch, elbow, kick, fireballs. "Although, don't they remove the stomach?" Sofia shrugged. "Maybe they don't realize it." Not like the mummy'd had a specific rumbly in her tumbly.

"So. Who engaged who here?" She really was curious where they'd come from. Harpies were not a regular occurrence. Well, not this kind.

It was easy to chase away the last few with flares. It seems the smell women-birds didn't like being set on fire. Also, probably something that makes them smell bad was highly flammable.

He hovered in the air a bit, wings flapping to cover the rockets helping to keeping him aloft.

"I was flying up there." He pointed to about the forty story mark. "I then got attacked by a feathered ass falling on me."

"Better a feathered ass than a harpy egg," Sofia quipped. "No, but seriously, though."

Was there anything in the area around them that would have brought the harpies here?

Sofia reached out with her senses, surveying the area as she fought.

A new Greek exhibit?

A demigod sighting?

What?

He climbed a bit with his wings. He frowned a bit as he concentrated on hearing anything out of the normal. Vesper couldn't pick up on anymore screeches or even on people complaining about massive bird droppings.

"I don't sense anything else out of the normal with my suit." He looked around with his nightvision lenses. "They disappeared quickly."

He looked down toward the street and didn't see any fresh road pizzas either. "Hmm."

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