New York In The Time Of Monsters: Chelsea Piers

[gone_byebye]

Ray and the troupe on the West Side Highway managed to force the monsters' mastermind to show herself. Dr. Mary Mezga of the Museum of Natural History has been a very, very naughty scientist, it seems. Conjuring the dead into life is NOT GOOD SCIENCE AT ALL. Especially not when it involves modern-day humans getting hunted down like rodentia.

It's a bit worse when you know the motive...

At any rate, Ray caught her announcing her final target and broadcast it to the NYPD. Anyone with a portable radio on them knows, now, exactly where the crazy lady and her animals are headed: to the entertainment complex at 24th Street and the river, Chelsea Piers.

Comments

[jokerswildwest.livejournal.com]

Alex is grinning, that cocky little grin that he gets onto his face when he's about to do something that involves guns and possible explosions.

The guns come out, and Alex immediately recognizes the fact that he can make a run for the lone beast and try and get it taken out while he can.

This is however hampered by the fact that they have really thick skills, and it's not falling down like the smaller beast from earlier.

And when it runs into him full force, and knocks him back onto the ground, he manages to avoid getting run over, but man, that hurt.

Alex responds by emptying his clip into the beast and watching it dissolve a few feet away.

[gone_byebye]

He's lucky he got one of the younger ones. The older, bigger ones? They're destroying cars with the force of their attacks.

... they're not very bright.

Fortunately, the NYPD members have ranged weapons, as do the Ghostbusters. Winston and Egon and Peter are putting their proton packs to excellent use; the animals seem deathly afraid of the streams and are crashing into one another in their efforts to get away. It's not helping the aurochs line any, either. Those are letting out bellowing noises that relate to 'moo' in the way that a real pig's "GHWRAAAAARRNK" noise relates to "oink" and trying not to break their legs as they turn to flee.

In all of this there is a small problem. When the critter storm was spotted coming, they evacuated everyone from the Piers, including the kids of the high school alumni who were conducting their reunion on a boat out in the harbor. They thought they got everybody. They were wrong; one of the kids, a four-year-old Asian-looking girl, managed to hide in the complex so as to play in the ball pit alone. She's outside now- she was wandering along by the river's edge, but turned in the direction of all the chaos and noise.

The titanothere at the furthest edge of the line veers out of the way of a terrified aurochs. This draws off part of the line- well, by 'part' we mean 'a lot'- and the girl freezes in her tracks. When you are four, anything looks big.

Anything the size of THESE things looks even bigger.

Very shortly there is going to be a small child clinging for her life to the nearest lamppost and screaming at the top of her lungs.

[sighteddancer.livejournal.com]

Oh, for--why can these aliens not get out of the way properly? What mother is this careless of her offspring? But she understands this sort of thing cannot be predicted, and the careless parent has probably already learned her lesson just by the creature's vanishing. Christine kicks down a fence that was blocking an alley, cloaks and rushes towards the herd, swings up the lamppost--snatching up the child in her wake--and pauses atop it to fire a plasma bolt into the ground behind the separating line. That should get them out of the way.

Now she just has to find a nice, quiet, safe spot to pry the little alien off her mask. Christine grits her teeth, clacks her mandibles in a very patient manner despite her sensitive hearing, and tries to see over its hairy head.

[gone_byebye]

The plasma bolt was very effective! A chunk of the herd veers off from the rest, thinning the front lines. The cops approve!

The Winchesters might not, as there is a full-grown aurochs bull in the lead, headed straight for their position- and them's big. That's two thousand pounds of angry pot roast.

[gavemea_45]

There'd been enough time on the ride down from the terminal for Sam to hastily go through everything they have with them -- and also to scavenge a few other potentially-useful odds and ends from the ferry itself, in light of the kind of trouble they'd found when they first arrived.

He's glad of it now. Really glad. The Taurus pistol is one thing, but for something like this-- it's not big enough. He's not sure anything short of an elephant gun would be, unless they have something to give them the advantage.

There's a metallic clanking sound as Sam pulls a length of chain from the satchel and begins to swing it around in a looping circle, preparing for a throw.

"We're only gonna get one shot at this, Dean-- cover me!"

That's all the warning he's got time for, and with the next motion Sam sends the chain rattling through the air toward the bull's legs, aiming to tangle its feet and bring it down.

[hopeitsworthit]

The biggest advantage to working with someone for a really long time is you get to know how they think.

Which means that even before Sam starts yelling, Dean's reloading his shotgun and taking aim.

The first shot hits the bull before Sam's chain does, but the sudden loss of independent coordination in its front feet means that damn thing goes toppling over.

That's when Dean reloads and shoots it again.

It's gonna stop moving eventually.

Meanwhile there's other shit to take care of. He does spare a second to grin over at Sammy.

It was a good call.

[gone_byebye]

It topples, and its fall shakes the ground in its immediate vicinity very briefly- but then the flesh falls away in another shower of powdery bluegrey dust. That's happening all over the place, in fact, as the cops take the beasts down and the Ghostbusters drive the surviving animals back, forcing even the giant Belle to begin moving.

This doesn't please Dr. Mezga at all. Oh, no no no no no. "Terry!" she cries, pointing at one of the larger titanotheres. "I know you're better than this- SHOW ME WHAT YOU'RE MADE OF!"

Terry, who's already an extremely cranky titanothere, whose ears are ringing with gunshots and whose eyes are dazzled with too many moving targets, lowers his head and snorts.

And charges for Tavi, the nearest of the bedamned puny humans.

[calderon-crow.livejournal.com]

For someone who's supposed to be completely human, Tavi's moving awfully fast. Part of it is training, part of it is terror, part of it is irritation at his own slip up that keeps sending shooting pain from his hip to the rest of his body, and part of it is the gifts given to him by his connection with Kitai.

The gladius flashes out as he moves amongst the animals and while he's avoiding the fire, it's not so much a conscious thing as a lot of luck and an almost sixth sense that tells him when to move and when not to. He knows what happens to them now, so he makes adjustments in his style for it but...

He's doing some damage.

[gone_byebye]

He is indeed. The beasts that've already been injured, whether by gunfire or by crashing into one another, don't take much slashing. A man of Tavi's experience and Tavi's world knows where the great vessels run, and where the tendons are. Terry falls to the ground and dissolves into dust and bone. Other creatures don't die so swiftly, but it takes little more than a glancing gunshot wound or a scorch of atomic fire to push them over the edge.

It's not going well. Dr. Mezga's lips thin out; she looks out to the harbour, and spots a sizable boat bobbing uncertainly up and down. It's running out of fuel, but to dock here, now, would be suicide. It's just going to hover a little ways off from the dock in the hopes that the chaos will clear soon.

Mezga reaches into her pocket, pulls out a pair of binoculars, squints at the ship- and crows aloud. "Bastards!" she shouts. "I have you now- move it, Belle! Move move move MOVE!"

The Indricotherium turns with surprising grace and lumbers to the water's edge.

[evil_koala_626]

"Aggaba!"

The remains of the herd are being seen to by everyone else. No one appears to be paying attention to the strange lady or her giant pet... whatever that is.

Stitch rushes toward the Indricotherium, attempting to cut it off before it presumably escapes into the water.

[gone_byebye]

The Indricotherium stops before it reaches the water. It may not be able to see directly under its head, but it knows that SOMETHING was moving down there, and it doesn't want to get tripped up- so it stops.

"Dr. Mezga, what is it you want?" shouts Ray, who's displaying his usual truly sterling survival instincts and following Stitch.

"The same thing everyone who ever had to suffer at the hands of people who put more value on muscle and coordination than mind and study wants," Dr. Mezga answers. "To teach them all a lesson they'll never forget."

Her right hand flicks outward, two small brown fragments of something solid hitting the water and disappearing into the river's depths. She's making some very complicated gestures almost as soon as they leave her hand, despite the fact that now one or two of the police are shooting at her (and missing- all the sharpshooters in Manhattan were tied up at the UN or the Dalai Lama's thing in Central Park). "I abjure thee, o great beast of the Deep," she calls in a voice the people on the boat can hear, "obey my bidding! Or, to put it in terms all of YOU lot can understand-"

History! Show us again and again, how Nature responds to the folly of men!!"

And the river foams, and trembles, and shakes, as something huge begins to well up from the depths...


"Ohgod," Ray says as the muck-covered, serpentine, armored heads erupt in a shower of Hudson froth.

[hopeitsworthit]

"Dude. Blue Oyster Cult?"

Dean's looking pretty pissed right now.

"You did not just--"

Nevermind.

She's going down.

Some stuff just wasn't meant for use by evil villains intent on world domination by prehistoric mammals.

Like kickass rock music.

[evil_koala_626]

...

Well that's certainly unexpected.

The great beasts come to earth with a tooth rattling crash, Half resting on the ruined remains of the pier. After the spilt second's hesitation due to shock, the Indricotherium and its rider are forgotten. Stitch leaps forward and lands a punch squarely on one of the new arrivals' snouts.

[gone_byebye]

These beasts are Basilosaurus. They're ancestral whales, huge snakelike things, monsters of the deep a good sixty or seventy feet long, full of rage and tooth and awful magic.

Stitch is a scientific experiment by a mad genius who may be as crazy as Dr. Mezga.

"AYIIIIPE!" cries the Basilosaurus, thrashing frantically. Its flailing starts kicking up the Hudson's waters, throwing the docks into upheaval and sending waves out that give the boat a hell of a time staying upright. One more good punch from Stitch and it's likely to turn tail and run.

The other is another story. Ray's baiting that one, running back and forth in front of it with his saber, shouting at it about its utter failure to develop an organ of echolocation and its inferiority to a common dolphin and its primitively pathetic stubby little legs. "RAY!" shouts Peter. "Quit taunting the sea monster!"

Ray turns to see what Peter's talking about. The whale senses its opportunity and lunges with its jaws open-

"Daddy!" screams Ecto. There's a noise, as of something mechanical going to pieces and reforming itself in a matter of seconds.

And Ray is swept out of the monster whale's path by one of his suddenly-upright daughter's hands.

Observant ears will note that it's now Dr. Mezga's term to say, "Ohgod."

[calderon-crow.livejournal.com]

...Tavi will need lots of explanations.

For right now, though? Staring.

[gone_byebye]

Tavi is not alone. Everybody is staring. Everybody. Cops, Ghostbusters, crazy scientist lady, ambulance workers, people in the street- even the small child Christine has, although she's still holding onto the yautja with all her might. Winston is the first to shake it off, shouting, "Ecto! Get the crazy lady! Everybody else, concentrate your fire on the sea monsters! Don't let them get to the boat!"

Ray, for his part, is too stunned by his current situation to do more than pull out his radio and call, ""Um, Optimus? I, uh... I think you might want to see this."

"This area is secured. I'm on my way, Ray."

[gavemea_45]

Dean's reaction is succinct.

"Holy fucking shit."

For his part, Sam can only nod agreement-- but when Winston yells, it snaps him back to the present.

The two brothers trade a quick, grim look and turn their fire on the giant whales. It'll be a race to see if the sea monsters can be drawn off or killed before the boat goes down.

[jokerswildwest.livejournal.com]

When Alex hears the sound of gunfire -- not to mention giant robot thing and prehistoric sea-whale-things and crazy bitch riding whatever the hell that was -- he reaches for the other sidearm and moves to the edge of the water, keeping himself behind a chunk of concrete in case anything else comes flying out of the water as he fires in the general direction of the whale things.

They're big animals.

The click-click of empty clips meets his ears, and instead of taking the time to dig for ammo in his bag and reload, he does the next best thing he can think of.

Which is grab a chunk of concrete, heft it in his hand, and then hurl it in the direction of the thing trying squirm into the water. He's got a decent arm, but it lands short, and he swears, growls, and picks up another, hurling it.

This one lands with a thunk on bone, and he grins, before ducking down behind the rock. Once the adrenaline wears off...he's going to be hurting.

[evil_koala_626]

Stitch flattens his ears against the sound of gunfire behind him. He ducks and weaves with a few startled "Hey!"s as he attempts to avoid the barrage of bullets. Bullets may not pierce his skin but it's still painful to get struck by anything traveling at those speeds.

With a snarl, he turns his frustration back on the beached Basilosaurus. Admittedly, this one doesn't have quite as much oomph behind it as the last.

[sighteddancer.livejournal.com]

Christine has been absorbed in the "how do you get the tiny, screaming, clinging alien to let go" conundrum. It grabbed her mask and braids and wrapped its legs around her bicep back when she fired the plasma cannon.

Growling at it has not worked. Neither has a quiet command. Neither has splashing water on it. Neither has roaring. Neither has hanging upside-down over a two-story drop (one hand at its back) loosened its grip. Truly these are tenacious creatures. Heat crosses her mind next, but the bar humans are extremely careful about flame, and she can hardly risk harming it after taking the responsibility of saving it.

Which is why an innocent paramedic, having just cleared a guy after he had a minor rubble-related injury, is lurched at by a giant shape.

She had forewarning.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" announces Christine's passenger, which it has been doing tenaciously for some time.

"You. Remove this."

[gone_byebye]

It's still plenty. The Basilosaurus lets out another terrified yelp and does its best to look small and inconspicuous and harmless.

This does not work.

Ecto, meanwhile, eases Ray up onto her shoulder and moves to follow Uncle Winston's suggestion. The Indricotherium is proving to be rather less tractable now that there are OMG GIANT WHALE MONSTERS erupting out of the river. Dr. Mezga scarcely even sees Ecto coming, though she puts up a little scream when Ecto scoops her up in her other hand. "Dr. Mezga," says Ecto, holding the woman at eye level, "you're a really smart lady. You ought to know better than this."

The cops are firing on both the whales now, though not so much the one that Stitch is hitting. No sense accidentally hitting the little blue thing, since it seems to be on their side. The other whale is doing its best to slide into the water before something goes horribly wrong.

And as for the paramedic, she makes an 'eep!' face before nodding and oh-so-cautiously reaching up to remove the child one finger at a time.

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

There is thunder coming south.

No. Thunder doesn't crash so rhythmically.

He may not be in vehicle form, but Optimus Prime's down the West Side Highway, through the traffic, has been just as inexorable and unstoppable. On the median, jumping cars and dodging motorcycles and one leap over a set of utterly hornswoggled tourists who had no idea the traffic in New York could be that bad, he made for Chelsea Piers as fast as he possibly could.

And at the sighs of Ecto, he pauses, and mutters, "Ratchet and I are going to have a very long talk about 'authorized activities' when I get back."

But there's still danger, and his right arm shifts again, turning into a massive cannon, which he extends. One eye goes dark, then comes back on again.

He waits for the opportunity, locked onto target. Once it's clear...

[gone_byebye]

This is a very, very, very bad day to be Dr. Mezga. Oh, the triumphant rush of being able to call all of the animals she's spent her career on back into life was brilliant and she'd do it again in a heartbeat if she had the means to. That's for certain. But it's gone downhill from there; all of her favorite predators were dusted, most of her best enteleodonts ran off into the park to look for food, and all that's left of her siege ruminants is a cluster of very confused aurochsen that're currently trying to determine if they can all hide behind an overturned hot-dog cart.

And now her whale- the one that didn't get introduced to the concept of 'ow' by a small blue alien package of doom- is right in the center of Optimus' sights.

(Oh, and she's being held immobile about seventeen feet off the ground by a robot who used to be a converted hearse. There's that too. At least the robot appears to be shocked speechless for the moment?)

[autocommander.livejournal.com]

"CLEAR!" Optimus has learned this from the soldiers he's worked with - when you can, let people know something big is coming.

And he fires his ion cannon at the whale, aiming for a part that, he hopes, will sever cleanly and proceed to cease and desist that whole 'reanimated' thing.

He's not sure he likes the idea of the dead returning to life.

[gone_byebye]

The whale had been rather desperately hoping to make it to the shelter of the boat, given the bullets pinging in from the people gathered on shore. It hadn't counted on the ion cannon, and so was only halfway to the boat when-

Well.

The NYPD's going to be dredging the harbor for that skull.

(This is about the point where Belle, the Indricotherium, very quietly lies down and tries to hide her head. Every instinct she's got says that was a lightning bolt, and Indricotherium as a species did not survive by allowing themselves to stay vulnerable to lightning.)

Ray, meanwhile, has recovered enough of his senses to raise a hand and wave shakily. Ecto's still staring, herself.