Rescue had headed to the academy before finding Peter and some of the other students a very sorry bunch. As Gwen and the others showed up a quinjet arrived and lifted them and after jetting away, Pepper in her suit spied a convoy of stretchers leading from the Triskelion, with a single giant red woman guarding them. As she sped over she landed and the faceplate of her armour lifted up, "Pepper, uh Rescue," and she held out her hand for the women, who looked at it apprehensively,
"Pepper Potts?" and as Pepper nodded the woman took her hand and shook it, "Betty, I mean, She-Hulk." and Pepper smiled at her and let the faceplate close again.
"We can guard these men while they get to the evac, so I'll go up and report it to you. Do you have a headset?" and as She-Hulk shook her head, Rescue opened up a panel on her arm and pulled out a small earbud. "If I see anything I'll tell you and we can deal, okay?" and as She-Hulk took the earpiece and fumbled it into her ear, Rescue lay a hand on her arm, "Hey, it's okay, we're tough, okay?" and She-Hulk nodded,
"Sorry, uh, first time, out, you know, as this," and Rescue laughed,
"Me too. How about after you come by the tower and we get coffee. It'd be nice to speak to someone else about how this feels." and smiling, She-Hulk nodded. Rescue pointed up and then as she took a step back, fired her jets and took off into the sky.
"Ma'am," and She-Hulk, shaking her head, followed a soldier back to the transport and began to help load more injured agents into a quinjet.
As Rescue watched the blue flashes in the distance she noticed a small group of men coming their way, she also got a designated blip on her HUD. Unlike Iron Man, Rescue's HUD was a simple non-interactive one and it intoned in a flat computer voice "War Machine, Heading East" she noted the rogue Iron Man armour heading towards the warehouse district where Peter lived. Damn, she thought and she knew from the radio chatter that none of them had a radio. Shaking her head she couldn't do both, and with Peter's powers and the rest, she knew they would be safe. "She-Hulk, Five hostiles incoming, Uh, Five o'clock from the quinjet you're at," and with her report she dived down to help.
Jack's security team had been tasked to track and tag any rescue operations, leaving War Machine to take them out while they provided backup. He shook his head though as the fucking idiot sped off to make sure that Parker was actually dead, getting a report that he and those kids had survived re-entry. As he knelt and used a small mirror to peer around the corner of the building he saw another of those freaks. A giant red female hulk. Shaking his head he motioned to the rest of his squad. Even a hulk would be nothing but dust with the pulse weapons they had been issued but as the freak brigade was on patrol today he needed to make sure they weren't spotted.
As he counted down from three a blast hit right above his head, "Stand Down." blasted out over the Iron Man's speakers, its form definitely more feminine than the one on the news. As if he was going to let two women stop him in his mission. Rolling to one side he took aim and fired. A bright blue bolt of energy flying dead centre at the Iron Woman. Gliding out the way, she returned fire but as Jack took cover, her aim was terrible and even firing pushed her back and forth in the sky, damn rookie, and he motioned for his squad to continue on as he took a breath and knelt in a sniper's pose. Lifting his rifle, he lined up his shot.
Before he could fire another female from Iron suit landed in front of him, grabbing his rifle. "Designation Jack Rollins. You will not harm Rescue." and the suit crushed the barrel's rifle before yanking it out of his hands.
"Fucking Stark," he uttered as he rolled to one side, drawing a smaller pistol and firing at the suit. He smirked as he saw chunks disintegrated in its side but it seemed to be unfazed,
"I just got this body, jerk," it said, almost human and springing forward it laid a swift kick into the surprised man's side, "oh man, Tony is gonna be mad at me, Hey Jocasta. Think the boss will be mad?" and as she looked over the man's stunned body, a second suit was busy stunning the remainder of Jack's squad.
"Friday, I think as long as you initiate 'Tonyisgreat' protocols, he'll forgive you," she replied with a sigh. She had wanted to fight a proper enhanced, like that jerk Venom, Tony had told her all about, but all she and her sister Friday got were these lame losers. Not a single Enhanced amongst them and she even had to be careful in case she accidentally damaged any of them beyond repair. It was infuriating.
"Oops, Mom is looking, better hide Sis," and the pair ducked behind the building and sped off to help Tony at the helicarrier.
"Uh hey, Rescue?" She-Hulk said into her mic, "I checked and there's nobody here."
Rescue checked her HUDs radar display and scanned the area she had seen the men, but She-Hulk was right, whoever it was, must have been Shield and after seeing the area was secure moved onto a new one,
"I'll keep an eye out anyway, good job down there," and She-Hulk nodded, and then tutted as she realised that Rescue couldn't see her. A field tech, busy loading wounded agents into a quinjet, nodded at her and smiled. She-Hulk returned his smile but looked to the sky, wondering how Bruce and Blonskey were doing.
While thinking of him, Hulk would be the first to admit that he wasn't thinking of much, only that he could smash and that even puny Banner was being quieter in his mind for once. The annoying talky puny man had called Hunk a name, a dis-a-so-si-ative psy-cho-tic per-son-a-lity break, and while Banner had nodded, Hulk had just wanted to smash him. So now, he was smashing out his anger at the puny talky man on these other puny men. They were firing some blue gas at him but it just itched and smelled funny, after throwing a door at them they stopped and Hulk was happy. More tried but Hulk threw a wall at them and they ran away. Hulk wanted to chase them but they shut the door. As if a puny wall would stop Hulk but as he raised his fist to smash it the stupid Blonskey put a stupid hand on his shoulder,
"Oi, no smashin' everythin' yeah, we still need to find the control room and stop this thing from fallin' on New York,'' and Hulk huffed at him, "oi, never said you can't smash, just see those walls with double bolts," and Blonksey pointed at the thicker girders with double rivets in them, the supporting superstructure of the helicarrier. "Smash anyfin' but them, okay?" and Hulk nodded,
Stupid ablomistation, he thought and ran through a wall, hearing the screams of the stupid puny men as he crushed some of them with debris, stupid puny men, stupid blue gas, stupid everyone. Hulk was having fun but he wanted Betty here too, she smelled nice and turned big and red like him, although green was better, but on her red was good too. Not like stupid Ross, his red was stupid and smelled bad. Hulk backhanded a man raising a much larger blue rifle that fizzed and sparked as a giant green foot stamped down on it, everyone but Betty was stupid, but this, this wasn't stupid. Smashing things was fun.
Outside, Iron Man lined up another repulsor blast on the huge engine of the second helicarrier he received a transmission, "oh hey boss, Friday here, but uh, I can't fight, those pulse weapons pack a nasty punch you know," and Tony sighed
"I told you to stay away from the bad guys." he chastised her.
"I know, I know but I was saving Rescue boss, and I figured if I rescued Rescue then you'd forgive me, please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?" and a small emoticon of Friday's armour appeared on his screen, batting her eyelashes at him. Tony sighed, he had maybe made them a bit too emotive but he didn't care. They had saved Pepper and that was all that mattered,
"Of course I forgive you Friday, now where's your sister?" and as the icon changed and blew him a kiss,
"She spotted more of the bad guys boss, she's dealing with them while I keep an eye on Mom." and Tony sighed,
"You know if she hears you call her that she'll kill me right?" and Friday laughed,
"Sure Boss, just like her name. Hot and spicy." and Tony shook his head, she'd kill him if she heard them calling her that as well.
"If I may interrupt Sir, while I appreciate the care and concern you are showing my little sister, in your own words, please stop 'dicking around'." A more masculine, and very English voice interrupted.
"Sorry Vis, Friday, stay low and out of sight, only engage if Rescue is in more trouble than she can handle, and upload a backup to the main server, if it comes to you or her, save her," Tony instructed her and returned his attention to the Helicarrier. The dumber slaved units were latching onto the bottom of the craft, and slowly adjusting its course while Tony and Vision blasted the engines to pieces. As he watched the small fragments gathered themselves up and rained down over the water.
His targeting HUD tracked two people, floating in the sky. An old man dressed in deep purple body armour while the other, a very attractive redhead, was in a plain black suit. Hmm, maybe see if she wants a tour of Stark Tower, he thought with a grin before shaking his head, dammit Tony, get a grip. He had to stop with that, Pepper was still ignoring his attempts to make amends and even the Rescue armour hadn't gotten him so much as a thank you. While she had slept with that asshole Venom, he had blared it all over New York and not just her personal life but Stark Industries suffered.
It was hard enough to get people to take you seriously sometimes but advertising you slept with a supervillain was so much worse. Every week a tabloid ran a grainy photo spread with a crappy actress and an even crappier Venom lookalike, claiming to have exclusive footage of the pair.
As Tony lined up a shot he fired in anger at the memory of them together and switched to continuous mode, hearing the men in the engines control room screaming as his beam cut the housing, and them, free from the craft to plummet into the cold waters of the bay. As it fell, it veered off and splashed into the water, hmm, neat, Tony thought to himself.
Whatever that idiot in the metal suit was doing, it was not improving the mood of Magneto as he sought out and continually dragged the fragments of metal into the bay. As if by some miracle he heard him he managed to switch from just blasting holes in the craft to actually removing the engine. Magento was confident that if those tin cans he called armoured suits were incapable of lifting the helicarrier that he could manage, but not all three, and certainly not all three and the rain of debris coming from each one.
Even with Jean beside him, only giving a quick introduction and then getting to work, they were managing to contain the damage from the fallout. While under Charles's care, it seemed that whatever she had been doing it was not learning to harness her powers and Magento wondered if Charles had even been active, or simply hiding in his mansion while the world walked past.
He could see the strain on her face as she grabbed the smallest parts he had missed and like him, began to drag them either to the water or onto the Shield Headquarters, uncaring if she dropped them onto those men they thought were adversaries.
Too busy concentrating to notice Magneto, Jean was struggling. She had never used her powers to this extent before and hadn't spent any length of time in the uniform. It was hot and the sweat from wearing it was uncomfortable as it trickled down into places she would rather remain dry. As more and more debris fell, either from the giant Hulk smashing out a wall or from Iron Man blasting off another engine she needed to focus, she needed to do her best.
She wanted to prove to the professor that she was in control of her powers, and she had heard Peter's message, a small hint of excitement filled her as she thought of the things she could ask for. She even found herself thinking of things she knew Scott would get angry at, the darker parts of her thought about that day, of the thickness sliding in and out of Gwen as she and MJ stood in the doorway. As her cheeks, and a fire in her eyes burned, she grunted and pulled more debris into the ocean, she could do this, and then, even if Scott and the world burned, she would claim her prize.