(2014-05-22) Tsunami of Mysteries
Tsunami of Mysteries
Summary: The demonstration of tech from Doctor Ivo creates a tsunami, which could destroy Isla Suerto in the Carribbean and kill everyone there. The Justice League responds … just like someone wanted.
Date: 2014-05-22
Related: None
NPCs: Selene, others of the Dark Cabal
Scene Runner: Winsome
Social/Plot: Plot
Players:
moon-maiden..wonder-woman..power-woman..marvel-girl..miss-marvel..

Isla Suerto

The tropical island of Isla Suerto lays almost exactly where the waters of the Carribean meet the waters of the Atlantic. It is, perhaps, the most remote of the vacation islands. The island is small, only three miles long and perhaps a mile wide. There are no resorts here. Instead, a few dozen gorgeous island estates dot the island, mostly on the eastern side. Lush tropical forest covers the rest of the island, though it has been tamed and trails allow the wealthy residents to enjoy the splendor of nature without the true dangers nature can provide. The main port of the island is on the southern tip and a village has grown up around it. There live the roughly three hundred and fifty full-time residents: people who serve in the houses, tend to the estates, unload and load cargo and who provide entertainment (of all sorts) to the wealthy vacationers.

Fourteen minutes ago a 7.5 earthquake rocked the floor of the Atlantic Ocean a few miles west of the prime meridian. Twelve minutes ago satellites detected the tsunami and plotted course, speed, and path.

Here's the good news. The tsunami will die into nothing more than an exceptionally high tide before it hits Europe or most of the Carribbean.

Here's the bad news. One island, Isla Suerto, is quite a bit further east than the rest of the Carribean islands and it is small enough that it will be utterly destroyed by the tsunami.

Ten minutes ago an alert was sent to the Justice League by Captain America, who has monitor duty tonight.

Five minutes ago, Moon Maiden arrived on scene. Using her command of the moon's gravity granted to her by the Alchemical Engine located in her Lunar Villa, Moon Maiden did the impossible.

She stopped the tsunami only three hundred feet away from Isla Suerto. She's there now, arms apread out to either side, hovering like a glowing, silver goddess in front of the two hundred foot tall wall of water. It strains against her power, struggling to follow the laws of nature and physics. To surge forward until all energy is spent. But the Moon Maiden will not let it go. Though she trembles and sweats, though her head pounds and blood pours from her nose, she will not let this disaster destroy the hundreds of lives on island.

When the call went out about the disaster, Diana rushed from the Embassy, taking to the sky and preparing to use all the speed Hermes could grant her. Before she left, she co-ordinated with Marvel Girl and picked her teammate up. Flying over the Atlantic at supersonic sppeds, Wonder Woman and Marvel Girl arrive to see Moon Maiden struggling to literally hold back the tide. Landing on the beach, Diana takes a quick look around. "Marvel Girl, start the evacuation. Find a sturdy structure that can hold all the residents. If we can't stop this, I can try to lift everyone up and clear of the tidal wave." The Amazon Princess then approaches Moon Maiden, speaking quietly to try not to disrupt her firend's concentration too much. "Is there any way I can help, sister? Perhaps plowing through the wave will help disapate it or make it easier for you?"

Moon Maiden doesn't respond for several long, agonizing seconds. At this moment her eyes glow with the full light of the moon. The light even shines from her open mouth. An unnatural wind blows across her. Rippling her cape and tossing her hair. Finally, she whispers. "Hurry… engine… limit…"

Marvel Girl focuses her telepathy… fortunately, this a pretty small population, as she mentally contacts them all, trying to organize a retreat from the island in an orderly but brisk pace. Focusing on the security or police forces first, so they can help organize things. "I hope they have a plane…"

When notice came in, Power Woman was in China, dealing with a forest fire. But a tidal wave of this magnitude is much more important. Having done what she could to create a fire break so that the fire crews can handle the rest of the situation, the Kryptonian powerhouse headed out to sea and kicked her flight into extremes, shooting out of the atmosphere and skipping across, only to come hurtling down out of the sky more like a meteor with steering than her usual flight patterns.

Power Woman is literally smoking, glowing orange with the heat of her rapid descent, as she approaches the island and her teammates. "This is Power Woman, incoming. Good Rao, Moon Maiden …" She doesn't finish that thought. She considers the situation, and realizes she cannot create a 'wave break' here, without ruining the environment for the local sea life. Instead, she can only see one solution. "Are we evacuating the island, or trying to stop the wave. We cannot possibly do both, we haven't time." she calls out to Diana, waiting for instructions, though she is still heading for the sea's surface, apparently intent on doing something down below unless she is redirected.

Wonder Woman sighs in releif as Power Woman arrived. "Thank Hera…Power Woman, Marvel Girl is starting the evacuation. It's up to you and I to help limit that tidal wave's impact. If you freeze the top layer with your breath, I can fly in and break it up. We can whittle this thing down, maybe even stop it before Moon Maiden runs out of power. Her lunar engine is at it's limit." The plan announces, Diana takes to the skies to join Power Woman and prepare to break up this wave as much as possible.

Marvel Girl focuses her efforts on communicating with the others, and well, perhaps she gets a little pushy, but in a case like this she's going to worry about moral dilemmas later in favor of getting everyone out. Eventually, she gets it through to the inhabitants to get into one of the two larger mansions. A tight fit, perhaps, but enough for, "Diana… Power Woman… people going into… mansions… lift them." She looks rather strained, though not as much as Moon Maiden does at the moment.

It'll take time. The trip from the village to the mansion isn't a short one, even by vehicles… and there are precious few in the village itself. A few old cars. A rattling bus or two. A couple of trucks. Ten minutes at best with calm and order. If that wave goes? It hits in less than three.

Power Woman inhales deeply, and starts expelling super-cold air. She knows that freezing the upper wave won't help much, but they have to start somewhere. As it is, she is flying as fast as she can while continuing to freeze - which takes time, even with super-breath - through the water. She has to freeze it solid, thoroughly, but can leave it behind her as Diana appears to shatter it. Even so, even assuming poor Moon Maiden can really hold that wave for minutes instead of seconds, it's going to be nigh-impossible to get it all done. But get it all done, they are trying to do.

As the ice first starts to form, Wonder Woman flies up, then plows downwards, shattering through the ice and pushing her momentum into the heart of the wave. Arching back upwards, Diana puts on a burst of speed, trying to take even more of the wave's momentum as she bursts through the ice up top. With the speed of Hermes, Diana is able to keep this down, then back up movement going, breaking the ice layers almost as fast as Power WOman can lay them down.

It will take time. At least thirty to sixty seconds for Karen to freeze the top fourth of the wave. But it happens. As ice rains down, splashing into the ocean, Moon Maiden releases a sigh of relief. This is still a monster. Still a horrible beast but it has just become easier to hold back. "Go." Laurel says, able to speak now. "You've bought time. Go, help get everyone to safety."

Would everyone include the boat about a mile from shore that's sinking because the panicky idiots who stole it to escape the island didn't know what they were doing hit a shallow, ripping a hole in the hull? Power Woman's hearing will pick up their cries for help. Maybe Marvel Girl's telepathy.

Meanwhile, on the island, the evacuation is orderly thanks to the calming influence of Jean Grey's mental might. Something similar to this happened in Genosha….

As Marvel Girl guides the evacuation she detects… something. An oil. A slime. A… darkness. A flare of power and then there's one less mind in her network. Someone just denied Jean.

Marvel Girl takes a moment to relax, wiping a bit of blood from her nose as she grimaces, then… perhaps due to the fact she overexerted herself, she hears the mental cries for help far easier than she might otherwise, and focuses her attention that way for a moment. Then she expands a quick mental link to the team, » Hey, there's a boat about a mile out, they were trying to flee but got stuck out there. « Then she pauses as one of the connections just… breaks. Lifting into the air with her telekinesis as she keeps the mental urges on autopilot for now, she moves over towards where that connection was severed.

With the pressure off Moon Maiden for now and some extra time bought, Diana flies up to Power Woman. "Go down and help Marvel Girl with the evacuation. Gather gather the remaining straglers and get them to the shelter. Then prepare to lift the shelter up. I will get the boat and join you." »Responding to the boat, Marvel Girl. Power Woman is on her way to assist with the remains of the evacuation« Instructions given, Diana flies back down, diving under the stranded boat, then lifting the entire vessel up into the air and back towards the Island. »Marvel Girl, enter the shelter as soon as you can. Moon Maiden, I will come for you once these boater are safe in the shelter. When Power WOman has the shelter in the air, I will grab Moon Maiden and get her to safety.«

With orders clearly given, Power Woman only pauses a second, to stare at her best friend, still hanging suspended in air, channeling all the power of her alchemical engine for all she's worth. She'd give anything to be able to help. But the best she can do to help is do her job for the team. And that means helping with the island evacuation. The Kryptonian woman does so by flying to the southern end of the island and starting to gather up folks by the armloads, flying them north to the mansion in question, and then heading back for more. Thankfully there's something about her flight that seems to protect the people she carries from the effects of that extreme speed and wind, or she'd be causing injuries. As it is, lots of people are going to have some very scary stories to tell their grandchildren.

Marvel Girl will find her. A tall, dark haired woman. Beautiful. Beyond beautiful. Devestating and regal. In a way, she's much like Diana, with the bearing of a queen. A queen dressed in an outfit that would bankrupt a town. It is easy to tell this is her because the sea of people flow around her without so much as noticing that they are giving her room. That… and she is the only mind nearby that Jean cannot read.

Nearly half the island's population has been herded into the mansion now, thanks to the combined efforts of Marvel Girl and Power Woman…. but the wave is slowly pushing forward. Moon Maiden sinks backwards a good fifty feet as the tidal wave advances.

Marvel Girl looks at the regal woman, blinking a bit in surprise, "Ah, pardon me, but you might need to evacuate the island. There's a wave coming in, rather quickly too." Okay, so she might not be hostile, just someone that doesn't care to be 'pushed'… though that squicky mental feeling is a bit hard to deny as Marvel Girl looks at the aristocratic woman.

Diana sets the boat down on the front lawn of the mansion chosen for the evacuation. She doesn't stop but instead moves quickly, flying back to the village and picking up a stalled truck full of refugees. Carrying that to the mansion as well. Two thirds of the people on the island are in the mansion now.

Power Woman keeps it up, continuing to gather up refugees and fly them to the mansion, then returning for more. She keeps it up incessantly, until finally all of the refugees are loaded inside. Then she seals the doors, and uses her heat vision to seal the doors. "Everyone hold on. We're getting out of here!" she shouts, for all to hear, as she then bores down into the island, making her way down beneath the foundation of the structure. Then she comes up, pushing, hefting, pushing against the very pull of gravity itself. "Up, up and away, he used to say!" she shouts, grunting, as she pushes the very foundation up out of the island, and lifts off into the air. Who's he? Jor-El, of course.

The woman doesn't stay where she is. She rises into the air until she's practically nose to nose with Jean. "Aren't you a delicious little thing." She leans forward and kisses Jean softly. There's a spark in the contact and Jean will feel a sudden drop in vitality, as if she'd been up three hours too long. "Your Amazon? She already belongs to me. So does the Roman bitch from the moon. They just don't know it. But before I am done you will be begging to be mine as well." Then? She twists her fingers in some sort of strange pattern…

And vanishes.

Meanwhile, the mansion lifts into the air. A huge structure full of people and the Woman of Steel rips it from the foundations and up into the air. But even her strange ability to lift large objects in defiance of the laws of physics has limits.

The mansion begins to groan and crack. Without help, Power Woman won't be carrying a mansion full of people to safety. She'll be carrying wreckage.

Unfortunately Mary doesn't have connection to the Justice League's communications. She was working on homework with the television on in her room and caught the news of the tsunami and what looks like a group of women attempting to lessen both the damage and casualties. She was able to sneak out of her house and when far enough away, yells "Shazam!" Miss Marvel comes streaking down the East Coast in a blur of red and gold. She notices the wave slowly making it's movement towards the island and one large object hurtling skyward. Underneath is the familiar view of red, white, and blue. "Kara!" shouts Miss Marvel, instantly recognizing the structural weakness of the house. She finds the right spot on the opposite side of the mansion and grabs hold, helping to boost Power Woman's ascent in both speed, strength, and stability. "We really need to stop meeting like this." She shouts.

Marvel Girl looks a little woozy from the sudden draining kiss, then shakes her head, "Gah, not if you kiss like that, girl… damn, I need a Red Bull or something." She then looks up into the sky, and sees Power Woman handling the mansion with Miss Marvel's help. Then she flies to the top of the mansion, using her telekinesis to help keep things stable. A lot easier than lifting it, at least!

"Right now, better we /keep/ meeting like this. Damn mansion is too big. I can hold jumbo jets in the air without them crumpling, but this thing just won't hold together." Power Woman commands, calling out to her friend. "Diana, this is Miss Marvel, a friend and a great heroine. Miss Marvel, this is Wonder Woman, Princess Diana of Themyscira. And that, over there, is Marvel Girl." And then off goes Diana to scoop up the likely falling Moon Maiden. It feels good to know that her best friend is being taken care of. "Really glad you could make it out here."

Once Marvel Girl confirms that every sentient mind is off the island, Diana gives the order. Get the mansion above the wave and head for the nearest land point (which will be Barbados). She takes a moment to say a brief prayer to Diana for the safety of those animals they could not rescue. Then Diana uses the speed granted to her by the gods to grab hold of Moon Maiden who has, quite frankly, reached her limit and passed out. The tsunami surges forward and in mere moments the island is devestated. Jungle that has grown for centuries is splintered and homes and businesses crushed. There would have been no surviving this. The death toll would have been staggering.

Miss Marvel nods. "Well, it might be because a mansion's not made to be aerodynamic. It can't hold the wind sheer for too long. Is there a place we can bring this quickly? We can only hold it for so long, plus we have live people inside." And the question is answered with Diana's orders. "Great minds…" She says as she greets everyone mentioned. "Good evening, all. An honor I'm sure, but hopefully one we can enjoy further once these people are safe and on solid ground." She works in conjunction with Kara to head in the direction ordered by the team leader.

Marvel Girl telepathically sends out a » Hello! « to the new arrival, as with the altitude and everything else, it's easier to be managed than talking. She does look pretty drained though, as she sits on the roof, between the ordeal of getting everyone in, the weird vampire-like woman that showed up, and helping keep the mansion together…

Once they reach Barbados, they can set down the mansion, and see all of the refugees safely out. There will still be a huge amount of work to do. All of these hundreds of people, rich and poor alike, are now utterly homeless. Everything of value they had in the world is gone. Utterly destroyed. Kara would have preferred to save the island. But she yielded to the wisdom of greater minds than herself. And no one died. That has to be enough. It's not, but it has to be.

Miss Marvel notices the tensions and the raw emotions, of both the people and the heroes. She nods to all. "Is there anything else we can do? Perhaps coordinate with the government here to help with the refugees? Perhaps work something out with the United States?" She knows they saved lives, but she feels that there's so much more that needs to, and can be, done.

Somewhere else….

The dark haired woman appears in her parlor. Immediately, an unclothed slave brings her a glass of chilled wine. She accepts it, ignoring the person who brought it. As she sips from the glass, the woman turns to the set of five monitors arrayed before her.

"You saw." The woman purrs.

A voice speaking of dark things and crawling shadows and the howls of wolves whispers. "The heroes interfered. How many did they save?"

Another voice, high pitched and Russian. A little girl's voice. "All of them. Very entertaining show. Delightful. I had wished for more screaming, though. You promised me screaming."

A third voice, more cultured and refined. Perhaps European. "It does not matter. The Doctor's invention worked. An excellent weapon to add to our arsenal."

The next voice more contemporary. Agitated. Male but lisping and high pitched. "I would rather have had their DNA. Forget Ivo's earthquake toy. Those heroes are the ultimate weapon."

And another voice. Tar and gravel and power wrapped together in a sinister trinity. "Enough. The test was a success. That is all that matters. Good work. We will reconvene in three days time with updates on our projects."

THE END.

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