Characters: Shatterstar, Miss America (first on the scene), Agent Coulson (next on the scene), open to anyone else who wants in or saw this on Twitter or idk whatever, I'm not the boss of you. NPCs: New Yorkers, cops, one very irate bus driver. Location: Upper West Side, Manhattan, West 71st and Broadway. Outside the McDonald's. Timeline: Monday, 22 February. Mid-afternoon. Description: A mysterious warrior with a badass tattoo and a pair of double-bladed science swords falls out of the sky and promptly gets into a fight with a city bus and the police. Rating: Likely PG-13 for language, violence.
It was your average February Monday afternoon in Manhattan, damp and chilly with spats of rain keeping the locals grumpy, collars turned up and eyes on the sidewalk. It was a safe bet that not many people on the street initially noticed when a particular spot in the sky began to spin, lazily spiraling around a growing brightness in its center.
A little girl, splashing in a puddle and getting her brand-new rainboots covered in mud, looked up a moment after it started and stared open-mouthed. "Mommy," she said, tugging at her mother's jacket. "Look!"
Her mother looked up, just in time to see the spot in the sky flash bright silver. "What the--" Then a figure dropped out of the hole in the sky, hurtling toward the ground. She screamed, which made others look up and point, and camera phones were already pointed up in time to catch the white-clad figure as he flipped in midair and landed in a classic three-point stance, his free hand flung behind him dramatically.
There was a collective pause, and then, New Yorkers being no strangers to superpowered mayhem and the collateral damage it caused to anyone who got in the way, the screaming and running began.
Shatterstar stayed put for a moment, taking a deep breath. The air on this planet was cold, cutting unfamiliarly in his lungs, but as Spiral had told the Cadre, the atmosphere was more or less the same as Mojoworld's and he had no difficulty breathing. The air tasted different, too: more metal and gasoline, less blood and rotting jungle vegetation. In fact, there was no jungle, just a wet and gritty black composite beneath his feet and tall metal-and-glass buildings on every side. And people. So many people, looking so similar to Mojo's biped creations and yet so different, and all of them staring straight at him.
He stood, looked around, took a step backward, and immediately vaulted to the side as a small blue mechanical vehicle came to a loud and jerky halt where he'd just been standing. The driver stuck his head out the window, yelling words that meant nothing to Shatterstar, but he ignored that and the rest of the shouting in favor of striding forward across the road toward the thing that most drew his attention: a big yellow pair of double arches in front of a red-and-white building with colorful signs in its windows.
There was an earsplitting noise as a large white-and-blue vehicle proclaiming the letters MTA New York City Bus across its side came veering toward him. Shatterstar reacted without pause: he launched himself off of the pavement, pushed off a stopped vehicle with one hand, and flipped himself high into the air to land on top of the MTA New York City Bus vehicle as it screeched to a stop with a hiss of exhaust, gently crushing the smaller vehicle where Shatterstar had been a fraction of a second before.
He was high off the ground now, and from this vantage point he could see more: roads and buildings as far as he could see. Tall signs, lights, colors. And crowds of people, some hurrying away, others staring and pointing and holding up their small devices toward him.
"Hey!" An angry voice from below cut through the general chaos; Shatterstar looked down to see a very short, plump female with dark skin, enormous rings in her ears, dressed all in blue with her hands on her hips. "The hell you think you're doing up there?"
Shatterstar considered that for a moment, but as it made little sense he gave no answer. Instead he looked down the road, where more vehicles with flashing lights on the top had appeared to the accompaniment of loud siren noises. More humans piled out of those vehicles, dressed in blue like the small woman of the MTA New York City Bus, only these were holding small weapons in their hands.
He drew his swords out of instinct, flourishing them both on top of the MTA New York City Bus, which led to more screams and more running.
"Police! Freeze!" one of the armed humans called out to him through a device which magnified his voice. "Drop your weapons and keep your hands where we can see them."
Drop his weapons? That was one thing Shatterstar had never done in his life -- not in the arena, not in the Cadre, not when he was wounded and near death and fighting on. He tightened his grip on his swords in response. "My hands are in view," he called down, "and I am not here to fight you, but I will not give up my swords. I have come for this world's greatest warriors. I will not stop until I have found them." The English words felt strange in his mouth. "And it is cold here, but not cold enough to freeze anyth--"
A shot rang out, and Shatterstar stopped talking and dove off the MTA New York City Bus vehicle, somersaulting in midair. He landed in a roll, using the vehicle for cover between him and the blue-suited humans. The adrenaline was humming through him, ready for battle. It seemed this world was not so different from his own after all.