Who: Director Hill (+OPEN to SHIELD, Avengers, F4, NY heroes...and anyone else who wants to play Whack-A-Mole) When: 3/6 Where: Streets of New York What: Invasion of the...mole people? Rating: High-ish for possible language Notes: Subthreads and random teamups welcome!
Really, they should have expected something like this, given that in the months after the election, it had been too quiet: SHIELD ran it's ops, filed its reports, tested new and unusual equipment, kept a wary eye on Congress and the President, but Maria found that it was a rhythm of brisk normalcy, even if it kept her desk full. She was on the Helicarrier far more often then she was on the streets of New York - or whatever city they were above for the mission of the day - even more often than she'd previously been, but she could hardly argue with that. Her agents had even stopped eyeing her suspiciously whenever they had to refer to her by rank, and the World Security Council was pleased enough to keep the orders to a minimum.
And then a sinkhole opened in the middle of Times Square, and enormous mole-like creatures started pouring up onto the streets. Within minutes, the asphalt over an intersection sagged, and crumbled beneath the press of a second wave; a block away, a third hole opened to still more creatures. And then, bourne on the back of two of the largest creatures, a squat man rose out of the underground, and waved his staff to the sky. "Yes, my subjects! Pour forth and conqurer the surface world in the name of Subterranea!"
The creatures surged forward, into the tangling traffic and the fleeing pedestrians, grabbing and overturning anything that got in their way, expanding out in a ring. One group smashed their way into a deli, almost by accident, and paused, looking back and forth from one wall to the other and back, and then plunged after the diners scrambling towards the back.
Feed from everything from the news to cell phone footage to their own drones came in thick and fast to the Helicarrier, and Maria leaned over the screen and swore steadily under her breath. It really had been too good to last. Fury had gotten aliens and giants. She got mole-men. There was just no justice in the world. "All hands to combat stations. Launch the jets," she snapped, the immediate, obvious answer to the problem facing her: drop a few missiles into the conveniently made holes, and the creatures would stop coming.
It would just vaporize a good block of New York and any civilians in the blast radius. For just a moment, she thought about it, weighed the price in her mind. And couldn't live with it. "The Quinjets," she amended. "Every combat agent draw arms and get boots on the ground. Get me the NYPD and the National Guard on channel three. Assemble the Avengers - give them the coordinates. We're going to have to beat them back the old fashioned way," she muttered, half to herself. "I want them contained to a three-block radius of their holes. Evacuate the civilians - get them up to the rooftops and have the 'jets pick them up on their way home." Then she'd think about dropping something nicely explosive down into their hole, but preferably while they were retreating into it.