ArchivedLogs:A Sucker Born Every Minute

{{ Logs | cast = Cage | summary = The Carnival Raid. After Cage and Flint. | gamedate = 2013-08-05 | gamedatename = | subtitle = | location = Somewhere in Pennsylvania | categories = NPC-Sandman, NPC-Madame Web, NPC-Toad, NPC-Electro | log = The Carnival isn't open for business.

Stashed in the upper hills of Pennsylvania -- somewhere north of Lancaster -- the place looks more like a trailer camp than a carnival. Even from a distance, it's possible to see campfires set out in the forest clearing they've staked out -- as well as... are those -- men with /rifles/? Yes, it looks like that's /precisely/ what they are. Ten in all, forming a loose perimeter of patrols, cigarettes in mouth.

All said and done, there's about 12 trailers; the rides are packed away in three very large trucks -- and maybe three dozen men. According to Flint, the trailer near the back -- the dark red one -- is where Madame Web is. He's told Cage and company that the woman is paralyzed, confined to a wheelchair -- but that doesn't mean she should be underestimated. Not by any margin.

The goal, then, Flint has told Cage, is simple: Get Web out of that trailer. Capture her, stuff her in one of the vans they brought -- or just /kill/ her (an idea Cage has probably stridently told Flint is off the table).

Keep her out of contact for a few days... and the problem will sort itself out. Her control will fade, and the mutants under her control will regain their minds.

Cage is on point; his task is to hit Madame Web's trailer. Flint and the others are going to make a distraction. A big one. In three, two, one...

Ah. There we are: One of the trailers in the back just got torn in half. There's screams, followed by gunshots; the guards on the perimeter are running off in the /opposite/ direction of Madame Web's trailer. Probably to deal with the swelling sandmonster who's tearing shit up.

That'd be Cage's cue.

Cage crouched in the bushes waiting for the 'signal'. Once he tugs on the repurposed work gloves, technically still for 'work', just probably not what the manufacturer intended, he sees the trailer tipped up and over, torn apart. He taps at the silicon ear plugs to make sure they're pushed in to make a good seal, and then steps out of the trees. Striding through the encampment, Cage is in a faded yellow t-shirt, dark jeans, and biker boots. He could be a construction worker with those gloves on.

Eyes on the goal, he starts a heavy footed jog to close the distance.

There are shouts, now -- not that Cage can properly hear them -- in a Latverian dialect of Romani:

"{HE'S BACK! GODDAMMIT! I TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN!}" a man is screaming, near the edge of the encampment; he is unusual in that he is a paleish, off green -- a lean, gangly appearance. His lips, like his skin, are stretched and cracked; when they pull back to expose his teeth, there is a grotesque /film/ that seems to coat them. He is clad in a black leather jacket, jeans, and -- currently -- crouched atop of one of the trailers Cage is going past. His posture is reminiscent of -- well. A frog.

Or maybe a toad.

"--{Need to get Web and get the fuck out of--}" he starts, before catching sight of Cage, moving in the same direction /he/ was about to. At which point, his eyes narrow.

And suddenly, he's /jumping/ -- clearing distance that no man should be capable of clearing -- both of his feet aiming for Cage's back, attempting to /smash/ into the center of his spine from a sharp, upward angle -- there's enough force in it to break a man's back, if he's got the sort of back that can easily be broken. Like a spring, he'll bounce right off, flip in the air, and land in a crouch behind him.

Cage stumbles forward a step when hit from behind, since he was going that way anyway, his momentum to hard enough to arrest, let alone with help. Cage goes to a knee, and then his spinning, his boxer's reflexes kicking in.

He comes around, fists up, in a ready crouch. "Bad move, asshole. You know who I am? You got exactly 1 second to fuck off outa here."

Toad's posture is low; his knees are bent, one hand on the ground, the other held up in a crooked, claw-like posture. When Cage turns around to face him and speaks, the mutant's head twists -- cocking to the left in a way that's just a little /too/ far. Like a bird that's caught sight of curious prey.

"--you," he informs Cage, "have /got/ to be kidding me." And then he proceeds to hock up a loogey and /spit/ at him.

The glob of gluey slime attempts to SLAP across Cage's face, sealing his mouth, nostrils, and eyes shut. Somewhere in the distance, there's a roaring /KABOOM/ as -- well, /something/ explodes.

Cage struggles for a moment, feeling the hardened loogey seal against his nose and mouth. He can't even see the toad to fight him, so he does the only thing he can. Luke Cage, fights Luke Cage.

When it feels like pulling at the gob is going to tear his own face off, Luke staggers back from Toad, making a little space in his mental image of their spot. Then he laces his fingers behind his head, and at the same time, swings his knee up hard, and yanks his head down low, connecting knee to his own face, shattering the hardened goo, and his nose. Blood spurts to drip among the shattered bits of green, and Cage splutters.

"Sweet Christmas, that is /fucking disgusting/!" He blinks and staggers forward this time, just looking for a target, with one hand up to protect his face this time, like a good boxer /ought/ to have done in the first place.

"{Whatthe/fuck/,}" Toad yelps, his grim satisfaction vanishing beneath shock and surprise as Cage proceeds to /smash/ the sticky layer of solidified goop. At once, he's hopping back, springing like a little slinky, trying to stay out of Cage's infuriated punching range. "{You've gotta be--}"

"{Hey,}" a voice calls out from behind Cage as he stumbles toward his target. The voice is accompanied with the sound of -- crackling lightning. "{Got a riddle for you. What happens when lightning hits a toad?}"

"{Oh /fuck/ you,}" Toad snaps back, and with the next hop -- as Cage gets closer -- he's leaping the hell /out/ of here, springing up into the air and landing on the corner of a trailer -- just as...

CRRRRRACK-A-THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The bolt of lightning is like an incoming freight train; it's aimed directly for Cage's back -- and escapes from the fingertips of a grinning man who looks a little something like Freddy Krueger; his face is /covered/ in burn scars, little wisps of hair poking out from beneath an otherwise long-scorched scalp. Clad in flannels and work-pants; electricity /crackles/ up along his eyes as he channels the bolt through both of his palms. 10 yards back.

Cage blinks the rest of the gunk out of his eyes, just in time to see Toad fleeing, and hear the muffled sounds of more not-American-talk behind him. He turns, and his eyes go wide as he's enveloped by the lightning.

He tenses, and makes a low gargling sound while in the actual stream. He jerks and jiggles a little, and goes to one knee, but when the onslaught subsides for a moment, he shakes his head and his on his feet, charging the man for a good old fashioned tackle, if he can get his hands on him.

"{Goddamn, I never get tired of that shi--WHAT THE FUCK?!}" the electrokinetic bellows as Luke 'Faraday' Cage proceeds to /charge/ for him, the smoldering brawler still standing. He hits the Krueger-wannabe head-on, tackling him to the ground; there's a scream, then -- Luke's skin has been heated up by the traversal of lightning, leaving him smoking -- which means when he hits Freddie, clothes and skin start burning. But it ain't like this guy's not /used/ to getting the shit burned out of him. "--{FUCKING--}" the man on the ground starts.

There is a high-pitched /keening/ sound that emerges from the electrokinetic's skin -- from the space around him -- from the space around /Cage/. The world is suddenly full of crackling energy; air is buzzing with it -- tiny sparks flickering and zig-zagging between molecules of oxygen. Before...

"SHA-FUCKING-/ZAM!/"

The world erupts in a hot white flash of electrical energy; he's outputting /everything/ he's got, exploding in a rush of lightning that extends outward and upward; it arcs up through Cage's torso, seeks to tear out his shoulders, and connect with the two trailers to either of his sides -- /rupturing/ the walls in a burst of heat and power.

Cage flies backward off of the electrified mutant, cartwheeling through the air. He'll be recovering from some internal burns, but luckily his hyper-dense skin is able to shunt the worst of the effect around him.

As he cartwheels backward through the air, the charred tatters of his t-shirt fall like confetti to land, marking his flight path, before he crashes down into the remains of the left-hand trailer.

His impact is like a bomb going off, between the temperature of his skin, and the already damaged structure. Dangerous bits of trailer fly everywhere, while the rest collapses back onto the man in question. Just a pile of trailer-rubble is left to mark his landing spot. It appears to be quiet. He must be down for good.

The trailer ruptures; aluminum is ripped through like a hot knife through butter. Walls collapse; Cage lands in a bed, crashing right through it -- the heat of his skin and burning clothes managing to set the cheap material aflame. At once, tattered, burning costumes are surrounding him; a little bonfire is starting up.

• Caff, caff*... "{Fucking -- fucking /fuck/ fuck fuckity FUCK fuck,}" the eletrokinetic manages, sloooowly sitting up, shielding his face from burning flotsam. "{What the /fuck/. What the fucking fuckity /fuck/?!}"

'Toad' lands on the trailer across from the burning one; his expression is more indifferent. He wasn't just burned, tackled, and nearly set on fire. "{Think he's dead. You better go handle Mr. Sandcastle. Pretty sure you're the only one who can take him.}"

"{Of /course/ he's dead no body could survive that shit. Just, JESUS, why are some people so hard to kill?}" The electrokinetic is pulling himself to his feet with a ragged cough; it's clear he's not in... an ideal state, at the moment. "{Fuck, I don't even know if I've got enough juice. That was -- nngh. A full load.}"

Cage can't hear the words he wouldn't be able to understand. He shakes his head, coming around, under a fairly ordinary kind of fire. The burning clothes stink to high heaven, but a regular fire like this isn't much of a problem for our man.

He's about to get up, and bound back into action, when the movement triggers something beneath the trailer. Really, your average trailer can only take so much abuse before it just gives up, and stops being a trailer, and more a pile of junk. This is that trailer's moment.

With an audible 'OOF' Cage falls through the trailer's floor as the whole thing collapses. Underneath, with just some cool earth to soothe his skin a little, he spies something he likes. He grabs it, and stands up fast.

The trailer-bits blast outward from him, leaving Cage standing in a ring of fire. He's left with burn-tattered, denim short-shorts, biker boots and the electrical burns criss-crossing his body are already sealing over. Even his nose looks pretty well straightened out at this point. In his hands, in the axle of the trailer, liberated from its former duties, to take on a new career, as Cage's beat-stick. "Hey, you guys ever play frog baseball?"

The electrokinetic and 'Toad' both keep talking through the collapse of the trailer; as far as they're concerned, it's an irrelevant detail. But when something begins to rise /up/ from that clattering, burning rubble... both of them stop their conversation. And stare. At Cage.

Holding a giant beating stick.

"{...uh,}" the electrokinetic begins. "{--we're... kind of fucked, aren't we.}"

"{New plan,}" 'Toad' announces. "{Grab Web, move to Canada.}"

At which point, both of them -- Toad, leaping from trailer to trailer, and the electrokinetic, limping along as quickly as he can -- proceed to /RUN/. For Web's trailer.

"Aw, c'mon," Cage shouts at the retreating mutants. "That's no fun!" Luke hauls back and throws the axle like a javelin at the retreating Toad. He's not a bad shot, but Toad's a wriggly critter.

He focuses more on sprinting past the electrokinetic, offering an elbow jab to check the man up against the wall of a trailer as they go, but otherwise focuses on reaching the trailer first. First, second, or third, Cage barrels through the door shoulder first, ready for whatever he might find, or so he thinks.

It doesn't take much to knock the electrokinetic out. Max Dillon is a lot of things; spry, he ain't. The fact that he's recovering from several second degree burns -- /and/ pretty much just burnt through the bulk of his eletrical charge -- makes this task all the easier. That rough elbow jab hits him with a rough 'UNGHF'; the electrokinetic shudders, grunts, and sinks to the ground. Whimpering weakly.

Which leaves 'Toad'. The javelin misses; /that/ one /is/ spry. He's hopping and leaping along the rooftops of the trailers like some mad bouncy ball, making his way to the Madame Web trailer -- by the time Cage is reaching, Toad is already emerging, with something over his shoulder.

Madame Web is... well, a sight to see. Wrapped from head to toe in a myriad of colors, she resembles a mummy with terrible fashion sense; there's scarcely an inch of her that isn't covered in fabric or cheap jewelry. She's wearing /very/ dark shades at the moment, too; her head is hovering somewhere behind Toad's shoulder.

When Toad sees Cage -- just as he emerges from that trailer -- his face pales: "{Aw, fuck.}"

And Cage doesn't hesitate. He snaps out a quick jab, aimed for Toad's nose. Even now, though, Cage doesn't put his full strength into it. It has enough to drop any professional fighter, but he's also keenly aware that his full punch can easily kill, and he still doesn't like doing that.

Whether it connects or not, Cage takes a quick step back, either ready for a longer fight, or to look over the Madame Web situation.

"Hey," Cage says, too loud, because he can't hear himself with the ear plugs in. He back pedals a little, keeping out of the woman's reach.

"This can go one of two ways. One, you give me problems, and I give you a boot to the head." He talks and walks, keeping up the chatter as he stays ahead of the crawling woman. "Or two, you come along nice and easy. Either way, you're comin with me, lady." Cage keeps his distance, and glances up and around to make sure the guards are still busy.

The guards are, indeed, busy. Occassionally, gunshots ring out in the darkness -- a sound of shouting -- something distant making a booming /RUMBLE/. A trailer collapses, something gets thrown... but most of the initial chaos is startling to settle down.

Madame Web continues crawling forward toward Cage as he backs away. "{I will ruin you,}" she tells him in her homeland's dialect. "{You will become me and I will ruin your name, your life, your family. I will--}"

CRRSSSSSssh. That's the sound of over two tons of sand /slamming/ into the side of that trailer, crumpling it like an aluminum can; the sand-like battering ram squirms, shaping and twisting into a vaguely humanoid torso -- swelling up over both Cage and Web.

Framed in the fire of several burning trailers, Flint Marko swells over them both; the glow of flame gives him a demonic mien. The grin that the coarse, sand-like monster's currently wearing probably doesn't help. He's managed to absorb -- quite a bit of sand, at this point. His body is roughly the size of a Cadillac; his fists are the size of watermelons.

"Hey, Web," Flint rumbles, overhead. "Remember me? Funny thing I found out after I escaped." His fist -- still made of sand -- descends. Snatching the crawling Web as if she were a mere trinket; coarse, grainy fingers coiling around her torso like anacondas. "Telepathy doesn't work on me when I'm in sand-form."

Madame Web screams in terror as she's plucked up off the ground.

Cage doesn't stop backing up. He takes three more long strides back to get a good view of Flint, and takes a deep breath. Cautiously, he peels the silicon out of his ears, but holds one in each hand, just in case he needs to plug up again.

His eyes flick over Web's trailer, just recently demolished by Flint. It is probably not lost on him that she would have been killed instantly if she'd been inside. Cage licks his lips, and raises a hand to get Flint's attention.

"So uh, just to make sure I got this right, we handin her over to the cops, right? That's what we talked about, Flint."

"Do you have any idea," Flint says, plucking the screaming Web up into the air, "just how long this bitch kept me a /prisoner/, Cage?" Web's arms are flailing; her legs dangle beneath her. The sun-glasses have fallen off to expose blue, steel eyes -- eyes filled with terror. "Th'fuck the police going to do with her?" Flint's other arm extends -- his fist expands. First, into a massive wrecking ball... and then the wrecking ball sprouts foot-long spikes.

The hand holding Web shifts, forming into a /catcher's/ mitt.

"You might wanna avert your eyes, Cage. Next part's gonna be bloody." Big, face-splitting sand-grin.

"Hey, whoa whoa WHOA!" Cage says, taking another step back as Flint forms the massive weapon. "I didn't sign on for no hit job. Flint, just WAIT. Wait a minute. I /know/ about being locked up, ok?"

Cage scrubs both hands up and over his bald head in frustration. "There ain't much worse'n that, especially when you don't even deserve it. Personally, I'd rather see her rot in solitary for some good long years, man. We'll tell them all about what she can do. Let /her/ see what its like to be locked up. Trapped. This lets her off too easy." He nods his head at the giant spikes.

"You think they'll listen to us? You think they'll /care/?" Flint asks. The wrecking ball bristles; Madame Web, meanwhile, is writhing, arms twisting inside of his grip, struggling to speak -- but Flint isn't having any of that. The mitt that holds her /squeezes/, choking her voice down to scarcely more than a helpless squeak. "You got wax in your ears, Cage? NYPD was puttin' our kind in cages and makin' us kill each other for shits and giggles. Hell, /if/ they believe us? They might give this woman a medal. For keeping us under her goddamn fucking /thumb/."

Something in Flint's eyes narrow, though. It's hard to tell; his expression -- when he's swollen to this size -- is fuzzy. Control is difficult. For some reason, he /isn't/ slamming that wrecking ball down into the mitt. Not yet. "...yeah, you didn't sign up for this shit. You did me a solid, though. I ain't gonna forget that. Just walk the fuck away. I'll clean up the rest."

"Hey now..." Cage looks from Madame Web, back to Flint's big sandy face. "/You/ came looking for /me/. And if you know anything about me, you know I can't just walk away." Cage pauses, openly unsure about how this can end well. "This isn't justice, big guy. How about you just let me bring her in. It'll go to trial, sure, but it sounds like we have plenty of witnesses. They don't like most of us, but they're gonna hate /her/, Flint. They'll lock her up forever."

"I ain't," Flint replies -- and even through the coarse grain of sand, it's clear that his expression is twisting into a snarl, "gonna go talk to the fucking /police/. Cage, half the freaks here got warrants out for their arrest. The other half would rather kill a cop than talk to one. Cage, you..."

Web's desperate squirming has continued this whole while; suddenly, the massive sphere of spikes is melting back into something akin to a hand -- and Flint's hefting Web up. The shoulder of that arm is moving, /sliding/ in a way that would be horrifying if he were not currently made of sand -- slipping from his side to the center of his chest, leaving his arm extending directly out of his sternum.

"...really /do/ take this 'superhero' shit too seriously," Flint says, right before -- SCHRRRLP! The arm retracts -- dragging a screaming, twisting, choked Web into it -- his torso /opening up/ to drag her into the interior.

Cage doesn't lunge after the woman. He doesn't cry out, or even take a swing at Flint. He /flinches/ when she's sucked inside the sandman's torso, but then he straightens up, squares his jaw, and nods.

"Yeah... I guess I do. But we're done here. Don't look me up again, Flint." Cage turns, and starts walking back out to where they stashed his car.

Far be it from Flint Marko to let Luke Cage have the last word. As he walks away -- leaving the still-struggling, slowly suffocating Web inside of his torso -- Flint calls back to Cage: "The world ain't a goddamn -- for fuck's sake, you -- grrhgg. Fuckin' /HEROES/," he just snarls after him, voice echoing as Cage moves away from the wreckage of the Carnival.

Inside of his chest, Web manages a lurching gurgle. Flint's sand-shifted head peers down at his torso, snarling:

"Oh, just shutup and eat yer sand."

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