SUPER BARBECUE SUPER BARBECUE SUPER BARBECUE [open as heck]

[hugling]

Who: SUPER HEROES!!!!!
Where: Ernest E. Debs Regional Park!
When: Sunday!
What: SUPER BARBECUE
Warnings: Superheroes...



It's a pleasant evening at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park, just a couple miles from downtown LA, which can be seen through the haze. Late March means spring is just arriving in LA and the trees are just starting to bud. Unfortunately, the grass is still kind of dead and dry.

The barbecue and picnic area isn't too busy, though the park does have the usual assortment of joggers, dog walkers, and cyclists. There are some balloons tied to picnic tables, and strung between two trees is a very homemade "SUPER BBQ" banner, courtesy of Hulkling and Starbreaker. There's still glitter glue on Milly's apartment floor. There's another posterboard with the rules written on it in big bold sharpie letters nearby, just in case anyone forgets:

• Don't be a jerk!!!
• Keep your weapons holstered please.
• Do not trash the park!
• ABSOLUTELY NO FIGHTING
• Anyone caught fighting will be asked to leave!
• Really don't be a jerk!

[OKAY GUYS!!! mingle! have fun! maybe some THINGS WILL HAPPEN, whoooo knows!]

Comments

[bombsheltered]

Milly's there in her full Starbreaker costume, all up in that superhero socialization. Thrilled to have Hulkling back on the planet again, she's bubbly and energetic, flitting all over the place to help with the cooking, chatting up any familiar faces, and making sure the balloons don't come undone and fly off. It's been a weird couple of weeks, honestly, so she's happy for the chance to decompress and rub elbows with some superhero types without anyone's lives on the line. She can be found starting up a game of frisbee too, although anyone without the power of flight might be at a disadvantage.

[starscheme]

Starscream doesn't seek Milly out necessarily, but being in the same vicinity, it's sort of inevitable that one of them will at least see the other, whether they end up engaging or not.

He catches sight of Milly when he's walking back to the group from harassing Orion, and at first he feels a thrill of cruel amusement. He'll have to point her out to Knock Out, he thinks; perhaps they can scheme something horrible up.

Then it occurs to him that he used this avatar as bait to confront her that one time and swiftly begins to panic. He needs to adjust his appearance, immediately, before it's too late--

When he's certain no one is looking, he changes his hair color to jet black and his suit to a slightly darker grey. Genius.

[bombsheltered]

The thing is, changing his hair and suit color isn't going to do much to keep Milly from recognizing him. She doesn't forget a face that easily, especially not a face that belongs -- sort of -- to the robot who'd ripped her hand off and made off with it. Stolen the formula, too. She's still smarting from that, from letting her father down.

She catches sight of Starscream's avatar and it takes her only moments to recognize her. At first her gut reaction is anxiety, horror -- she hasn't forgotten the solid beatdown she'd received from him -- but then her eyes flash, narrowed in anger. Even if his robot-and-jet combo self is around here, this park is full of superheroes. There's no way he'd try anything here, and even if he did, he wouldn't stand a chance. She's pretty sure she could take him out with Teddy's help, at least. And that's when she draws herself up and starts marching right for his avatar.

[starscheme]

He sees her coming, making a beeline for him despite his brilliant disguise change. Scrap.

Don't panic, don't panic.

"Can I help you with something, uh... young lady?" he says confusedly, eyes flitting about nervously for some means of escape or alerting backup if it becomes necessary.

[bombsheltered]

"Hey!! Don't pretend like you don't know who I am!"

Far from the girl who'd cried and begged Starscream not to take the data drive, Milly's confidence is bolstered by the crowd of superheroes around them. Like he could do anything here without raising a fuss. And she's got a whole lot of friends here. Ha! Let's see who makes who cry now.

"What are you doing here, anyway? Don't you know this is a party for heroes? As in, not for evil creeps like you?"

[starscheme]

The avatar drops the facade immediately, rolling its eyes in exasperation before responding waspishly. "In reverse order: 'Evil' is a pathetically black and white way of looking at things, YES, I do know that, and none of your business. This is a public space, is it not? I can be where ever I like." He crosses his arms, looking haughty.

[bombsheltered]

"Black, white, whatever," Milly snaps, rolling her eyes right back at him. "I'm pretty sure most people would agree you're evil, but everyone here would agree you're a creep. What I want to know is why you're here. I mean, it's not like you'd have any friends here, so..."

[alienheroes]

Ben is pretty much drawn to group activities like an extremely social moth to a flame, so of course he notices that frisbee is a thing that seems to be happening. He notices that this girls seems to be a flier, which might make this interesting if not complicated, but he figures that Fourarms should be able to jump high enough to act as a decent substitute for flight in this case. He may have to watch his grip to make sure he doesn't crush the disc, though.

"Hey, I'll play! Toss it over here?" He grins and waves; by now he's working under the assumption that the other superheroes won't be too put off by a giant red alien if he smiles enough. Clearly he is a master of socialization and he absolutely learned from his experiences over the last summer.

[bombsheltered]

Milly's a little startled by the big red alien, but honestly, in the hero circuit, it's not like she hasn't seen plenty else. After all, her best friend totally turns into a bigger, greener version of himself for superheroics...you get used to it. She looks a little surprised at first, but she grins, eyes lighting up. Why not? If he's here, he's probably not a bad guy.

"You got it!" she chirps, tossing him the frisbee from where she's hovering in midair, about ten feet off the ground. "Hopefully with all those arms, you can catch!"

[alienheroes]

"You bet!" With Fourarms' height, he only needs to hop a bit to catch the frisbee; he tosses it back, trying to do so gently, but it still ends up moving faster than is entirely necessary. "Oh- oops."

[bombsheltered]

"Whoa, hey!"

The shout she lets out is a little alarmed, but not entirely unamused. With a little grunt of effort, Milly rockets through the air to catch the frisbee, just managing to grasp it with the tips of her fingers. She almost fumbles it but manages not to drop it, laughing.

"Hey, you wanna play serious frisbee, you better watch out," she says, grinning, a taunting tone to her voice. She winds up to hurl the frisbee, arm poised. "I used to play softball -- yaahhh!" She throws the frisbee back in his direction, the disc turning to little more than a blur of color in the air.

[alienheroes]

This time the frisbee makes contact with his palm with a solid smack before he gets a proper grip on it, but he doesn't show any sign of it hurting; Fourarms has pretty thick skin.

"Must've been some pretty intense softball!" He tosses it back just as hard; he's quickly confirming that superhero frisbee is way more fun than regular frisbee. Also potentially a lot more dangerous, but that's part of what makes it fun, of course!

[bombsheltered]

"Hey, you know what they say," Milly says, grinning, as she swoops up to catch the frisbee. Now this is a real game. Man, Teddy was brilliant for coming up with this thing. This totally needs to happen more often. "If you work hard, you play hard -- and that goes double for heroes!"

[alienheroes]

"You can say that again!" He gives a gravelly laugh, getting ready to catch again. "Especially around here - seems like there's a lot of hero stuff to be done." Judging by how he was attacked on his first night patrolling.

[bombsheltered]

"Ooh, a new guy, huh?" Milly laughs, flying lazy figure eights in the air as they toss the frisbee back and forth. "Yeah, L.A.'s pretty ripe for the cape circuit. So just how new are you, exactly?"

After all, the guy doesn't exactly look human. That could mean a lot of things, but hey, there are plenty of space aliens around here.

[alienheroes]

"Been around a couple weeks; kinda hard to adjust to a new ci- system. New solar system, I mean." Flawless save. The best strategy is to always emphasize how he's totally an alien.

"So what about you? Sounds like you've lived here a while - the city I mean, but probably Earth too. Got any advice for a 'new guy'?"

[bombsheltered]

Milly's eyes light up behind her domino mask, a little in self-satisfaction, because she totally nailed it. This guy is definitely an alien!! There is no way that she could possibly be wrong about that, nope.

"Yeah, I grew up here. My only advice? Make sure you get In-N-Out. You know, if you can eat Earth food." Milly looks at him thoughtfully as she twirls the frisbee in her hand before tossing it back to him. "Are you with CONDOR?"

[alienheroes]

Oh, he can definitely eat Earth food. Or he's assuming he can anyway, as she would have found if she had caught him a few minutes prior.

"Nah, I mainly work solo," he says quickly. Ben's made a point of not getting in contact with CONDOR; he has no idea how they would react to the watch, and he doesn't really care to find out anyway.

He hesitates, realizing that his answer didn't come out quite right. "Well, not solo solo, I'm definitely up for team-ups and stuff, just- not with CONDOR."

He sort of feels like this might be going downhill. Just a little. Crap.

[bombsheltered]

Milly grins, though, laughing again. "Hey, relax, it's okay, neither am I. I mean, I almost went for the Trailblazers, but..." She shrugs. "You know! Life stuff. Anyway, us vigilantes have to stick together, right? Me and Hulkling -- the big green guy who put this together, he's my best friend -- we patrol and stuff together, so if you ever want to team up, you know...hit us up! We're always on the Watch."

[alienheroes]

He brightens up visibly; team-up offer? Awesome. "Yeah, totally! I'll-"

At that moment, he's interrupted by a very familiar and very unwelcome beeping. "Aw, man-" He tosses the frisbee back one more time before talking a couple steps back. "I, uh, gotta go! Right now. Later!!"

He bounds off, aiming for an area with more cover - and landing out of sight just before the brief flashes of red from the symbol on his chest give way to one big flash, leaving a considerably less massive, less alien eleven-year-old boy crouched on the ground as it recedes.

Ben stands up straight and glares at the now-red face of his watch for a moment. "Nice timing there," he mutters. But he did get out without being exposed; now he's just gotta wait another ten minutes.