Yeah, that's the name we're going with. "Well plow my ass with a rake," she mutters.

"Oof. One is the worst number." She means it; one is a tragedy, but a hundred is a statistic. She had learned that all too well.

She glances back at the utter carnage she had passed through to get this far. "Yeah, I noticed the reduction in local property values." She looks back to Tank. "Stop terrorists from killing a lot of people, though? Maybe that's how your bosses saw the situation -- they're notoriously unimaginative -- but that doesn't track in my book. The Brotherhood has traditionally been pretty committed to the whole not-taking-innocent-lives thing; even Sabertooth, disastrous hiring decision he might have been, didn't really kill anyone who didn't have it coming on that damned island. What were they really trying to accomplish at the UNHQ? The United States is pretty hard-line about the not-negotiating-with-terrorists thing. Doesn't make sense unless you assume they're complete amateurs."

Zoey frowns and bites her lip. "Actually, don't answer any of that. I'm a civilian and already way more involved than I want to be." She points at the phone in Frank's hand. "Windy's not picking up. Should we go to the UNHQ ourselves?"

"It's a pretty long walk," Tank replied to Zoey. She'd been on a bicycle when she arrived, but the three of them certainly weren't going to fit. "There's no chance I can keep up with you the whole way. You should probably go on ahead if you want to check out the U.N., and I'll keep calling the rest of my team until someone answers."

Consistent with that last statement, Tank tapped the button for Newton's phone.

The Legion would have answered Zoey, if it wasn't for Tank's plea.  Whatever he had to say could wait

While Tank's phone was ringing to Ana, he got another incoming call.  From Valerie...

"This is Agent Guberman," Tank said crisply into the phone. He was still at the stage where he wanted to impress the boss. And if he couldn't do that with his success in the field, at least he could do it with his professionalism.

Hopefully.

"Frank" Valerie sounded relieved to have finally gotten through to someone "I can't reach Price.  I'm watching the news, I can't figure out what's going on. Where is everyone?"
This message was last edited by the player at 20:24, Fri 17 Sept 2021.

"Last I saw Price, he was in critical condition," Tank replied. He'd been in such bad shape, Tank was half convinced he must be dead by now. "Brooklyn was an unqualified disaster, ma'am. In the process of escaping, the Brotherhood lit the Command van on fire with Price still in it.

"Newton took him to the U.N., where agents Garcia-Mendez and Tanner had diverted to assist. I don't know if he made it in time."

He could have defended himself by explaining that even Captain America and Spider-Man had failed to capture the Brotherhood agents, or by reminding Cooper that they had had zero intel on Phantazia... but what was the point? He'd blown the mission.

Zoey politely keeps her mouth shut as Frank commits to his phone call. She didn't want to eavesdrop but lacking any sort of auditory filter took that choice away from her, and after a few seconds she didn't want to not listen anymore. She only heard one side of the conversation but it painted a pretty bleak picture. She gives Frank a vaguely concerned, do-you-need-help sort of look.

There was a long pause as Valerie processed the information.  When she finally spoke again, it was with newfound resolve:

"I'm flying over to New-York. Get me the status on the UN situation, and prepare to meet me at the Jacob Javits Federal Building six hours from now, together with everyone else"

"Will do." Tank closed out the call and stood there, staring at the phone in his hand for several seconds. Finally he announced, "I guess we're heading for the U.N. after all. Gotta get the team all in one place, get our ducks in a row, and head to the Javitz Building."

"Why don't you all join us?  We got the same agenda, at least for the time being.  I'm sure your boss wouldn't object" Stark was eavesdropping on the conversation as well - from both ends, a fact he wasn't shy about sharing

Frank gets a call back from Ana Sofía.

"Hey," Tank said, answering the phone. "What's the situation?"

Ana Sofía replies, "We managed to stop Legion's assault with few casualties. Kate helped out. The Russian president was hurt pretty bad. The rest are in better shape. Danny has stabilized Price, which means something went wrong at the van. You're fairly physically invulnerable, but are you OK?"

"You know me," Tank said into the phone. "The one thing I'm not invulnerable to is kicking myself. The mission went sideways and the Brotherhood mostly got away.

"I'm at what's  left of Avengers tower with Iron Man, and he's inviting everyone to join them at a facility nearby.

"I'll need to update Cooper, because she wants us at the Javitz building in six hours."

"I'll join you and let the others know. Danny probably isn't on his own timetable right now, having to stick with Price at the moment. Newton should be able to get there quickly, too, though he may stick with Price."

Ana Sofía lands at what remains of Avengers Tower less than a minute later.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:55, Sun 19 Sept 2021.

"I'll text Ms. Cooper," Tank said, and proceeded to do so:

Team has been invited to join Avengers.

Not JOIN Avengers. Go with.

Will keep you updated with any changes.

Ana Sofía walks over to Frank. "Hey. Shall we fill each other in as we head over to this meeting with the Avengers?" Ana Sofía is quite obviously also looking deeply into Frank's eyes, making no effort at all to hide that she's trying to gauge how much he's beating himself up.

"Yeah, sounds like a good idea." He wasn't one hundred percent sure where this other Avengers facility was, but was pretty sure he'd get the address from Iron Man.

"I made a bad call," he said, just getting it all out in the open. Why beat around the bush? "We were facing the remainder of the Brotherhood cell, but we were still indoors. I decided that we needed to take out Pyro first, so he couldn't burn the building down.

"But we didn't know anything about the one calling herself Phantazia. So when she used her ability to paralyze people, Captain America and Spider-Man both went down like their strings had been cut. Newton and I were still standing, but barely. She managed to take us out pretty quickly after that. I think I hurt her — and I know we hurt Pyro — but they all got away.

"On the way out, they paralyzed Price and set the van on fire."

The irony of it all was that Tank had ignored a piece of advice (that he'd read in a comic book of all places), which would have been extremely useful to follow in their situation. A character said that when dealing with terrorists, take the women out first. The rationale was that the women would have worked twice as hard to get half as far as their male counterparts, and thus would be the most dangerous opponents in the bunch. It might have come from a comic book, but in hindsight the advice was extremely sound.

"So how did you do?"

"Sometimes you have to make a call, and it's better to make even a bad one than to hesitate and not make one, right? Besides, you weren't alone in the decision if Ironman, Spiderman, and Newton all agreed with you. Ironman and Spiderman have more experience than us, and they didn't make a different call."

After letting that sink in and watching Frank in hope it helps some Ana Sofía updates him, "The UN went better. We managed to distract and isolate a small army of Legion. The hostages got out OK. The Russian president was wounded before we got there, but Danny was able to keep him alive. Now we'll have to wait to hear from doctors about both Price and him."

"Yeah, Captain America said something pretty similar," Tank agreed. He didn't bother correcting Ana Sofia directly, but Iron Man hadn't been there for that fight. "But it still chafes. And I'm worried that Price might pay for my mistakes.

"The Russian President was wounded? Geez. It's a good thing you did better than me. If he'd died, it might have been World War Three."

He gave a side glance over towards the Legion clone who'd joined him. Seriously? They tried to kill the Russian President on U.S. soil? And they dared to claim they held the moral high ground?

"Anyway, look who's here," he added, gesturing over to where Zoey was waiting. "It's practically a reunion."

Zoey waves halfheartedly from atop her red 21-speed. "Hellooooo," she greets Ana. She's still not entirely certain if she should start pedaling towards the United Nations or if everyone is coming here. "Sounds like you guys have had a bit of an adventure. Who's Danny? He sounds smart and cool."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:56, Tue 21 Sept 2021.

"Oh, Captain America, too. If he didn't disagree, why would you even suspect there might be a better choice? I'd buy you a drink, but we both can't do that. Maybe some ice cream? I should just host something at home for all of Freedom Force."

When Zoey is pointed out Ana Sofía says, "Hi, Zoey! I was just working with Kate at the UN a moment ago. But we'd been busy with Legion so we didn't chat. It's all good there now. How's the mansion? Oh, Danny, yes, he's smart. Not sure if he's a licensed doctor or a nurse or a medic, but he does know biology and medicine. He may well be at the UN for a while, helping the wounded."

"Heh. Thanks." Tank couldn't help but chuckle at Ana Sofia's suggestion of buying him an ice cream to cheer him up. Was he being childish? Yeah, he supposed he was. If everyone (including Captain America) told him there was nothing he could have done, then he should probably start to believe it, and let himself off the damned hook.

So instead of laying blame at his own feet, maybe it was time to focus on who was really at fault here: Phantazia and the other Brotherhood members. They'd lit a paralyzed and defenseless man on fire, and were going to have to pay for that.

"You'd probably like Danny," Tank said to Zoey. "I think his powers are similar to yours."

Not that that was any reason to necessarily like a guy, Tank amended, mentally. It was kind of a dumb thing to say, on reflection. Maybe it was a good reason not to like a guy, for all he knew. Or, more likely, it had no bearing on the matter whatsoever.

"Okay, so if Danny, Newton, and Kate all know to join us with the Avengers... I think we're set."

On cue, a helicopter descended down and landed at central park - on the other side of the devastated fifth avenue.  A bulky man, looking like a boxer who let himself go, climbed out and waved them over, his words inaudible over the flapping rotors.

'Happy' was told by Stark to pick the entire group up, but evidently the billionaire didn't bother updating them he was coming. He waved once more, almost getting the tips of his fingers chopped off by the spinning blades in the process