anyastark:

The chess pieces were set and it was time to strike.

Lady Mandarin and the Skeleton Crew were sent to the Thunderbolts' headquarters. Lady Mandarin hovered just outside the building. She brought both hands up and unleashed her repulsors. The force hit the wall and it blasted apart.

anyastark:

Anya had spent Thanksgiving with her team and with her family. Early dinner in Boston and then dinner with the family in New York in the evening. It was great having two Thanksgiving Day dinners. The best part of the holiday after the food was the day after Thanksgiving. It wasn't for the shopping or the deals, but for the time honored tradition of rating the male members of the superhero community.

Anya had the rec room of the Avengers mansion all prepared. Pizza, snacks, drinks of the soft kind and other various items for eating and drinking were laid out. Electronics were all prepared for the event. All that was left was for the guests to arrive.

ze_leaper:

Adrienne was not, by nature, much of an early riser.  Not when her "job" very often required her to be out very late at night.  In many of the cities of the world she had traveled to in her time as a cat burglar, this was not a problem.  There were ever so many cities that never seemed to sleep.

But now, when she only pulled a job on rare occasion (and always, she would stress, from someone who actually deserved it), and kept her skills sharper through the occasional consultation job, she actually spent regular hours in a bed.  Distressing, really.  She was quite nearly legitimate these days.

Not that it made her father any less proud.  He had nearly gone straight himself a time or two, and both of them lived quite well by their codes of honor.

But at the moment, it was still fairly nearly in the morning, a little after seven.  Adrienne was the first up--or at least, the first one into the kitchen--so she was making some crepes.

ngserpentsoc:

Vadoma gave the members of the Serpent Society instructions on what they were to do. They were being paid quite handsomely to do a small job. The job was to destroy a factory in the Boston area.

It was a simple plan. Get in and do as much damage as possible. Then get out before being captured.

ze_leaper:

Adrienne had, despite the lack of any real Thunderbolts action since their "test", still managed to keep relatively busy.   There were always clients with jobs, though she had, in fact, been turning the majority of them down or referring them to other, capable, individuals.  Perhaps her time as a hero was turning her soft. 

But she did still take the odd job, nothing that would lead back to her teammates.  Several of them had, in fact, been legitimate enough, in that companies liked having someone capable test their security systems (and it gave her a leg up if she ever needed to break into them on her own).  And, of course, there had been a few jobs she'd done without being hired to do, corrupt individuals or businesses who preyed upon others that could stand to lose something.  Most of that money went to better causes than herself.  Like ze Robin Hood, no?

And there was Millicent, of course, out there somewhere, with those people who had attacked them.  Who had warned her to run while she could.  As if she had ever been good at doing what she was told?  She had not told the others that she had known her attacker.  She had no desire to see her friend bring the wrath of the super-powered Gendarmerie upon herself.

Today, however, she was in the gym, going through some gymnastics routines.

anyastark:

Iron Girl flew in through the missing wall and landed in what used to be her office. Her helmet opened and her armor started coming off. As the armor was coming off she did a quick survey of the wounds caused by the adamantium piercing her armor.

ng_underworld:

 Stephen Remus sat in the office of his penthouse, smoking a cigarette as he looked out the window.

"You have your team. You ready for your first outing?" Remus asked the figure behind him.

"Yes," came the audibly distorted voice. "We know where they'll all be."

Remus takes another drag of his cigarette before responding. "Good. You've all been practicing, let's see how you do against the real thing. Good hunting."

The sound of metallic boots are heard leaving as the figure goes to announce the mission's start.

nextgen_misc:

In England near Glastonbury Tor a portal opened up and a large demonic red creature emerged. The Red Lord emerged from Otherworld and had been unleashed upon the mortal world. Chaos and destruction followed in his path.

treadlightly:

They'd done their scouting. They've put up all the defenses they could, and put themselves in a position to attack. Buck has reviewed what they have on hand, and the situations exploding around them.

"Alright, folks, thank you for your patience. I know its been a tense situation waiting and doing patrol work... but I think we've identified some key points in the enemy strategy. We're still going to have to be careful. We're dealing with major influences here, but...

Alpha Flight... and their current guests, should be obvious. There's every sign that more of the Great Beasts will be awoken... that's a top priority situation.

X-Men... and the Genoshans - in following up the uprisings earlier, we've identified a 'Cult of Apocalypse', who took the whole massive fight before as a sign its time for En Sabbah Nur's awakening. We've located some of their likely strike points, your leadership has marked maps.


Champions and Thunderbolts, we've located a massive danger in the Red Lord. Its been determined that it will likely take both teams to deal with it.

Nightstalkers and Big Hero 6, we have a second target of the same type, Sakhmet. You two are on that.

SHIELD will be picking up on all of the general monitoring, crowd safety and control, and other work we've been doing in the lead up to this.

Finally, Avengers, Defenders and FF - you're with me. We're targeting the masterminds behind this.

Any questions?"

anyastark:

It was a day full of meetings and scheduled phone calls. As always. Anya looked at the clock and had twenty minutes before her next meeting. Just enough time to head down to the cafeteria and grab something to eat. She was starving and needed some caffeine. She had too much blood in her caffeine stream. She hated it when that happened.

She stood up and left the office heading for the cafeteria.

anyastark:

Traditions were important.

For a lot of people the day after Thanksgiving meant hitting the stores and getting great deals on items that would most likely be Christmas presents. For the female Avengers and others the day after Thanksgiving meant a different tradition. They would gather and rate the hunkiness of the male members of the various teams.

Anya had been up at the crack of dawn and readied the Thunderbolts' headquarters. Normally this would take place in the Avengers Mansion, but the boys would be holding Rate the Babe there and the girls needed their own space. She made travel arrangements for everyone invited. Avengers, X-Men, SHIELD, Future Foundation, Alpha Flight, Champions, and the Defenders.

Anya had the event catered by a local restaurant, not wanting to make the Thunderbolts chef have to feed so many people. She had even made sure that all of the Kelly's guns were unloaded.

Everything was ready for their guests.

no_relation:

It's been a few days since the police presence at the Brownstone, and there's been no word from the police, courts, or the Foundation yet. Jack more or less has been barricading himself in his room. With a keener awareness of the fact that he doesn't particularly need to sleep or use any other facilities, he saw no problem with this course of action. He's been in his costumed state the entire time. Eventually though, he gets hungry and pulls the furniture away from the door.

He pokes his head out of the door, looking up and down the hallway. He's not sure who he should expect to be waiting for his emergence, if anyone. He's equally unsure what he would say. He'll scurry up the wall and start heading to the kitchen via ceiling-crawl.

magic_hands:

Newspapers flew about the living room then burst into angry blue flames, any loose objects in the room seemed to rattle, and Martin was looking at the TV like it was going to be his next victim. Too bad it was a wall mounted one.

He hadn't seen Dr. Strange in a while. That wasn't too odd in itself, after all he did often have things to do that took time, but it'd been longer than usual and even Wong hadn't heard anything. Up until this point, Martin had only been worried because it'd been so long and Dr. Strange had promised to teach him certain spells as a birthday present. But his birthday had come and gone and no Dr. Strange was around. So Martin had been spending his time at the HQ feeling a little dejected.

Of course, that was until he saw the news.

Liars! They were nothing but LIARS!!

Dr. Strange was The Greatest! He was Sorcerer Supreme! Did people not know what that meant?! He'd never ever do the stuff they were claiming. Never! How dare these people talk nonsense and slander about his mentor?  How DARE they?!

Martin stomps off to the training room to unleash a little.

nextgen_parent:

"Thank you both for agreeing to conference this discussion. I know we all have concerns about the young man. I think he's fairly significantly tied into the attacks by the... beings that were wearing the generic suits the Thunderbolts recovered." Dr Henry Pym, Scientist Supreme (it's on his business cards and everything), addresses the others present.

"Before I share my findings, and present my working theory at this point, I'd like to hear both of your thoughts on Jack."

nextgen_misc:


You are cordially invited to attend

Terra Nova Charity Fundraiser

Twenty-Fourth of September Two Thousand Twelve

New York Botanical Gardens' Enid A. Haupt Conservatory

Seven pm until one am.

Formal dress required

ze_leaper:

It was, in her estimation, not exactly a difficult job, though the security system was more advanced than what she was usually used to.  But Adrienne had spent a considerable amount of time staking the place out and watching the comings and goings of the people who lived there.  More importantly, the plans provided by her employers, along with a few technological extras (she'd waived a portion of her fee in exchange for getting to keep them, in fact), should have made it easy enough.

More importantly, if she had done her work correctly, there was a slight gap in where the external security cameras covered.  But you would have to be able to fly, practically, to hit the spot correctly.

Fly... or leap.

She took a step backwards and then ran forward across the roof, leaping at the last second.  The strength in her legs was great and it carried her the distance, the suction cups she'd applied to her gloves letting her cling to the building's side.  Small tools made short work of the window latch and the security system, and she was able to slip inside.

She looked around and quickly nodded to herself, moving with all stealth.  The nice thing about most security systems was that when people were actually there, they tended to run at a much lower level.  Perfect.  And there was the lab.   And someone had even left the door slightly ajar. 

Almost too easy.  Carefully and quietly, she began to creep inside.