impact

[in_extremis]

WHO: Anyone in the area!
WHERE: From the Forge to the Hangar, so clear across the whole right side of the map if you're nasty
WHAT: A race, an abrupt end, and the inevitable consequences
WHEN: Once the glitter has settled, mid-Feb
WARNINGS: Some people will probably get hurt, but I have no metric for how gory they're going to be about it. I'll let you know if it happens.
NOTES: I'll put some toplevels just to organize the sequence of events, but if they're in a weird order to you or you want a different one to do your thing and need me to reorganize, let me know. If you just want to put another one, feel free.
For any further plotting discussion of anything going on here, hit up the plotting post.


While the air was no longer swirling with it, the effect of the glitter gathered like a blanket on the ground was like that of freshly packed snow after a storm. It left Tony squinting in the glare of it with the sun revealed clearly in a cloudless sky, only to bounce viciously off of every coated surface. Even through his sunglasses and hand raised to shade his eyes as he peered down the corridor from the grassy edge of the forge toward where he knew the hangar was, Tony could only consider the path for so long before squeezing his eyes shut against the competing oases that the light threw up. It was going to feel a bit like skiing, he thought.

Returning to the site where his pit crew had been gathering throughout the development of the vehicle, he reported, "It's worth a try." The path up to the hangar was almost entirely a wide, straight road, the longest clear area they had to test the power of the speeder. As Tony mounted it experimentally to kick the power on, it flung a new rain of glitter in all directions, leaving anyone gathered doused once more and Tony snickering from the hovering vehicle. "I don't think there's going to be any problems."

It was a heavy, growling thing under the sleek body that Tony had found time to detail with pink and red glittering stars, inspired by the strange storm. Unlike the Iron Man's whispering repulsor power, the speeder purred even at rest, gnawing through the experimental fuel and whining faintly at the effort of holding itself up and in place, like it was straining against a bit. It felt more like a motorcycle that Tony would be familiar with, likely, than the speeder that Poe was expecting, or the sparrow that Cayde had tried to explain, and without having to rely on the repulsors, it could manage far more weight for longer periods than this model of Iron Man. A heavy Exo could easily take a passenger, or a haul of dinnerware, to start cutting down on the travel time around here.

Or Tommy could be given yet another thing to gloat about.

Comments

lmk if good

[doubled_speed]

See, Tony really needed to account for Tommy, but in a WHOLE other way. Not as someone who might get hurt from a blast, but as someone who had also noticed that something was wrong. He wasn't far behind Cayde, and he definitely could hear the problem was building up. He kept going, pouring on more speed even as Tony worked on getting a ship out of the way.

If there was brakes to consider, Tony, they'd probably be applied by now. So Tommy does the only thing that makes sense. It's easy as breathing to catch up to Cayde, this thing isn't even close to pushing his top speeds. It's a calculated awareness that something could get busted that he runs through, trying to figure out the right angle for things. And when he's got the math he's got time for the math because he's got countless nanoseconds and an undeniable instinct for physics Tommy jumps.

It's really a few different actions. First, jumping into the air. Tommy hates jumping at speed, there's not a lot of control when he's not on the ground, but like a cat or a squirrel, he knows just how to twist his body to get it where it needs to go. Which is landing with one foot planted on the back of the speedster as he grabs Cayde into his arms. And, if his math is right, when he kicks off at full force to send him and Cayde tumbling to the side, it should further the fishtail effect, sending the thing into a spin.

Hopefully the friction of the rotation would slow it down as it kept going. Tommy wasn't one hundred percent sure, there were plenty of other factors in his mind. None of which compared to the importance of tuck and roll and keeping his own body twisting so he made sure that he was the one to land on the rough floor of the hangar. He was going to have one helluva case of road rash, though. Probably not bad enough to be a truly major injury, but bad. And damn was he going to miss this particular outfit, there was no saving it.

[happybeeps]

It all unfolds impossibly quickly, a blend of painful screeches and lurching metal. As luck would have Poe's reflexes are well honed for just such a disaster, pushing questions of 'what' aside for now in favor of leaping out of the way of the wreckage that's suddenly bouncing off the ship and rolling towards him.

BB-8 shrieks and takes off in the opposite direction, both just missing a direct hit, though Poe is winged in the ankle by a bit of scrap as the thing skids and scrapes to a halt, toppling some cargo.

Poe looks to make sure BB-8's all right, the droid doing the same and giving a whistle just as the quiet that's settled over the area is irrupted by a final delayed pole toppling over and catching BB under it with an unpleasant thunk sound.

"...Buddy?"

For a tense moment there's silence and then a low whine, BB-8 not off line, or irreparably destroyed, but very much in need of some assistance.

[deal_me_in]

Meanwhile Cayde has been frantically applying the brakes but to no avail, and despite the dire-looking situation still managed to force a laugh at Tony's shout. The Exo can be a bit of a daredevil but there's nothing to be gained from careening at top speed into a wall. "-not responding!" he insists, a quick 180 in demeanor as he tries to ground the speeder in attempts to shave off some of its velocity. Hovering above the ground kind of makes that a little trickier.

And then all the things happen at once, or they may as well have for how quickly it all occurs. There's the groan of metal as a ship suddenly shifts, and the brief thought in panic of 'how is that any better?!' before a blur registers beside him with the internal warning from Sundance. The Exo finds himself being pulled away from the vehicle along with a sickening lurch of not being sure which direction he's going to end up. He figures out easily enough what's gone on once he register's it's Senior Speedy that's got him, and he sees the speeder plow onward towards its inevitable collision, and it's all he can catch a glimpse of before they're rolling, him and Tommy.

Stupid kid. Tommy may take the brunt of the initial landing, but the Exo grabs a hold of him and throws his weight into one more roll as they continue to skid across the hangar floor. Out of the corner of his eye he sees crates and things getting knocked out of the way as they collide with his back, his vision blanking briefly once they slam to a stop against the wall.

[in_extremis]

It was far too late for Tony to try to insist, "Don't!" at Tommy, already hitting the ground with Cayde by the time Tony had processed the blur of speed, and sending the speeder careening without anyone to control it directly at Poe. Within fractional seconds, it was him who was thinking 'how is that any better?!' as though he had received it loud and clear from Cayde.

They should have gone into this with clearer emergency protocols. There was a lot of things Tony should have done.

With Tommy and Cayde already sprawling, Tony tried to push what was left of Iron Man's flagging energy after the huge output to shunt the ship into a sonic boom of speed that rattled the hangar as it collided off of the ships and the walls, making metal shudder and sending a new rain of dislodged glitter down from the bolts and rafters. He was already behind, and there wasn't much left in the tank, so Iron Man was just a silvery streak following the speeder's path between Poe and BB-8, tracking a lurid path of leaking fuel to crash himself into the cargo crates.

The whine and thud of the pole toppling into the droid alerted Tony again, dragging him out of the sluggish fog of the crash with a reorienting shake of his head. By then, the fire he had been worried about from the speeder's ignition had crept up the crates and the spread of fuel up Iron Man's arm from his belated clutching onto the speeder. The hiss of Iron Man's pressure release quickly wicked out the flames, leaving the floor scorched and smoke flooding across the hangar, but it didn't feel like much of a win.

[doubled_speed]

People are more important than things, and Tommy was worried about Cayde. HE did hate that Cayde twisted him so that Tommy wasn't on the bottom. What a mess.

All he could do while they slid to a stop was groan in pain.

"That is gonna bruise," he grumbles as they slide to a stop. This was annoying.

With a sigh he moves to stand, untangling himself from Cayde. Then his attention is on everything else. Well shit, that was annoying.

"Soooo did I fuck up the breaks?"

[happybeeps]

Poe limp-crawls his way over to his droid, shoving ineffectually at the pole, eyes searching out the others to make sure they were alive.

"Are you all right? What the kriff just happened?!?" he demands, "Who was driving?" And then to probably to Tony- "Someone help me get this off of him-"

[deal_me_in]

The Exo would have thought that worry misplaced. As it is, it's just a relief hearing the speedster speak up after that. The boom that jarred the hangar
has him snap his head up, and opening his optics, Cayde slowly starts to move, groaning as he gets to his feet. Their landing had probably sounded a lot worse than it could have been. His metal body beneath all the Hunter garb could take some decent hits, and after Sundance assures him nothing's been knocked out of position, he turns his attention towards the crash and the smoke.

"Brakes were gone before you went and grabbed me," he tells Tommy, lurching past him into a brief run, vanishing half-way to reappear over by Tony. He drops a hand on the man's shoulder before wincing as he looks over towards Poe and BB-8.

"Me, that was me," he grimaces as he moves to position himself by the heavy pole that had clobbered the poor droid.

[in_extremis]

It felt to Tony like he hardly had time to count the casualties before Cayde was there, glowing, and cutting through the fog, and Tony breathed an aborted, "You 'kay...?" as the Exo was already moving away again. He had to drag himself up and wrench off the helmet, blaring warnings and precarious power levels at him, to catch a proper breath as he stumbled after Cayde, throwing the helmet blindly behind him among the wreckage with a clatter as he sought out Tommy. No one seemed to be dead, at least, though Poe didn't look so good as Tony finally dropped his gaze to refocus, and finally processed what was asked and Cayde was responding to.

Rapidly then, he was helping heave the pole up and off of BB-8, asking, "Is he okay? Will he be okay?"

[doubled_speed]

Oh dear. This was all a mess. Tommy followed after Cayde, there almost before the other man, but being quiet as he did so.

"I'm more durable than you," Tommy mumbled at Cayde. But hey, at least Tony knew better than to ask. Sure, he was looking, but he didn't ask. Which was nice. Helpful.

"Just tell me how to help, Tony. I'll do what you need."

[happybeeps]

Having been in more than his fair share of crashes himself, Poe saved the lecture, for now at least, though there was a brief disapproving glare leveled at the group before concern won out. "When you fix that up, how about some safety gear, huh? Helmets?" he said with a nod towards the wrecked vehicle.

With the pole lifted there was a dull metallic thunk as one of the orange rings of BB's main body fell to the ground, Poe's face going pale. BB-8's headplate spun around with a curious and then mournful croon.

"...He's been better."