Scene #8573: PRF - Return to Sender

Owner	Pose
Futaba Nuki	It's another bright and early morning this weekend in Angel Grove! Fresh sea and mountainy air blows through the city while everyone goes about their daily business, enjoying their last day of the weekend without a care in the world. They know the Power Rangers are always around to protect them, after all, and any roving monster attack is sure to be handled by the five heroes and their giant robot! ... Except there's only four of them on the scene when a strange tower falls out of the sky, crashing through the earth and embedding itself into the dirt just outside of the high school that everything that happens in Angel Grove seems to center around. There's already a crowd gathered around the tower when the Power Rangers (minus the red one) arrive to scope out the situation, with paparazzi snapping pictures of the tower and the Rangers while said Rangers try in vain to usher those gawking at it away. Perhaps predicting that this might be more trouble than expected, a call for assistance comes out courtesy of the Blue Ranger, requesting aid from any Elites available to check the situation out. The warpgate will take anyone coming fairly close to the campus, thankfully, and just in time to see the strange pink crystal atop the tower start to glow and crackle. "What the heck is happening up there?" "I've got a bad feeling about this one, guys." "Is it some kind of anomaly?" "Watch out, everyone... Something's coming out!" And then the ants start pouring out of it. Or, rather, ants start blinking into existence, appearing around the glowing crystal and falling to the ground by the dozen. It wouldn't be such a problem if these were regular ants, but these ants are closer to the size of newsstands and buses than ants most people are used to seeing, and they're already starting to scurry about, biting at screaming civilians and snatching them right off the ground in their massive mandibles. The Power Rangers spring into action immediately, coordinating loud shouts and action jumps to start fighting the ants back. They're soon joined by a gorilla with a gaudy golden bracer and a big green leaf on its forehead that's punching the crap out of the oncoming ants, although said gorilla sounds more like a Futaba than a gorilla. While they try to create a path to safety towards the youth center, a fairly tall and beefy guy in red calls those civilians over to try and direct traffic into the building itself, occasionally hurling furniture at ants that get too close for comfort.
Kale Hearthward	PALADINS AUXILIARY HANGAR 12B (Home of the East Wind Search & Rescue team) "Okay, now lowering the power intake... disengaging Gobo circuit... disengaging Breathlink... and ending the test, turning off biometric data recording. All within nominal parameters!" "Good... I'm exhausted from all that. How many of these field tests are we going to need to do, anyway?" "That should be the last one! We'll need to get the data peer reviewed, but after that we can-" Hazelthistle gets cut off as everyone's phone beeps with a MISSION ALERT. Kale pulls his out of his pocket to check it. "... Looks like one we're clear for, but I'm beat after all that. Might need to pass on it, let another team handle it." "Yeah, understandable. I'm still feeling pretty good, but it's not like I can go out there solo." "... Wait, why can't you go out there solo. We got you the equipment last month, and you've got the training and the certifications - heck, most of the other elites don't have those." "Um - because I'm not an elite, Kale? We got me all that in case I need to pull you out? I've never been on a solo mission before!" Kale puts his phone away. "Well, no time like the present for diving in the deep end. That's an order. Good luck, I'm gonna go crash." And with that, he's gone, before his medic can voice any further objections. IN WHICH: HAZELTHISTLE GETS HER FIRST SOLO MISSION "... Gosh. I'm definitely not ready for this." --- Hazelthistle arrives. Or rather, she properly files her flight plan, waits for the system to flag it approved, and then arrives. "Paladins - East Wind Search and Rescue Team of the Paladins, on the scene!" she calls brightly to the rangers and gorilla. "Let's coordinate our response!" Oh... oh, wait, they're already busy fighting giant ants. Hazelthistle just sort of hovers there for a moment, in that abject terror of showing up to a work site and everyone is already doing something, is specifically incredibly busy doing those things, and you're not entirely clear on what it is you should be doing to help. "Um..." "... Oh, maybe I can..." She flies over, and grabs a pair of large glowing paddles off of her utility belt. They're specifically for directing aircraft, but they work well enough for pedestrian traffic. "This... way!" she calls, flitting over towards one of the buildings, waving her paddles. "Over... here! Follow me! Safety's this way!"
Captain Hook	It can never be said that Captain William Hook is a man who doesn't follow through with opportunity. The last time he ran across the five brightly-colored heroes with attitude, they provided him a marvelous treasure - the Tyrannosaurus Power Coin, currently stowed away somewhere carefully in his treasure chest full of wonderful things. And he had plans for that coin, oh yes he did. And, since one good turn deserves another, and they had been so compliant last time, William Hook has marked them down in his little mental ledger as 'easy pickings' and 'opportunity knocking.' So when there's a distress call from them there's no surprise that Captain Hook shows up, in all his dashing, coat-over-his-shoulder rakishness. He steps out of the Warp Gate and with casual ease fires his flintlock at an ant about to eat someone, his eponymous hook pulling the trigger in defiance of common sense but proof of mastery. The loud 'bang' also serves to announce him as he strolls forward without a care in the world into the river of civilians. He's humming, cheerfully, and he's probably heading towards the glowing crystal, because it looks shiny and valuable and that's really all the excuse William Hook needs to go 'yes this is clearly proof that these heroes generate opportunity for me to profit.'
Angela	Yo Ho Fiddle Dee Dee. Angela still wears the Pirate Captain Hat that Hook gave her. She doesn't wear it EVERY day because she worries about accidentally giving off the impression that she s overly fond of Hook (that she is overly fond of Hook is immaterial to this concern). But she does wear it with some frequency even if she's only appearing here on a screen today. It's the old crew of Rook and Random again, the former in his Army of Pink outfit still wielding Penitence--the latter in their Child of the Galaxy getup. "Gotta admit, Angela, little uneasy about checking in with Power Rangers when we... fought the Power Rangers." "Different Power Rangers, Rook. Nevertheless, support Hook." And that seems to be that. Rook steps forward to bash an ant to death with a mace with a skull on it before glancing over to Captain Hook. "Uh well--you heard the lady." Random has the sneaking suspicion they're about to steal the glowing crystal entirely because Angela is overly fond of Captain Hook. Angela's expression remains neutral in an attempt to deter this deduction.
Corona Arclite	One of the first people to stride out of the warpgate is one that... well, technically doesn't really blend in. Just that everyone is too busy gawking at the giant ominous tower to really care about the fox woman dressed like a wasteland cowboy ambling up to the teenagers with attitude and color coded body suits. To be fair her gaze goes up to the structure almost immeadiately as well. "Tarnation, Ah ain't from 'round these parts and even Ah can tell that ain't belongin' here." With one hand she reachs up to grab her goggles and pull them down over her eyes, engaging the various analytical functions in them. Which after a few adjustments to the viewfinder hone in on the glowing crystal atop. "That defina'ly ain't good. The glowin' bit, well, Ah reckon it's kinda like some manner of beacon." Corona glances down at the readout from the device built into one of her forearm guards, but attempting to analyze anything farther is interrupted by the manifestation of giant ants. And lots of them. LOTS of em. To which Corona huhs. "Guess this is gonna be onna those days. Time to set the science aside amoment..." She reachs over her shoulder to pull a greebled out double-shotgun out of her inventory. As she brings it in front of her she does the flashy action movie motion of cocking the lever with one hand then fully gripping it. Save instead of the standard cha-chunking of shells being loaded it emits a short piercing whine as whatever weird science powers it instead charges up, "An' put on the monster bustin' gloves." It's lowered into a proper grip in both hands as Corona steps forward, takes aim, and fires. It barks as loudly as any shotgun, but instead of shells or buckshot it blasts out a spread of lumps of slag -- that is to say, bits of superhot, semi-molten metal -- into the swarm of giant ants.
Stelle	Stelle gets the alert. Her phone goes ballistic, nearly buzzing right off of the counter! She catches it, sipping through a straw as she looks at it. "Huh. What are the odds?" She tossed down some weird blue money and swivels off her stool, taking her drink with her as she slips her phone back into her jacket. She crosses the busy room, shouldering the door open and dodging some incoming youth. As she starts to sprint, the sign on the building behind her starts to shrink in perspective. ANGEL GROVE YOUTH CENTER Thusly, it takes her moments to arrive on scene, golden eyes blinking up at the tower. "You don't see that every day," she says to no one in particular. She slurps loudly at the end of her smoothie, then no look tosses it into a nearby trash can. Her right hand reaches over towards her left hip as if she's drawing a sword belted there. She's not wearing a sword. Her hand grasps something, and she starts to draw it, bringing her arm back across her body. When it's free, she gives it a spin in her hand, grinning like a maniac. "Time to do a little pest control." Then she just ... charges at the massive ants wielding a slightly glowing baseball bat.
Futaba Nuki	Active coordination may be a little difficult for Hazelthistle at the moment, but not for a lack of trying. The four suited Power Rangers are still in the middle of jump-kicking and blasting the giant ants with their assorted weapons' blasters, but the beefy dude near the main building notices her amidst the chaos. "Good call! Yeah, come on this way! The Rangers can cover you better over here!" He shouts to aid her in funneling the still-panicking townspeople towards them, ducking briefly as one of the ants' heads gets bounced off a nearby wall after getting slammed by Rook's mace. These ants are rather huge, but the Agent can easily confirm that they do come apart somewhat easily with liberal application of firepower and sheer physical force. Depending on which way Angela's screen is facing, she might even be able to get some good data from that, or from Stelle as she arrives to join in the disaster response with her own bat of mystery glowing. The ants that don't just come apart in explosions of orange ichor still seem prone to getting launched several yards/meters/other away on impact, and their landings are... Strangely light for their size. Luckily, they seem to be fixated on whoever's hitting them rather than whoever's nearby, so it's relatively easy to predict their movements after striking them. Thanks to the melee combatants, Hazelthistle and the beefy guy have plenty of cover, especially as more Elites start coming in to fight back against the ant swarm. The former might have some difficulty keeping up with directing traffic as the ants start wising up and climbing onto each other just to try snatching her right out of the sky, though, and the latter even has to pitch a few more chairs at ants that get too close to buy some time for the gorilla to snatch and toss them aside. Said beefy dude also stops in his traffic-directing cooperation briefly, meanwhile, when he spots Hook and Random heading towards the big shiny jewel tower. "Hey, watch out! They'll pick you off if you head that way!" To his chagrin, it's a relatively clear shot for them towards the tower, too, as it's in plain view and not even being specifically defended. It just also happens to be where the ants are falling out of, and their direct approach makes the pair of Hook and Random all too tantalizing of targets for the swarm to ignore. The concentration and size of the beasts even has them starting to crawl over each other just to try getting to them, for better and for worse! Maybe better for the pirate, since this is an opportunity to say he's swordfought against a swarm of giant ants. Possibly better for the EGO-clad Agent, too, since these attacks are purely Red damage. At least they don't have to worry about defending any particular areas, though, since the Power Rangers (and gorilla) are already focusing their energies on the actual defensive by sticking to the youth center. They're also some of the first to see what happens when Corona starts shooting at that big shiny jewel tower. It's not immediately clear what is actually happening when those chunks of slag strike the jewel, as it lights up with bright flashes of even pinker light on each and every impact that could very well result in a seizure warning for anyone watching footage of this at home when the inevitable news reports start coming out later this evening. The flashes also coincide with more of those ants blinking into existence and falling from the tower, immediately rushing to join the fray in a mad rush to sink their teeth right into her. Seeing an opportunity, the Power Rangers try firing some of their own blasts at the tower, but they can't afford to split their attention away from the youth center for long and instead fire at the nearby ants to try buying at least a little more breathing room for Corona, Hazelthistle, and the beefy guy. The tower's crystal does seem to be slightly more red than pink compared to before, though, but what could this mean? There's (probably) only one way to find out!
Kale Hearthward	Waving! Waving... this is working? This is working! Hazelthistle's first solo mission is going swimmingly. Disaster response: here's a disaster, so she's... responding. She's waving in the civilians, getting them to safety. ... Except, there's... oh, there's one of them that's going the wrong way. That's not good. "Hello! Excuse me!" Hazelthistle flits above the crowd, arriving to the front and above Captain Hook. "Excuse me - need you to go... this way. This way." Hook wouldn't have met her before, but - she's wearing a smaller version of the unique boots Kale almost always has on, and what looks like one of his swords strapped to her back. "Over here - towards this way, safety!" If (when) Hook doesn't heed her warning, she just assumes she hasn't made things clear enough for him, and becomes louder and simplifies the message, continuing to float and flit in the air above and in front of him constantly. "You will be in danger if you go that way! You need to go... this way!" She points with her paddles.
Captain Hook	Hook's good eye flicks over to Hazelthistle. The smile on his face says that he is absolutely not going that way. The wink says that he absolutely recognizes those boots. "Tell Mr. Hearthward it's been some time and we ought to have tea again, will you?" He says over his shoulder as he continues heading towards the ants. Rook gets a less wry smile and a more sly smile. "So I did. She's a marvelous lady. Delighted to have you along." The ants are crawling all over each other. Hook is not deterred. Hook is, granted, not superhuman, but he is very good at what he does, and what he does is be a pirate. Rather than engage them directly he whirls his flintlock around and fires a shot directly into one of Corona's lumps of slag. The lump falls in front of the ants climbing all over each other as Hook reloads, dipping the flintlock into the powder-bag on his hip and spinning it up in an impossible motion. Seeing a man use a flintlock with a hook for a hand is nothing short of insane - but the ants certainly couldn't appreciate that. The next shot, however, is for the leg of the lowest ant on the totem pole. Just the front leg. Just to throw all that weight the ants are climbing with onto a single leg and dip them all into the slag. With that done, he resumes whistling and strolling towards the crystal, eyeing it thoughtfully. "Pretty thing," he says offhandedly to no one in particular.
Stelle	When the first ant bursts under her bat in a wash of orange goo and a satisfying squishy thunk, Stelle cackles. She may actually be a maniac. She pauses a moment to jabber something, letting the ants swarm her en masse. Okay, there's like five of them because they're real big. She seems unconcerned. This is proven when there's a larger glow from where she's surrounded by the ants, and then they all go sailing. As they clear, it's evident that the Trailblazer has done some kind of SPIN ATTACK AREA OF EFFECT on the ants. What's possibly scarier is that she's doing all this one handed. She has yet to take the bat in both hands. "This is -way- more satisfying than smashing robots!"
Corona Arclite	Corona Arclite lowers her weapon after a few shots. "Well ain't that an interestin' reaction..." She stows the shotgun. "Reckon stoppin' the problem involves dealin' with the tower more than the ants." Her tail gives an annoyed flick as she snorts, the newest arrivals to the horde seeming to home in on her for shooting at the crystal. "Not that can get to one without gettin' through the others." She considers quickly taps at her arm device a few times. "Gonna need somethin' a bit bigger..." To which she indeed pulls out indeed a bigger weapon. It powers up as she turns with it to face the ants swarming towards her in response, fumes already hissing from the contraption and a greenish glow emitting from it's pulsarium core. Followed by a belching of energy out of it's barrel, glowing green plasma flames washing forward like a blazing wave as Corona swings the weapon to counter the swarm of ants charging towards her. The ACTION SCIENCE response to overwhelming numbers of monsterous bugs is apparently cranking out more spreadfire effect. In this case literal with the fire and spread.
Angela	The Lobotomy Corp team follows after Hook. Random doesn't ignore Hazelwhistle and startas to head her way before seeing that Rook (who is) is still following behind Hook. Random gives Hazelwhistle a hapless shrug before jogging to catch up with the pirate, the Agent, and the Secretary Wearing A Pirate Hat. Hook may not be superhuman, and indeed neither really are the Agents, but they have EGO Gear and that means they can elp squash Ants. Angela does indeed spend her time running Lobotomy Corp's Scan Suite over the Ants. Those pads also send data back to Lobotomy Corp! That's the power of the future! But she simply murmurs basic combat statistics to her team in her typically dull tones. "Just gonna ... walk over and take it huh." Angela steps away from the screen for a moment to set up her dad on a date with Nephra or something.
Kale Hearthward	Hazelthistle attempts to wave Random down as well, for a bit. > "Tell Mr. Hearthward it's been some time and we ought to have tea again, will you?" This wasn't covered in her training. "Huh? Um..." Hazelthistle briefly flits away, and goes to key up her radio earpiece. "(Hey, Kale? There's a differently-abled person here, who says you and he should have tea again...)" "(That's kind of a rude nickname. Oh, he came up with it?)" "(... He's trying to steal a giant jewel that's summoning ants, and he has a Lobotomy Corporation team with him. ... Okay, yeah, got it. And those exact words. Got it.)" Hazelthistle flits back over towards Hook and the Lobcorps. "Chevalier Hearthward says... he's got an open calendar and a new tea room. And that I should follow you and make sure you don't take anything that's actually difficult to take." She goes over to the Lobotomy Corporation agents. "You all alright? Nothing hurt? I've got some medkits - and some extra bottled water and snack bars, if you need a boost..."
Futaba Nuki	Perhaps realizing that Hazelthistle is unfamiliar with Hook's prior involvement in this world, the Rangers exchange brief questioning glances. With the immediate danger still being rather immediate, though, it doesn't take long for them to collectively decide not to stop her from trying to redirect him away from the tower. Suspicious as they are of his motives, they really do have to prioritize getting the regular folks to safety first before trying to figure out his plan. Being so close to the tower-approaching crew, though, means Hazelthistle's in immediate biting range with so many of those ants starting to swarm out of the... Wherever they're blinking in from. Even Hook stopping some of that slag from shooting doesn't seem to stop the ants from rushing him and the Agents, but having three of them grouped together means they're actually having a pretty straightforward time just beating down everything that gets too close! It seems these ants don't have any kind of long-distance attacks, either, so it's easily sailing so far. Sadly, that ease of fighting doesn't last for long as the tower starts taking on a deeper shade of red from its original pink, and the ants start changing. It's subtle at first, as their bites start leaving a fizzy orange substance that burns on contact, and becomes much less subtle when they start flinging clumps of that orange gunk from their abdomens. The range isn't great, and they're limited to flinging those piles of orange whatever while standing still, but it adds enough of a wrinkle to fighting them that staying in place is less-than-optimal! Luckily, Hook's already starting to fire back at them, and he's also got his own protection against their stuff-launching that the ants most certainly don't seem to have the intellect to deal with until they're close enough to try biting him, anyway. Taking out the leg of the totem pole has several of those ants falling several meters to the ground thanks to how much they're stacking on top of each other, and the unlucky ones screech as they land in that molten slag that had gotten stopped, unable to free themselves from being easy pickings while he continues eyeing that big pink-turning-red crystal. It really is pretty the closer he gets to it. There's a weird buzzing sound, and it almost looks like something's starting to burn out inside of it. The quantity of ants is starting to slow down, too, and it certainly looks like it's taking some kind of damage as it keeps flashing occasionally from scattered blasts striking it. It's just not (visibly) clear what's going to happen if it keeps getting hit the way it is. The orange substance the ants are tossing about is still causing trouble for the Rangers as, being the sorts to observe and meet attacks head on at first, they get pelted with the orange substance and yell as flashy sparks explode from their suits on contact. Unlike Stelle, though, they're clearly yelling in surprise and/or pain rather than just being amused by the ants exploding. And when she speaks of how satisfying this is... "Keep it up, girl! We've got you covered!" "You can take them up close, then... Gross. I need a shower after all this!" "At least we're down here instead of all the way up there." "If we can just destroy that tower, we might be able to stop this!" Strangely enough, the Rangers aren't being focused on nearly as much at this point, but that might have something to do with how much they're focus-firing on the ants and taking them out. Corona, meanwhile, has a relatively easier time lining up her shots on the ants. They're still launching those ranged burning attacks at her in sporadic bursts while others rush forth, but their movements are predictable. That makes them easy pickings for the plasma flames, thinning out the initial herd enough that the Power Rangers can regroup and get the rest of the locals inside. The tower's (probable) destruction seems imminent with no potential for last-second curveballs!
Corona Arclite	Corona Arclite is light on her feet, but not so much when she's wielding that big plasmafire cannon. She can't sidestep every burst of fizzy orange ant spit without taking her spray off the ant horde, a few splats sizzling and sparking against her thankfully protectively lined duster. Good thing she's wearing goggles and won't get any in her eyes! "Ugh, nasty li'l varmits." But a glance over her shoulder confirms that the Rangers are getting the civs safely inside the building. She's not so sure about there not being any strange plot twists, but that could just be her paranoid twitching at the back of her mind. The plasmafire weapon finally expends it's charge, but it did it's job. Corona collapses and stores it away. There's less ants and less spawning, but there's still a fair number and without a wave of plasma in their way they have a chance to regroup and try to swarm after her once more. Hopefully people can get that tower dealt with. "Awright, innocents are outta the way. It's just y'all and me now..." Corona draws her main sidearms, holding the large weapons up as she spins them in her hands, eyes narrowing behind her goggles. Partially in grit, partially at the HUD of her goggles as it reports EXPLOSIVE ROUNDS ARMED. An ant lunges at her with it's orange fizz coated pinchers. But they only snap empty air as Corona jumps, and stomps her boot heel into the bug's head to slam it into the ground and springs off, using it's body jerking up from the impact to step onto the thorax and vault from there. This gives her a little more height to her acrobatic jump. Remaining ants swarm around... And as Corona twirls in the air she starts firing. It might look chaotic but her aim is precise even admist the acrobatics mid-air, alternatingly firing one gun then the other as she flips and whirls at the ants beneath her. Each round fired a tiny potent explosive, propelled by the force of a overclocked boltgun to get through giant bug carapices. By the time Corona lands from her gun-fu antics the explosions from the impacts are probably going off in her wake.
Captain Hook	The tower changes. The ants get a power-up. Hook gives a low, impressed, and fascinated whistle. "Now isn't that something. I wonder if it only works for ants, or if it might be more useful than just a pretty bauble. Might have to see what I can really do with it." He flicks a glance at Rook. "Cover me, won't you? Doubt I've much time left if I want to get a good look." He chuckles at Hazelthistle as he dips his hand into his coat and holsters his flintlock in the process. "Marvelous. I'll make time. Good luck with your task, though; he's given you quite an unpleasantly difficult one." Hook flips from his coat... ...a grappling hook. A normal, Concord-issue, grappling hook. He grips it firmly in one hand, puts his hook on his hat to hold it, and fires it at the top of the tower with a cheerful whistle. Once it finds a latch he presses a button and reels himself in over the heads of the swarming ants, sweeping through the chaos like, well, a pirate swinging on a rope. Dashing, debonair, swashbuckle-y. Hook lands near the tower and drops a treasure chest. He kicks it open, neatly, and turns around to... ...begin deflecting incoming fire while he waits for the chest to do its magic work. His hook whirls through the air, parrying lasers, arrows, and all manner of ranged attacks as if it was nothing. The ants that are closest to him he neatly avoids or redirects the blasts into, using his delaying, nigh-impenetrable personal ranged defense as offense.
Stelle	Stelle gets distracted by the mass of chatter, only to get splattered by sizzling orange goo. She, surprisingly, takes it like a champ. It hurts, it's going to leave a mark, but she's had worse. She's tough, though. This happens when the Cancer of All Worlds lives in your chest. Luckily for everyone, her emotional investment is pretty low. She does what she can. The bat keeps swinging, ants keep splatting, and the Trailblazer keeps working to keep people away from these massive insects. She blinks a couple times as a thought hits her. "Hey...aren't these things too big to, you know, breathe?"
Angela	Angela returns to the pad after a moment, looking somehow both incredibly furious, frustrated, and triumphant all at once. It's a mix of complicated emotions that Angela is going to call 'complicated' and endeavour to escape in the future. Rook says, "That's the job." to Hook with his usual professional demeanor, though he does smile a little to show that he doesn't REALLY mind the rogue's roguish personality. He dives in at the ants, squishing them but not straying too far from either Random (who is doing the same) and Hook--until the latter grapples himself out of there. ...Leaving the Agents behind. "Bet that chest is a bomb." Rook says. "I can get over there!" Rook adds, trying to ant-jump his way over towards Hook to keep doing his job while Rook focuses on fending off ants, getting clobbered by orange gunk periodically as he has to adjust to their new fighting style. He really hopes this isn't how he dies. "What'd I miss?"
Kale Hearthward	Hazelthistle nearly gets bitten! "Periactus, Circuit On!" she calls as she draws her sword and swings it two-handed at the ant, where it spins into a drill mid-swing. "These things are dangerous..." She switches to holding it with one hand and goes to form and throw a pressure ball with her other hand, trying to help clear some space. "And they keep coming..." > "Good luck with your task, though; he's given you quite an unpleasantly difficult one. And Hook grapples off. ... And Hazelthistle follows. "Well, we'll see when you try to go after something actually difficult to steal," she says, brightly, flitting through the air alongside him as he grapples up. "And those were his exact words - something difficult to steal. This is all easy for you, isn't it?" she adds as she watches him start deflecting everything while the chest activates, and two-hands her drill sword to start hacking at whatever he can't.
Futaba Nuki	Corona's agility is something the ants aren't truly equipped to deal with. Even if they're huge, they're still ants, and all they've really got to work with is biting and flinging orange gunk all over the place as a swarm. Predictably, they gather underfoot in range of all those explosives that include each other, and it all combines into creating a sentai-worthy slow-mo background explosion behind her as she lands amidst all the flames and screeching. Hook's hook of grappling (Concord, normal) is more than enough to get him onto the nearly-busted tower, as he quickly finds that, like with Corona, the ants aren't really agile enough to keep up or reach him without a coordinated effort that they don't have time for. Some of them start trying to tower up, but Stelle's area-clearance spins and big swings launch more of the remaining ants around to just bowl over the towers before they can properly form. "Are they?" The gorilla asks in what's clearly a late-teenage girl's voice as she slides over to join Stelle in pounding ants into the dirt, smashing one down by the head before picking it up and staring at the abdomen. "I mean, I'm pretty big, and I... Breathing just works, you know?" She pauses to stare at it a little longer, then turns right to Stelle with a raised gorilla eyebrow. "/Do/ ants breathe?" "They do, through spiracles! They're holes, all over their bodies." "They do? I can almost see them at this size... "Ugh, come on. I don't want to think about that!" "Guys, can we focus?" The treasure chest comes down, and the ants continue swarming, but there's fewer of them now than there were before. With Hook pulling some of their attention back to the tower, Rook and Random have a relatively easier time beating them off as well. It's certainly not the swarm that they had to contend with earlier, and the flow of ants has practically slowed to a trickle at this point, making them easy pickings for the mace and the strange orb stick. Hazelthistle's borrowed (?) drill-sword proves to work surprisingly (maybe not that surprisingly) well against the ants, too, as it punches right through their solid, but otherwise brittle carapaces and make mincemeat (...) out of the ants' insides. They all show up just in time, too, as the Rangers have assembled what they could of their combined axe-bow-spear-daggers-gun. They come together with the opening created by Corona's ant explosion and Stelle's steady ant slaying movement earlier, but from the distance they're at, they can't really see him all that well on that jewel on the tower! Thus, they just fire their colorful beam of explosions, and... There's no satisfying explosion. Or at least, the satisfying explosion isn't coming from the tower itself, but more of those ants near the tower. There's a moment of visible confusion before they fire again, and the explosion gets punted into another group of ants while the jewel seems to... Shrink? It's moving, but it doesn't seem to be staying on the tower the way it looks like it should. The gem disappears into the chest, and the tower starts to crumble. Everyone on top of it will probably want to get off of it sooner rather than later, but at least it's not just falling over and crushing the buildings beneath it!
Captain Hook	It's no bomb, Rook, don't worry. Hook doesn't blow up things he can take. The chest is magic. The gem shrinks. It disappears into the chest, and Hook taps the chest with his foot and kicks it up into his hand. The chest vanishes into his coat. "My," he says to Hazelthistle, "Poor bird doesn't have many friends, does he. Even his subordinate's being liberal with his orders." He leans over, very close to her face, and smiles. "If you were on my ship and pulled something like that, I'd tie you to the mast and let the wind whip some sense into you." "But!" He spins on his heel and taps his hat with his free hand, "I appreciate your little genie moment here for me. William Hook doesn't forget that sort of thing." The tower's crumbling, but he's still sort of standing on it, hand on his hat, observing the situation below. A piece of it slips under his boots. He tilts his head at Rook and Random (and Angela by proxy). "Well, then. Times like this I admit I do miss the old dust. Ought to see about that sometime soon." He gives a two-fingered salute as the part of the tower he's on crumbles away. Hook falls backwards, down, down amidst the rubble, and- -disappears. He's not dead. He's just chosen to use the rubble to obscure his escape before the Rangers come at him for another ill-gotten gain.
Stelle	Luckily(?) Stelle was not aware of the antics with the gem. Mostly because she was far too busy smashing bugs with a literal bat. There's plenty of swords and guns and other weapons out here, but she's swinging a glowing bat around like a loon. It clearly works, though. The gorilla shows up, and she raises an eyebrow. "They've got--," she starts as Billy answers. "What the blue one said. They breathe with, like, pressure and there's a size limit! At least that's what the scientists on Herta's space station said." The ants begin to thin and the tower begins to crumble. The Trailblazer starts backing away as rubble begins to rain down. She's tough, but who wants to get hit by falling rocks?
Corona Arclite	Monster ants screech. Chain explosions happen. Monster ants die. Inexplicitedly in slow motion for dramatic effect. Corona stands back up, holstering her boltguns as she does so. One hand rises, pinchs the brim of her stetson between two fingers, and tugs it forward a bit to angle before her face just enough to add to the melodramatics of the explosions of smoke, ants and orange fizzle going up behind her. Of course she doesn't look back, because cool people don't look at the explosions at times like this. The tails of her duster do flit about a bit though.
Kale Hearthward	Hazelthistle's sword isn't borrowed, it's hers, while also technically being Kale's. It's complicated. Do you have two hours to talk about magi-bio-techno-engineering? (Hazelthistle does.) And then the tower is collapsing! This is bad. Not directly bad for the wing diver of the group, mind you, but more that there's people on it. Maybe she can get them both down safely somehow... > "If you were on my ship and pulled something like that, I'd tie you to the mast and let the wind whip some sense into you." Hazelthistle resists the urge to lean back as Hook leans in. "O-oh..." > "I appreciate your little genie moment here for me. William Hook doesn't forget that sort of thing." "Oh, uh, that's good...?" And then he's falling backwards. "- Wait! You're-" And then Hook is dead. This is terrible. Her first solo mission and there's a casualty. There's a long pause as Hazelthistle stares off where he went. No body. Huh. Probably not dead, then. She goes to give Random a hand getting down if he needs it, and then she keys up her radio again after getting out of earshot. "(He took the gem, and he left. Yes, the ants stopped coming out as soon as he got it in his chest. He -... no, actually, he didn't seem all that bothered by it. Actually he thought I was disobeying you. ...Yes, about only stopping him if he was going after 'something actually difficult'. I made sure to emphasize that. Pointed out how easy it all was for him, so I wasn't stopping him.)" "(I don't know. Maybe he didn't take it as a jab? ... Well, you're not him, Chevalier. I don't know. ... That feels like something you should talk to your therapist about. Or just talk to him about, at your tea thing. Look, there's still work to do, anything else? ... Ten-four. Okay.)" With that, she heads back towards the buildings, to offer assistance to the civilians there.
Angela	Random is making their way over to Hook and the tower he's on but quickly has to skid to a stop and run their way right back at Rook. "It's comin' down!" They definitely aren't paying attention to what's going on with the gem right now--though Angela does get confirmation in a moment that it has been successefully stolen. Was it something they should have stolen? What was the point of stealing it? Angela has no idea the answer to these questions but it is also, frankly, not really her problem. Random makes it back to Rook, if only barely. Rook says, "Shit! Our charge--!" as he sees Hook tumbling backwards and-- ...speaks on the Concord band a moment later. Rook scowls. "Godammit he's cool." He looks back to Rnadom. "Seems like our job here's done since...Hook's gone so..." He nods to Stelle for a moment. "Nice work." But he doesn't dwell on it too long--though Angela does look AT Stelle for a long moment, a curious gaze-- --before they ultimately pull back without further fanfare.
Futaba Nuki	"Never heard of 'em! Good to know if I ever try turning into one, though." Gorilla-Futaba replies to Stelle with a light chuckle, then pauses to stroke her chin with one of those giant hands. She even frowns as Stelle explains more, grimacing several moments later. "... Uhh. Sounds complicated, though. Wait, you've been to a space station?" "A space station? That would be a spectacular sight..." "Right? I bet we'd see all sorts of-Oh, the tower's gone!" "I'll pass. Ah... That gem! It disappeared, didn't it?" "That's good, right? Now we don't have to worry about more of those creepy crawlers showing up!" Despite the Rangers' confusion, the day is saved, and not a moment too soon! The quartet let out loud sighs of relief as the ants' numbers thin out and eventually get cleared out entirely, giving them a moment to finally breathe. Hook's sudden disappearance certainly has them scratching their heads (figuratively), but before they can really try to figure out where he disappeared to, thank anyone properly, or savor their victory... Corona's paranoid twitching from earlier turns out to be correct! Just as things finally seem to be calming down, screams start coming out of the youth center's main building while the ground trembles violently and suddenly. The sounds of cracking, shattering tiles and windows burst from the center as the ground inside the building breaks upwards in the shape of a massive anthill. Moments later, ants can even be seen starting to come out of the indoor anthill, only being slowed down monetarily as the buff dude and a pair of greasers start smashing furniture into said ants' heads. "Clear the way! I've got this!" The moment they leap away from/fall off of the ant hill, an armored soldier-looking guy comes sprinting towards it with a rifle in hand, firing oversized bullets at the ants to take them out before firing on the hill itself. A few more ants start to emerge, but they're quickly crushed when the hail of bullets collapses the anthill back in on itself. The soldier-looking guy does a quick sweep of the ruined interior of the building, then breathes his own sigh of relief when there's no more tremors from the ground below. "That was a close one... Everyone alright?" He gets quick nods from the greasers and a slower one from the buff dude, and then he steps out to greet the remaining Elites with a quick salute. "Ranger Jackson, EDF. We've got a situation building here, and... Earth's in danger. We're going to need a hand or several hundred to take care of it." He holds up three fingers. "We've got weapons for anyone who needs them." Two fingers. "My bosses pay really well." One finger. "And they'll take care of any insurance payments, live or die. Who's with me?" Like before, the greasers nods emphatically, and the buff 'teenager' does so as well.