Doesn't Grow On Trees (Open)

Zellac ran his hand down one of the planed pieces of lumber. Certainly a finer chuck of material than they were getting down below. They would get driftwood often, a dead tree rarely, but this was a trunk in the prime of its life. Shaped and treated to perfection by the operators of the lumber mill he was now stood inside. He was impressed.

"Ugh. You removed its protective layer. You landwalkers don't ever think about my needs. It's no good." Zellac put his back into it and lifted the log above his head, twisting to throw in across the mill and into one of the human machines that did gosh knows what. It wasn't built for the purpose of tanking whole logs. That was for sure, "We'll take the pile they haven't touched yet."

"Blarg blarg?"

"Yeah. Bark whatever."

"Blargle." One of his murloc cohorts sucked back in his dangling tongue and waddled to the far end of the room. He placed his stubby arms on the first log and push uselessly against it.

The rest of the murlocs were surrounding the workforce. A group that apparently passed for what's 'tough' around here. Zellac hadn't been impressed. Once he'd loaded up their barge with the materials, he would get one of them to call their blue-light guards over. If this new city even had one.

"Do you want me to help?"

"Blarg!"

Zellac threw up his hands in surrender, "Okay. Suit yourself."

If the inhabitants of Jump City's slums were to look up they would see a glowing man in bright green armour flying through the sky in the direction of the lumber mill that was currently under attack. He had been on his way to one of his favourite comic book shops when he overheard a police officer getting a report about some strange creatures wrecking the lumber mill. He ducked into a side alley and transformed to become the wind ranger: Verdant Gale!

A few minutes later and he would arrive at the lumber mill. He made a dramatic entrance with hands on his hips and began to give himself a hammy introduction, but then saw the Murlocs and cut himself off "Halt! I am- guh?" When he realised how stupid he must have sounded his face started to go red, but luckily his helmet covered it up.

He spotted Zellac and pointed at him accusingly "You! What are you doing here? Let those men go!" As he spoke he was assessing the situation, counting the amount of those weird fish things in the room and noting their location. But his eyes were mostly on the man, who seemed to be the biggest threat.

There were six fish things. Each with bulbus, pupiless eyes at the sides of their large heads. They had several pairs of spines trailing down their sloping backs and three digits on each of their limbs. One was still waging a one-fish campaign against a log that had taken a crane to leverage onto the pile it now sat upon. The other five were stood around the tenderised workforce with various rusted weapons. And one which held a gun, sideways because he was clearly an expert.

The sudden arrival surprised them all. At first Zallec thought they'd missed one. But the flamboyant outfit didn't seem like the kind of thing these landwalkers were using at the mill. It seemed more a uniform; official. He'd seen young land-guards before but they didn't usually come alone. Or without a gun. Maybe this toe-dipper town actually had someone to brag about.

"What's it look like I'm doing? I'm kicking ass. Taking shit. I'll kick yours in a minute. Just let my pals load up a boat first, okay? Don't wanna stick around listening to your whinging if we do it after." The Atlantean locked his right arm with the left and stretched out a kink.

Rose sat idly on a nearby rooftop, watching things unfold with a sandwich in one hand and a soda in the other. She got this really weird feeling that if she hopped in earlier, some of those workers would end up in the crossfire. And frankly, that'd just upset Robin and the Titans. Couldn't take that risk.

She hadn't been back in town for more than a day before she ran into absurdities, but that seemed to be the nature of this town. A walking rock man one day, and a talking fish man another. She sipped her coke and was met with the sound of a straw sucking on an empty cup. "Dammit..." She muttered, adjusting her half mask and tossing the cup over her shoulder.

She got up onto one knee, looking down on the group of workers being held hostage. She narrowed her eyes as she started to see bits and pieces of what could be. What would be. Drop down now and one dies. Now? Two. Now?

She smiled and slowly tilted forward, dropping into the crowd of fish creatures. She slashed one on the back of the neck, dropping it instantly. She kicked one and pinned it down with her foot, then drew her pistol, firing into another of the fish creatures guarding these workers. "You have a three minute window to safety. Do not waver, run in a direct path." She told the workers, turning her attention to Zallec.

"You know, I would argue that stealing trees isn't much of a crime. I wouldn't have interfered. But then you took hostages." She lowered her gun to the creature squirming under her foot and put a round cleanly through its head. "I don't like hostage situations."

Simon gave a silent sigh of relief, thankful that no one had noticed him messing up his introduction. Or at the very least, no one saw fit to comment on him messing up his introduction. Either was fine by him. As he scanned the room he made note of the fish things surrounding the workers, especially the one with the gun.

The Atlantean taunted him and showed himself to be ready for a fight, but Simon wasn't paying too much attention to him. Instead he was planning to make a beeline for the things that were taking the workers hostage. He was just about to put his plan into motion when he saw a girl in an orange and black mask dive in and take them down with ruthless efficiency "Damn."

He quickly took initiative to act, dashing over to Zallec at full speed and aiming a right hook for his temple "Gale Hook!". It was just an ordinary right hook, despite it being given a special name. The ranger was aiming for a one hit knockout, but he would be able to settle for just keeping Zallec pre-occupied while the hostages made their escape.