Tournament - Unstoppable Wasp (Nadia Van Dyne) vs. Killer Croc

[C.T.]

It was a very, very exhausting ten minutes-ish later that Nadia managed to take out the last of the goon army, leaving a mess of sprawled out and unconscious criminals behind her. She stood there, doubled over, taking deep and heavy breaths as she wiped at her brow with the back of her hand, taking the sweat with it. A few seconds passed in this manner before she felt able to speak, and she turned to look at the knocked out and possibly(probably) concussed guys all around with a disappointed look on her face. "The fighting. Always with the fighting. Why do so many villains never just want to talk?"

Her head shook with discontent, before turning her attention back forward and flying off. With her sudden departure, however, she failed to notice that Harvey himself was conscious...and taking out his phone as she soared off.

She attempted to focus as she went, her mind contemplating her unique current problem, as well as start to brainstorm potential methods to solve her dilemma, but this unknown city did not give her time to do so. Mere minutes after she had left that guy and all his men behind, a commotion on one of the streets below her caught her eye. People running, and from what she did not know...at least not until an explosion went off. Yet even though she was interrupted in her train of thought, she didn't sigh, going out to help people just because it was the right thing to do was one of the best parts of being a superhero in her opinion.

The young Wasp had barely landed upon the street before another explosion rocked the area. Her eyes briefly widened as she caught sight of a person's silhouette in the fiery blast, but her concern ebbed a bit as the person proved to not be an innocent civilian just judging from the way they controlled their momentum and rolled into a practiced stop. This person was trained, and trained well, she could tell by that simple observation. No longer framed by the explosion, she could more clearly make out details about the person. Short, messy, multi-colored hair, dark leather jacket and black outfit, accented tastefully with blue. The sound of the person's voice filled the air with a mocking tone.

"C'mon, Beastie, you should know by now that it'll take more than that to keep me down!"

"Da! That's why I brought this!" A second voice responded, followed immediately after by gunfire.

"You're breaking my heart over here, give me a real challenge!" The girl taunted as she took off running to avoid the barrage.

Nadia stood still for a moment, but it only took her that one moment for her to hypothesize that the one in the black and blue as the good guy here, and the guy unleashing explosions and gunfire as the bad. A real shame, that, for she recognized him by accent as another Russian. She rushed in as well, to the surprise of both.

"What the--"

"Huh? Who's this? Another one of you?" The masked man clearly lived by the principle of shoot first, find out later, as he targeted her as well now. The air filled with bullets. Fortunately, that was not an issue for her. She shrunk down in an instant, from his perspective she simply vanished, and he wasn't able to say anything further. Chiefly because Nadia was past the bullets now, and in that sweet spot of melee combat. Something she made clear by growing in size just as swiftly as she had shrunk. She shot past her normal size, even, an enlarged fist striking the man under the jawline with a vicious uppercut. He was out cold before he even hit the ground.

The girl, who had skidded to a halt, only managed to let out a single word in that moment. "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn."

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A little while later, atop one of the nearby rooftops, the two heroes began to converse in relative privacy. The girl from here started with: "So hey, thanks for the assist back there. Not that I couldn't have handled old KG Beastie myself, but yeah, thanks, uhhhhhh......." She trailed off, expectantly waiting for Nadia to introduce herself.

Nadia did not miss out on that, immediately hopping closer with a bright smile and extending a friendly hand to shake. "I'm the Wasp! Nice to meet you!"

The other girl snickered at the overwhelming enthusiasm, shaking the offered hand. "Bluebird." She introduced in turn. "Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but never heard of a Wasp among the superhero gang. Where are you from?"

"That's the thing. I live in New York City, but I have a striking suspicion that this...is a different world than mine. A city this big, that I've never heard of, with no immediate phone connection...I do not want to say with certainty quite yet, but I feel signs are pointing that way."

Bluebird didn't even blink. "Ah. Multiversal stuff." She nodded in satisfaction. "That would explain it."

"...You believe me?" Wasp inquired.

"I mean, yeah. You seem trustworthy, and you helped me out, and I don't see a reason for you to lie. Plus, I've read up on stuff like this in the JL database. Crime Syndicate, et cetera, et cetera."

"That is mega appreciated! Thank you!!" She replied with glee, and she took a deep breath before continuing: "So, if you are already aware of happenings such as this. do you think you could help me out?"

"Me, personally? Not so much, my area of expertise is electrical engineering, but I can think of a few people that could help you out. Gimme a sec, let me spread the word." She took a couple of steps away, pulling out her commlink. "Heya on this fine night, fellow Bats! Dunno who else is online and free right now, but I got a...special situation over here." The conversation continued on for a minute or two.

Nadia was only able to hear one side of it, and she was trying to not eavesdrop, but well the close proximity made that rather difficult. Nevertheless, she waited patiently for Bluebird to re-approach her, quietly humming a song to herself all the while. When her fellow hero did step back over, Wasp gave her another smile. "So..." It was her turn to wait expectantly.

"Don't worry, Wasp, I'm a girl of my word. I put the word out, and I got some bites. That said, some of the others aren't quite as...open as I am, let's put it that way. They want to meet you out in the city first, get a read on you, before we hit home base y'know?"

"Not to worry, I completely understand." She nodded to emphasize this. "It is reasonable."

"Cool." Bluebird was relieved to hear that. "Wanna tag along with me then?"

"Lead the way."

"Awesome." Bluebird turned and began sprinting for the edge of the rooftop. Nadia followed close behind and both took a running jump off the building, beginning to traverse the city with Bluebird managing via her grapple gun and Wasp flying alongside her.

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"-So there's really no Superman back where you're from, huh?"

"Correct. There is nobody going by that name. Though, from your description, a few people match somewhat. For a while, before I managed to make it onto the superhero scene, there was this man. Sentry. He...wasn't mentally well, however. Blue Marvel also has some traits in common, and then there's Hyperion. He might be the most in common with this Superman. Super strong, fast, flight, x-ray vision, heat eyes, check check and check."

"Wow. Quite a handful, sounds like. Okay then, how about Green Lantern? Think of a space cop, guy able to use his ring to create awesome constructs and whatever else he wills."

"Hrm...well, there's no ring, but space cop? Nobody fits that description more than Captain Marvel right now. She absorbs all kinds of energies, and she too is superstrong, tough, fast, et cetera."

"Okay okay, how about a Batman? Got anyone like that?"

"Batman?"

"Oh right, yeah. He's...a lot of things. Not easy to define. But let's just put it like this, a man who's trained himself to the peak of human strength, a master in a ridiculous number of martial arts, and more a man who prefers to focus on the street level problem than the big planetary threats...not that the universe gives him much of a choice there."

"I see, I see. I suppose that sounds like Daredevil. Or Iron Fist, maybe. Perhaps Captain America."

Bluebird whistled in amusement. "I'll give your place this much, Daredevil sounds a lot cooler than Batman."

"I must agree." She confessed with a smile. Nadia really did love that superhero moniker. "Let us reverse this game, however. Back home, Iron Man is one of our most famous heroes, always rocking powered armor that can fly, unleash devastating energy blasts of all kinds, and a lot of other technological miracles. Do you have anyone like that here?"

"Huh. Just off that description, I'd say Blue Beetle? Maybe Steel too."

"Blue....Beetle? Odd choice of title..."

"...Y'know you're talking to Bluebird, right?" She glanced over with a slightly offended face, given the similarities between their names.

"No no yours is fine, I just mean--I...uhhhh..."

Bluebird just laughed. "Relax, I'm just messing with you. Besides, your name is Wasp, kinda odd choice there yourself, don't you think?"

"Touche." She admitted. "But I am an odd one--"

They only managed to make it a few blocks, not far in either traveling distance or in their conversation, before for the third time in as many minutes, the people of this unknown city interrupted her.

This interruption came in the form of a window of a skyscraper shattering loudly close by her, and before Nadia could even get a look at whoever was responsible for that, they tackled her right out of the sky. The two of them dropped down to the street below, the constricting pain of this mystery attacker holding onto her intensifying every second as they descended. She heard Bluebird call out her nom de guerre, but it was drowned out by the sudden feeling of scorching heat and the sound of fire raging as her fellow hero had to deal with her own problem.

The thud of the pair of them hitting the street was as painful as it was loud, but pain was no stranger to someone who had been raised by the monsters of the Red Room. Nadia recovered relatively quickly, kicking off her assailant right into the smooth transition of a backflip to get back on her feet and put some distance between her and whoever this was. It was only then that she managed to get a good look at...him.

It was a being of incredible size and muscle mass, but that was far from the most incredible thing about him. His reptilian features...amazing. So much so that she temporarily forgot the situation. "Oh my gosh, what are you?!? Is your genus more lizard like or are you crocodilian in nature? Oh oh oh! Do you have night vision? Wait wait wait do you have a tail? It doesn't look like it! Does that mean you had one and lost it and don't have any regeneration on that front, or did you never have one to begin with--"

"Shut up." Killer Croc cut her off, already annoyed with her motor mouth.

The tension of the situation returned to her then, being so rudely interrupted like that. Some people have no appreciation for the sciences. Unfortunate. "Gah....Fine. Be rude like that. Don't answer those questions then, answer this one. What do you want?"

The reptilian fellow merely laughed for a few moments. "Guess you missed the news. There's a 2 million dollar bounty on you. We intend to collect."

"A b-bounty?? What??? I just got here, how could there already be...I mean who could have....." She trailed off, already putting it together in her thoughts. "No...him...the man with the split face."

"We just call him Two-Face."

"Two-Face...dang his two faces!" She hesitated. "W-Wait. You said 'we intend to collect', what do you mean we?"

Killer Croc gestured upwards with his head, clearly indicating to her to look up, which she did. Bluebird was in combat with her own attacker, somebody with their own flying capability, and unleashing fierce torrents of flame. She didn't get more than a glimpse though, the sudden crashing sound of heavy footsteps drawing her attention back down quickly, but not quickly enough. The man had taken advantage of her distracted state and a vicious punch from him sent her sprawling to the asphalt, spitting out blood.

The power of that blow...he is no Colossus, or Thing, definitely not a Hulk, but he is strong. She thought to herself. Not that she needed it, but he reinforced that thought with a kick to her ribs that sent her skidding further along the street, but only for a few seconds. She used her momentum and rolled back into a reverse somersault, cleanly getting back onto her feet. "That...hurt."

Killer Croc chuckled. "Girlie, you haven't seen anything yet." A dark promise from a malicious monster.

Yet Wasp's eyes remained defiant steel. "Neither have you."

She started sprinting towards him, an act that only earned her a smug smile from Croc. "Have it your way, kid." He confidently stood his ground, sure he knew how this was going to go. He did not. She began growing in size mid-run, enough so that by the time she reached him, she dwarfed even him in size. Surprise plainly showed itself on his face, at least for that single second she got a glimpse of it before her boot slammed into him for a massive kick that would have sent him flying were it not for her immediately reaching out with her arm and grabbing hold of one of his legs, and smashing him into the ground like he were a doll.

That too was followed by a heavy stomp of her other boot. 

That blow shattered the street, ripping open a new hole in the road. Croc fell through, landing in the murky waters of the sewer beneath with a very fresh wariness with this new hero. It was an understatement to say he had not expected that in the slightest. "Girlie's full of surprises." He snarled, pure venomous frustration oozing from his whispered words. Still, there was no way he was gonna go down so easily. There was a 2 million dollar payday riding on this!

He stayed down long enough that Nadia's scrutinizing gaze moved away from the sewers beneath her and back up towards the conflict into the sky, mind racing on the best way to help her new ally. A mistake that he capitalized on right then, jumping from the sewer with a messy splash and landing another punch on her before she could re-focus on him. In her giant form she stumbled back, and he intended to keep the momentum on his side to give her no time to recover, but his follow up punches never landed. 

She had shrank down in an instant, vanishing from his point of view. His eyes raced all over, trying to find her once again, and all the while he taunted her. "I see now. So you can shrink, and grow. Atom and Giganta all in one! Well, it won't matter. Not one damn bit. I'll find you. I'll hurt you. And I'll be richer for it." 

"No. You won't." The voice came from behind him, and he looked over his shoulder to see her standing there, staring him down with no sign of fear, fists curled tight in her combat stance. He roared at her and began charging her. Not running, but animalistic pounces across the street. "So be it." Her synthetic wings elongated from her back as she took off, zipping through the air and firing bio-electric blasts at him, and the battle was joined. 

[Callisto]

Learn More About
Unstoppable Wasp (Nadia Van Dyne)
Read more about Unstoppable Wasp (Nadia Van Dyne) at Wikipedia
Official Site: Marvel Links: Wikipedia

Killer Croc
Read more about Killer Croc at Wikipedia
Official Site: DC Comics Links: Killer Croc Wiki Entry DC Guide.com Batman The Animated Series.com

[C.T.]

Round 2 on the Gotham Gauntlet, and Killer Croc's lookin to put this lil pest down...

[RakaiThwei]

I would think that Nadia takes this pretty easily.

[Pizza Guy]

Croc is very dumb and not good in situations where he can’t outmuscle his opponents. I don’t see him figuring out how he’s supposed to fight tiny Nadia before she lands a knockout blow on him.

[Callisto]

Match Final Results

Member Ratings:
4.80 - Boratz
5.00 - patrickthekid
4.00 - Pizza Guy
4.80 - broadwaybeyonder
4.00 - Twogunkid

FPA Calculation:
5 Total Votes cast
22.60 Total Combined Score
22.60 / 5 = 4.52 Final Rating on the match

MATCH SCORE
Unstoppable Wasp (Nadia Van Dyne): 4
Killer Croc: 2