Summary:
November 12, 2014: A Bat Tech suit has gone missing and Oracle is on the watch for it… when she locates it, the thief is in for a shock.
Gotham City
Characters
NPCs
- None
Mood Music:
It's a great night to test an advanced crime fighting suit. What with the ambient sound of gun shots one generally hears in East End, the occasional car alarm, and of course someone smashing a bottle every few minutes.
It's still rather early in the evening, and Luke Fox has only taken the Batwing suit out a few times before. He's gotten lucky with the Bat people not immediately knowing that there was an actual theft. This suit is, after all, one of many projects.
But Lucius Fox himself noted the missing suit about 24 hours ago. There was no particular trace of who exactly stole the thing, though. Or how. Just that this was a severe security breach.
So here we are, on the rooftop of some old, barely standing apartment building, full of a gang that's been shaking down local small businesses.
He's in stealth mode, occasionally moving and leaving a sort of predator blur, but right now he's just staring through the skylight of the penthouse, which is full of guys just hanging around on couches, playing video games, guns casually laying around. "Yeah, that sure is a gang… There must be etiquette for this sort of thing. Throw in sleeping gas, warn them to come quietly, just break through the window and start punching?"
All of that idle talking to himself is quite clearly heard by Oracle, having comms completely open to Bat people computers that he hasn't had a chance to look into yet. That and a pesky tracking device built directly into the suit.
It's been a busy day for Damian al Ghul. He's moved without actually moving any of his crap. And his stuff was all over the place. An auxiliary batcave over here, a stately Wayne Manor over there. Being new to the country, he's figured he will do what any other self respecting American would do.
He rents a uHaul.
Damian is driving along the streets of Gotham, hitting up the mini-caves all over the city to pick up assorted personal items for his final move to the north.
Then?
He'll never have to come to this god forsaken city again.
Oracle has most definitely been made aware of the theft of the Batwing suit and has set her systems up to notify her when it comes online, as it did not too long ago. The redhead is watching her screens and smiling to herself as she listens in to the thiefs selftalk and then she sighs deeply. Another one to train, it would seem…
Tapping her comms unit, Oracle speaks "Good evening. Out for a bit of friendly crime fighting? Most of my charges simply charge right in, and if there's a skylight… it must be broken." Sitting back in her chair, Oracle tilts her head to see what type of response that will elicit.
"Oh crap. I knew this thing would have some remote communications system. This thing is so difficult to modify on Radio Shack supplies…" Batwing suddenly stands up straight, looking around on high alert, scanning heat signatures. "Wait, charges? Are you Batwoman? That's Batman's wife, right? Alright, you should probably know that I didn't take this suit to do anything evil. I planned to find you guys eventually and explain everything."
Gangs are a bane on a city's existence. But they do have their uses. They often have their hands in many pots and even those illegal activities they aren't involved in, they know about either to avoid or to plan to take over. Having walked in off the street and making his way to the penthouse, Midnighter kicks in the door and walks in. "Which of you are going to survive tonight by telling me what I want to know?" he asks, throwing a shuriken through the eye of the very first one to reach for his gun. He might not be one of Oracle's 'charges' but his tactics are pretty much the same. Up to the denouement.
Rowan is not a crime fighter. Not really. He's a displaced solider and still kind of a lost puppy when it comes to some things. This is one of them. He's walking through the city this evening because the whole large city that isn't horribly hostile or a warzone thing is still kind of new to him. He's not particularly worried about being mugged because… that would be silly for a number of reasons. No one's tried yet at any rate. He has no idea what's about to go down about half a block away.
Lunair is totally not a bat person. Some bats are cute, but she really doesn't have much to do with the bat people in general. There are plenty of non-Gothamy things to keep her busy unless there's an especially profitable set of hits or contracts out. She fights crime, but she tends to be a little more violent and/or creatively terrible.
But you see, few creatures in the world are as outright cruel as teenage girls with spare time. Apokolips would be so terrifying with a burn book, it would. Either way, she's out for a jog. There's a bag with GOTHAM MARBLE CAKES on the side. She's probably bringing something home on her way, well, home.
"Midnighter?"
Damn. If Midnighter is here, chances are the old man will do one of two things: Kill someone, or bite off more than he can chew.
Damian sighs and pulls the uHaul over to the side of the road and puts the beast in park. He reaches for his backpack, opens it, and grabs for his domino mask.
And his katana.
"Who the hell are you?!" one of the men yells from behind the couch, the loading of a gun easily heard.
Then another man is rolling on the ground, holding his eye. "HE THREW A NINJA STAR INTO MY FREAKIN' EYE! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HIM?!"
"Hey, man, we don't want any trouble…" another unarmed man wearing a red hood says, hands up.
They all seem to be having different disorganized reactions. Some backing off, others preparing to grab guns or shoot. There are at least two dozen of them.
Her face lit by the glow of her screens, Oracle grins at the thiefs response. "I am Oracle. I'm many things. But providing assistance to crime fighters, is my main objective" She pauses slightly, as Midnighters and Damians avatars appear on the monitor "We can talk about who and what I am later. Right now, you have a job to do. You put on the suit, now live up to the name. What are you going to do? And know, that I can see everything you do, the suit is fitted with a video camera."
As she's talking, she's accessing the GPD systems and despatching police. "You have about 20 minutes before the Gotham PD arrive."
Midnighter has another shuriken in hand. Actually, he has several and lets them see. "Call me Midnighter. No trouble is a smart idea. Guns down and you might walk away whole if you tell me what I want to know. Since I can detect the electrical activity in your brains and hear the changes in your breathing and hear rates, lying would be a bad idea. Are we ready to begin or does you want to test me first? Pick someone you really don't like."
Lunair has her phone. She is nearing the situation, unwittingly. She's working her way over on foot. She looks at her phone, a cute bobbling flower waves and she unlocks it. "Hmm…" Wait, did she hear someone shouting? Granted, shouting, stabbing, throat punches and ninja stars to the eyes are practically greetings in Gotham. Either way, she ducks behind a very oddly shaped shrubbery and calls up her armor.
"I'd listen to him," Damian says. He's wearing a forst green velour tracksuit, bucket hat, and his domino mask. He looks like he's straight out of a Kill Bill movie. "He doesn't like it when people don't listen to him."
"Like… the super genius whose identity no one knows? If you're not Batman's wife, and, you know, not a dude, will you marry me?" Batwing asks as he's already leaping into the air, then drops down feet first toward the skylight. "I'm thinking there are two possibilities here. You're a rogue hacker who's smart enough to understand the R&D files you gained access to and I'm being manipulated into being in your army of fanboy charges. Or you already have access to the R&D files and have an affiliation with Batman. One of those two. Depending on which one, you could be an enemy, I mean, ignoring the whole marriage proposal thing."
He smashes through the skylight finally, tossing batarangs at the armed men, then stares at the man rolling around on the floor, and finally Midnighter. "Explaining that this guy isn't yours would be a nice trust building exorcise." He suddenly points at Midnighter, clearing his throat. "Put down the ninja weapons, blinding helpless and easily broken thugs is like hunting a deer in a cage!"
Then the man behind the couch springs up, firing at the bulletproof armor. "Ow, hey, what the hell man!" He tosses a batarang that sticks into the back of his hand. "Can't even show a little compassion in this town without getting shot. That felt like getting punched by Mayweather or something… not cool." He's rubbing his side now, not having a particularly good showing tonight.
Oracle laughs "We've only just met and I don't know your name." Seeing who he is talking about, brings a wry smile "Not mine, exactly, but we know each other and I sometimes help him, when he's not killing people. Talk about trust though, I didn't steal the suit…" Oracle considers for a minute and conferences Midnighter, Damian and this new guy in together "Good evening gentlemen, we have someone new joining us tonight… do play nicely together." All three should hear this introduction.
"Son of the Bat." Midnighter says, glancing behind him once Damian's entered. The quick glance is followed by a half turn as he looks the young man up and down. "Did you have your costume taken away too? Didn't Vorpal tell you how horrible that looks?" And then someone is crashing through the skylight and treatening him. Which makes it Wednesday. "No." he answers, simply. He's not putting anything down. "He one of yours?" he asks Damian, noting the batarang. "Or rather, one of his?" Daddy's." And then… "Oracle. Don't you have any government databases to hack into?"
Definitely heard some fighting. While it's her luck that she'd miss it, and that no one's too likely to notice yet another armoured figure coming up the stairs, Lunair is moving pretty quickly. She makes her way up the stairs easily, with trained grace and - comes in upon the scene. Thinking a moment, she pauses. "Wait, the Midnight guy." Close but not quite.
"You talk too fucking much, old man." It's not clear if Damian means now or in relation to something else but he's clearly irritated. "You killed anyone, yet?" He looks towards the other gangbanger types. "He kills folks, so you know. In case that cha—" And then Luke shows up. Another Bat. "Oh for goodness sake," he says, slumping his shoulders and letting his katana fall to the side. "I've seen it all now."
"You know, I can read inbetween the lines of a lot of the stuff you're saying. You not knowing my name tells me a few things. I go by Batwing, by the way. At least in this costume. Maybe you can get my real name when I've got yours." Batwing stares at Damian, then Midnighter, then Lunair shows up. "Alright, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear half of what I just heard because there are more important things to deal with. Like—"
That's when the thugs, gunless, start grabbing whatever they can and running at each of them, a good five to one ratio. "IT'S BATMAN, GET 'EM!!!"
"Hey it's Batwi—" He's suddenly covered, punching and kicking guys in the gut as another smashes a wooden chair over his back.
The others are dealing with similar. One specifically goes for Damian's katana, while a good six guys try to subdue Midnighter completely. They outright rush Lunair, having no clue what to expect from her.
Another bratling for Oracle to wrangle "No Midnighter, the databases are all handled tonight. Batwing, perhaps I know your name and perhaps I don't… maybe it was a test for you. Stop the chit chat…" but it's too late, the crimefighters are swarmed by the mobsters. "You have 15 minutes till Gotham PD get there… " Watching the fight from the camera in the suit, Oracle gets a feel for this new young mans techniques.
Rowan hears the shattering glass. It's… pretty obvious. Sprouting wings he flies up to take a peek in and… oh… that's not good. If he knew anything about Midnighter he'd know that Midnighter had that all handled. But he doesn't so what happens instead is that two of his six assailants are suddenly struck by a freak lightning bolt. Out of a clear sky. Well not completely clear there's a four winged man hovering over the broken skylight.
"No but the night is young." Midnighter says. He really just wants answers tonight, most of his leads having dried up on a number of issues. Which is to say, he wasn't actively hunting this gang. Being attacked changes all that. Two of the ones charging each get a shuriken in the throat, targeted for their jugular. One gets a kick under the chin, snapping his head back hard with a crack. "There were thousands of possible ways for me to beat the two dozen of you. Do you really think you six stand a chance?" A knife scrapes off his armor and he grabs the wrist, twisting it hard enough the snap is audible. As the man screams, his forearms is bent enough to dislocate the elbow adding to the screaming and turning the knife so that… it /would have/ jabbed into the chest of a fifth assailant. Except that he and his friend have been hit by lightning. "Some days, you just can't quietly terrorize a gang for information." he states with disgust as he spots the flying man. "All these vigilantes and Gotham is still a cesspool." That's what happens when you don't put the criminals down permanently and they keep getting out of jail.
Tim Drake arrives from OOC land.
Tim Drake heads out to Midtown.
Wait. A dude with a katana? Lunair pauses. "Oh my god, a weeaboo." She thought they only existed on the internet and at conventions. Her world is rocked! And then Midnight guy does his thing. He's - friendly as always. She winces at the fighting noises he makes. Sure, Lunair CAN do some pretty horrific damage but nothing is going to change the fact that those noises are unpleasant. Then some dude gets all four winged smiting (is it like that one winged angel guy with the weird theme music) and struck down harder than Charlie Sheen's motion to legalize cocaine.
Either way, she's got a few dudes coming her way and lethal force seems to be on like Donkey Kong. Time for the shock wave staff and an electric whip. The safe word is banana. Or something.
Damian ducks into the attacker and sways right, slicing just above the knee cap as the attack comes. With disdain he kicks at the back of the head of his assailant. Though successful there, the next guy comes and wraps a pair of meaty arms around him, pinning the katana against his chest.
Damian grits his teeth and pushes up while slipping down, holding the katana away from himself with all his might. He very nearly strikes the thug under the chin, but doesn't. Instead he hits the deck, turns, and kicks that dude straight away in the balls.
"Chit chat seems like a good way to stay sane out here." Batwing notes after punching the guy who hit him with a chair out, then flips up above another guy, using the man's shoulders for leverage. "It's not like I didn't notice that this guy's grabbing a gun…" He tosses a batarang to stick into the guy's -other- hand. The guy who shot him before!
"This guy who's shoulders I'm on is about to bucket under my weight." He flips off that guy, sending him stumbling into a flat television on the wall. Which then promptly falls on the guy.
Then he's crouched as two men with baseball bats go running at him. "And chit chat didn't make me oblivious to the fact that I'm completely at ball level with these guys." He extends both fists out to his sides, punching the guys in their respective crotches and causing them to drop their bats… then their bodies to the floor. "I've been training for half my life to do this, I think I can handle a few thugs and still spare a little effort to talk to an urban legend."
He stands up straight, assessing the remaining men and the others who are in the middle of fighting. "This suit is still kind of clunky in a way I don't like. I invented an entirely new material that would work much better, it's just incredibly expensive to produce. If you're really here to help, I wonder if you can make this happen?" That latter part is spoken directly to Oracle, now that he's figured out this thing's communication systems!
The men who attacked Midnighter are completely down, and three of the remaining men who go after Lunair find themselves dead on the ground. The last four guys who haven't attack start to back up from this whole situation in general. "Man, we don't wanna fuck with no super guys…" one of them notes
While the one guy is kicked in the balls, the remaining few start to back up from Damian as well. "These fuckers are shooting lightning…" one of the men fighting Damian notes to the others.
== An overconfident Bratling at that ==
Oracle is silent as the crime fighters battle, she recognises Rowans lightning and from a glance as Batwing turn, Lunair. At Batwings request, Oracle sits forward in her chair "We should talk you and I before that's decided. When you're done there, go sit on a roof somewhere… we can do that tonight. Midnighter, Damian, I'm assuming you're both ok? 7 minutes till Gotham PD arrive."
"Fine." Midnighter answers, glancing over at Damian and spotting Lunair as well. "Armory." He pulls out a business card and tosses it over to her. Instead of fluttering, it sails true and sticks in the crease between her armor and helmet. "We should talk sometime." It's just a phone number, no name. "Leave a message for me there." Stormwatch will pass it on to him. He turns back to look Batwing up and down. "Stole the fancy suit did you?" He gives Damian a look as if to say 'You should have gotten to it first.'
Rowan descends into the room, flicking his spear out and to full lenght. He certainly looks not human what with the four feathered wings and the lightning crackling about his fist. Which he proceedes to use on a couple more of the Hoods. Don't tase me bro? "I believe at this point it is customary to surrender? At least, that's what I would suggest."
Lunair is quiet, surprised at how easily… huh. Whoops. As Midnighter flicks her a card, she seems surprised by where it lands. "Okie dokey, thank you. Will do," She nods. "I'm - going to go before the cops get here. Good luck!" Yup, Lunair is so brave and heroic. She's - scampering down the stairs unless stopped. Although, to be a smart alec, she peeks through the door for a second, zots the thugs with the nudity ray and darts back away. TALLY HO!
"It's not my affair any longer," Damian says towards Midnighter with some derision. Apparently he can tell what Midnighter is thinking. Since he threw away his communicator, he doesn't have any way to hear Oracle. "I'm sorry. I have to continue moving."
"Like literally. I'm in the middle of moving." Damian cleans his sword on one of the downed, injured and screaming thugs.
"Stole is a strong word! And alright, let's all calm down a bit, I came here for a reason." Batwing points at the four guys who are backing up, nodding in their direction. "If you mess with the shops around here again, -all- of us will be back, even the crazy guy who was about to kill you."
He turns to face Midnighter, shaking his head. "I need to get out of here. You should go home. The cops will be here soon and there's no need for anyone to die." He hasn't noticed that Lunair used some lethal force.
Watching the others through Batwings Video feed Oracle realises the truth "Batwing, you need observation training. There are fatalities tonight. You all need to leave immediately. Go Now." The sirens will be heard approaching the building, approximately 4 minutes out.
Midnighter looks over at the ones still alive. And naked. "I /will/ find you. When I do, you should know something about the metahuman trafficking. The more you can tell me, the happier I'll be. The happier I am, the happier you will be when I leave. Two weeks." He looks at Batwing and just shakes his head as he turns. Damian gets a nod on his way out.
Lunair has no idea her force was lethal. Normally the cat staff just generates shockwaves and goes bowling for people. Hm. Well, maybe they had a pre-existing condition. Who knows? Either way, Lunair is long gone like free cake and coffee at the IT office. You can almost hear a faint 'meep meep' on the wind (Just kidding).
Rowan looks about. "Does anyone need a lift out." He pushes himself into a hover, thankful his spear wasn't needed. If someone wants a lift they'll get hauled out the skylight and to a nearby rooftop. Either way though the Blue warrior knows that it's best not to get entangled with the local authorities.
Damian doesn't. He's got his own ride. He saunters outside, throws his katana in the passenger side. Next stop: New York City.
Batwing looks around, then between the people who arrived, attempting to assess who did what damage. "Damnit… I didn't realize half of these guys would be legitimate psychos. Shouldn't I be trying to take the ones who killed people in?" he asks, but he doesn't wait for an answer to prepare to get out of there. If the answer is yes he can just pop back in.
But for now, stealth mode goes up, and a blur can be seen leaping up through the skylight. "Did that murdering bastard just threaten me? This city, man… The next time I see people who look more dangerous than the thugs, I'm approaching this entirely differently."
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