Summary:
February 27, 2015: Tula finds the one who shot Aquaman. It may not go well for the sniper. But this gunman is more than a little to handle. Combat ensues!
Theater in Detroit
It's comic book universe Detroit. It's really a sad Detroit; Gotham looks over and is like, DAYUM. That's bad.
Characters
NPCs
- Tula
- Deadshot
Mood Music:
[*<http://insert.video.or.music.link.here>]
Detroit is /such/ a shit hole. No. Seriously. It's an abject disaster area. Entire portions of the city are abandoned, neighborhoods with standing housing completely devoid of like like a modern day ghost town, children's toys still laying in lawns of knee high dead grass, windows broken out and doors kicked in on homes covered in graffiti stand next to entirely untouched pristine homes, a sign that even the self destructive nature of a down trodden people has run out of the self perpetuating hate to even bother ruining all the good real estate. This goes on for miles. Occasionally one will find a home filled with the refuse of human debris, crack dens, meth labs, the soulless empty shambling corpses of people who once had hopes and dreams and loves of their own long since torn away until all that remains is the shell that's not yet aware it's already given up the fight for life.
This is the only city in the US worse off then Gotham. Gotham has heroes that fight for it, it has news and commerce and hope. It's failing, small, barely a spark, but it's there. Detroit is the warning to nation of what comes when that spark is snuffed out. When there's nothing left to give. A siren wails in the distance, but even it's weak and worbbling, on it's very last legs. Anyone near enough to see it would spot the station wagon with the light rack mounted on top, the replacement for the ambulences the city no longer has the money to fund. It's certainly not a cop car, the cops drive nice rigs, the kind that rich employers pay them with so that they'll ignore what goes on uptown. Gotham's corruption is in remedial school if you were to ask a native Detroiter, kid stuff in Batman's town.
Standing in what was once a thriving community and is now the hollowed out steel and brick corpse of a once grand theatre, Tula is to shocked to be angry. She just… stares. Trash liters the ground, rats don't even bother to hide at her approach, there's a literal rotting human body somewhere in the building, she can smell it, and no one's even bothered to notice. A tear slide from her still damaged red eyes, tracking down her cheek as she stares at the waste and the loss. Her fingers trace the once beautiful mural that covered the theatre's entrance walls, flittering over lines of painting depicting life in the booming forties. A second tear joins the first, "Why does he fight for this…?" she whispers in her native tongue, her expression awed and weary at the same time. "Look what they do to their own people… Why??"
Her intel, the surprisingly large and high end spying apperatus that is Atlantis' intellgience community, has told her where to find the last man on her list of suspects, those that would make the impossible shot that killed her King. Floyd Lawton, aka Deadshot, a sniper of such skill as to place him among the five to ten best marksmen on the planet. She had thought Bullseye would be her guy, but his arguements the other night made sense. Lawton is the last, it must be him, she /needs/ it to be him, so she can go home. She can't take this world much longer, she can feel it sapping her soul with every day. She's just so TIRED of the surface world, of the crime and the hate and the uncertainy. She never understood how good she had it, how strong Atlantis was, until she was forced to see places like this.
"I hate your world." she informs Dinah, the oddly dressed heroine one of her contacts informed her was decended from a one time Atlantean ally. She, begrudingly, accepted the help. Her eyesight isn't what it should be, and the collected wounds of her search through the villains of the surface world have left Tula weaker then she's ever been before. "You people are animals. Maybe Orm was right about you, you can't be trusted with this planet, none of you." more tears that she doesn't try to hide. Usually crying in Atlantis is easy, you keep your face straight and no one knows, tears and ocean water are indistinguishable down there after all. On the surface it's a bit more obvious.
Agent Veronica Hautzig is deep, deep undercover. But she got a tip. She's not sure from who. Someone in the family, somewhere. Too clever to leave a trail. Maybe that Agent Miller… regardless. The message was simple. According to SHIELD projections, some major business was about to go down in Detroit.
So Ronnie Hautzig, hippie grad student, found an excuse to head west. Expensively. Her credit cards are almost broken from the abuse. But with no SHIELD jump jet… the message wouldn't have come if she wasn't meant to be there. So now she's there, prowling the worst of the worst of junkieville and bumtown. Not Ronnie Hautzig, though. A sleekly muscled warrior in black and blue. Eventide.
Kate Bishop has been running the Eleanor Bishop Memorial Shelter in New York for years now. It's her mother's foundation, but since her mother's death, she's had a part in the operation of the place. One of the things she's pressed is teaching the women at the shelter how to defend themselves and how to run their own lives once they're free of their abusers.
She's just finished a couple of long days sharing some of the shelter's methods with shelters in the Detroit area, which had left her wanting to get a good look around the town. She's dressed plainly, in jeans and a sweater with a wool peacoat, but she's got her bow and arrows over her shoulder, too. Just in case.
"My people, your people, they both have their own animals among them." Dinah was there with Tula, her 'costume' much more functional than the showgirl like attire of her mother. Knowing how dangerous the target would be, she had come prepared with a variety of small concealable weapons.
Adjusting her gloves over her hands she asks Tula, "Are you planning to take him in or take him out?" She seems more curious than anything, she had no love for scumbags like this even if she had worked with many.
It was a beautiful city once. Not the biggest, not when she saw it last — then again, Aethera was last in Detroit before Henry Ford put his bright idea into motion. She'd come because she's been trying to learn about the world she woke up in… well, that and because she had a lead on a very clever high-schooler who needed the extra nudge toward college. It's her old work… just writ a bit smaller.
She's taken a tour of the city in the growing evening, flying over like a little blot of light and taking the occasional moment to dive down and return a purse or break up a fight. Someone ought to patrol this place. The police, she thinks, would be a good start.
The lovely old theater is one of the few places she remembers. But it's nothing like it once was, and its former glory is sadly long gone. Still, the woman wearing glistening brass Art Noveau-styled power armor possibly stands out as she slips inside.
To be fair, there were a few sympathetic surfacers. Though, one can't fault poor Tula. It really is cruel and ugly, sometimes. Detroit once had freaking Robocop. And hope. And everything. And while Gotham completely weirds her out (Do bats really carry rabies that often…?), Detroit makes her uneasy. Lunair's found profit in bothering mobsters for money, and sometimes she lends a helping hand. Other times, she is simply passing through to another safe house.
Lunair is capable of feeling empathy, but it's difficult at times. She's used to violence and despair around her. Still, she feels kind of sorry for the people here. Being Gotham BUT WORSE? That's rough. Nevertheless, she's just passing through. Her car stops, and she's likely needing to stretch her legs, her path unwittingly taking her towards Dinah, Tula (who does the hula?) and whatever may come. At least she's a really good parallel parker.
Spearhead is walking in the area, keeping to his usuall alleys to keep fom being spotted to easily, though around here, it seems that this is redundant, since everythings so trashed and looking a bit like a disaster area. Today, Spearhead has a large military bag on his back, in place of his usuall marksman rifle. He still has the rifle in the bag, but he has a few more things in the bag, too, like a machine gun, a machete, a sub machinegun, among other things.
Why is Spaerhead here? He has heard that alot of dirt was around this city, and he decided to see if any of the dirt looked familiar, and maybe do some spot cleaning. in one alley way, he sees someone sneaking up behind a woman, holding a knife, it looks pretty obvious he's going to try and kill her, among other things. Spearhead draws an telescopeing billy club, and smashes the man over the shoulder, once, a good hard thud, the woman turns around, gasps, and quickly leaves. Spearhead takes the knife, and looks around, a theater is across the street, he starts to walk to it…
Tula shakes her head at Dinah, "No, they don't. You don't understand what it's like… Two murders among Atlanteans in the last thirty years, our Empire is larger then your China, it spans more miles then you can imagine is comprised of multiple species and cultures, and yet, no murder. No rape." she turns to eye Dinah, "We elivate artists and composures, we enrich the lives of the poor and those of wealth cannot become idle lest they lose what they have. They work. Hard. No one is lazy, no one is fat, the infirm are cared for, the elderly revered, children raised by whole cities of those that adore them. But you people you…" she looks around, "Look what you've done!!" her voice echoes in the empty vastness of the theatre, booming with her outrage. But it's a hot fire and it burns out quickly, she turns back to the mural, "Look what you've done." much softer this time, almost a whisper. "We have had wars, we have fought invaders, monsters, poisons that fall from above put their by your people, but always with cause. Never mindless self destruction, not like…" she hands her head. "What did he see in you? I try to understand but it grows harder with every day." she shakes her head sadly, "I must return him to my Queen, alive would be best. At this point I just want to go home." she sounds desperate and vulnerable, two things she looks like she may have never known in her entire life. "Who are you??" Tula asks suddenly, spotting Aethera in the theare's entrance.
"Well, now I feel bad about killing you on the surface. Damn. That's some heavy shit." says a voice as an impact hits Tula in the hip hard enough to spin her around in a spray of blood and scale armour and into the ground. It hit hard enough to move an Atlantean. The sound of the shot, a great booming WHUMP, echos like a thunder clap and Deadshot, in full armor, stands in the double doors that lead into the old main theatre room where once great operas and plays were performed before crowds of hundreds, "Damn but this thing's heavy, was trying to gut shoot her." he says, struggling a bit with some sort of large bore weapon that looks like it's supposed to be mounted on something before it's fired, a high tech job too, nothing Dinah recognizes on sight. "Fuck it." he adds, raising a hand and spraying Black Canary's location with the full clip of a G-17 as he leaps back into the decending rows upon rows upon rows of chairs.
Eventide is prowling. She hears Tula's raised voice distantly — she's tensed up and listening for trouble. Even if it's not the big trouble she thought it was going to be. Whatever she thinks it's going to be. As she closes in, the gunfire starts. Okay — maybe it is the big trouble. Eventide picks up the pace, and jumps from the nearest available building, seeking to exploit her superhuman toughness to just enter by crashing through a window and then make her way to the ruckus. As she prepares to break that window with her body, her hands are gripping her fighting sticks in mid-air, ready to baton some faces as soon as she touches down. But whose faces—?
So much ugliness. Kate thought she could come in, offer some help, and be finished. But this? This is more than she can fix in a couple of days. Or with a few dollars. This…this is systemic. This is why she wants the Justice League to exist. More than the crime. Because hope matters.
Whatever dark thoughts fill her mind, though, it isn't enough to distract her from the sound of gunfire. Her brows furrow in a frown, and she jogs toward the source of the sound, trying to get some height where she can see into the theater.
Dinah really has no rebuttal or argument for Tula's speech about the differences between their two worlds, "Well, damn. That's—-" The gunfire interrupts her words, the scariest thing about it is the fact that it hurts an Atlantean; she had to trust that Tula would be alright, she wasn't a medic.
The rapid flurry of what must be close to fifteen bullets gives Dinah more pressing matters to worry about. Her training kicking in, the former operative dove behind a piece of stone masonry before tucking and rolling towards some of the theatre benches.
Bullets whiz by Dinah, many of them coming alarming close to hitting her; but she manages to avoid the worst of it, just barely. A bullet had grazed her shoulder, but it wouldn't do much more than leave a bruise; thank god it had only been a G17 and not that monster weapon Tula had been shot with.
"Fucking asshole." The words barely audible as they're muttered under her breath.
"I mean you no harm," Aethera begins, raising her hands. Admittedly, she does look like a shiny metal robot lady, but apparently she's a peaceful one?
"I came in to see — this place was majestic once; I couldn't quite believe what has happened to it. I'm not — "
But her words are cut off by a shot and a splash of blood and scale armor from Tula, and Aethera cries out in horror as well. The first thing she does is to throw a shield up in front of her — glistening electrical energy shimmers before her, but it seems that the man isn't immediately aiming at her. He's mightily difficult to get a bead on, too, but the woman's going to try: she raises a hand and fires out a bolt of lightning. It ought to arc to the barrel of the gun he's carrying.
"You won't get away with this!" Her voice booms in her helmet like a real Golden Age hero. What's she doing in a Grime Age place like this?
Lunair has an odd fate. Fighting and violence seem to find her, even when she's trying to avoid it. She just wanted to stretch her legs and explore a little. Maybe get some noms, pick off a few mobsters. Just the usual, really.
But now, she has no such luck. Fortunately, she's near enough to the shooting to hustle in towards the theatre. If she can fit through the door, she's going to try to. Or get in some how. Wait, holy shit, is that - who is - shooting? There's a sympathetic look for the fallen Atlantean. So shiny, so sad seeming. She had a pretty good point. She considers the man trying to shoot the women and he seems to be the main target. On one hand, a part of her DESPERATELY wants to railgun something. On the other, this space is really too small. So laser cannon it is! Pew pew! Motes of white light dance around a silver barrel. Except there's no pew noise. She's a little more dignified than that, twerker or not.
Spearhead is walking calmly to the doors of the theater, untill, that is, he hears the guns go off. Spearhead rushes to the door, stopping near the hinges and takes momentary cover in the doorframe. "Well, from the sounds of it, lets just go big to start with…" he pulls the bag off his back, opening it as soon as it's off, and pulls put the Machine gun, feeding the belt of ammo from the box to the gun, and pulling the chargeing handle, "Maybe I should take a trip to the Middle East, could use to get a 50 cal, I think I could use one these days…" Spearhead brings the gun up to his face, aiming down the sights, he opens the door as quietly as he can, then enters it room-clearing style, fireing at the obvious crazy guy in the room.
The round that hit Tula ricochets off and tears a hole in the brick wall the size of a large trashcan lid, blowing out a portion of the mural as it goes. On the ground Tula cries out, her hands going to her hip where whatever it was that hit her has done actual real damage. She peels her fingers away to reveal the Atlantean battlearmour torn clear and the flesh beneath it shredded all the way to the pelvic bone there, which is likely what caused it to bounce clear in the first place. She flops back on the floor and growls an angry sound, "LAWTON!" She bellows as she tries to use her one good leg to push herself out of the middle of the entrance way, leaving a smear behind her as she goes.
The arc of lightning should hit the gun that Deadshot holds, of the mass of his metal armor, instead it arcs wide, running through the grounded rebar exposed by the slowly disolving structure of the ruin they're in. Old Detroit buildings are /rife/ with metal, the stuff is /everywhere/ after all, it's a city built on steel and concrete and it's hayday was in the era of such things.
"Oh jesus!" Deadshot's voice calls out, carrying over the sounds echoing all over the place, "You brought friends?! I thought you were a hero! All about fair play and what not, you and me, mano a fisho! You just can't trust anyone in goofy armor wearing a punch bowl for a helmet these days. Where have all the heros gone??" he asks in mock lamenting tones. "Man, if only I had suspected I would be outgunned, I would have brought in some back up… oh… wait. That's right." his target eye peers around the corner and a G36 with twin drum mags comes with him, "I did." and suddenly the entire theatre entrance is filled with a hail of gunfire.
The problem with fighting a guy who's an expert marksman is that he's an EXPERT MARKSMAN. On full automatic he seems to have an uncanny ability to place every single round where he wants it, an almost superhuman control of a weapon that should be bucking entirely out of his hands is instead used with a sort of casual grace that's more then a little alarming. The rounds are steel cored and armor peircing, and they begin to chew large chunks out of Dinah's cover with ease. The ricochets from this manage to land about 1 in 3 on Aethera's shield, hammering it heavily.
In the front of the theatre, where Spearhead just walked past and is just now poking his head inside, and where Kate is trying to find high ground, the snow layering the earth shifts, and six men in sleek black power armor stand up, revealing themselves from cover. Their weapons do not fire bullets, and Spearhead is the first to realize this as something far hotter then a bullet sizzles it's way past his head instantly melting a hole in the metal of the door he was slowly shouldering open, spraying glowing red liquid aluminum all over the place. These men do not talk. They do not banter. They merely raise their energy weapons and begin blindly turning the inside of the theater's entrance into a discotech of death.
Eventide can make out the gun being used and — more or less — the kind of ammunition just by listening from above. SHIELD training. Maybe not every Agent can do that sort of thing, but then again, not every Agent was born for the job.
What confuses the blue-wearing vigilante is when a laser beam slices through the floor near her and shoots up into the ceiling above her. Lasers. Not her forte. Hell, her costume is made of flammable spandex — she just relies on her super-tough skin. And she's not sure that skin can take a round from the guns going off down there. So she needs a way in that isn't just heroically punching a bullet with her brain. She creeps her way to the theatre's catwalk above the stage.
This is clearly not the time to screw around. Now is the time to remember everything Clint taught Kate that he never wanted her to have to use. Step one: Cover. Whoever is inside is going to have to wait a moment, because you can't help anyone if you're hurt yourself. Kate ducks behind an abandoned relic of Detroit steel, reaching back to check her shafts for the least pleasant things she can find. Like the incendiary tips.
Lawton isn't the only expert marksman on the scene. Kate takes a breath, then pops up from behind the car to rapid-fire three arrows in a row at the black-clad attackers - choosing groupings when she can, hoping to take out more than one with each arrow - before ducking down behind the engine block again.
One of the armor piercing rounds whips past Dinah, causing her to double take as she searches for a way to get a little closer to her target. Working with a team made things far easier, she could get someone to cover her; right now she didn't have that luxury.
She calls out to Tula and the near-by Aethera, "Don't you just love a night out at the theatre?" Doing her best to look around the room, she tries to come up with some sort of plan of action but it was going to be tough while pinned down.
The steel-cored, armor-piercing bullets are not in fact that dire or deadly for Aethera's shield — that is, not if she concentrates. It takes a fair amount of power; then again, she is, effectively, a living arc reactor. So she's got that going for her. Still, a fair bit of that power goes to keeping her and her suit running, and she's having to shift the strength of those shields to avoid the bullets flying.
Then again, she could just… not do that.
Leaping into the air, Aethera shifts the shield beneath her. Ricochets and even direct shots might still reach her, but at least fewer shots by chance should be able to. And as horrible and dangerous as Deadshot is himself, he's only one man. The men splattering molten metal all over the place, however, are something Rather Else. There's metal everywhere. Her usual tactics might not be working. But she wouldn't be a super-genius — or indeed still alive — if she wasn't resourceful. So she redirects her shields, deflecting what she can from around herself — her armor is more than it seems, after all — but focusing mainly on putting a strong globe around the men with the molten guns. If they can't shoot out, they can't hurt anyone else. This might well be more efficient than trying to shield the other people here.
A"Positively grand!" she calls back. "But I think those gentlemen there have no taste for culture!"
Lunair is a really, really good marksman! Especially for her age and everything! While her melee score is *Nelson Laugh*, she's good at shootin', boyz. Though, she is not a Floyd Lawton. She lacks quite a few bits for that (and she isn't about to ask about /his/. She is a gentlewoman and a scholar. Albeit kind of a murderous one). Fortunately for Lunair, she has armor that she likely figured out from some video game set in a sci fi universe (she likes the look of full armor, so sue her), so she won't just splatter but she's not keen on standing and being shot. Cover is good.
"I'd make a witty quip, but I got banned from combat dialogue." Pause. Sigh. No time to think about it. Only time for fight. If lasers aren't gonna do it, then railgun it is. Like a demented ferret coked out on a pack of pixie sticks, Lunair pops back out with the rail gun, though she yelps and ducks as shots go by. The odds are ever not in her favor on this one. Still, that's not gonna stop her.
Expert Marksmen, seems theres a few in this crowd, Spearhead is among them, and though he is caught off guard by the shot, he rolls to some cover, popping up immediatly and fireing quick bursts into the four shooting at him, aiming for the small area between their breastplate and the helmet, which looks like the best place to shoot, adrenaline flowing. Normally, he would shoot for shomething less lethal looking, but lately, that hasn't been working well for him, and right now, he doesn't feel like swiss cheese self…
Tula growls as she rips open a small pouch on her good hip and withdraws what looks like a seaweed sheet of some kind. She quickly presses it to her hip and it covers most of the wound, instantly sticking to the skin and creating a sort of seal as it bonds. She groans and reaches out to grip her wrist, hauling up a small holographic display and entering two quick commands. The backpack like small bump between her shoulders shifts and two spines extend outward, driving down into the sides of her neck and Tula instantly begins to breath better. The spines retract and she tries to catch her breath. A quick glance around and her mouth firms into a line, "Machine!" she says, screaming Aethera's direction, "covering fire there!" she points towards Black Manta's mens direction. Tula is commander of The Drift, Atlantis' answer to Navy SEALs, working with a team, giving orders, it's right up her alley. "Dinah, make him move!" she's still pointing in Deadshot's direction. "We're boxed in here, make the hole! You!" she bellows at Spearhead, not knowing what to call him at all and just assuming that since Black Manta's men just shot at him he's on her side, "Duck." she commands before reaching behind her, ripping up a large chunk of marble counter top and then slinging it through the front of the building like a large stone frisbee. "Deadshot is /mine/!" that's said with a nasty growl, a growl that's accentuated by bared teeth, a slight foaming around her mouth, and veins that are suddenly very visible in her neck and temples… Tula smash?
Deadshot can hear Tula's commands and is already countering them into his own coms unit, warning the men outside of what's coming even as Aethera attempts to enclose them in a bubble of her own. They move like well trained men would, and even as the bubble catches two of them, they pull glowing energy blades and begin pressing them through the shield, slowly, leaning into the resistence as they ready other odd looking devices from their belts. One of the men that was dodging a suddenly airborne hunk of marble goes down in a heap, his hand clutching his throat and his weapon falling from his fingers. He thrashes in the snow while one of his compariots gathers himself after taking a glancing blow from the countertop. Sadly, that leaves two fully functional men to draw beads on Spearhead and begin attempting to carve him into small chunks with particle weapons fire, an effort twarted entirely as the snow around everyone of the black armored soldiers goes up in instant massive clouds of steam. The transition is so fast that the expanding gases act like a grenade, WHUMPING outward as the chemical tipped heads of Kate's arrow impact the below freezing tempatures. One of the men that was firing at Spearhead finds it a somewhat difficult task being as one of the arrows landed between his feet and he's currently upside down and cartwheeling about twelve feet in the air.
Deadshot, having heard what's coming, desides he's done playing around and just tosses something into the main entrance. When it lands, it seems to break apart, bits of it rolling every which way… A bundle of frag grenades. He was about to toss another when the cover he's been using is suddenly sands a large chunk of itself and a smoking hole is in it's place. He blinks and looks through the hole to Lunair's weapon of choice. "Oooo. Want. Gimme." he says to no one at all.
Even amidst the loud gunfire — and laser squealz — breaking from every direction — the clink of grenades rolling until they stop stands out to Eventide. Everyone here already has the moves they can make and strategies they can map out limited by being caught in the crossfire between two rival parties — knives sitting in on an unrelated gunfight.
Eventide has to act fast. Taking full-on the risk that she might get shot, or errantly lasered into deli-sliced servings, she uses one of the theatre's sandbags to swing herself into a leap — and tackle…
…Black Canary! But why? Et tu, Ronnie?
The answer comes a half-second later as the frag grenade that had rolled right near Black Canary explodes. Shrapnel and fire claim Eventide's back as her tackle shields Dinah, but she sacrifices her dignity to do it, as not only does the explosion knock her out (probably rattling her extra-dense skull right to concussion city), but the fire from the explosion treats those nearby to the smell of burnt spandex melting to human ass.
Kate likes it here behind the car. It's probably not full and complete cover - not when those sorts of weapons are in play - but at least it's some cover. And she's not standing where she's a clear target. Also a plus. But there are still armored and armed men out here, and they look like trouble. Not to mention whatever's going on inside.
The next arrow is a riot-control sort, a flash-bang that also releases tear gas, aimed directly at the men in black.
Aethera isn't exactly a team player, usually. Not that she isn't willing; she's just rarely had the chance. This may be the first time anyone's given her orders in a situation like this. But she obeys nevertheless — she starts hurling lightning bolts down toward the men she doesn't currently have behind a shield. Keeping that shield up, though, is proving quite difficult.
Grenades! Dinah was not prepared for an entire bundle of Fragmentation Grenades; she hadn't even seen them thrown towards her and the others until it was too late. Thankfully, Eventide is there; her unknown and unseen until the last moment savior who rescues her like something out of a stage performance.
"Nice entrance." When she notices that the Eventide is unconscious and mostly unharmed, she mutters silent thanks that would need to be given properly when the other woman was conscious once more.
She had to act, whether it meant she would be injured or not. Men like Deadshot didn't deserve to walk the streets.
Lunair has a railgun. Only her railgun! While she doesn't get any orders, Lunair can grasp vengeance and 'that one is mine'. Nevertheless, there's - oh. Huh. Frag grenades. "Ooooh…" That's so not good. Tonight, we dine indoors! Lunair darts away, like a startled fish into the next little bit of rubble cover, though that's running out fast. And really, the concussive force is like a motivation swat to the backside. She lands face first and pushes herself with her legs, looking like the world's most militarized caterpillar. At least she has fiendishly awesome armor ripped straight out of sci fi. The rail gun goes with her. To spite her, a chunk of rubble bounces off her helmet. It's just a tiny bit, but !
At least she can help Tula by bothering Deadshot with the railgun. She'll follow the hole up. Too bad he's too far away for her to really hear the gimme or she might've made a rail gun fan friend. Funny how that works.
Spearhead only halfway catches what the woman barking out orders to everyone says, as he sees the opprotunity to make a move, he takes it, while the steam obscures the one armored, persons vision, Spearhead jumos over his cover, dashes in the direction of the man, and positions himself in a different angle to him, hopeing to catch him off guard to rush in with a knife drawn and burry it into the artery rich armpit of the armored man. The granade doesn't dystract Spearhead, who is entirely dedicated to this kill.
Spearhead hasn't truely heard the orders barked at him. As the teargas starts comeing out, Spearhead presses a button on the underside of his helmet, "Oxygen system, engage." and the system starts a flow on precious pure air. Spearhead is now fighting in the midst of the steam and tear-gas, his helmet systems comeing in quite handy now, highlighting heat-signatures in the chaos, Spearhead looks for something to shoot, makeing sure to note cover lest a target find /him/ first!
KA-FUCKING-BO-OO-OO-OO-OO-OOM!!
; gets a full two steps before the grenades begin to go off, the concussive force of one lifting her from her feet and throwing her like a rag doll clean through a support pillar, crumbling the concrete and twisting the rebar like it was spagetti noodles wrapped in styrofoam. By the time she struggles to her feet, there is blood trickling from the Atlantean's ears and bits of shrapnel are literally sticking out of her skin, poking through small missing bits of her armor. Her helmet is missing entirely. She can hear nothing now, enhanced hearing is great until someone lets off a few thosand rounds and a dozen grenades within fifty or so feet of you. Unsteady on her feet she wobbles and uses what's left of a wall to hold herself up, her lips pulled back into a gimace of pain and anger.
The entrance way of the theatre is a warzone. The consession counters are now only about a foot high and what what standing up before that became just so much debris only a second ago.
Deadshot boggles, "WHY WONT YOU JUST STAY DOWN!?" Seriously, she's just like Aquaman right? Fucking Aquaman. The fish guy. Sure he was tough-ish, but Floyd took him out with four not so little bullets. Why won't this bitch drop!? He darts out from his cover, dropping the assault rifel so he can pull out a pair of small modified uzi's instead. He barely bothers to glance around, only giving a cursory look to those recovering from the blasts and begins to unload both weapons into Tula's struggling form as he advances on her, the armor peircing rounds hitting the Atlantean and tearing out chunks of flesh and armor in nearly equal proportions. When Lunair's shot misses him by so little space that it actually rips one of his utility belts off of him with a jerk, he barely even pauses twitches and instead points the Uzi her direction letting Luna have the other half of the armor piercing magazine in a buzzsaw sounding burst.
The front of the theatre just … ceases to be. Glass and shrapnel and brick all become one as they explode outward, showering Aethera, Spearhead, and a few bits even tinkle down around Kate. The walls absorbed most of the force when they were hit, so it just feels like a large hot wind that blows most of the steam away in a billowing cloud. One of the guards takes the knife in the armpit just as Spearhead intended, but arteries take time to kill someone and apparently this guy isn't big on caring about his. He reaches up to grip the back of Spearhead's helmet and then smashes his face downward into a vicious headbutt. He won't survive, but he's not dead yet. Someone should tell him. The tear gas arrow is largely ignored by the armored men, except that it gives the soldiers a bead on a new target, and so a pair of them, one still unharmed and another collecting himself from a fight with a marble discus, both turn to lay into Kate's cover, one of them cheats the soft 'pumpht!' of a grenade launcher the only warning Kate gets that her cover is about to become something else.
One of the men in the bubble shield manages to carve a tiny slice in Aethera's shield, and is now cramming a small box into the hole, a box which begins to expand , pushing against Aethera's power like it was forcing open a doorway in the bubble. Seriously, who /are/ these guys? One of the others, about to fire another grenade Kate's direction takes a sudden jolt of electricty and untintentionally discharges his weapon right at his own feet, sending about half of him high enough in the air Aethera gets to be eye to eye with the majority of his torso for a second before he starts a limp tumble back to earth.
Time to run! The theater is turning to rubble, so there's no reason for anyone to fire a grenade into it, which means…Yeah, no, that's not a good sign. At the sound of the launcher, Kate takes off at an angle away from the car, trying to maintain some cover while she runs, crouched low and defensive. They know where she is, so there's no reason not to lay down some cover fire as she dives. Two more incendiary tips are fired in a single draw, before she's tucking and rolling behind a dumpster.
Dinah was not the type of girl that you ignored and got away with it.
Springing off of the ground beside Eventide with acrobatic finess she leaped into the air, using the architecture in the area to quickly cover some of the distance between her target and her.
"Big mistake pal. AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
A sonic scream erupts from Dinah's vocal chords as she flies towards Deadshot, the target of the blast the man himself; notably his hands and the weapons he wields. She isn't toning down the force of her blast at all, making sure it's going to twist the metal of his weapons and shatter the bones in his hands.
She also doesn't care that the decibel level will be loud enough to make people's ears start to ring, potentially even bleed depending on proximity.
There are some things a woman must do on her own — or, at least, that it seems she would prefer to do on her own. Aethera is keeping an eye on Tula's fight nevertheless, because if the woman does indeed call for help, she intends to give it. But she has more pressing matters at hand.
The torso that flies by is rather distressing, but the metal face shows no emotion. Unsurprising, that. What's QUITE surprising is what the Black Manta's men are doing to her shields. "That — shouldn't be possible!" she gasps. The blue crystal lenses over her eyes gleam in the light and she shoots downward, sending a massive, arcing bolt of lightning through the aperture they've managed to make in her force fields.
Which is, as luck would have it, more or less when Dinah's cry goes off.
She would have a comically puzzled and pained look on her face as the entirety of her suit rings like a gong. But, well, metal. It's actually quite a lovely sound, though it must be admitted that the crystalline clear tones of perfectly tuned metal vibrating like a musical instrument make a lovely effect in the once-majestic theater.
Knocks Aethera reeling, though.
Well. Lunair totally has grenade envy. She also feels an immense sadness for the poor ocean lady. But Lunair suspects there's no time for a hug and stuff like that. The chaos around her is more than a little startling. She curses quietly, as she just baaaarely misses Deadshot. "Why are you so wiggly!?" SIGH. Just get railed alrea— oh. See, this is probably why Lunair gets banned from combat dialogue. There's explosions, Dinah going all metal band on Floyd and injuries about. While Lunair has played on sheer luck, it's running out and she gets handily grazed several times. Fortunately, nothing serious, but there are grooves and blood welling up in her armor where he hit. She makes a note to improve that later. Alarmingly, her armor freaking repairs itself. "THAT'S JUST RUDE, SIR." She's nothing, if polite.
She stands to shoot, gets knocked over by a concussive wave, faceplants with backside in the air, stands back up, arms flailing and then takes another pot shot. Back down now. And thankfully, from having Winter Soldier chuck a flashbang at her (what is it with Lunair, Winter and flash bangs?), she knows to have her armor respond accordingly. But Dinah is not a flash bang (she is also a gentlewoman and a scholar), and while Lunair gets SOME protection, it's still enough to make Lunair wince. Eeeargh. "owowow. Still not as bad as One Direction, ow." Curl a little.
Tula falls back against the wall as she's hammered by dozens of rounds, rounds that would turn a human being to swiss cheese instead gouge deep bleeding gashes into her chest and abdomen, a trio of them are aimed directly at her forehead but after splitting her skin open bounce off of her skull leaving only a small fracture behind. The punishment she soaks in a second and a half is staggering and when Canary's scream rips the guns out of Lawton's hands and sends them clattering away, she slides down the wall in a blood wreck, the impact of the bullets the only thing that had been keeping her on her feet.
Deadshot goes for a little tumble, likely the only thing that save him from taking Lunair's rail gun round to the chest, and instead he's sent spinning and the round passes through his calf, leaving a neat hole in passing. "GAAAAAAAH!" he screams as his fingers break and he lands in a skid. Not one to go down so easy (and you know he has a deathwish) he raises one of his ruined hands Dinah's way, "Women should be seen and not heard." he counters, and the gun that is attached to his forearm, part of his iconic kit, sends a trio of rounds at her center mass, no working fingers needed.
The two soldiers in the bubble were /just/ about to climb out when they find themselves on the receiving end of a lightning bolt strike, contained in the bubble as they are, they can't ground out and the sparks dance and fly over their armor until both drop smoking and limp into the bubble's bottom curve. The man hammering his helmet against Spearhead's drops the hero when he goes limp, and grunts as the knife slips out of his armpit complete with a sudden wet splatter of copious amounts of blood. He bends over to scoop up his rifel but his hands don't seem to work and he instead faceplants into the snow. His fingers weakly claw for the energy weapon until they go still seconds later, never to move again.
And then there was one. Doing a quick look around at the remains of his squad and the front of the theatre in question, he fires a few more glowing lines of energy Kate's direction before her falling arrow turns the entire front of the theatre once more into an inpenitrible steam cloud with a loud bang and hiss. When the steam clears the soldier is gone, having clearly given up the fight. The only shots left seem to be coming from inside the theatre itself.
And it is a noisy mess inside the theater. There's a moment where Kate eyes the building and almost doesn't try. It would be the easy thing. It would probably be the smart thing. But it wouldn't be the heroic thing to do. She pops out from behind the dumpster, checking her lines, then dashes across the snow back to the side of the theater, making for any high windows or anywhere she can get a clean shot at whatever the problem is.
She really isn't expecting this guy to have a gun pop out of his arm, even though she had not long ago dealt with a man who had a gun for an arm. The shots from Deadshot hit Dinah directly in her chest and ribs; knocking her back.
She was out of breath, leaning against the wall; her lightweight body armor had stopped the rounds from penetrating. There was a witty retort on the tip of her tongue to Deadshot's nonsense but she was too winded to say it.
That simply will. not. do.
Aethera comes to her senses in time to see Dinah thrown against the wall by the bullets. In time to see Tula collapse to her knees. In time to hear that vile little comment from that vile little man.
She scoops up one of the energy weapons, flinging up a hand toward Dinah. A sphere of prickly energy — staticky but not actually painful — buzzes around her. It should protect her unless she gives it a good shove from within.
And then? Aethera's turning toward Deadshot again. More of that coruscating light shimmers around her as she reaches up to open the face-plate of the beautifully worked helmet. Inside? A young woman, no older than twenty-five, even looking a bit pale and sickly. Fair-haired, blue-eyed, her pretty face wrinkled with disgust.
"We had men like you when I fell asleep," she says. "What a shame they are not all extinct. But perhaps one more may be."
Tula DID say that she wanted to be the one to take him down. But Tula herself is down. She may even be dead, may be dying, and Aethera can't help her. But when she turns that energy weapon on Deadshot and opens fire (or tries; hopefully she CAN fire the thing), at the very least she'll be a marvelously shiny distraction.
Almost. Nailed it. ALMOST. Pout. So close and yet SO FAR. At least Lunair doesn't shoot people in the groin. That would be just messed up, Butters. "I think he's baiting you," Lunair offers. Lunair seems grumpy about her missed shot. Ponder. But if people want him alive or whatever, Lunair can do that. Wait. Actually. A better idea! If anyone's played Team Fortress 2, they might recognize the Medic's healing gun. And to the X-men's credit (or at least Cal, she'll have to thank him later for making video games her homework), she's gotten lots and lots of movies and video games to draw from.
And draw she does! The ole Quick-Fix gun. Time to turn a healing ray on Tula. "Time for doctor-assisted homicide~" She's awfully cheerful. "No, wait. I'm not a doctor. Nevermind."
Deadshot grins under his mask as Aethera picks up the energy weapon and tosses her sheild around Canary, "Oh sweetie," he says as she pulls the trigger and the weapon makes a sound like a toy gun, metal on metal clicking and nothing happening, "you've never met a man like me." and he raises his other arm without actually getting up from his sprawled possition and fires a trio of rounds at her. Unlike his right, which held ordinary rounds, his left wrist gun has explosive shells, the kind that hit something, then explode from behind forcing a steel core through whatever cause the first impact. They're the sort of rounds you fire to kill men inside an armored car.
Tula is gasping for air, her body torn and ripped at, a skull fracture, at least a few broken ribs, she's worried about her lungs as well, since every breath is agony and she feels like she's breathing through water… only she's on land. The pain is intense, and her vision is a small spot of light in a dark dark tunnel, and all she can see is Deadshot, taking out Dinah, shooting at the nice robot lady, watch him almost systematically dropping people. With guns. The pain begins to recede and she knows what that means, her body is shutting down, her nervous system is blocking off paths, trying to triage the damage. She's sad really. Not just that she failed, not that she'll never see home again, not that her King is dead or her allies are being murdered before her eyes. Mostly it's that she never understood why he did it. Why he protected these people. Maybe though, there was something there. Something small. Most of these people are strangers, and they picked up her fight, for what reason? None that she can see. They ran towards danger, not away, into gunfire and explosions, and that's a rare thing, even for an Atlantean. She reaches up over her head and feels the concrete wall behind her, then she grunts and coughs, blood splattering through her lips. Her fingers sink into the concrete, five little holes punched into the hard walls and she tugs, once, twice, then comes away with a handful of cement. She feels better, like seriously, vision clearing a bit, pain's going away, but the exhaustion remains. Her arm cocks to the side and she takes a breath, gathering her strength… then snaps it outward. The three pound hunk of wall canons off of Deadshot's metal jacketed helmet, denting it and ringing him like a bell. "You," she sputters at him, "are an ass' hole." she may not have the idioms of the surface world correct, but her aim ain't half bad.
Floyd Lawton never even sees if his bullets hit Aethera, what with all that unconsciousness turning out all the lights.
Kate reaches the balcony levels just in time to see Tula's shot…and the carnage inside. Usually, she's pretty okay with her bow. Right now? Yeah, she's feeling a little outgunned on the destruction scale. As Lawton goes down, she draws one more arrow - a tranquilizer. Just in case he was feeling like getting back up. Carefully, she aims for whatever weak spot she can find in the armor - a joint, anything that offers a crack. Then looses.
"So…" she calls down from the balcony. "You guys want me to call SHIELD, or the Justice League?"
Dinah didn't care who they called, when she catches her breath she gives Tula a thumbs up, "Looks like you got your man, I'd offer to take him back with you but I imagine you can handle it. It was fun, call me anytime." She just really had no desire to go to Atlantis, she liked her feet on land.
"Great work to the rest of you. Maybe we'll meet again sometime." She heads out to leave before any authorities arrive.
Aethera had been expecting something like this, yes. A grenade. Some nasty bullets.
The armor-busters were a bit of a shock.
She'd relied on her armor to protect her, and the instant before those steel cores shot out, she was rather pleased with herself and her armor for having been able to take care of the present so neatly.
But. Well. Inside that armor she does happen to be rather fleshy.
She does at least manage to stay upright when she takes those couple of steps sharply back. And she has time to give Tula a rather fond, pleased look as she wobbles there. The shield fizzles away from around Dinah, and the armored lady nods her approval.
"Whoever he is," she says, "I expect he deserves what he's going to get." A trickle of bright red blood courses down her gleaming armor.
"Ah — and if you would be kind enough," she adds, stumbling backward, "if someone could ensure I get sent to the Starks in New York City? I'm in need of repair and medical attention and I'm not sure who apart from them can — " Cough. Blood. Ugh. That's not great.
Lunair is going to keep that healing ray on Tula. It's an elegant blue beam from around her cover. She doesn't comment on Tula's idiom grasp. Everyone learns the curse words early, because those are the most common (and generally useful) words. Lunair looks up, "Whomever you choose, you may wish to bring an ambulance. I uh… should probably get going once -" Lunair doesn't know Tula's name. "She feels better." Yes. Though, despite the armor, Kate might recognize Lunair.
"Anyway, people might worry if I don't turn up sooner or later." Says Captain Kidnapping Is An Alternate Form of Transport. "I can probably help you get to New York City if no one else is heading that way. Otherwise, I'm gonna - not be visible - and stuff." Cough. She's not inclined to stick around too long.
Authorities? It's Detroit… Sure, there was an explosion, but this city has more arsons per year then any other two /combined/. Firemen will be out this way… prolly in the next hour. Maybe a few lookie lues, but authorities? This isn't the part of town where the cops show up for a little thing like machine gun fire. "Justice League." Tula says as she looks down at herself, her brow knitting carefully. She… can move. She tests out her breathing, it's better, and then rolls over onto her hands and knees… Huh. Usually she'd need a week or more with the physikers for something like this, and water, lots of water. She wobbles on her feet, but stands none the less. "My King had friends on the League, they knew him." and she kinda sorta did smash up some SHIELD tech and a helicarrier not to long ago. Not that there's /proof/ persay, but you know… best not to test them. She stumbles her way over to the unconscious man and then takes a knee. She reaches out and unceremoniously crushes each of the guns on his wrists, warping them beyond repair, and tehn reaches up to use her fingers to crinkle his helmet mask all to bits as well, including shattering the ocular that is his only way to see out of it. She then sits back on her heels, looking from the blue ray to herself and back again. She checks her wounds, "I will be fine, I just need… water…" she offers the smallest smile and nods Aethera's way, "Help her." Tula comes from a land where things like healing magic aren't new, so she just figures Lunair's got some thing like working on her now.
"I've got Stark's number," Kate nods to Aethera, slipping her bow over her shoulder and pushing up her very ordinary sleeves as she jogs over to the woman in armor. With nothing more than a bow, in jeans and a jacket, she doesn't necessarily look like she belongs in all this chaos. And yet, there she is. "Are you taking him?" she asks Tula as she shrugs out of her jacket, thumbing a bluetooth earpiece on to start calling Stark tower. Meanwhile, she's looking for the source of the blood, ready to put pressure on it. There's a slight nod for Lunair, a brief, encouraging smile, but blood makes crisis number one.
"Ah. Good. Excellent. Because I might be going into hibernation now." Aethera smiles brightly, but her expression is somewhat glazed as she gently tips backward. Her shoulders go 'tink' against the wall, her face mask closes, and she… well, for all intents and purposes, goes into hibernation mode. Like a laptop. A laptop with fleshy bits inside. Best not to think about how all that works.
Lunair nods to Kate, then. She will do what Tula says, in regards to Aethera. She doesn't stay too long. "Okay. I have a bottle of water if you want it," Lunair remarks. "I didn't drink out of it yet." But it's the thought that counts, right? If Tula wants the water bottle, Lunair will give it to her. She does smile back to Kate, but there are tasks at hand, it's true. Lunair will head out once things are reasonably stable and go.
Tula shakes her head at the offer of water, "The snow outside will suffice, there is plenty of it." she reaches down stiffly and with a grunt drags Deadshot up over her shoulder and settles him into a fireman's carry. "Atlantis thanks you for your service." she says to the women surrounding her, "When the time comes she will show her thanks in a more material way then I can manage." she then turns to go, stopping to fish (pun unintended) something out of her armor and hands it to Kate, "Inject that into her when you need her conscious. It will shut down pain receptors and increase cardiac function while stimulating cell regeneration." it looks oddly alive, like tech and biology merged into a translucent sac of some kind filled with a slightly viscous yellowy fluid and attached to a hollow tiped spine that doubles as a needle. "Should make her feel really good for a short while. When it wears off she'll be exhausted however, so becareful how you use it, and avoid mixing it with any of your medicines that come from the little flower. The pain killers." she scoops up her helmet with an awkward stiff looking bow, and then struggles on her way with her burden, shoulder body Deadshot and the cumulative wounds of to many days fighting assassins. She stops in the snow outside and looks up at the sky for a moment before smiling and walking on. She's going home.
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