2014-03-06 - Shadow Games: A Deal Gone Wrong

Mealtide Municipal Railyard - Bludhaven

The rail yard is cold and quiet. Especially this part, its not used anymore except for storage and a few of the cars have been here so long theyve begun to rust. Though one of them is new, its been pushed down a stretch of usable track to rest between a couple of rusted out freight cars to provide cover for the deal thats about to go down. Parked beside the car is a pair of SUVs, black, slick and modern, and their occupants have spilled out into the yard. Asian men, young, fit for the most part, tattoos showing above the collars of their shirts and the cuffs of their winter jackets. Two, guys with some stripe of Kalishnakov stand watch, some have climbed into the rail car and are moving boxes, the others just keep close watch around the woman. Shes tall for someone from her part of the world, fit, wearing a long white coat, and matching white mask in the shape of the face of a Lynx. She has swords on her back and watches the men around her with an air of authority.

Meet Lynx, the head of Gothams branch of the Golden Dragons. An expert martial artist, tactician, and swordswoman.

Some new lights appear in the rail yard, more SUVs, these ones a little more beat up. They stop when the lookouts flag them down. The doors open and outsteps the Outsider gang, or some of it anyhow. Eight guys, various races, no common clothing or gang colours, just winter clothing and weapons. When the eight guys are out, a ninth joins them hes dressed in a black leather trenchcoat over high-end body armour, when the coat shifts, a pair of holsters are visible on his hips. Though the thing that stands out is the mask, matte grey, vaguely beak like, with a pair of dark eye slits.

Meet the Crimesmith, Bludhavens number one most wanted criminal.

The Crimesmith and his men walk forward and he shakes hands with Lynx. One of his men with a duffle bag over his shoulder unslings it at a word from the Crimesmith and puts it on the ground. One of the Golden Dragons checks it out, predictably its full of cash. Lynx nods to the boxes by the door of the train car, that her men open. Predictably theyre full of guns, big ones. Assault rifles, some SMGs just the thing for a gang in a gang war with the Golden Dragons enemies the Hanoi Ten. THe joy of the semi-abandoned portion of the yard is that it provides cover not only for the criminals, but those who watch them. Nightwing looks from the top of an old tanker car, looking through nightvision binoculars. He frowns as he analyzes the scene, muttering to himself, "Heh, looks like he really is alive." Nightwing tries to see if there is anything to give away Crimesmith's identity, a walk, or tone of voice, anything.

Robin is nearby but not on the same tanker car as Nightwing because that would be tactically stupid. Instead, his location is a bit more stealthy, as he's more along the side of where Lynx happens to be. He's got his eyes on her... for some reason. "She looks like she could use a makeover or two." Robin mutters into his comm as he immediately switches his lenses into Detective Mode. He's always scanning for something or anything that may or may not be useful in the coming moments or near future. Its just part of his nature.

"Your show, Nightwing." is what he says to make sure Nightwing knows he's waiting on his word to make any moves. By the by, recording equipment is already operational and making sure to pick up on anything those criminals are chit-chatting about. Right into Robin's wrist computer. Also backed up. Twice. Wirelessly. To servers in the Redbird.

Both Robin and Nightwing have seen the Crimesmith before, and it's pretty clear after only a couple of moments of watching that this is not that Crimesmith. He moves differently, the last one was a scientist, an inventor, this one moves with the lethal confidence of someone who can handle themselves in a fight, and knows how to use those guns on his hips. The rest of his men look a little less confident, street thugs, armed with big guns.

Speaking of big guns, the Outsider gang guys starts moving crates to their SUV, Robin's scanners identifying the weapons as Chinese Type 56 assault rifles, Chinese made versions of the AK-47.

The Crimesmith speaks to Lynx, his voice modulated by something in his helmet "We appreciate the help, we might need more."

Lynx nods "Say the word, same guns, same price," she confirms.

"Excellent," the Crimesmith says before he offers his hand again.

They shake and the Crimesmith turns back towards the SUVs and Lynx does the same. Though behind Nightwing's position, there is the sound of more cars entering the yard, three of them, big cars older models, riding low. Nightwing grumbles and mutters into the comm, "Pay attention on Crimesmith, Lynx is a known quantity. Make sure we can analyze that sound data later." The sound of cars behind him catches his attention and he is soon speaking into the comm again, "Heads up, new guests at the party." The former Robin scowls and makes sure a wingding is ready, "This Crimesmith is different, be careful, something tells me this is a trap."

Robin is already on that. "I see 'em. They don't look like any calvary I've ever seen." Robin says, while making a mental note of the gun types and pressing a button or two to mark the sound records for analyzation later. He narrows his eyes a bit more, before shifting in his position to get a hand on his utility belt. He's moved to a crouched position, sticking to the shadows that are nearest him to keep out of sight. "For the record, when is it /not/ a trap? I mean, really? Is it ever not?"

Robin's equipment is taking in as much as possible, whilst he's already looking for the best way to neutralize the situation that is about to occur. Because what's about to occur is what always occurs.

Nightwing says over comms "Robin, this is why we can't have easy, simple, just go and watch the baddies missions."

The lookouts spot the cars and the ones set by the Golden Dragons open fire using the same sort of weapons that they're selling the night is filled with the report of automatic fire. One of them yells out in Cantonese < It's the Hanoi Ten! >

Lynx's men start to react grabbing weapons, Lynx herself pulling out a sword and pointing to two men before she slips away into the shadows the men following her. The Crimesmith and the Outsider Gang, seem a little lost, for a moment before the Crimesmith draws a pistol and shouts "Get the guns out of here and starts falling back to their SUVs with the weapons.

The three cars, under fire, stop, forming a barricade across the entrance to this end of the yard and their occupants pile out and begin firing at the lookouts. "Yeah, just nice to notice it before hand, though it is also nice to not be the target." Nightwing grumbles, and speaks into the comm again, "Don't engage, it's suicide to do that, keep an eye on Crimesmith and that group. Let me know if you need anything."

Dammit. Robin is torn. He definitely wants to keep an eye on Lynx but this could get messy and he can't leave Nightwing here to deal with this by himself. "Aw, come on. We could take these jerks in our sleep. It's not like either of us are Batwing." Robin holds his ground, though, even as he looks off into the shadows where Lynx disappeared to. He'll have to do some research in the Cave when all this is over.

"... we can't just let the bodies pile up, Nightwing." Robin's already attempting to figure out the best possible neutralization option. Detective Mode: GIVE HIM SOMETHING HE CAN WORK WITH!

The fire fight continues as the Golden Dragons round, or in some cases go under the train cars to engage the Hanoi Ten, adding more fire to the fight as bullets start to fly everywhere. A couple of the Hanoi Ten start to fall.

Into this comes the Outsider gang, all loaded up into their SUVs their shiny new guns locked and loaded. They open fire as the pull around the train cars, then, turn sharply skidding up rocks as they make a break for the far end of the yard, far away from the gun fight.

Lynx and her two men have vanished into the shadows heading towards the Hanoi Ten.

Tim's scanners in his mask record licence plates, some trace chemical residue on the Outsider's cars, as well as some trace chemicals on the tires of the still parked cars of the Golden Dragons. "Fine," Nightwing mutters, "Smoke bombs, and any other fun distractions you have in your handy dandy belt," He pulls out a smokebomb of his own and tosses it into the firefight. This is soon followed by a flare in a different direction. Nightwing then draws a wingding and sneaks as closely as he can and chucks it at one of the nearest gun, hoping to disarm the individual.

"Finally! Some exercise!"

Robin is taking off from his perch and gliding for a moment, as he hurls a handful of smoke pellets down into the fray. His body descends quickly, allowing him to plant his feet into the back of the skull of one particularly shoot-y criminal. Although, his hand is already outstretched to fire off a grapple line, that hooks onto something nearest and yanks him back upwards and in the general direction of where Lynx and her accomplices have made off to.

"Dibs on the ninjas!" And his staff is drawn from within his belt as he too makes his way, via the air, towards the Hanoi Ten. He releases his grip on the grapple line and drops in with a classic zinger, "Don't mind me! Just droppin' in!" Spinning Staff Extension.

The smoke bombs bring the gun fight up short. No sense spending ammo firing into a cloud. The Golden Dragons, Gotham natives, know what this means and a few of them utter surprised shouts of < Batman > in Cantonese. The Hanoi Ten are Bludhaven natives, and have been low key enough not to cross paths with Nightwing much. They are a little slower on the uptake. < What's going on? > they shout.

Then Robin and Nightwing press the attack. Nightwing's wingding rips a weapon from one of the Golden Dragon's hands. The man turns squinting into the smoke then he rushes forward kicking at the rough shape in the shadows that is Nightwing. Too slow, too messy to be much of a threat.

The Hanoi Ten glance up at the last second, one of them firing off a shot at Robin that passes through his cape before he's in the middle of them with his staff. Nightwing gets out his wingding with quick reflexes and soon has it coming down at the charging Golden Dragon's ankle.  He smiles and drawing his second wingding swings it at the man's head. Taking the opportunity, Nightwing takes another charge at the group through the smoke, swinging to disarm the nearest dragon.

Robin's movements are as smooth as silk and twice as fluid. He doesn't even seem to be working that hard as he spins and twirls that staff of his, blocking a foot here or a knife there, spinning on his heels and planting the staff into the side of skulls or sweeping legs. One after another those Hanoi Ten mooks hit the ground. Some are groaning. Some are bleeding. Others are attempting to crawl away. What is most important, though, is that Robin is turning to spin kick one of the last ones and coming to a dramatic (and oh so cinematically stylish) pose as the smoke around him makes him look even more boss to any particularly feline gang leaders that may be in the near vicinity.

"And that, ladies and gents, is how you salsa. Now. Any other requests?" The wingding hits the first Dragon and he screams clutching his face. He's out of the fight the next guy stumbles out of the mist into Nightwing's reach and barely has the time to turn before Nightwing has him disarmed and down as well. The rest start to fan out and get to somewhere outside of the smoke making them easy pickings.

The Hanoi Ten guys go down, and the ones that don't wish they did as Lynx and her men cut their way through them at close range. When they've been defeated, Lynx looks up at the form of Robin posed dramatically in the fading smoke. A small smile quirks on her lips and she takes a stance with her blood smeared swords. "I'd like a dance," she offers coyly waiting for Robin to make the first move, as she does she barks in Cantonese < Join with the others, deal with the other one > the two men rush towards Nightwing and the other Golden Dragons.

 Nightwing responds, taking down a couple more minions with well-struck eskrima sticks. "Be careful," he calls to Robin, "And remember, you can dance if you want to!" He chuckles as he strikes down another with a stick to the head. Lunging forward, Nightwing thrusts the stick into one man's knee, dropping him to the other, and smacking him on the head.

Robin moves a bit, making sure there's some space between himself and Lynx, while also making sure that there are no sudden traps about to come in his direction. Then again, Nightwing has his back so there's also that. His eyes are focused on what is likely to be his opponent for this particular evening. His blatant sizing her up is just to distract her from one of his hands being on his belt. "It's like prom all over again." is said with a sarcastic smirk, before he spins on his heels and hurls a pair of shuriken in Lynx's direction. "I'll lead." The moment they leave his hand, he's already lunging at her with the intent to trip her up with his staff. Clearly, he's expecting her to dodge the shuriken.

Nightwing has the first group of Golden Dragons handled, the other two are more cautious and level little compact SMGs at the hero and pull the trigger trying to spray him down where hand to hand had failed for the others.

Lynx is more classical in her approach a sword is dropped and flicks through the air to catch the throwing star, there's a second where she smirks then she throws it back cart wheeling to pick up her sword and come at Tim both blades flashing. At the sounds of gunfire, and fortunately they miss, Nightwing runs and dives behind a car, though not staying there long, lest they decide to turn on Robin. Poking his head up, and switching out the sticks for wingdings, he chucks them at the two men's guns, again hoping to disarm them.

The wingdings take out the guns. Leaving the men cradling their hands, while Tim and Lynx battle it out blade to bo. Though Lynx seeing the odds turn against her grabs one of Robin's flashbangs from his belt setting it off and when the flash has abated she's gone, and Tim is left dazed, a red lipstick mark on his cheek and the lingering scent of lotus blossoms left behind.

Her men, hands wounded and unarmed, surrender to Nightwing, getting on their knees, hands above their heads.

 Nightwing commands and gestures towards a storage crate with an open door, though rust has opened a hole in the roof of it, not letting them out of his sight until they are in and locks them inside. After ensuring that Tim was all right, Nightwing dials 911 on one of the villain's phones and informs the operator "Nightwing here, left a present for Bludhaven's finest in a storage crate here. There was an arms deal that went bad, please come clean it up. PS send an ambulance we got a guy who needs one," With that he helps Tim out towards their escape vehicle.

There isn't much resistance. The surviving men, there are four dead, hacked down by Lynx, and one Dragon dead from a Hanoi Ten bullet, move into the container and are bound. Another Dragon was shot as well, but some first aid saves his life. When they're secured, and the call to 911 is made Tim summons the Redbird, his car, and they're off before the sirens begin to echo through the rail yard.

Bat Cave - Gotham City

Upon the return to the cave, Robin excuses himself to get cleaned up and leaves Nightwing to deal with his erstwhile partner, Damian who is sitting at the Bat Computer looking over the data uploaded from Robin's sensors before the fight. "Dick," Damian greets as he looks up at the screen. He is dressed in his usual hoodie and jeans combo with a cup of cocoa in his hands while Bat Computer processes things. Nightwing grumbles as they return and takes off his mask, "Squirt." he responds, "Things got hairy in Bludhaven, Lynx and Crimesmith were there, and Crimesmith is different, actually walks like a killer, so I do not think it's the same guy, combined with the fact said guy is dead." He scowls and takes a seat, "But at least Robin got a voice sample, the guy was using a mixer, so we can maybe sort that out."

Damian glances back "Tt. What does squirt even mean?" he grouses as he works. He pulls up the file on Lynx on one screen and the Crimesmith on the other. Titling the new data as Crimesmith II. Then he pulls up the voice print from the files Tim uploaded, and runs the processor. Damian may not be much of a detective or patient investigator but he knows his way around the Bat Computer at least. "Running checks on the other data as well," he reports. "The plates all came back stolen; I know, I was shocked too. But detected residue is still being analyzed." Dick shrugs, "Just a thing often said to refer to children," he grins. "I know, shocking that stolen plates would be used in this case. Criminals have this nasty habit of breaking the law." Snark is evident, "We will do what we can on this, but that voice might be key, since we have those bugs in place."

"Not a child," Damian counters though at this point the banter has become a routine back and forth rather than anything hurtful. The boy-terror can't help but smile "Ah, is that why they call them criminals, so good to learn from a veteran crime fighter," he says before he looks up at the screen as the voice extraction counts its way up to one hundred percent complete.

Once it's ready Damian glances back, finger over the play button. "And here's our Crimesmith," he says and he plays back the recording, the modulator's efforts stripped away. It's a man's voice, with the faint accent of a native of New Jersey, and the way he shapes his words speaks of the poorer areas of Gotham or Bludhaven. The computer confirms that analysis, and provides a voice print to be compared against further samples. "Sound like anyone you know?" Damian asks. It does, lots of people, cops, crooks and civilians, who Dick runs into in his day to day. Though the voice print does elevate this above a needle in a haystack. "So you say," Dick says and listens to the sample, "Dang, yeah that doesn't help the most, but it is something. The accent might not fit, but maybe cross reference it with records from the Whaler's Club. Maybe we can get something out of that." He grumbles to himself, "Yeah, this might not give us much, but at least we know the gang he runs around with, those Outsiders, and that's something new.”

Damian nods and opens up the recording files on from the Whaler's Club as he sets up the system to start pulling voice prints from the recordings. He takes a sip of his cocoa, it's going to be a long night. "Will do, even if it's a bit low class for the Whaler's Club, perhaps it's one of the staff," he suggests. Then a thought strikes him. "Or if we can get me near some of those Outsiders," he pauses, plays back the recording and then closing his eyes he says "We appreciate the help, we might need more," in the voice of the Crimesmith. "Tt. I can do better, enough that I match the voice print 9 times out of 10, but, I talk to them in their bosses' voice maybe they get dumb and give us something. What do you think?"

"Maybe, once you are ungrounded." Dick says, "Not going against your dad on this, we are kind of here since he lets us. But once again you are allowed in the field we can try that, with me looming in the wings, not letting you infiltrate gangsters alone, because that would be a bad idea." He flexes his hands in his gloves, "Yeah, it's something we could try. Especially if we can rig up a copy of the Crimesmith's getup."

Damian tts when his plan to get out of his grounding early fails. "You could just /ask/ him, he'll listen to you, he trusts you," Damian says about getting sprung from the manor. "I'm bored, and my talents are wasted here, Pennyworth could do this just as well as I could." He brings up pictures of the suit, the man inside is definitely taller than Damian, but about the same height as Grayson. Damian quickly closes the picture, seeing his chances to be sprung for an actual mission getting smaller if Dick can do the infiltration. "Sorry, not going to undermine the boss man. You think this is bad? It would get worse if I let you go with me." Dick looks at the picture, and nods, "Hmm, curious as to who this could be, but judging as he is running with the new guys, might be brand new to the scene or could be an exile from the powers that be."

Damian frowns and sets aside his cocoa and steeples his fingers. "Whoever he is he has training," he says. "Probably military or police, the way he moved said he could handle himself, and soldiers move a certain way. He reaches out and calls up the picture again now that it's not likely he's going to be escaping. "He's also roughly your height, it might be possible to mock up the costume and something to change your voice," he says then sighs. "If so, then you could do the infiltration." "Yeah, I could probably pull it off. Would need to be careful and need backup on that, because if things go bad on that, they go real bad fast." Dick mutters, "Will need more intel on those new guys, so once we get some of that, we can start not only infiltrating, but maybe even driving a wedge if that is the best course of action."

Damian nods and glances back up at the screen. He reaches for his cocoa and has a sip. "That would work, as for intel, maybe Tim's scanner picked up something useful, the analysis will be done tomorrow. Other than that I guess it will just be up to legwork, shame you're down a partner," he says smirking into his cup. Once Damian has had a sip he glances over at Nightwing. "Anyhow I can pull the voice prints off the surveillance records if you want to go sleep. It's boring work, but it's not like I have to be up tomorrow." "Yeah, I can probably take Tim or Carrie if I need backup, or even Batman. Or once you get your wings back you can fly with me," Nightwing chuckles, "But yeah, once we can get some more data, the more trouble we can cause them, and I'd rather they be busy looking for us than causing trouble elsewhere."

"Hm, agreed better they're reacting than we are,"Damian says as he begins pulling voice prints from the surveillance logs. "Anyhow, hopefully my wings will be back when it's time to do this. I don't want to miss it." "Trust me, I'll try to see if you can be involved in any way, even it it's running command and control here." Dick nods, "Then stay under the radar and don't cause trouble, attention is bad in this case, since good attention is nearly impossible."

Damian looks over at Dick, his expression serious and for once listening intently. "Thanks," he says that most rare of words. "As for Father, how did you ever get him to let you do things? He doesn't seem capable of extending the same consideration to me." Dick shrugs, but first gives a nod of thanks for that very rare word. "Eh, we got into a fight, so I was kind of on my own. Before that I ran with the Titans when Batman and I didn't exactly get along. Trust me, you've got it easy, you get to spend your day hanging out with Alfred."

"Which is not terrible, but I think he cheats at chess," Damain confides of Alfred, or more likely Alfred is beating him and Damian hasn't figured out how yet. "Anyhow, I'd much rather spend time with him that the Titans," he adds. "So I suppose I will endure." "Psh, the Titans are awesome, but hopefully you learned or are learning your lesson, fly straight kid. Also, Alfred doesn't need to cheat, he is just that good. I'm going to hit the hay, but probably going to run ya tomorrow, if you can't go in the field, you are going to hit training pretty hard." With that, Dick goes to change into civilian garb and returns upstairs.