2014-06-08 - Shadow Ninjas

No ninjas all night long! Not since Red Hood returned to Gotham City. Perhaps Talia al Ghul is satisfied that he decided not to mock her by trying to run? In either case, Red Hood is dressed in his 'uniform' again and fighting crime! Or rather, kicking the crap out of it and punishing it with a zeal to make himself feel better and more in control! He doesn't like feeling bullied into walking into Talia's trap, even if it was his big mouth that got him there to begin with.

That is what Batgirl will be finding while out on patrols in The Narrows, is Red Hood holding a guy up with one hand that he just finished punching the life out of almost with his free fist. "You know, women really are nothing but trouble. I'd swing the other way, except, well, I heard being gay is not much better." And trying to finish the guy off by talking him to death.

There are three other thugs scattered about in other states of unconsciousness and beaten-ness. The victim had long high tailed it out of there, not even the victims in The Narrows want to deal with the cops.

There's a double-tap sound on a nearby vehicle, the sound of two shoes hitting the roof with less than standard force. Just a landing, as Black Bat lowers herself to the vehicle then crouches there in Red Hood's field of vision. She has no weapons in her hands and wears the customary black batsuit with the wide mask she's taken on after abandoning the full-face mask that she wore as Batgirl. Not a word, she's not moving to interrupt, just has her fingertips splayed to balance on the vehicle's roof.

Red Hood stiffens at the sound and turns to glances over at the car. He blinks behind that red skull-like mask. He hasn't seen Cassandra Cain's new uniform yet, he only stalked the poor girl when she was Batgirl and didn't show much interest in the non-communicative girl. Can't torment a girl that doesn't understand what you are saying, well, Hood can't. His mouth is his biggest asset!

Hood drops the groaning thug to the ground and brushes his gloves together, "Hello." That is all he says, keeping it simple. He has no idea on Cassandra's abilities or limitations when it comes to language, even then her combat abilities are excellent but he has only seen them from a distance. To him, she is a relatively unknown beyond the little gymnastics stunt at Grant's Gym.

After the glove brushing, he then raises his right hand and waves hello. Yay, they are staring at teach other!

Black Bat's eyes flicker down over the thug then back up to Red Hood, her body betraying no concern on any level. She stands up when he waves, then steps down off of the car and looks over the group of fallen enemies, taking a couple of seconds to really look at each one. Then she shrugs and lets her eyes move around the area again, her hands just hanging loosely at her sides now. She gives a small wave with a couple of fingers raised, a half-salute really, then she points at one particularly badly beaten up thug and raises an eyebrow at the Red Hood questioningly.

"What? He kept saying I wasn't Batman and couldn't do shit, so...I showed him differently." Red Hood shrugs dramatically at that, "I let him live. I didn't even shoot a single one!" And he's starting to talk her ear off...yes he is.

Luckily! She is soon spared Hood's insane ranting! Well, spared being not quite literal being there be NINJAS! Yes, NINJAS! In all CAPS!

On a more serious note, the League of Assassins under Talia al Ghul's control moves through the shadows silently. Many have weapons palmed. Red Hood was not truly being spared, Talia is no more paitent than she was last week, and is actually less so. The ninjas are there to make a point, and Black Bat will likely notice them before Red Hood because she is being purposely alert and Red Hood is busy listening to his own voice.

It still is not a long forewarning as the ninjas move to leap from the shadows as if teleporting out of them! Batgirl is near Red Hood and no less spared from their wrath than any other innocent bystander.

The ninja horde moves in intelligently. They have the brains to have shuriken hidden in their palms so they can either throw them or use them to grapple and shred skin. They have backup, since Red Hood has proven that he requires proper care. They even have some armor and the element of surprise, and people with a height advantage ready to use shuriken instantly.

And none of it really matters. A volley of five shuriken fly through the darkness, all thrown at once, and Black Bat walks forward and just plucks them out of the air before they can hit anyone, snapping her fingers to get Red Hood's attention. Just once, that's all the warning she's giving him. Then she spins around and lets her right foot come across and hook an incoming arm, spinning past and pulling the ninja off balance and face-first into the side of a truck. He doesn't get back up, and Black Bat's feet spin on the ground as she just waits for the next one.

Red Hood blinks at the snap of Black Bat's fingers, and then he's moving! He twists his body, dodging two of the flying stars, and actually whipping out his gun to block a third that gets lodged in the metal itself. "Daaaaaamn!" Alright, that impressed him a little bit. And then he's falling backwards, or at least it appears that way, when he really lands on one hand and springs his legs, snapping them so he flips backwards and back on his feet to avoid an incoming sword slice from above! He is so busy on defense, he hasn't had time for a counter attack as he is the prime target, but he then says, "Backs!" As if to indicate that Black Bat and him should go back to back...if she understands or not, is a whole 'nother thing!

Black Bat is actually moving into position where Red Hood wants her -before- he says anything, as if she read his mind. Which is pretty close to what happened, she saw him make the plan and get ready to implement it and started getting into place as he was trying to articulate it verbally. That's how she works, and she's back to back with Red Hood like a shadow that is never out of place.

She raises her hands to eye level and then slaps them down, catching two short blades and redirecting the wielders into uncomfortably awkard twists, coming back to their feet with their hands raised in defenses, no longer holding their weapons. And Black Bat just reaches out and punches them both, one at a time, as if their defenses weren't there. The two attackers stagger to the ground unconscious and are replaced by four more.

Red Hood uses his gun and pulls out a short sword or rather long as hell knife from a sheath at his lower back. The gun is used to shoot a ninja in the shoulder as he would have gotten the chest if it wasn't for a sword coming at him and throwing his aim off as he has to block it with his own long knife or short blade. He kicks out at the ninja that tried to cut him in the ribs with a snap kick, hearing things break even as it throws the ninja back away from him.

Red Hood can hear Black Bat's movements, feel her beautiful moves at his back. Heck, even his heart thumps a bit at that! Not that he would...well....do anything about it! In either case, he works to concentrate on what he has to do, getting openings so he can move and do damage the way he is good at doing it.

Hood throws a switch on his gun and starts blasting away with it on full automatic. It will run out of bullets quickly, but it sends ninjas dodging out of the way and backing off to give him the room he needs. Black Bat can feel he is poised to make a move to part from her, "U!" It's a warning of what shape his movement is going to be before he returns to her...he still hasn't picked up that verbal cues are the least helpful to Black Bat. Give him a bit! He isn't the detective Batman is....

After a few seconds and the pair being fully surrounded, Red Hood feels a foot kick out his left foot. Not far, just a small slide, but it puts Red Hood into a slightly better position for his planned move. Apparently Black Bat is not only defending herself, she's actually making sure that he's covering her back properly by her standards.

On her side, she seems almost to be enjoying the incoming assault as she slaps aside weapons and disarms dirty tricks with an ease that absolutely screams that she can see right through their little ninja tricks before they even step up to fight. There's a semicircle of bodies on her side that she's actually arranging into a bit of a sun motif with kicks and slide-punches, and she's collecting shuriken and piling them up between her feet in a small stack.

And at that point the ninjas on the roof drop a pair of smoke grenades, obscuring the vision of the area in a wave of choking darkness, rendering Black Bat's incredible vision useless and possibly messing with Red Hood's plan.

Hood taps his helmet to change his vision lenses, and his mask comes with a re-breather in case of odd situations or Poison Ivy. The smoke bombs changed the rules. "Roof," he hisses out to Black Bat, and then he's moving after giving her an order. He does the insane, he charges right out and into the weapons and ninjas! He dropped his gun earlier as it was empty after making ninjas dodge for it! And he is currently cutting his way through and moving like a crazy man through the ninjas!

Red Hood seems to switch his moves, from Batman to Nightwing, to the League's own fighting style and many others. He moves through them effortlessly, as he breaks an arm instead of disarming, as he stabs someone through a thigh and rips the sword out to cripple them rather than just cutting a tendon, or how he leaps onto a nearby wall and kicks off, back flipping over ninjas as he slices through shoulders as he moves through the air. Violent, cruel, and crippling is Red Hood's moves, but with Black Bat here he isn't actually killing them....though without medical attention some most likely will die.

Red Hood isn't doing the original U shape moves, but he is rather doing a circle right now after taking high moves, he takes low and dodges down as someone tries to sink an arrow into him and instead shoots one of his own allies from his vantage point on a roof top! And even as Red Hood ducked low, he swept a foot out to trip other ninjas that twist to not fall on their own weapons! Red Hood's jacket is getting torn up in the fight, but no blood is currently being drawn from him, and no damage to his actual uniform that has a red bat symbol boldly glaring from his chest.

And...Black Bat is on the rooftop without breaking stride, having actually run up the wall nabbing any outcropping or protrusion. Parkour masters and Spider-Man, and the Black Bat. She's breathing slightly faster when she gets up there, and calms her breathing rate with a thought as she scans the rooftops nearby for snipers. She'd put a sniper up there if it was her running the show and sure enough, there it is.

Two rooftops away, top of a water-tower, the slight telltale glint that she spots as she grabs an incoming ninja almost leisurely and hip-tosses her (they do come female sometimes) to the ground. Finishing the hip toss with a roll, she comes up with a pistol that she got from someplace and fires off two shots from prone, silencing the incoming sniper before he/she can get off a shot. She knows that her back is open during the event, but knows that Red Hood is there and paying attention for a change. She can see him out of the corner of her eye and that sniper isn't a joke.

A Batman trainee using guns? Hood is liking her better and better! He doubts she killed, but...man, that's just wistful thinking, right?! Still....

Red Hood keeps moving, knocking a ninja's head against a nearby wall as he drops down, out cold while Hood keeps on moving. He uses power moves like Batman, to knee someone in the cut and double fist the back of their head to drop them though using the hilt in it is the not so nice part...but the didn't use the blade! He kicks out even as he does this move to nail another ninja in the face!

Yes, there are definitely some of Nightwing's moves in there, but Hood knows quite a number of martial arts and he has studied Nightwing specifically to impersonate him in the fight on the Wayne Manor roof top.

Black Bat loses the gun someplace. It's just kind of gone all of a sudden as she pinwheels on the ground, her legs rotating over her body, and she takes a kick from someone who's trying to stomp her head into the ground with both feet. She lets her spinning body twist the foot and the ninja SLAMS into the ground probably stunning someone inside the building with the noise as Black Bat ends up on her feet as if nothing had happened.

She lifts a straight-bladed assassin's dagger in front of her eyes and looks at it, letting her see an entire 360 degrees using the reflection, and watches the group of ninjas that's encircling them while Red Hood takes out the chaff they're throwing at us to get our measure, and she stands still a moment, waiting.

A laugh from the rooftop to the south as someone notices that one of the two has figured out the ploy, and there's a whistle as the remaining ninjas suddenly retreat, but there's no sense that this is over. Not yet.

Red Hood pauses as the ninjas retreat, frowning deeply behind the mask. He is breathing a bit heavily and doesn't recognize the laughter. That...was creepy. Well, least it wasn't Joker! But soon enough, Hood is moving to the roof top after Black Bat. At least he doesn't ask if she is alright, but he looks her over instead and nods as he realizes she is just fine. "Umm...sorry about that?" Apologizes come off awkwardly for him. "Roulette and Talia al Ghul. I crashed their little party of fight club off in Sumerset, and Talia invited me to a trap. I've been playing goose with her and she hasn't been too happy with me as a result."

Black Bat rolls her eyes, making yap-yap-yap motions with her right hand fingers. She gets low on the roof near the edge, peering over the top letting her black hair and mask be a defense in the dark night. She turns her head, then slowly stands up and turns and gives Red Hood a punch on the shoulder with her left hand. Hard enough to hurt, and her face suggests some kind of annoyance. She moves so damn quietly, and isn't even breathing hard. "Too...easy," she says, grumbling.

"Ouch!" Yes, Red Hood just said ouch! He reaches out to rub his shoulder and eyes Black Bat from behind his lenses, having switched them to normal ones after the smoke had dissipated. "Well, ya...try about ten of them in a small hotel room, or twenty of them in a back alley, or....they aren't really meant to kill me, just harass me, wear me out, and make me...ah, whatever." Red Hood finally sighs and drops it.

But then he thinks of something! Yep, Red Hood is his GRAND ideas! "Come!" He is grinning beneath his helmet. The idea, is to try and get Black Bat to ride with him, he has a motorcycle nearby, and show her the warehouse. Let her know about it and let her try and infiltrate the rich people's fight club!

Black Bat puts her hands on her hips. She flips Red Hood something from her utility belt that'll let him contact her, even though he hasn't actually said what the plan is, and then throws her legs off the edge of the rooftop and lets herself fall, vanishing from sight. And that's it, she's just gone and the night is empty of female Bat warrior.

Hood goes to catch the contact method flipped at him and frowns. So much for getting his own attack dog, dang! It was worth a try. He looks at the contact information as Black Bat disappears and hrms. She could still be useful though...skills like that...