2014-05-21 - Royal Rumble

It was a typical night in Gotham. Stephanie doing the whole 'Batgirl' looking over the warehouses by the docks from the building across the street. That's where Oracle said the new designer 'meta drugs' were coming in by Falcone's boys. She gave a warning that Falcone might have hired some extra special 'muscle' to deal with Batman if he interfered, but what most people didn't know was that Batman was going to be preoccupied tonight.

What Stephanie didn't know is that Oracle also asked Cassandra to come into this. Oracle sits back in the Clocktower. "Oh well, they'd meet up." They hadnt worked together since Cassandra gave over the Batgirl mantle anyway. "It would do them both good to work together in their new roles."

Cassandra Cain is wearing her black sweatsuit tonight. She's got a mask tied over her face, and happens to be late. She's carrying a motley brown and black cat that seems to have somehow attached itself to her arms and is in desperate need of someone to purr all over, and Cassandra's face is a study of confusion as she automatically pets the little animal, wandering over the rooftop in Stephanie's direction. The purr is quite loud compared to Cass' usual approach, and the occasional meow elicited.

Batgirl is used to not knowing things. Oracle usually doesn't tell her things. Batman never told her things. it's just how it seems to work. That's why she went to join Avengers Academy.

Dear Diary.... Guess what? The Avengers Academy doesn't tell me things either. You'd think everyone is morbidly interested in watching me fail spectacularly, or finds screwing with me to be fun in some sick and twisted way.."

So Batgirl stopped telling the Academy things - like the fact she quit. Not like they'd notice her absence or anything until one day they'l be all: "Hey.. where'd that new girl go.. you know..that.. blonde? Her name is on the tip of my tongue.. huh.. oh well. Maybe she was just an exchange student. Who wants tacos?!"

If one thing has not changed it is Stephanie's stream of consciousness thought process when she's not directly in action. Staking out a warehouse is one of the most boring. things. ever. Not gonna yawn. Not gonna yawn. Not. Gonna. Yawn.

Not gonna yawn again. Nope. Just not gonna. Mmm. tacos do sound good.. with extar guac and gates of hell sauce...

Seeing movement at one entrance the perched blonde-in-black/purple/gold lifts her binoculars and zooms in to snap a few pictures, rolling some video too. Oracle loves her video clips. Maybe a little too much.

Down by the docks, several crates are moved off a ship and towards the warehouse. Which normally isnt that unusual. One of the men ask, "Okay, get the winch so we can get the big storage containers unloaded next."

And that's when stuff gets unusual as this woman dressed like a black and white Queen says, "Not necessary. Ace?"

And one of the huge storage crates is then lifted up by this rather large man,dressed entirely in white, with a black spate on his chest. He carries it overhead towards the warehouse.

Okay, another thing Stephanie wasnt told. Oracle didnt say the Royal Flush Gang would be involved. In Barbara's defense, she didnt know.

Lowering the cat to the ground, Cassandra watches Batgirl monitor the local environment from behind with relaxed eyes and slightly smiling face. The smile doesn't help her do things but happens on occasion anyway. That cat, though, wanders over to Stephanie and sniffs at her outfit and then twines around the Batgirl's legs, trying to get Her attention away from whatever unimportant thing she may be doing.

Cassandra for her part seems to just appear on the roof's edge, hunched and inspectigating whatever it is that Batgirl is looking at. She squints a little bit to focus and inspects the gang, no immediate comment forthcoming on the topic. She does take a moment to look Stephanie over and guess at her fitness level though, from very close now.

Simply unacceptable. Oracle knows all. Oracle sees all. Oracle is probably too busy oogling videos from Dick's shower. That's usually what she's doing. Stephanie is convinced of it. Otherwise Oracle. Would. Know.

"Oracle. Y'know... the Royal Flush Gang is here. I'll be going offline for a while. This'll be easy peasy. No trouble at all." Self Depricating Optimism. It's what Batgirl does best.

Then...cat. huh. how'd a cat get on a warehouse rooftop.

"What's with the Selina thing? When did you start liking cats? They're not sharp and pointy and stabby enough to be your gimmick... Maybe it should be.. swordfish...?" Inner monologue once again failing. Standing up she looks to Cassandra. Nothing startles her anymore. Batman scared the piddle out of her enough early on she's got a bladder of steel now. "So.. hi. How're things? How's the family?"

At the clocktower, Oracle says, "Yeah... I knew Falcone had hired SOMEONE. I didnt now he hired them. But I'm sure the two of you can handle them. I'm sending some specs on the newest Royal Flush Gang's abilities." she says before sending them to HUD displays in the masks that she had designed.

King - Immortality, uses a laser sword. Yes, a laser sword.

Queen - Metamorph - source of her metamorphic abilities seems to be her sceptre.

Jack - Laser Eye - works instantaneously as fast as it takes for him to look at you. Outputs over 6000 degrees of focused heat. Also has a molecular bladed knife which can cut through almost anything.

Ten - Black belt, density manipulation belt - also uses a trickshot crossbow.

And Ace - Class 100 strength Android. Incredibly strong and resilient but not particularly quick.

Cassandra Cain honestly wasn't expecting to startle Batgirl on this lonely rooftop in the darkness, appearing like a ghost out of the night. She does this all the time even if she's not meaning to. What they do as a reaction is their choice.

Cassandra looks for a moment at the squiggles on her screen and quickly dismisses them, her usual conversational aplomb in place. "Hi." She studies the targets below and takes her own information on the gang and gets down from the roof's edge so she's not quite as visible. She doesn't move to disable the girl, for a wonder.

Batgirl reads over the update Oracle sent. "Oh this'll be easy. Five minutes, we'll have them all trussed up for GCPD to take in. Tops. What could possibly go wrong here? The world's greatest ninja and Batgirl. They don't stand a chance." Good thing she's got a bunch of her plug and play batarangs. Gonna need some of those designs only she would think up. The Electro-Goop one is a personal favorite. Just wait till she starts throwing one of every color combination and shouts "Taste the rainbow!"

Oracle rubs the bridge of her nose. "Yes nothing at all can go wrong." She doesnt bother telling the two of them that she's looking at sending some additional help.

Power Girl? Tells her to go to hell. Yep, Karen's still angry, she guesses.

Huntress? Busy with Dinah on another mission.

Hawk and Dove are in some sort of family squabble, and she's so not getting in the middle of that.

Hrm. Most of her agents are either busy or too far away to get here fast enough to give some additional backup.

Barbara sighs, pulling up a list of less experienced contacts, and scrollsup to one in particular who didn't seem to be busy and for whom distance wasn't a factor. "Guess I'll ask her..."

Meanwhile, back at the docks, the Royal Flush Gang are talking to Falcone's men. There's at least 20 of them, not including the gang. All armed.

Mook #1: "So what's in these crates anyway?"

Mook #2: "Apparently some sort of metahuman-makin drugs and weaponry. Falcone says it's gonna give us the edge and finally take over this city, and people like the Bat won't stand a chance!"

Batarangs sound like a good idea, and Cassandra pulls out two of them to throw them left and right, into the night to vanish on a long spiraling arc.


 * pop* the sound of a grapple gun firing and Cassandra is stepping off of the rooftop to swing down into the middle of the group with her usual complete lack of anything resembling a plan or tactics. She's lucky that she even remembered a mask this time, since she's not in costume at all; a black figure in sweats.

Thrown from before she even started swinging the batarangs rebound off of two of the lesser thugs, knocking them flat as she lands lightly amidst Royals, and her stance is low enough to let her spin and sweep the legs out from beneath Jack and King as an introduction to her interruption of the festivities.

Batgirl watches Cass go charging in. "No fair taking my siganture move. You're going to make me look bad. Now I'm going to have to act like the responsible one. And we KNOW how that's going to turn out.." She dives off the edge. No grapple. Just the batcape gliding trick. It's so cool after all.

As Cass gets their attention, Steph goes for the Android guy. Swooping in, swinging her legs forward to strike at his head with her boots to attempt to topple or stagger him, she drops to the ground, letting go of her cape.

Grabbing a batarang, she attempts to flick it at the big robot - Goopy Shocky attack coming up!

She hopes.

It's a good idea - take out the biggest threat first. At least it's a good idea in theory.

Cassandra knocks each out with the batarangs - they might as well not have even been there for all it took for her to take them down. She lands amidst the entire Royal Flush gang and, before they know what's happening, she's swept the legs out from under both Jack and King!

Jack looks up and that's all it takes for a laser beam to shoot up from his eye at Cassandra!

Meanwhile, Ten runs at Cassandra, trying to attack her from behind. Queen, on the other hand, stays where she is, and yells at Falcone's men to just shoot her!

Then Stephanie attacks as well. She goes with a flying kick at Ace's head, after dropping out of the bat gliding dive. It's a really good kick too. Steph's obviously been practicing her moves. Cassandra should be proud of that.

Except all it happens to do is make Ace's head go forward a little. Didn't evne make the big guy stumble.

It DID, however, make him turn around to Batgirl when she drops to th ground after kicking him. He roars and attempts to smash his fists down on her when she hits the ground.

"There's another one!" Queen yells before taking her scepter and aiming it at Batgirl to fire it as well.

On the ground, there is a hunk of brick. Simple, humble and unnoticed it's roughly between Cassandra's feet at the moment. She for her part does admire Stephanie's grand entrance out of the corner of her eye but is slightly busy at this exact moment, her body shifting when she sees Jack's muscles tense to fire some kind of attack, managing to be out of the way in a low spin.

The spin lets her hook the brick with her left heel and as she turns she slaps King's kneecap lightly, keeping him on his back a bit longer as the hunk of brick flies unerringly out at Queen's scepter, tagging it and making whatever attack is forthcoming much less likely to strike.

The neatest thing about the spin is its ending however, as she intentionally tangles her feet in Jack's legs and flips him onto his front with an ankle lock, burying his face in the dirt. He can turn, but it's got to be painful.

Batgirl ow's. The guy is built like a tank. That hurt. Then he tries to smash her as she prepared her batarang. "hold that thought!" She tucks and rolls away from the attack and comes up into a vertical jump that takes her off the ground, not unlike a gymnast's move. At the height of the jump the batarang is flipped at full force toward Ace, aiming for the things chest. Arcing back to the ground she tucks and tumbles one more time before coming up in a three point stance.

Ace smashes his fists down at where Batgirl is. Or rather, where Batgirl was. Luckily for Stephanie, she's fast. Ace's fists smash down into the pavement with a few tons of force. And fortunately, Cassandra kicked the brick to disarm Queen before she could fire an energy bolt at Stephanie.

Batgirl then quickly flings a batarang at Ace - and it hits him right in the chest and sticks in there.

And Ace still doesn't go down. He just plucks the batarang out, crushes it in his hand, and glares at her. There seemed to be a spark from his chest when he plucked the batarang out. Yep. Android. He again swings a fist at Batgirl. He might be strong... really strong.... insanely strong... but at least he's not fast.

Meanwhile, in the center of the battle is Cassandra. She quickly dodges the laser blast. Somehow. Somehow she's always able to dodge stuff like that where she shouldnt e able to. Like she knows when it's coming and where.

Then grabs Jack's legs after breaking King's kneecap (he's immortal, he'll heal eventually). And she still has time to keep Queen from blasting Stephanie with a well placed kick of a brick at her scepter.

As Cassandra keeps Jack in the hold with his face (and thus his laser eye) firmly entrenched in the ground), something happens that doesn't happen often though.

Cassandra actually gets punched in the back of her head. By Ten.

Ten smirks as she manages to stun Cassandra. "She ain't that tough!" she says as she pulls out her crossbow to finish Cassandra off.

Cassandra Cain's head is rocked forward by the punch as she drives her fingers into Jack's nerve cluster in his back. She doesn't want him getting up at all, having determined that his power is the most dangerous of the group. She may have a bruise or a goosegg but she'll survive. A hand goes out to grab the crossbow though, not to disarm the woman but to steal the crossbow bolt out of the weapon, she rolls away from Ten since she's decided to focus on using a weapon and uses the roll to add impetus to her throwing the crossbow bolt at Queen's weapon hand.

Now, who am I missing? King's knee is broken, Jack is out cold, Queen being dealt with, Ace is busy rampaging...

Oh right. Gun-toting thugs.

Batgirl blinks as the batarang doesn't go off. It was supposed to be the Electro-Goop type. "Great time to grab the wrong tool for the job, Batgirl." She dives out of the way and this time flips another batarang - of the correct type - at the android's knee as she slips past. If the aim is correct, it'll let off a satisfying *SPLUT* as the stuper sticky goop erupts and begins to quickly expand and attempt to immobilize. Then the shock blast will fire off trying to stun or overload the big thing's circuits.

Jack's down, unable to look up anymore. He's out.. King's down, with a shattered knee. It's not permanent, but it takes him out of the fight. When the second batarang hits Ace in the face, THAT batarang explodes in a mess of goop all over Ace's face and chest.

Ten's crossbow bolt is already out of her crossbow. When she throws the bolt at Queen, Ten gets in the way, turning a dial on her belt. The bolt breaks when it hits her.

Then Queen says something into a communicator makes a run for it to get to a spot away from the fray.

Cassandra Cain sees that Falcone's men are getting ready to start shooting as ordered. She looks at the group, judging that the gunmen would ..most likely kill King and Queen and possibly Batgirl if they started firing into the fray, and turns her back on the group of supers diving into the mess of Falcone's men. She has a batarang in her right hand, flinging it out to do a disarm from a distance as her feet and hands lay into the group of thugs. Lay into is right!

They're laid out in seconds, but that's her focus for a moment and it does allow the supers to regroup. Not counting Ace and Batgirl, who are in their own little world.

Ace has a head full of goop which then gets into his circuitry through the small bit of damage from the first batarang... and falls down in a heap, Two of the other Flush gang are down. And Ten and Cassandra are squaring off while Queen..... well Queen's getting out of the fray so she can order that more of Falcone's men can fire bullets at everyone.

No honor among thieves.

Several additional gunmen show up, taking position around the dock area with guns. Seems like they came out of nowhere as they all turn their guns on the group in the center to make it a killing field.

Then there's a blur as the bullets start firing. And the bullets are gone. Then another blur and the mooks with the weapons go flying back like something hit them each.

"Ahem..." Kara says floating overhead, arms crossed.

"Hey.. um... Oracle called just in case some more backup was needed."

Cassandra Cain is standing beside Ten when Kara 'steps in'. Ten is looking a little obstinate, as if unwilling to stop and ready to take on the Bat team and Supergirl all at once! She can do it! Not sure how, but she can darn well do it!

And then Cassandra's right arm reaches out backhandedly and taps her on the temple and Ten slumps to the ground as various thugs start to get the idea and put their hands on their heads quietly. The Bat family is one thing, even if there's only one bat there and the other is apparently a 'sloppy ninja.' But Having Supergirl show up with such an immediate display is another thing entirely.

Cass raises an eyebrow toward Kara, smiling a bit. Just a bit. And she glances around, nobody's dead, call it a win.