2016-09-17 - Dancing in the Street with Bane and Friends

Cassandra Cain isn't particularly into interrupting things. She's making shadow puppets with her fingers in front of the bat-signal that's projected on the sky, making a wolf that chomps on the big thing. She's never really been big on symbols, though admittedly this is one of the good ones. Laying on a rooftop over the fight that's going on below, she waits for a good moment. No, not that moment. We'll know it when it's time.

A hero's wort is never done, even when they thing it is. After a night on patrol Nightwing was about to head home then he sees the signal in the sky. Bruce is busy with something secret so Dick has to pick up the slack and investigates himself. He notices the main event of the evening as well as the various other combatants. He is about to intervene when he spots the Black Bat and instead joins her on the rooftop, "So what's the situation?" He whispers.

The shadows shift on an overlooking rooftop as a domino masked girl in black looks on, almost bemusedly. She's enjoying the ruckus for the moment, almost loathe to put a stop to it. Especially the brawl in in the middle of it all. Eventually, X-23 does decide she aught to, since those rockets and machine guns can be problematic for nearby folkses that have nada to do with it. Somersaulting off the ledge, she drops straight down having no need for a zip line or anything of the sort.

Slipping a pair of fingers into a bracer, she slips out a metal sliver that shimmer dull in the street light as she creeps along to an alleyway adjacent to the fight. Figuring out a plan of approach, she takes aim on one of the rocketeers. After a heartbeat passes, she charges in as the regenerating teenager with a blade flung at the trigger hand. Moments later, her primary blades are out and she gets to strategically perforating gangsters.

The gang war seems evenly matched, at the very least until X-23 goes to charge in. Going to whirl to face her, one of the gangers goes to whip around with one of those nasty little rifles that had been on the streets lately. From the smell of it, it was loaded with mercury and thermite rounds. As he went to pull the trigger, three bullets launched from it, blasting towards her, leaving trials of liquid poison and fire as they launched towards her!

Meanwhile, KGBeast and Bane each caught sight of the Bats up on the roof, and each gave a half grin. "Settle this later, Da? Such things should be done in person. Not with the circus in town." KGBeast mused. Bane gave a half nod.

Then Bane went to pick up a car, hurling it up towards the rooftop like a rocket!

Cassandra Cain glances at Nightwing, her Black Bat mask currenly on her hands making it look like the wolf is Bat-Wolf, mighty hero! When Nightwing asks his question, Cass shrugs and turns her head so she can look at the fight happening below, leaving Bat-Wolf to his solo deeds. She actually says, "Woop!" and tackles Nightwing to one side, as the section of roof that they were just on vanishes due to well-aimed car!

Then, and only then, she answers the question. "We've been spotted."

Nightwing rolls to the side aster Cassandra tackles him and he nods, "You want the Beast or Bane?" He then starts to move toward the edge of the room with out waiting for an answer and leaps off.

X-23 drops into a crouch in the middle of a stabbing as she catches the smell of that hated toxin, mercury. She turns to the gunman and rolls tactically forward before handspringing through the air! Slipping out a toe claw, she'll bring it down raking across the man's face. She doesn't intend to go deep enough to kill, merely to blind him with blood and pain. Her follow through will be a fist claw at the rifle to break it before driving her elbow into his throat for the finish.

The bladed mutant shifts to a low fighting stance, minimizing her profile in the midst of the exchanges. She squints a little as she keeps her zombie lensed eyes peeled in case anyone else wants to take a literal shot.

The man was blinded by the hard cut that was given through his face then as X-23 went to charge him. Several of the other gang members on both sides are opening fire on her, and it would be a difficult to avoid crossfire. The men aiming enough to -not- catch their brethren in their shots, but it's still a hard way to evade as bullets shoot out at her!

Bane goes to smirk at Nightwing, "I broke the Bat. now I'll break you." KGBeast assesses Black Bat, going over into a defensive stance, his hands almost seeming to glow as he went to draw out a pair of small knives.

Cassandra Cain is, for once, the last one to hit the ground. She sees that the choice has been made for her, which is fine, though she's not familiar with this guy. So she stays her usual mode: full offense. Jumping kick to the face, and see how the feral guy reacts to that. A glance over toward X-23 suggests that maybe a batarang might be a good assist, if she finds that KGBeast is a pushover. Never know.

The lithe and bladed mutant kisses dirt under the hail of fire, her armor serving to stop likely a couple of bullets. X-23 rolls to the side then skitters on all fours toward a group of KGBeast's men. With only fist blades out so she can maneuver, she takes note of her Bat-friend and makes sure to keep an eye on her fight with the gang boss. She signals that with a nod

The bladed heroine sets into a flurry of perforations, targeting shoulders and tendons to disable them. Singling one out after a beat, she twists through the air with a hop and brings her heel at his jaw for the knockout!

Nightwing draws his Escrima sticks and smiles, 'You know you have bene living off that moment for years, it is like a one hit wonder trying to stay relevant." he taunts Bane and tries to avoid the larger man hoping to tire out the monster. It is not a great strategy but then few strategies are with an opponent like Bane.

Bane's a very capable grappler, and he has fought the Bat-Family enough times to generally know how they fight. As Nightwing swings at him, Bane goes to quickly punch with surprising speed. His form is graceful, tight, and efficient. He's an incredibly skilled fighter, and it shows as he goes to quickly try and strike at NIghtwing, trying to put Dick on full defense!

As Black Bat faces off over with KGBeast, she's faced with a rarity - she's being held off. KGBeast does so economically as she attacks. Each combat motion is done with a minimum of motion and a maximum of efficiency. As she strikes at him, he blocks each attack, retreating and getting in the occasional counterstrike, but his defense is holding her off, saving his energy and countering each thing she puts at him.

And as X-23 goes to charge towards the gangers, they open fire at her even as she lashes her way over into them, dropping several of them even as one of them goes to launch a grenade through air at her - a phosphorous grenade landing and about to blow a few feet from her!

Cassandra Cain is finding it VERY odd. She's reading him, sure, but that does very little good if there's no real way around the defense. The holes that he leaves are either obvious traps or not really targets that would do any good. So she finds herself unable to land any solid hits, and is ducking and sidestepping counters! Hey nice!

"You're...amazing..." her gravelly voice states, which is very high praise. As she flings a batarang toward the weapons of the gangers firing on X-23, leaving a small opening that could allow her to be struck! But it's needed, since the mutant is about to be distracted. Grenade, and all.

Nightwing is caught by the first punch and rolls with it to minimize the impact so it is merely bruising and very painful rather then bone breaking. He tries to maintain distance from Bane and does go onto the defensive.

Phosphorous is one of the few things X-23 won't play around with, cauterized wounds can theoretically be lethal if extensive enough in the right places. She isn't going to be fancy, she just gets the heck out of Dodge. Darting then diving towards the grenadier, she intends to pile into him and maybe use him for cover from the flames. Not a Bat approved tactic, but who cares at the moment?

She halfway notices the flicker of a batarang, and slips out another sliver. She readies the miniscule throwing blade in a palm as her eyes train towards KGBeast, not entirely dismissing the gunfire around her as she notes whatever damage is caused by the grenade.

KGBeast grins over at Black Bat, "Thank you." An honest enough response. On full defense, he can mostly hold her off, even if his own chances to strike are minimal. He's a trained assassin and one of the best, so the two are approaching a stalemate to a degree. And then as there's that opening in her his hand goes out to strike. "While the soldier in me can appreciate tending to the back of one's comrades, one fight at a time, lieblich." He uses the German word for 'youngster'.

Bane continues to advance on NIghtwing, and as NIghtwing switches to full defense, Bane stomps hard on the ground - literally flipping up a sewer cover which is launched through the air at Nightwing with the power of a rocket - if it misses, it would embed itself like a javelin in a wall several dozen yards away!

The explosion of the phosphorous grenade just -barely- avoids catching X-23 point blank, even as ricochets and splatters from mercuery and acid tipped rounds go off around her, the acid hitting the envelop of fire making more explosions go up into a near blinding array of spectacle! The grenadier is tackled hard over into the flames, letting out a scream of complete pain!

X-23 shuts up the screaming man with a smart elbow across his brow. Anaesthetic on the spot. She then flings her throwing blade at the KGBeast, hoping to catch him in the back of his neck for the disable. At the least, it aught to distract him.

Staying in a crouch, X-23 wastes no more time in getting on the move to take down more gunmen. Her armor is sundering from soaking up thermite and acid, wreathing her a cloud of smoke as she darts towards her latest victim with claws bared! Too bad her equipment is nearing the end of its usefulness...

Stumbled slightly by the hit from KGBeast, Cassandra finds herself on the defensive for a moment.

Nightwing sees the sewer cover heading his way and he does a forward roll underneath it and towards Bane, he kicks out one of his legs to try and knock Bane's legs out from underneath him.

Nightwing's kick at Bane drops Bane for a moment, even as Bane is almost instantaneously leaping back up and to his feet. He was insanely fast, even as he went to try and reach out to grab Nightwing in a bear hug!

The man that Laura had hit went to instantly drop. He would have severe third degree burns and smoke inhalation, but would live. Probably. That leaves her free to tear into the rest of the gunmen from both gangs opening fire on her on full auto!

The surprise blade hitting him in the side of the neck prevents KGBeast from following up on his attack on Black Bat while she was stunned, and he quickly yanks it out, tossing it to the side.

Cassandra Cain suddenly spins in the air. Pivoting around her center of gravity, she feints several times as she lets her legs pretend to attack KGBeast, watching him choose to react or not. Landing in a wide, low stance, she places a hand on the earth in front of her and grins. Then she just flat-out tackles the man, throwing style and martial arts to the wind. Never let it be said that she wasn't adaptive.

Nightwing gets caught in the bear hug. He struggles against ti and does lands some blow onthe bigger man but before long his grip weakens and the escrima sticks clatter to the ground.

X-23 slashes the gun in her newest enemy's hands, hoping to ruin it while knocking it aside all at once. Her follow through sees her twisting the opposite way then as she brings her shin up at his solar plexus, then spinning around on heel to bring that same leg around with her toeblade popping out midswing so that if her heel doesn't floor him the blade might blind him thus removing another gunner from the field!

The maneuver sees X-23 finishing in her defensive crouch appraising her surroundings, she hasn't taken the time to see what Black Bat is doing, trusting that her blade did its job. She's more interested in seeing how many are left, hopefully with the body count rising the communist's gangsters are reconsidering their purpose here today. That'd just leave Bane and his men.

Bane goes to keep crushing over at NIghtwing, "It will be lovely. To break you like I did the Bat." The kevlar plates of NIghtwing's armor start to crack inwards then as Venom starts to flood Bane's veins, cracking slightly under the pressure as his strength magnified!

Cassandra's unorthodox style of attack catches KGBeast before he can brace himself. She ends up bowling him over then as he ends up over with her on top of him and him on his back as his hands slam up if they can to try and hither hard on the upper body as she sits on top of him!

And X-23 goes to slash her way through the men, going to drop down most of them as she goes to take care of one gang, then going to charge full tilt over into the next, covered with blood! It's brutal, even as bullets blast past and slam into the ground!

Cassandra's hands are full of batarangs when she lands, and she takes an instant to glance at Nightwing. A fling into the air, and she turns her full attention to her own opponent, though since she's never actually FOUGHT Bane, she's not 100% sure what to do with him. So...she's actually aiming for Nightwing's hand. To simply land a batarang in his hand, so he's given an unexpected weapon to work with that Bane isn't expecting.

KGBeast gets a knee to the kidneys to make sure that he's not feeling ignored, though. He did mention that he wants to be given her FULL attention, after all. And she's trying to line him up. So when he moves, he's sent directly toward Bane. No reason that she can't use his bulk a bit, too.

There is a weak spot all men have and all the Venom in the world cannot protect. Bane having been influenced by lucha might be familiar with the move Nightwing uses to attempt to free himself. A good old fashioned eye gouge. He jams his thumbs into the larger mans eyes and keeps grinding in deeper until he feels the hold on him releasing.

X-23's armor is now well and truly useless. Even her bracers are sundered, her throwing blades spilling out as the acid and thermite loosens them from her wrists leaving her with a black sports bra, boots, and shin guards between her and the hair of gunfire.

The young mutant manages to palm a couple of her throwing blades, and she looses them at a couple of gunmen to try dropping them before she's in reach. Bane's gang are now getting cut down to size, though now sans protection from the flying mercury and thermite, she's not quite as comfortable. At half the size of her short DNA donor, there's a reason she's been working on her martial technique and its largely moments like this.

The flung Batarangs end up peppering over towards Bane's back then even as Nightwing is able to get his fingers up and over, slowly thrusting them over to Bane's ace and working his fingers over to each eye. Bane howls as the desperate move slams the lenses in his mask inwards, and blinds him, and literally has his retinas squirting out blood as his hands slam up to his face to cover the blood pouring out of his gouged eyes. NIghtwing is dropped.

Cassandra is able to hit KGBeast hard, even as she manages to hurl him through the air. She doesn't have the inertia to quite throw him full power at Bane, but he hits the ground hard and rocks and rolls several times, slowly trying to rise up to his feet, bleeding, one of his arms, most of his ribs broken.

X-23 is doing a dance of death. Her armor is on fire from some of the phosphorous and acid that it has protected her from. Causing it to melt just slightly over into her body. It's more annoying in her current state. She slashes through men, looking like a literal demon as claws, blades, and a brutal dance slashes through each and everything shooting at her.

Nightwing collapses to the ground gasping for breath, right now his is not really apple to do anything else in the nest couple of moment but roll away from Bane, he is not usually that vicious in the fight but he knew in this one he had to be.

Cassandra Cain was really just trying to get him to run into Bane, but hey, a throw works. But unfortunately doesn't get the two to slam into each other, which was the goal. However, it does give Cassandra a moment to flip backward, slam down on top of one of the people that is shooting at X-23, and grab two more of them and slam their heads together. One fight at a time, my ass!

The stinging of molten polymer and kevlar is a nuisance, but when she's actually hit with a bullet that goes through it's all but over. She stumbles forward under a shotgun blast to her back that whiplashes her head forward with enough force to send one of her contacts to the ground. The flame wreathed girl's eye is dialated, and spit flies as she abandons defense and goes for the finisher.

Snarling like a beast, the mutant is about to go for the guts, the pain threatening her reason in Logan lineage fashion but at the last second she latches onto him and starts head butting. Each crack of skulls is emphasized with an animalistic growl as she rides him to the ground when his consciousness quits.

As the only free agent right now who can see what's going on in the fray, Cassandra continues her flip up and over Laura's head. Landing heavily on the girl's back, she wraps her arm around Laura's neck. Relying on her tightly woven armour versus the girl's shanks, and moving her legs to protect them when needed, she cuts off the blood flow to the mutant's brain with a sleeper hold and puts. Her. Down. We need to talk about that killer instinct, lady.

X-23 is so rigidly focused on splitting the man's skull that she only partially registers that she's even been put in a hold as she keeps trying. It's only after a long moment of retching forward with teeth bared that she starts trying to unbind herself from Black Bat's grip, spittle spraying from between her sharp teeth as she rages against the restraint.

Iron fingers grip at the hold as wirey muscles blossom with effort at breaking the hold, but inexhorably her vision starts to darken. Nighty night.

And so Cassandra does the spanking. Laura drops down hard - with the damage catching up wtih her, it will take her healing factor awhile to process through all of it then and hopefully she wil lbe calm after. So Nightwing is faced with a blinded Bane, and a mostly battered looking KGBeast that should be easy to take down. Also the mental image of Cassandra spanking tormenting him for the rest of his days

Nightwing manages to get his wits and breath back and gets to his feet as he surveys he battle field and coughs up some blood, unfortunately he will likely cough up more of that before the night is over.

It's been a brutal night in Gotham. Bane and KGBeast are down for the count, but as sirens approach, the area on fire, and the crippled gunmen can only speak to the brutal escalation that the new weapons have been bringing to the city. Whatever the source of them needs found and dealt with. Fast. Before more of the city and it's soul burns away.