2014-10-16 - Blowin Stuff Up In Gotham

Gotham City, the usual setting for a bad night seems quiet this evening. Too quiet but that's something for the newspaper writers to decide. The police department is enjoying a bit of downtime, with an almost suspicious tension in the air. Commissioner Gordon hasn't turned on the Bat-Signal, though he stares out a windown into the night with foreboding. The corrupt government has pulled many of his troops off the street tonight. Nobody is certain why, but the old man's finger hovers over the button just in case. Something is up on his streets.

Quite lucky for her, on the roof, Black Bat is resting at the moment. She has pulled off something she's always wanted to do, and is napping in the middle of the Bat-Signal. One for ironic hiding spots, she figures that nobody will look for her there and she has the bonus of being the first to know if the light goes on. And she's tired; last night was a killer.

Nightstar was flying thru the gotham night sky as she kept an eye on things. Skimming over the rooftops as she looked at the streets below, a purple glowing trail in her wake. "Anyone else get the feeling we're in for a busy night?" she asks over her bat comm.

Black Bat wakes up to the sound of someone speaking in her ear. After hearing Polly chatter all night it's a bit jarring to hear a different voice on the comm. She stretches, then climbs out of the Bat-Signal under the noses of a cop who's having a smoke on the rooftop, then perches watching the night for a moment. Something does feel like it's about to happen.

Jason makes his way down the streets of Gotham, looking like he just walked out of a hospital, which to be honest he kind of did. The morgue at the police station's sort of like a hospital anyway. He couldn't manage to get his proper clothes back, but with the place as quiet as it was he didn't exactly have a hard time getting out. It was actually quite odd how easy it proved to walk right out. A lone figure stands over the city. My city. She watches below at all the innocent people going along their way, little realizing they had a protector who - Gah....

Harley rubs her back. "How the hell do those bat types do all that standing in place all gargoyle'y like that. Hurts the back!"

Probably because she has a bazooka and a sledgehammer strapped to her back.

She carefully, caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarefully backs off the stone outcropping. "Seriously, and they call me nuts." Harley grumbles as she discontinues her internal monologue and just sits down on the edge of the building, legs dangling playfully over the edge. She got a one day pass off Thunderbolts base from Waller for doing a very secret job, which she's not able to tell even the other Thunderbolts about

And she's not able to tell anyone here reading it as well, so shut your yap if you're thinking of asking.

She was thinking of getting the babies (her hyenas) out of the joint (the zoo) when she notices a flying orange woman over Gotham, and she tilts her head. "Okay, that's different... Different-ish, at least."

Black Bat says, "Watch..for it," dramatically over the comm, startling the cop into dropping his smoke off the ledge. Bitching something about 'nosy vigilantes in my city' the cop yells for help, far too late with his ample bulk slowing up the process. Harvey Bullock is not a fast man.

Not to be out-done, the city decides to step in and add to the drama as a series of pops, crackles and snaps happen on the streets. Seemingly random, they quickly devolve into the sound of a running gun battle beginning near the hospital and spreading out, with what appears to be gang members with NO COLORS OR SIGNS firing on each other from windows, behind cars, and out of doorways. They shout what appear to be nonsense insults, nothing really making the sense that a normal gang war does, with clans at war. This isn't a clan war; it's just chaos.

Black Bat leaps off of the rooftop with her arms spread wide to catch a clothesline and use it to slide to a gutter, and slides down the brick face of a building for a few feet. Catching her hands on a fire escape, she slingshots herself around and across to a windowsill, and flips down to the lower rooftop across the way safely where she can see the battle begin to spread. "All...respond..." she says as clearly as she can into the comm, running along the roof to get a better vantage point.

Nightstar looks over at the commotion and tracks the densest part of it "Yup, called it. If anyone else is in Gotham we got a situation: mobile gun fight and it's spreading in all directions" she says into the bat comm as she flies down toward the biggest cluster of trouble. Her hands glowing with purple energy as she throws starbolts at the hoods of the gang members' cars.

Harley Quinn spots, in the near distance (it's a thing) the chaotic yelling and fighting and shooting going on nearby, and smiles. Something fun to do on the day off. She throws her hands up in the air. "YAHTZEE!" and slides down a drainpole, flips onto a lamppost, and drops down to the ground. It's hero'ing time. Violence with almost no chance of getting arrested!

Well a very high unlikelihood of getting arrested.

50/50 shot.

She's going to probably get arrested, but at least she has her Thunderbolts badge to get her out of trouble now.

...

Waller's going to have her shot. Oh well. YOLO!

Harley runs into the fray, stops, and whistles at everyone. "HEY! Official super secret police stuff here! Everyone stop what you're doin or I'mma gonna beat you all up!" she yells.

Then jumps and ducks behind a car when people start firing at her. "Eep."

Jason's got no weapons hardly any clothes, and no guns, so he's not exactly set up for this kind of chaos. Shots go off in every which direction, chaos of the city enveloping everything. There's no real time to think as he just runs for cover, right next to one of the goons with his pistol. It's not elegant, without about half of the show off he'd normally put into it, but this has turned to a life or death situation.

Black Bat looks down from the roof. She pauses long enough to spot Nightstar in the sky and flashes her a signal, aiming her down the street with a hand signal; "Try and..get ahead of...this. Keep it from...spreading." For her, that's a speech.

Without waiting to see if Nightstar reacts to the signal, leaps down to the ground without a sound, slipping into the war with hopes of minimal casualties. Though from the looks of things it's too late for THAT.

Harley Quinn peeks her head out from behind the car. More gunshots. She ducks back down.

She peeks her head out again. More machine gun fire, but she manages to say, "YOU'RE ALL!"

Then ducks again. She peeks again. "YOU'RE ALL UN-"

Ducks again as another hail of gunfire comes her way.

Ok this is beginning to tick her off. Bullets whizzing by her head does that.

She rolls out behind the car, while in one motion whipping her bazooka onto her shoulder and saying. "YoureallunderarrestfreezeKABOOMBOYS!" and fires the bazooka at where the gang members were firing at her. They widen their eyes and scatter as the rocket hits the car, causing lots of explodey noises and fire and.... whatever else happens when you shoot a car with a bazooka. Harley Quinn scrambles back for the car when other start shooting at her. "THIS IS BECOMING VERY REPETITIVE!!!!!" she yells from her cover.

Nightstar raises an eyebrow at the signal and the 'speech' "We oughta meet sometime when we're not busy" she says over the bat comm. Luckily the densest part of the action was at the head of things.

A starbolt whizzes thru the night air to hit a car and go into the hood. There's the sound of squealing tires and broken glass. Oh wait that's a song...but it's also just another noise in the chaos as cars crash into one another and others swerve and fishtail.

Nightstar quickly throws more starbolts at the other cars as a pile up starts to grow.

As bullets fly up at her, Night star takes off after the lone car that got ahead of her and at top speed she dives down to land on the hood, crushing it in and down "Not tonight boys!"

The gang members inside look wide eyed and brace themselves inside their vehicle as it doesn't just turn up on its nose but flips and their hung upside down in their seats as Nightstar catches the car and drops it on it's roof in the street.

Unsure if it's more the heat of the moment shock, or something else keeping him alive Jason does his best to disable two gunmen who saw fit to try and almost blow him to pieces with their peashooters. He's not really sure what he's doing but once he's got the other two men who were hidden behind the parked car disables he's at least got something to arm himself with. In the chaos of it all he takes care to at least get himself a pair of shoes from one of the unconscious men, sliding them on despite being a size too large for them just so he's not walking around on broken glass. More gunshots whizzing past overhead. He also takes the time to toss on the mans black jacket digging around for some ammunition.

Moving up near to Jason, Black Bat boggles at seeing him at all from her vantage point of underneath a car. She reaches out and grabs the ankles of a guy with an uzi who has Jason's back and pulls, dragging him underneath to knock him cold. Which has the side effect of making sure HE doesn't get shot tonight. Underneath a car that's not near Nightstar is fairly safe, really.

The darknight figure moves through the shadows, into a window where she engages with a small group with hunting rifles. She slips up on them, knocks heads together, and watches Harley outside the window firing off a rocket launcher.

"Wh..." she starts, then shakes her head. Nevermind. "Mind the crazy," she says into her comm, moving to another target.

Nightstar flies up into the air to look around the city for other cars spreading the chaos "What crazy?" she asks in the comm "I'm still making sure this thing has a fence around it" diving down and picking up a parked car she smiles as she sees gangsters in a car coming at her and the paniced looks on their faces before she throws the cars to crash with the popping of it's wheels right into their path.

Nother pile up building but more to go

One of the vehicles that crashes into the pile has some bigger fire power as bullets rain upward and one hits her shoulder. Dad and the others could usually hide their wounds but Nightstar had the disadvantage of her costume and the blood soon spread as she held her shoulder tightly and flew off out of range.

Harley Quinn yells at them, "STOP SHOOTING AT ME SO I CAN SHOOT YOU MORE!" Apparently, gang members don't find that tradeoff appealing, because they keep firing at her.

Having her pinned down, they get closer, turning the guns to automatic fire to surround the car and when they come around the car to where Harley should be crouched behind...

There's no Harley.

What there is, though, is a live flashbang grenade with the pin pulled out, and a manhole that's just been replaced. At which point it goes off, showering the area with 14 million candela of light and 320 decibels of noise.

Now I know what you're thinking, readers and wikipedia perusers - the M84 stun grenade, otherwise known as the Flashbang, gives off 180 decibel and 8 million candela of light.

Harley likes to tinker.


 * BOOM FLASH!*

Below, Harley hangs on the manhole rungs as she listens for the 'boom.'

Coming back up to a stand, Jason fires off a few shots at a fire hydrant of all things. He wasn't really expecting an automatic pistol, but he fires it off anyway, trying to use it to put out a fire, not really thinking of the possible consequences or real feasibility. Shots blaze back towards him one managing to clip his nice new leather jacket.

Black Bat watches Jason as she slips under the legs of a guy who's firing on a house's windows. She doesn't stop to ask why, just sacks hin in passing and flings a handful of batarangs into the street, taking out a group that are heading this way with the one cast of her arm. She considers taking Jason out for his own good, when the flash bang goes off nearby to both of them, making her duck and cover her ears.

Vanishing under a car, Cassandra slides out in the midst of the crowd that was about to try and take out the Harleymonster, quickly inspecting the carnage wrought by one p.o.'ed tinker girl. With precision and speed she quickly taps each of the stunned gangers on the temple, sending them to the ground, though she can't see the perpetrator of the event. Dang vigilantes in my town.

Healing took longer by starlight then sunlight but Nightstar couldn't worry about that now. She flew thru the air, a purple glow in the night and threw starbolts with both hands at leading cars that were barreling down several streets.

There was a cascade of noise that repeated itself along the line she'd fired, the sound of one car pile up after another starting to build up. But Nightstar decided to stay up in the air out of gun range for now "This doesn't even make any sense, it's not like a usual turf war or gang on gang. This is just...for the sake of violence" she said thru gritted teeth into the bat comm

Fwoosh, water sprays out into the street from the fire hydrant, knocking a pair of gunmen clean over from the force of the water. Their guns go sliding off to the sides, water spraying down the burning wreckage of a car. This gangwar seems to be meeting a rather quick end at this rate, and Jason's loving every second of it, feeling alive again as he shoots out the supports for an awning disabling a group of four gunmen by trapping them underneath it. Not really thinking he screams out "It's good to be alive!"

Harley Quinn drops back down into the sewers as one of the bat crew and some orange girl are mopping up the gang war up there. She doesnt particularly notice Jason, since she doesnt have x-ray vision, but she assumed the oofs and acks and sounds of punches were probably SOMEONE in the bats. And probably the orange girl because.... well there's an orange flying girl - chances are she's involved.

So Harley takes that as her queue to leave. Her and the bats? Well they just don't get along. Probably because in her past she's tried put several of them in deathtraps for her puddin. Scratch that. Ex-puddin jerkface. Yeah!

Still, easier to not be there now.

So off she trudges, a long crime warrioress, trying to right her past wrongs in a world where OH GOD DID I STEP ON A .. WHAT THE HECK DID I STEP ON?! AUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!

Harley's internal monologue again is halted by reality. This time sewer reality, which is a particularly icky reality as she runs off into the sewers.

And justice.

But mostly sewage.

And on the surface, the vehicles are stopped. The gunfire is fading out into barely a hint of rice krispie noises and an occasional single shot taken more out of hope of hitting something interesting than any actual danger. Someone throws a purse at Jason, but that's the old lady in the window who begins to bitch him out about how children treat their elders these days.

Amazingly, there just isn't a great deal left to do, and the combat ends as suddenly as it began. You can find Black Bat interrogating one guy in an alley by rhythmically hitting him until he talks, but she's being remarkably gentle about it. You could also find someone taking aim at Nightstar in the sky, but the way that she took out that car...not worth the effort, boys. She's scary.

Two police cars pull up at the edge of the car pileup, with more following, and the Bat-Signal FINALLY blazes across the night sky. Your money well spent, citizens.