2014-05-02 Dark Tide Rising: Cat fight!

Pieter Van Eyck was a jerk and proud of it. He had a picture of his grandfather slapping Desmond Tutu. With the Third Reich long out of business he gravitated to the next best thing: Hydra. Hell they even had the cheesy salute.

"Hail Hydra! For every limb cut off we grow two more!" the trooper, thug really, intoned. Pieter hissed at him, "Be silent fool. We needn't draw attention to ourselves. Are the crates loaded yet?" The trooper looked at the green suited squad working feverishly and shook his head. "A few more minutes. The relics are delicate Gruppenfuehrer." Pieter gave him a shove back to the truck, "Then hurry up! The sooner we are back in New York ze better. This Gotham I do not like. It feels haunted. Heh." Small joke. That's when it happens. Out of the past, like a ghost, a circular object whirls downward from a rooftop and smacks the trooper standing by Pieter, knocking him for a loop with  The rest of the squad drops the shipment and draws pistols. "Captain America: the swine lives! Nonsense! Yes his cursed shield that smacked us in the mouth so many times!"

Pieter nudges the object at his feet and looks closer. "It is a farging garbage pail lid you damned morons!"

That's when the rest of the can hurtles down and lands on Pieter the Gurppenfuehrer showering him in trash. A familiar cowled face peeks over a roof, "Fight trash with trash I says. Yeah... I'm going to start saying that now," Wildcat mutters. He wonders how much more he can have them jumping at shadows.

"You have no -style-," laments Catwoman moving up behind Wildcat. "And," she further laments, "This was supposed to be -my- gig." She pats the cowled man on the head, before she jumps off the roof, whip extending out to a flagpole that she swings up and around, and then lands neatly on two legs, and one hand in a crouched position near the men. She tilts her head, lips curling into a sensual, playful, and utterly mischevious smile.

"Meee. Ow."

Wildcat hollers after his former student, "We can't all afford batarangs ya know!!"

That unfortunately does get the attention of the Hydra troopers who unleash a fusilade of generic but lethal 9 mil rounds at the old mystery man. In fact they're pretty much oblivious to Selina, which in itself is a recipe for disaster.

Which Ted knows and is sort of banking on.

He ducks behind the parapet as bullets begin pinging off it cursing.

"Is that Batman? Batman doesn't throw trash! Maybe he is out of the batarangs? I think he said something to that effect a second ago." There's a grunting and a weird screeching from the rooftop followed by, "Oh my farging back! Hnnnnnnnngh." More scraping.

The whip lashes out, snaking around the muzzle of the 9mm gun and yanks it out of the thug's hands. She purrs, "When the Bat's away, the Cat will play. Time to have some fun, boys." The way she says is, one might think she's offering to bed them. All. The whip cracks back though, and she begins running towards the guy she just disarmed, and uses his shoulders as a Cat-apult, twisting her body in the air and landing in front of another thug, who gets a clean leg sweep, and the following slam of his head into the concrete ensures he will be unconscious for quite some time.

Meanwhile ... a huge, dark form appears over the edge of the roof and suddenly drops! With a loud boom! It caves in the cab of the truck and bounces off to land near the thugs. The ground shakes with its weight! One trooper screams, "The Hulk! He will smash!" They all start shooting at ...

"It's a farging air conditioner you verdammte morons! Get the woman! My truck, my truck ... schei!" Pieter brushes garbage off his ruined uniform and finally lays hands on his automatic rifle. "I will go after Batman's grandvater!" He tries to draw a bead on any head foolish enough to appear over the roof.

Even as Pieter moves to grab the automatic rifle, Catwoman's bola is thrown about, toward his ankles, wrapping around and cinching completely, and quickly. "You've got something that belongs to me," she informs Pieter. "You shouldn't steal what I was going to rightfully steal, first. Very, very naughty. Now I'm just going to have to punish all of you."

Wildcat finally makes his entrance, opening the back door of the abandoned building he vandalized in the name of justice. A nearby Hydra trooper throws a punch at the Old Cat. Ted opens the door more letting the man smash his fist against it. Before the man can get a howl of pain out of his mouth Ted slams the door against him with enough force to knock him backwards into Dreamland. He whips around the door and slams it in the opposite direction catching the guy who was charging him from behind. The trooper makes a deflating noise as Wildcat closes the door on his waist, pinning him against the building.

Yes, Batman could have taken them out even faster and with minimal expenditure of energy but Wildcat is a master of delivering a beating that lets you know what a loser you are. He looks at Garbage Fuehrer going down and grins. "You mean the artifacts you were returning for the insurance reward I hope." Yes he hopes: because running down Catwoman and making her cough up her hard earned loot is something he doesn't relish. Better he should wear a Luthor for President button to Superman's family reunion.

Hearing the HYDRA thug behind her, approaching fast, she turns and plants a roundhouse kick across the side of his skull with one of those perfectly shaped, and utterly sensual leather-encased legs. Slowly, the leg lowers as she pivots back, and dusts off her hands before walking over towards Pieter. She leans over him, tapping a claw on top of his forehead, "Now you be a good boy, and wait here for the police."

She turns her head over her shoulder, looking to Wildcat. "Mmm. Some of it," she admits, "Perhaps." Meaning, by proxy, not all of it.

Wildcat folds his hands and sighs. "The legit stuff. The other stuff ... you know who it goes to. I won't tell you your business. Do I want to know how you're going to move a truckload of this crap?" He puts one hand on his lower back and winces a little. Building ACs are heavy. He's pretty sure she's posing right now. She can do way better turning stuff in for a reward than fencing it. Right

Though in that outfit ...

"You can do with most of this stuff whatever you want," she tells Ted, climbing into the truck. She rummages only for a few moments, before she comes out with an ancient looking case. "This? This is mine. Turn the rest of it in. Paint the sign on the gym. Fresh coat of paint on the walls. Maybe some gym mats that don't smell like stale sweat from the 1900's," she teases, though affectionately.

Few people are fast enough to take Catwoman by surprise. Wildcat is one of them. Sometimes. Like now, pumped up by the rush of combat and feeling merely 50 again. He grabs the case out of the fabulous feline's hands. "The hell is this anyway?" he asks playfully. He examines it with idle (idol?) curiosity.

"Something that's going to go next to the white jade Emperor's vessel on my mantle," Selina tells the man, pointedly. "And you'd better hand it back. You know what happens when you play with a Cat's toy that she really, really wants, don't you?"

Wildcat looks over the case. It has delicate engraved figures in the ancient Egyptian style of men, women and cats and a particular cat headed woman for good measure. He looks at the woman's face for a long moment almost in a dream and does not respond to Selina's threat or much of anything.

Wildcat says softly, "Bast ... the goddess Bast."

"And very, very, very valuable. And mine." Catwoman, unaware of anything that's coming over Ted. And she moves forward, to recapture the case, and make off with it. Not that she plans on running. Ted likely won't stop her. Not when he has all these criminals to see to. And, a truckload of other ill-begotten goods to return safely.

Wildcat doesn't resist. He says softly, "That cannot die which can eternal lie ... with coming strange aeons even Death may die. The balance is shaken and the Old One stirs. He that drank Atlantis and caused Polaris to burn red ... "

"Okay, now you're just being creepy." She closes the case, and snatches it away from Wildcat, "Besides. When did you ever read old historical texts? Figured if it wasn't sports, or crime reports, or have a picture of a girl on it, you didn't read it."

Wildcat shakes his head suddenly. "Sorry? What? I was just wondering if the phone Bats gave me had a function to call the cops?" Wildcat digs in his boot and produces a small black phone similar to the ones the bat interns used. "He said it had your number too. Should I be jealous, kitty?" He winks at Selina.

"Yes," agrees Selina, "You should. And, stay away from Bast. She's mine," Selina replies, smoothly. She winks. "Have fun, Wildcat. But not too much, without me. And - this time? Try to stay away from the blondes. Or else I may have to hurt you. Girl can get jealous, if she gets ignored, you know."

Wildcat smirks a little. "I think maybe you're a little jealous yourself, kitty. And if you come between the Old Cat and that certain blonde I will demonstrate what happens when you come between a tom cat and who he reeeeeeeally likes. Anway, now that we did our strutting: thanks for the tip and the back up and ... stay off the wanted lists, okay?" He ignores the other comments.

"Being on the wanted lists is half the fun," she counters. "A girl has to keep her credibility up, after all." Catwoman winks at Wildcat, behind her goggles, Then she's trouncing off with her prize. Unaware at just what sort of prize it is that she has.