1069/Craven: Prowling Gotham Zoo

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Craven: Prowling Gotham Zoo
Date of Scene: 09 April 2020
Location: Coventry - Miagani Island
Synopsis: Hellcat and Batman foil Kraven the Hunter's poaching attempts.
Cast of Characters: Bruce Wayne, Patsy Walker




Bruce Wayne has posed:
The trade in exotic wildlife is a dangerous and lucrative one. Smaller beasts like pangolin and parrots are easy to capture and export, shipped around the world in inhumane conditions to fill the beastiaries of the idle rich.

The trade in larger game is no less lucrative, but far more dangerous.

The Gotham Zoo is a truly world-class zoological conservatory, in no small part thanks to the charitable donations of some of the old families that make up Gotham's elite. To that end, the Zoo's most recent acquisition were a pair of wild white Siberian tigers; a breeding pair with cubs.

For Kraven the Hunter, perpetual safari hunter, they would make a perfect way to bankroll his multinational schemes.

The paddock had a truck backed up to the loading dock and several men wearing stolen zoo uniforms were roping in the female tiger. Tranquilized and lashed up, she was nearly a half a ton of solid muscle and fur and it took the efforts of four men to haul her in a sling hammock towards the truck's closed bed. Two men were wrangling the little of kits, tossing them into heavy burlap bags and ignoring the plaintive, distressed mewling of the kittens.

"Why has the male not been captured yet?" Kraven stands with his arms crossed over his chest and an imperious look on his face. His clothing is utilitarian; jeans and a sleeveless red vest with a well-worn lion's mane in place of the collar. Moccasins, instead of boots, and made by hand of some exotic leather. No undershirt to speak of, and the teeth and fangs of defeated enemies dangles from a braided necklace against his scarred chest.

Not all of them human.

"He's playing hard to get, sir," one of the thugs explains, and lifts his radio. "Paul. Do you have that damn cat cornered yet?"

"<No, we're working on it, but-- augh!>"

A bloodcurdling scream in the shadows. Then, silence.

"Stupid oaf," Kraven mutters. "Send two more men. I want that animal found in the next thirty minutes, or I leave you here in the paddock with him."

Patsy Walker has posed:
Why would anyone attend the zoo after nightfall?

Well, legally speaking.

For nefarious deeds, of course, but one such (technically illegal) visitor is currently scouting the sprawl of the African veld enclosure tucked as flat as she can to the covered visitor's watch-tower. Ambient light barely gleams off the oily blue-black of the cat-eared cowl...and no, it's not Catwoman. But Patsy, this evening dressed in her vigilante catsuit duds of a rather shocking sunflower-yellow with accents of black gloves and boots, is squinting one last time across the distance for a guy she knows as 'Catman' over in New York.

This is cursory check-in to make sure the guy isn't trespassing over HERE. He likes to wrestle lions, from what Patsy observed, which isn't...wise or technically legal.

"Hmm. Well, I guess he's not here tonight, which is good," she murmurs to herself as she rests her chin on her folded forearms, belly still flat to the rooftop. "I mean, it was a shot in the dark -- "

Then comes the scream. She jitters in place, fingers curling up and away into their claws to avoid damaging herself, and then Patsy sits up on one hip, staring wide-eyed in the direction of the sound.

"Christ on a cracker, that was a person," she breathes. Only briefly fretting at her lip, she then rises and takes off from the observation deck. Avoiding the ground as much as possible, she makes her way to what appears to be the Asian Steppe section of the zoo. Her coverage is the low rooftop wall of another observation deck and she peeks over it to look down inside of it, eyes wide and searching in the infrared spectrum with some concentration.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
A dozen thugs, at least. The lingering heat from the daytime is slowly bleeding out of the plant life and from the concrete that had been soaking it up. Not a crystal-clear contrast but enough she can make out the moving forms of several men, armed with nets and tranquilizers. Four, up on the loading dock, are carrying game guns and shotguns. Hard-hitting but slow weapons, good for dealing with violent game.

Four are hauling the tiger towards the truck and managing the mewling kittens slung into the knapsacks. That leaves four more skulking around the brush, spread out in a loose spread so they have line of sight to one another while they rustle the brushes. Brilliant white handlights flash conical illumination around them looking for the glint of eyes.

Then, in the far corner of the enclosure, a large heat mass ducks between two boulders and belly-crawls along the wall. The male tiger, trying to flank the hunters that have his mate captured. It's fifty meters away from the hunters at least, visible only to Hellcat's enhanced vision.

So it's a bit of a curious thing when another one of the hunters abrputly vanishes from sight. His flaslight goes flying, illuminating signage and the foliage overhead, and goes dark. There's no cry of alarm or distress-- just a cold shadow hauling him violently off his feet and into the bushes nearby. A single hot point is visible, but bafflingly small. The size of a small melon, perhaps, and flickering in and out of vision.

Patsy Walker has posed:
"...shit..." whispers the Hellcat to herself as she marks the weaponry in particular. Her lashes narrow behind the slits of her cowl as she watches the searchers spread out in their line; a part of her prays they don't sweep their flashlights in her direction because the last thing she needs is night-blindness with shotguns in play. Nerves jitter as she continues peering over the low wall. The male tiger is marked and her lips twist. "I'm so sorry, buddy, but I can't let you do that..." Cautiously, she pushes up from her stomach-down position.

Hopefully nobody hears the whispery 'eeep!' when Patsy observes one thug just up and up...vanish! Like some cuttlefish came out of the blue and subsumed him! She stares long and hard at that area of shrubbery.

"...right, those bushes, nope. Staying away from those." A deep sigh and then...she moves into action. Dropping down into the enclosure itself to a soundless crouched landing, the Hellcat then blurs into action. Her cable-claw is shot in a fsst of sound at the boot of one of the gun-bearers and she yanks as hard as she can manage, toppling him out of the blue and taking out his teammate beside him as the man collides with the other gunman's legs. Flashlights again go flying. At this point, a recoiling powered by the cable's mechanism rips the boot straight off the first guy and Patsy hucks that sucker straight into the face of the next guy to turn in her direction. WHOP -- booted. The final guy gets tackled straight to the gut and taken down, over and over, Tigger-style, wherein the bouncy-pouncy-fun-fun-fun-fun-fun punches his lights out to leave him back-down.

Rather than stay where she is, the Hellcat in her gloriously bright suit, cobalt-blue sash about her waist and all, darts for the nearest tree!

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Lead projectile shred the underbrush as the poachers unload on Hellcat. She's moving fast enough to avoid the worst of it, but that bright yellow outfit doesn't do her many favors until she can evaporate into the bushes.

A gunman continues shooting wildly long after Hellcat disappears. Kraven swings a backhand at one of the men with little effort; the poacher's jaw shatters audibly and he drops like a broken marionette. He shouts something incomprehensible and indignant at the prone criminal.

"Do not wound the tiger!" he roars, and his voice rattles the underbrush like a great cat's scream. "Spill any of his blood and I will spill yours in turn!"

The hunter swaggers forward with that same undeniable self-possession, hands on his hips. "One of Gotham's storied vigilantes!" he crows, challengingly. "Are you here to challenge the mighty Kraven, King of the Hunt?"

A short distance from Patsy one of the wranglers straightens from a crouch, flashlight panning around. The cone of it starts to land on her boots and he disappears behind the glare as if he can see something, perhaps a reflection off her goggles--

And then he disappears sideways with a strangled *ghurk* and lands in the bushes. His light rattles around and ends up half-buried in the dirt. Hellcat gets a glance of a flickering silhouette that seems obscured to both normal and enhanced vision-- except this time, a pair of glowing white eyes can be seen focusing on her for a brief second before they, too, vanish.

Patsy Walker has posed:
Up in her tree, Patsy winces at the stentorian voice of the boss of this entire affair. She doesn't feel the need to immediately banter with the man, not when she can see the weaponry in his hand slung with the ease of knowledge. When the flashlight's glare shines over the gleam of her boots, she looks down and inhales sharply and silently.

"Shit!" she hisses before she stoppers up another 'eeeeeep!' behind lips pressed white-thin. Her grey-blue eyes, not behind any form of shielding material, look wide back at the eerie white regard that vanishes like smoke in the wind. "Heeeeere, kitty-kitty-kitty...!" she whispers to herself as she looks around again, hoping that the male tiger will either remain hidden or show up to suddenly savage like...whatever the hell that was in the bushes. AGAIN.

"Okay...okay, you can do this, that plan makes sense...sort of," Patsy squeaks to herself as she then crouches. A spring off a pliable limb sends her out of the foliage and high into the air. Fsssst -- there goes the cable-claw again to YOINK one of the wrangler's shotguns from his hand. Down drops the Hellcat, holding onto the barrel of the weapon to swing the bulkier stock as a blunt weapon onto the gunman's head. It lands her near enough to Kraven to attempt a quick leg-sweep at the man.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Down goes the last of the gunmen, and though Patsy can't see it, the last of the poachers in the brush goes down as well. Kraven's alone save for one last ally in the far corner of the lot, who is prudently taking shelter in a rock pile (ie, cowering in fear).

Regrettably for him, the poacher can neither see nor hear the tiger stalking him...

Hellcat's strike sweeps Kraven's foot out from under him. The man is massive up close, built with the thick muscle and core strength of a professional athlete. No lean aesthetic muscle here; all working mass.

Perhaps unexpectedly for Patsy, though, he catches his weight on a single palm outthrust under him. Neat as a gymnast his mass rotates around and his foot whips through the air with shocking speed and precision, aiming a swift spinning kick at Hellcat's ribcage. Even lacking much leverage thrown from the unconventional position, it carries tremendous power behind the blow.

Patsy Walker has posed:
"ACK!"

It might look like a close-quarters breakdancing contest, but this is in earnest. Patsy barely manages to push herself up from the ground with one arm and toes. The jackboot grazes her suit enough to leave a burning line of friction behind and it screws up her next attempt to clobber the guy all to hell. Around comes the shotgun's hefty body and it whistles past Kraven's head by a paltry inch due to rotational stresses.

Still, the Hellcat knows she can't give the guy another inch of distance, not with the weapon in his hand. She lands again and swings to try and make contact with his shoulder, intending to numb the joint with a crushing blow or -- hey, maybe it'll knock him in the noggin instead.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
The gun is certainly a threat if Kraven can get a shot off with it. It's a big bore game rifle, used for dropping Cape buffalo and rampaging elephants. Few animals on Earth can survive a good hit from the massive cartridge it loads.

Kraven doesn't even bother using the gun as a rifle. He grunts once, taking Patsy's kick to the shoulder and rolling with it to blunt some of the force of impact. Hellcat's strong enough to crack cinderblocks with that blow; Kraven weathers it like a stiff jab rather than the powerhouse impact it is.

He counters with a feint and then a lunge, holding the rifle crossways like a club and aiming a fierce jab at Hellcat's abdomen with the steel muzzle.

"I expected better from Gotham!" he spits with a heavy Russian accent, and lunges at Patsy as fast and ferocious as a jungle cat!

Patsy Walker has posed:
Patsy feels the impact of her attack landing vibrate up her limb. It makes her grimace, eyes sparking behind the black masking of her eared cowl. She lands and immediately gets up to her feet. The feint is parried with a more wild swing of the shotgun and when Kraven lunges, she's already returning from the commitment to swing her own firearm like a baseball bat.

Try as Patsy might, she can tell she won't be able to dodge the lunge, not at this point. Away goes the shotgun, released on a whim to spin off like a mis-thrown Frisbee, and she takes the tackle -- and rolls with it. A grunt as the muzzle of Kraven's gun glances off her ribs once more and they tumble end over end, stopping with Hellcat's black boots rested against the Hunter's abdomen as the Hellcat clutches one hand tightly around his neck. Claws prickle at his skin.

"Yeah, I'm from California, sunshine," the young woman snarks before she then kicks Kraven off of her with all the strength she can bear through her long legs! There he goes, in an arc through the air, headed for the dreaded bushes. Patsy still sweeps up to a crouch, hand clutching cross-body at her side, as she watches him crash into the foliage with an almighty sound.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
The guns smash against one another; components break and go flying. Kraven doesn't seem disarmed in the slightest. One hand snakes up and grabs Patsy's wrist before she can sink those talons in, but then he's gone flying before she can leave more than scratch marks on his flesh.

And then there is silence from the underbrush.

It grows omnious quite quickly. There are the sounds of injured men groaning in the foliage. The tiger, at the far end of the enclosure, is busy gutting his deceased victim. Wet squelching sounds can be detected even through the simulated jungle.

Kraven's heat signature vanishes a few paces into the brush. He's nowhere to be seen. Neither is the mysterious apparition that had been haunting the poachers one by one.

A crack of a branch overhead is all the warning Hellcat gets before Kraven pounces on her from a great height, as if he'd clambered up a tree and launched himself at her like a pouncing jaguar.

A flying black mass intercepts him in midair with a spectacular flying kick. Kraven's trajectory is gone wide and he lands badly on one arm with a grunt of pain. The hunter rolls once and pops to his feet in a low crouch.

A faint *thud* accompanies the shadow landing on the ground, equidistant from Patsy and Kraven. He straightens from a crouch into a twisted, dark pillar. A long cloak hangs to his feet, obscuring his posture and frame from view. The mottled blacks and grey make him an amorphous blob, defined only by a rigidly stern chin, thin-pressed lips, and whiteless eyes with a subtle glow to them.

"Batman," Kraven hisses in anger. "I thought I smelled a rodent lurking around."

The Bat says nothing. Those eyeslits merely narrow minutely.

Patsy Walker has posed:
Even crouched down small in the shadows of the tree canopies overhead, the Hellcat is still a bright target. She listens and squints, her infrared giving her information as best it can, but not enough in the end. The crack of the branch overhead has the whites of her eyes showing as she tries to throw herself to one side to avoid the drop.

It never impacts. She finishes rolling through the dodge in a furl of her loose red hair and ends up in a low-dropped lunge, hind foot gritting up turf in its stretch before she returns to crouching. Her teeth bare unthinking at first. Still holding at her rib, she watches the newly-revealed figure who must have been responsible for the Hunter's failure to crush her into the turf. Batman, huh? She's been in the area long enough for hearsay to filter in about this guy right here.

"You got him if I go deal with the mom and cubs?" the Hellcat asks even as she begins to straighten in place, one graceful gain of height and poise despite the burn at her side.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Batman's cowl twitches minutely towards Hellcat. There are no pupils to those eyes; the sole indication that he pays her any attention is that motion.

"'Got me'?" Kraven sneers. He reaches to his belt and extracts a wickedly recurved knife, shaped like a tiger claw. "I am Kraven the Hunter!" he declares, proudly. "Your cowl will adorn my wall, Batman," Kraven growls.

"And you, redheaded wench-- I will take your scalp and weave a belt from your hair," he promises her.

There's a tense moment of hesitation and then Kraven lunges at Batman with a flickering, deceptive feint to disguise the slash of the blade aimed for the Dark Knight's throat!

Patsy Walker has posed:
Patsy catches the subtle motion of the Batman's head and hazards it's a form of acknowledgement. She's coming to understand just how true the rumors are about his silence both in battle and outside of it.

Kraven regains her attention as he pulls his weapon from his hip and the Hellcat tenses, her own black-gloved hands curling into clawed forms again. Night breeze catches at the sash at her waist, sending the excess to briefly fluttering, and banners her hair off her shoulders for a second. "...that's gross," opines the young woman quietly about the proposed use of her hair, her nose wrinkling in disgust and one corner of her lip lifting.

Kraven lunges and her arm flows into motion, shooting the cable-claw at his weapon-arm in an attempt to at least knock the angle of the blade's descent askew. Should the claw catch, she then yanks as hard as she can, ribs twingeing fire at the sudden torque of waist.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
The grapnel snakes out and snatches Kraven's wrist in those claws. The blow is strong and sure enough that it puts tremendous force on the cable. Kraven stumbles once and grabs the line with a countering force of his own. Legs set and his hips twist and he hauls violently on the cord. His strength is definitely beyond human, and he fights well and knows how to use it.

But it buys the Dark Knight his opening, and Batman's cloak flares with dynamic lateral motion. A pellet whips out from under it and explodes near Kraven's foot. Foam immediately expands to something the size of a basketball.

The hunter snarls in range and lifts his foot off the ground. Strong enough to fight the foam as it hardens, but it certainly robs his balance and makes for an awkward and lurching motion as it turns into a rubbery cast. Kraven slashes through the knotted cable with the knife's edge and a powerful twist of his arms, then lunges for Batman. The vigilante dodges backwards skillfully and engages in a rapid series of parries and strikes with Kraven. The blade clashes off metal in Batman's bracers; a skilled chop at the wrist weakens Kraven's grasp and sends the blade skittering away. The hunter roars in pain and catches Batman with a fast kick to the gut, hitting him hard enough to knock his feet out from under him and knock him momentarily prone.

Patsy Walker has posed:
Yanked along with the sudden haul by Kraven, Patsy again goes with the motion. She janks hard to one side as the figure in his eerie dark cape engages directly, both gloved palms holding onto the cable line as best she can, and begins to run //around// the two combatants. With the Hunter's foot cased in a hobbling foam blob, he's unable to dance about as cleanly as before. In her peripheral vision, the Hellcat sees the blade spark off bracers even as she pulls a third-base slide timed between booted steps to bring the cable's length around the back of Kraven's legs loosely.

Another quick dart and when he commits to landing his lead kicking foot to the ground, Patsy then springs the recoil on her cable-claw's mechanism.

WHRRRR! It respools at a blazing speed and closes the multiple wrappings of cable about Kraven's feet to set his balance to precarious if any at all! A firm yank from behind him, Hellcat's boots heel-planted into the dirt, attempts to bring down the Hunter like an AT-AT on a snowy tundra.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
It's done so smoothly that even Kraven is taken by surprise. He teeters, arms pinwheeling, and tries to leap free a half-second too late. Legs pull up close to his chest and he starts to pitch forward into a handspring in order to bound away.

Batman moves so smoothly it's like the action was choreographed with Hellcat beforehand. He sweeps a leg out and kicks Kraven's hands out from under him mid-somesault and then steps sideways with a curiously formal looking wing chun strike, palms and shoulder driving into Kraven's lower back with all of Batman's power coming from his rear foot. Kraven grunts in agony and goes flying through the air and lands on his back hard enough to pick up some concrete scrapes.

The hunter recovers fast and grabs for a boot knife to cut his hands free; a steel projectile flies through the air and hits his fingers. The knife and the batarang clang off concrete and land under a truck.

Kraven shrieks like an enraged hyena and bangs his fists on the concrete. Still fighting, still trying to get to his feet. Batman appears again not far from Patsy, once more curled up in his cloak and a twisted, misshapen simulation of a living creature.

Kraven yowls in distress. Batman -growls-. It's a subvocal noise that resonates like a snarling beast, and Kraven stops his whimpering with a blink.

"/Sit/." The words come out in a barking resonance. Kraven rocks his weight back on his hips.

"/Stay/." The last of the fight goes out of Kraven's eyes and his head slumps in submission to the two vigilante who have him captured.

Two more foam pellets are flicked at Kraven, and with a *pop*pop* he's swiftly encased in foam once again.

"Good," Batman says in that same gravelly monotone.

Patsy Walker has posed:
Patsy keeps the tension on the cable singingly-tight until she's absolutely certain the man won't be attempting to flail about like a salmon on a line. The moment comes with the two additional pufts of foam to burrito Kraven into submission. "Jesus...finally," the young red-head breathes as she flicks open a small panel on her glove-gauntlet and presses a button. Some sharp edge shears off the excess cable line; it falls to the ground in a thin, silvery trail leading back to the Hunter.

Giving that entire limb a quick shake-out, she then pauses to feel at her ribs. A wince before she glances over at Batman. "Thanks. I really appreciate your help, though I feel like this was kind of your deal and I got involved in it." Remembering her query about the mother and cubs, she then frowns in the direction of the loading bay for the enclosure. "I hope they didn't hurt the keepers. I don't know how to handle tigers."

Her grey-blue gaze turns out towards the paddock and in the direction of where she last //thought// she saw the heat-blob of the male tiger. A bit of concentration is required overtop the thrill of nerves and adrenaline fading to bring up the particular spectrum of vision. He's still there, thank god, though the cooling bundle nearby makes her stomach clench.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Batman turns to look at Patsy when she speaks, saying nothing for a few beats. Just staring at her with those whiteless eyes. There's a subtle flash of some deeper illumination and then they go matte again, colorless and non-reflective. With her infravision the 'ghost' from earlier is now apparent as his exposed mouth and, the only visible skin.

"Keepers are tied up. Toolshed," he says.

"You're Hellcat." It's less question than statement. "New York vigilante." He has a peculiar way of speaking; clipped, perfunctory. Minimal movement of his mouth or lips. And there's something unnerving about him. Not just his voice, the pitch meant to play against basic psychological impulses; it's his presence. Like a phantom breath on the back of the neck. Cold and disruptive. It makes him feel less than human, pushing him into that uncanney valley.

Batman's eyes narrow at Hellcat. "I don't like tourists in Gotham," he says, ominously.

Patsy Walker has posed:
Thank god, the keepers are alive. "Oh, that's good." Patsy at least has time to volunteer her relieved comment on a sigh before the Batman continues. Her hand remains tucked against her ribs, but she does straighten a good deal upon being directly addressed by her nom-de-guerre. Her rose-pink lips purse into a little bud of concern as he makes it crystal-clear that she's likely trespassing.

"Well, it's a good thing I'm only passing through," the Hellcat replies with a snappy fingergun in the Batman's stoic direction. Her smile is hesitant. "Like I said, kind of...wandered into this mess. I was working on something else here in the zoo, but my lead was a red herring. You know those red herrings, so fishy." Her chuckle is weak and fades out shortly after, her smile still plastered on her face cherubically.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
The joke falls flat. Batman doesn't respond one way or another. Just.... stares at Patsy, with those unreadable, sightless eyes. Is he really a bat? Does he see through sound or something? There's nothing to indicate what he's thinking or how he's reacting.

And then his lips thin very, very slightly.

"You're looking for another vigilante in the area," he concludes. There's a beat and his head tilts down and to the side a fractional inch, thinking.

"What do you need from Catman?" Those whiteless eyes focus onto Hellcat again with a penetrating weight.

Patsy Walker has posed:
Patsy blinks in open surprise at the cloaked vigilante's astute guess.

"I wanted to check up on him and make sure he wasn't doing stupid things like wrestling lions again. I mean, the guy's...different, but that's...that's a way to go, being eaten by a big cat." Again, her stomach twists on itself at the knowledge of one gunman not making it out of this alive in comparison to the multiple sprawled out unconscious like lost dolls. "Have you seen him lately?"

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Yes." The response from the Bat is perfunctory, but sounds honest.

Patsy Walker has posed:
"Holy crap, you have? Here? In this zoo?" Patsy points at the ground to indicate the entire property. "Or elsewhere in the city?" Now she circles the same finger around at the height of her chest to imply the rest of the forest of buildings and skyscrapers beyond the boundaries of the zoo. Her attention remains unerringly on the Batman's face, either polite in light of his terse attitude or unconsciously not wanting to look away because he's high on her personal eerie meter.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Around," Batman remarks. He turns on his heel and walks away from her. For a moment it looks like he's going to just leave; instead he starts cutting open the burlap sacks with the kittens inside. The mewling messes spill out and rush towards their bound and drugged mother.

"Try Central Terminal. Better spot for stakeout. Views. Facilities. Could hang fliers for him too."

The mother's bindings are cut as well, and Batman straightens and turns to face Hellcat once more. The cloaks' bound up close around him, turning him into a misshapen shadow once more.

"Dangerous. Catman is. To you," he clarifies. "Not a sane individual. They have a way of pulling people down with them when they can't tread water."

In the distance the male tiger continues to snack and chew on the disembowled hunter. A few of the victims of the vigilantes are starting to wake up, groaning and complaining about their injuries and calling for each other.

Patsy Walker has posed:
At first hesitant to follow the man, Patsy does end up endeavoring a handful of steps to close distance enough to see what he's doing in the loading bay area. She can't help the little coo at the sight of the cubs cuddling up to their mother again, even if the mother tiger is drooling a puddle on the temporary cage's floor.

Momentary delight at family reunited is smoothed away by the Batman's warning. Her grey-blue eyes fall to the ground and she nods, lips thinned. "Yeah...I figured as such. I'm not looking to be friends with him. I mean, anybody who ends up on my radar because somebody called them in? It doesn't exacly make them friend-material. Fliers though..." It tickles her just enough to make her laugh faintly again. Her eyes rise to what she can see of his face once more. "That's an idea if somebody calls him in to me again."

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Except her words are addressed to a shadow standing where Batman had been, in those eyeblinks between looking at the ground and looking up at him. And then even the shadow is gone as the wind ruffles the fake trees and makes it dance to the side. Like a wisp of smoke up the flu, disappeared.

Leaving Hellcat alone in the tiger's enclosure with no company but the wounded and the dying, and a sullen-faced Kraven trying to wrestle his way out of the sticky morass of foam that has him pined in place.

And even he looks shocked at Batman's sudden disappearance, looking to Hellcat. Lips curl and he gives her a sneering once-over. "Batman's cowl is one I will have on my trophy list," he declares. "A most worthy game. But-- not until after I have your hair on my belt, you shlyuhka," he taunts her.

Patsy Walker has posed:
"Byyyyyyye...I guess...?"

A quiet offering to the empty space where the Batman once stood. Patsy takes a moment to rub at her upper arms, muttering to herself, "God, he's freaky. I believe it now, all the rumors."

Kraven brings her to glance over at him from warily eyeing the branches rustling in the night wind. Steel-blue eyes roll obviously behind her own cowl. "Oh please, you overgrown roid-monster, shut up. I'll deal with you in a second." Turning, Patsy walks over to one of the semi-conscious gunman only just waking up and, borrowing the lost gun nearby, wallops him in the back of the head with it to knock him out again. Then she takes off the sleeve of his dirtied shirt with a firm rip. It takes a few minutes, but she goes about and summarily disposes of the awakening cohorts to Kraven with firm taps to the temple. All is silent once more.

And upon returning, she gags Kraven with the gunman's sleeve. A patpat on his head. "There, now lay down." A boot shoves him to lie on his side, trussed up and tied up and probably cursing up a storm -- muffled at this point. Out comes the cell phone.

Beep boop boop. "Yes, hi, this is...Batty...Kronstrum, at the Gotham Zoo? I'd like to report a break-in at the white tiger enclosure. Yeah, please. It looks like somebody's already gotten in, but somebody also stopped things before they could get worse." She winces in the direction of the loose male tiger. "I think the keepers are okay? I don't know. I heard somebody scream though. Can I remain on the line? I'll try, my signal's spotty." Kraven gets another boot shove when he tries to worm upright, apoplexic now. "Yeah, I'm at a safe distance." Eye roll. "Okay, thanks." Patsy waits a moment before taking up a loop of cable and rubbing it on itself close to the phone's mouth-piece. "I'm sorry -- can't -- signal -- "

And then she gently places the phone on the ground and steps on it. Crunch. "Alright...time to get another burner phone. You." She points at Kraven. "Stay." A grin and in a turn of cobalt-blue sash, there she goes, leaping up into a tree and then beyond the fencing of the enclosure to disappear into the night. Sirens are heard on the approach not seconds later.

And Kraven? He very quietly prays the male tiger doesn't get bored in the corner.