11191/Big fish in a small pond

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Big fish in a small pond
Date of Scene: 17 May 2022
Location: Gotham City
Synopsis: The Big Fish plot ends, and Cassandra Cain is the end boss. She is taken down, and the mental damage is brutal.
Cast of Characters: Cassandra Cain, Phoebe Beacon, Natasha Romanoff, Kate Kane, Austin Reese




Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cassandra Cain is being hunted. That's the basic of it. With the recent meeting of the famed Black Widow, the Bats have been given a hint that their lost comrade is more complicated than she had seemed to be. Capturing the old Red Room base was complicated further by Nadia Van Dyne diving in and setting it up as a state secret.

Of course that wouldn't stop them, but it put the teams into the same kettle of fish. Capturing the Gotham Red Room girls has given them all more information. When sprayed with a prepared solution, the mind control making them kill was removed - but the girls are fully able to remember what they'd done and experienced. Cass is likely to be much the same, but is harder to track.

The only one of the Girls who had no tracker - the systems said that she was actually a failed trainee, and was killed early in her training. Clearly untrue, she'd hidden in the bunker until it had been shut down. Now her programming has kicked in like the others.

Gathered in a park, the group has offered Balm's magical assistance in tracking Cassandra down. The circle is being drawn, and the team is ready to move.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The circle was drawn, after using similar to track down where Cassandra may be in the general vicinity. Hot off dealing with demons the night before. Phoebe is striking while the iron is hot.

    'Balm' had set the circle in motion with chalk, with candles, and burning the last bit of Cassandra's hair, sourced from The Roost. The black-hooded teen in the domino mask casts the hair over burning embers in an incense brazer, tossing on both grains of incense and violet rose petals before capping it. She looks to the assembled group, and then brings her censer up, suspending it from its trio of chains as the smoke begins to glow, picking up in the strange lack of wind.

    "She's closer than I thought." she replies, looking to the assembled women around her, and she draws hood closer over her face -- and as smoke builds up around her, she motions to some of the abandoned buildings "We can narrow it down the closer we get."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would be working at distributing a set of cannisters, "These are fast deploying epoxy. Like spider's web. Coated with small micro-thorns and a fast expanding foam. You've all been given things that will make it not stick to you. When we encounter her, we have to immobilize or incapacitate ehr before we hit her with the antiviral. Remember, she is trying to kill us and will not hold back. She might not wish to hurt us, but she has no control of herself."
    Natasha goes to pull a hood over on her face. Then she's going in to full 'Widow' mode.
    A hunter. She has her target. Now time to see how well youth matches with experience. Teh age old dance of killers.

Kate Kane has posed:
Kate Kane has been slacking off, and now, it's most defintely coming back to bite her. Or, at least, to hit her with the kind of self-sabotaging guilt that's driven her to... unwise decisions in the past. But she'll deal with that later. After the mission. After the fellow Gotham vigilante she's let down is brought in safe and sound... or, well, hopefully just a little scuffed up if things go bad.

She's eying the drawing of the magic circle with a little but of apprehension, but at least she's shown up in full on Business Mode, so the pale facepaint and cowl covering all but the area around her mouth means she just looks dour and serious.

She does her best to look at the abandoned buildings around, and that grim line of her mouth presses even tighter. "...So when we /do/ find her... how aggressive is she going to be? Kicking and punching, or leaping out of the shadows to snap our necks?"

Batwoman does not sound like that was an attempt at ghoulish overkill in example. But she's got a plan that's going to hurt her wallet more than it will them.

And when Natasha explains exactly how Cassandra's going to be operating, she actually gets less grim, and there _is_ brief flash of human emotion. "Well... awesome. Remember, if she manages to throw you, try to hit something loud if you're out of line of sight of your buddy." Kate sighs and engages her plan, a small wristmounted touch screen computer accessed, before a small fleet of five quadcopter drones fly off towards the nearest building. Sure, she's not expecting to _see_ Cassandra. But she's sure she'll take out the surveillance to hunt them better. And that'll help narrow down her location too.

The cannister Natasha hands her is eyed, rolled around in her hand until she's pretty sure she knows how to trigger it, and then clipped onto her belt.

At least _this_ mission isn't going to end with her soaked in jetpack fuel threatening a costumed pyromaniac with her zippo.

Well, she's pretty sure Cass hasn't got a jetpack and isn't a pyromaniac. But it's Gotham. No way to rule it out entirely.

Austin Reese has posed:
Things are pretty straight forward. Find her and capture her and try not to get killed in the process. Balm has asked him to come along, and so he had done so. All decked out in his grey and black outfit, he takes a quick look over the canister that Black Widow had handed him, before putting it into his utility belt, "So don't hurt her while she tries to kill us, got it."

Cassandra Cain has posed:
The smoke that's leading the way is heading into the abandoned tenements to the southeast, as Balm mentioned. It's not in the direction the wind is blowing, which lends credence to her magic actually being magic and not just a teen chucking hair into a brazier and looking for her girlcrush. Which is what it may have appeared to be.

There is a light in a window in one of them, but the chances of it being Cass is somewhere between zero and negative numbers - she's never been an idiot, and one would have to be to put a frigging light on in the window you're hiding within.

Natasha taking off ahead of them offers some of a lead. Without Balm they'd not have had anything to go on, no indicators that Cassandra was here. Until a flash of reflected light is spotted. Someone looking at you, as you look back. Binoculars perhaps.

The team's gathering was not without a witness, and the chances of -that- being Cass is significantly higher. Low on the building when we'd expected high. Ground floor, toward the south end.

There is no action taken yet, perhaps she doesn't know that she's given them a hint.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
This isn't the group that Natasha Romanoff might have preferred to go in with, but they're all here for the same reason. To save a girl from her fate. Some may be her friends, some allies. Natasha is not either. She is, however, one forged from the same mold of suffering. To save one from her own damnation and the agony that she inflicted on so many others is enough reason for her. The Black Widow moves silently and almost seems to go invisibly. The park. So many places to hide. So many places to stalk. So many places to lie in wait.
    It's a game as old as sentience. The first time someone shot someone in the back with an arrow from behind. That dance. Natasha moves in the shadows. She trusts the rest of the group to hold their own.
    Her goal is to save Cassandra Cain before the girl does something she will hate herself for. That there will be no going back from. Before Cassandra does something that to herself mentally pushes her beyond the point of no return.
    Before she kills or injures someone she cares for deeply. That is the limit where one cannot forgive themselves.
    Up ahead, someone visible. Aware or not. Natasha leans towards aware. The girl is too good to be slipping that much. A hand signal is given to Batwoman, an indication to go vertical. A signal given to Balm and to Austin to circle. Flank around, cut off escape and sweep. Natasha..
    Natasha just goes to stalk forwards, and vanishes into the shadows if she can. She's intent on going in from the ground up and heading if possible inside to the nearest stairwell to get a bit of an inkling as to how high up the observation post is. Presuming of course that there's no booby trap on the ground floor, which she's aware of.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe continues holding the brazer, one hand cradiling the hot bottom of it against calloused fingers as the young mage keeps her head down, following the Widow's lead, and gives a momentary start at the the sudden change in the Widow's stance -- but she doesn't nod. No visual acknowledgement -- she just goes to come around the building, the smoke changing its direction as she moves, a purposeful look given to the other Batling as she breathes out, heart in her throat.

    She wouldn't let Cass hurt anyone.

Kate Kane has posed:
Kate does her best not to show she's noticed the glint of light off a lens... when it doesn't herald the booming rapport of a rifle and someone becoming far less alive and tense, it's a relief. But she knows how good Cassandra is at reading body language. Hopefully not good enough to realize what Kate's doing with the drones, setting them on a bit of a roundabout route to loop around wide and then begin scanning back towards that flash.

Kate bobs her head to Natasha and pulls out that iconic bat gadget, grapple gun fired up at a nearby rooftop corner, before the redheaded caped crusader swings up from the ground and into the shadows, vanishing.

Not that Kate figures she's vanished enough... not for Cass to not pick her out if they wind up within line of sight of each other.

And so, the bat continues to play cat and mouse, instead of making a move towards that earlier glint, she purposely heads at an angle.

She frowns thoughtfully, trying to keep those feinting drones 'searching' while still keeping Phoebe and her brazer in line of sight of them... just in case. She murmurs out softly into her comm link, "Remember, if she gets the drop on you, try to evade and make noise so the rest of us can get to you. We want Cassandra back, but everyone /else/ gets to come back too."

Austin Reese has posed:
Austin frowns a little bit as the smoke changes directions, but he moves along with Phoebe. Saving Cass is the mission, but keeping Phoebe safe is Austin's top priority. Phoebe doesn't have to say it, but the look she gives him says enough, and he just nods in response, "I've got your six, just focus on finding her." He does finally say.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
A shift in the direction of the smoke suggests movement. The biggest problem with this form of tracking is that the smoke signals aren't exactly something that the lead scouts can watch. Austin and Phoebe however become aware that the target is on the move.

One of Kate's drones suddenly goes silent, having a picture of a face flashing before it for an instant before it got blitzed. Lower floors, moving fast.

Which puts Natasha closest, though she's heading upstairs and away from where Cass is apparently moving. Two seconds later Kate gets a flash of movement, as a shadow dashes out of one building on the far side. She's running!

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Running.. Running.. It's about trajectories now. Inertia. Momentum. Natasha is instead of rushing upwards is heading along the ground floor, racing. Not bothering to charge up the stairs or up higher through the building. Cassandra is possibly going to jump to the next building, in which case Natasha can head her off, or perhaps fall back to a better defensive position and a trap, in which case Natasha can hopefully get up in time to give support to her.
    <<Confirm contact when you encounter. Be wary for some sort of ambush or traps.>> Warning given. That's spoken quickly along the comms. The Red Room did teach never to obviously leave a position without some sort of nasty surprise behind. And that's presuming that Cassandra's even there at all. Natasha goes to slide down a set of ultraviolet goggles now. Hopefully in the thick smoke them a little more useful if the girl is up there to track.
    She goes to do a quick series of calculations in her head, then goe sto speak along the comm. Giving a quick series of coordinates to Balm and Austin of the direction of what Cassandra -seems- to be moving in, where Batwoman is going.. Balm has shown intuition of just -wehre- Cassandra is, so the duo might be able to head her off?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The shift in the direction is noted by Phoebe. She breathes out, and then gives a nod to Austin.

    "Stay close. As long as it's not my head or throat, should be fine." she confirms to the other Bat as they go off in search of their missing Bat.

    The dark-hooded teen leads the way, and she springs into action, showing the athleticism of her City's vigilantes, running and springing through a window, using one free hand to boost herself through, eyeballing the smoke as she runs, mindful of anything that may be on the floor and trying to give chase to the other young woman, eyes narrowing behind the screens of her domino.

Kate Kane has posed:
Kate doesn't hoot and whoop with joy, when her drone catches a flash of a face before it's taken out. Even though she kind of wants to. Maybe if she named the drone, she'd feel worse about its fate. But it served its purpose, and now Kate's got some idea of where Cassandra is, the remaining drones being vectored around the outside of the building, down to peer through windows as Kate sprints along the rooftop she's on.

Of course, the problem with this is that Cassandra's in the building, and it's entirely possible it's one elaborate set of traps and killzones and this is all part of her plan to draw them in. "She just took out one of my drones, she's on the lower floors, rabbiting and... she's outside!"

That sprint increases and Kate flings herself off the roof, arms tucked in, flying like a missile until she fires her grappling line out at the last second... she's going in too fast to be safe, but she's sure Cassandra can take it.

Or dodge her, and then she's going to hit the wall. But hey, dodging's a fraction of a second Cassandra won't be running and the rest of the team can get closer to her.

Austin Reese has posed:
Listening in to comms, Austin hears that she's broken cover and started to run, "Keep on her, we'll try to see if we can figure out a way to cut her off." He says over comms, before looking back to Phoebe, "We know this town, where do you think she's going based on the smoke's direction?" He asks, as he quickly checks something on his wrist mounted display.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
She's moving fast, but slower than she's capable of. That is a hint that Kate gets that most would not. And as Phoebe and Austin turn the corner to see where the events are occurring, Nat whips through the building heading for the same locale. And sees something that would make her blood run cold.

Cassandra's face turns up, as if she'd known that Kate was there all along, and her eyes are dead. Emotionless. Ready. And just before Kate lands, she turns enough for the Bat to see her flip a switch in her hand.

And suddenly everyone gets to know exactly how scary Cassandra can be if she's not holding back.

Nat has seconds before the bombs she's just spotted start to go off, tearing the building to shreds in a wave of destruction that would throw anyone outside to the ground. With Austin and Phoebe just entering, they would be pushed back. How well they react is on them. Cassandra, ready for the blast wave, rolls it out and turns to take Kate on directly.

Seems she was up for a challenge after all, even without any of the fancy toys. And staggered or not, Kate is up against an alley cat with a temper.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
That's the risk. Natasha curses in her head for being just a few breaths too slow as she's going to launch herself up and over into the air. Bits of shrapnel going to dig into her. One burning piece going through her shoulder and slashing up her arm something nasty. Then she's going to fire up her grapple gun to launch herself into the air as the building's going to threaten to collapse. She twists one way, avoiding a piece of debris. Twists another, evading another flung bit. Then she's over to fling herself up through the air, going in for a spin and a landing. Retracting grapple as she's spiraling ot a sommersault to land. Arm in the air, one down, legs spread to brace. In those clicks of a stopwatch right as Cassandra is charging along at Batwoman, the building is going to hell, and they're in the middle of an inferno in the making.

Kate Kane has posed:
Kate's so glad for the white lenses in her cowl, because she's not sure if her eyebrows are rising in an expression of shocked concern, or a 'Aww, you go girl' when Cassandra hits the button on that detonator. Maybe a bit of both. Well, she didn't come out here thinking Cassandra under the influence of Red Room combat protocols was going to be sunshine and kittens.

The blast wave knocks her off course though, right in the middle of a forward somersault to bleed off momentum and focus it so she doesn't crash into Cassandra like an actual meteor.

It does mean the somersault axe kick that would have been aimed for the younger woman's head is instead heading down for her shoulder, if that.

But hey, Kate doesn't have to beat Cassandra. She's just got to keep her busy until the others can...

Until the others can fill in that blank step of the plan after 'Team spots Cass' and 'Cass explodes building'.

And Kate's got a brilliant plan, really. Falling back on military training. Oh, there's no way that her /hand to hand/ military training was going to stand up to Cass.

No, she's going for the 'Suffer through the suck' part of it. She rebounds from her first, mid-air assault to move in and begin the fight for real with a straight forward but measured punch for the sternum.

She doesn't try to talk to Cassandra... hell, she might not even if the girl wasn't clearly still under the influence of that Red Room stuff. They really do their best communicating without words.

Kate'll just have to figure out the right kick for 'I'm sorry about that' for their next non-life or death sparring situation.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe skids to a stop, nearly losing the braizer in the process, and she yelps to Austin "Behind me!"

    And her left hand raises up, her eyes closing as she squares her stance. A circle with a lazily-spinnig eight-pointed star of crossed squares errupts, translucent and stopping shrapnel and flotsam and jetsam from getting at her -- and hopefully against Austin as well.

    "Enforcer--" well, it's not Fledgeling "-- see if you can get behind her. Try to hit her with the cannister -- and *not* Batwoman!" she warns, and turns -- her next target is going to the flames that are going to be errupting!

Austin Reese has posed:
Austin shifts behind Balm as she calls out to get behind her. If there's one thing he's learned so far when dealing with her magic it's to get behind her when she tells him to. The explosive force is quite intense, as he is thankful for the ear protection built into the outfit, "Right." He once again owes Phoebe his life. He's losing track of how many that is now.

He starts moving to get to where Kate has engaged her, once again patting the pouch on his belt where the canister is. He just has to get into a good position to hit her with it. She won't be expecting him, especially when she's already dealing with Kate and Nat.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Kate's hit was off, and Cass is nothing short of astounding at these kind of things. The fact that it slowed her when the axe kick landed - that's kind of surprising. But it is the same shoulder that Natasha damaged the last time they'd met, and Cass is just human after all.

However, as Nat and Austin both pump up, Cass has already managed to get Kate into some kind of hold. She's got her left arm wrapped around her own neck, a triangle choke of some sort. But she's looking from Kate, up to the oncoming threats.

Before she's had a chance to actually choke Kate out (how DID she get it on that fast anyway??) she's releasing and scrabbling for distance. Cass knows the line of attacks too well.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Time. Momentum. Inertia. If Cassandra gets away again, there's no guarantee of them being able to catch up to her. As Batwoman falls, Natasha goes to attack mode. She's barely capable of keeping up over with Cassandra normally; when the girl has a head start it's unlikely. She would throw or shoot one of hte darts at Cassandra, but as the girl had shown she could -outrun- them no matter how har dthey were thrown, or how fast they were shot. So she has to charge after Cassandra from behind while the girl is going evasive..
    She needs something fast enough to tag Cassandra with. Or not tag.. Slow her.
    It's a question of maneuvering room. She has to limit Cassandra's. This is done by her going to snap out and fire her titanium wrought grapple gun. Cassandra's faster than it, but only by so much. The cablegun -is- quick enough she'll have to dodge it. And Natasha's firing it in such a way to just try and hem her. Even in three diemnsional space, there's only so much room to maneuver. So she's just trying to cut -off- teh amount of space that Orphan has to work with.

Kate Kane has posed:
Kate's feeling pretty good about this plan after the first attack is deflected and she gets her feet under her and goes in for her punch. She's not actually sure what happens in the brief blur between her arm fully extending and the realization Cassandra's choking her out and... somehow keeping her center of gravity low enough she can't flip her over her back. Jeeze, is this girl made of lead?

Fortunately, rather than press the attack, Cass lets her go in order to get distance... which is worse. If she gets away, even if she's not gone for good she'll be out in the city operating on literal killer instinct.

Kate grabs up her grapple gun again in her left hand, and that cannister of expanding foam in her right, before launching herself into the air, preparing to try and launch the stuff at Cassandra when her momentum's disrupted from the others and their attempts to slow her down... Kate's not /super/ thrilled about the idea of going hand to hand again. But hey, the option's always there.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Then...it's over.

Cassandra moved to dodge the incoming strike from Kate, and accidentally got caught in Natasha's fired grapple. Phoebe and Austin came around the corner, and things suddenly got chaotic. It's difficult to tell who did what, with a magical aura in the air and a blizzard of people all trying to hold the girl down.

She bites, by the way.

A moment later Cassandra has her face pushed into the grass, arms held behind her and someone sitting on her knees. She's still struggling, but even the mighty Cassandra Cain is not going to prevail against this crew.

She's still -trying- though.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
There's no time now for anything else as Cassandra's down for just a half second. Natasha is grunting, even as she's going to try and slam her knees on down if she can to try and keep the girl secured. <<GAS!>> They all had anti-rivals in various capsules with aerosol deployment. She's going to try and slam down to Cassandra to keep the girl pinned and hold her down.

Now it's up to someone else to tyr and blanket the area with enough of the stuff even if she does throw all of them off, which she might veyr well, for them to make sure that Cassandra gets teh cure. IT does however put her at point where she's getting several solid hits from Cassandra no doubt.

Austin Reese has posed:
For Austin's sake the group has come back down where he is, it saves him the trouble of climbing a bunch of fire escapes since he doesn't have a grapple gun. He quickly pulls the canister out of his utility belt pouch, trying to get around to the side of Cass. He really hopes she's too busy dealing with Batwoman to pay attention to him. Sure enough as soon as she's down from the attacks, Austin moves to start hitting her with the antidote that Black Widow had handed out to the team. He hopes this stuff works quick!

Kate Kane has posed:
Kate finds herself zipping up into the air as a contingency... only to find out that sometimes, in Gotham, teamwork /does/ make the dream work, and things go according to... well, she's not going to say plan.... but they go alright.

She spreads her cape out to glide back down and land, looking ominous, menacing... and definitely not fumbling in her belt for the... well, she's not /calling it 'Murder Be Gone', but the aerosol stuff to get Cass from silent, murderous martial arts badass, to... very quiet, but also friendlier martial arts badass.

Still, with Cass down, Kate takes the important duty of pinning her shoulders and head in place as the team doses Cassandra with the red mist.

Kate's lips are pressed right back into a thin, serious line as she watches. Waits.

Resists the urge to vocally cheer Cass on. She just thinks 'C'moooooon Cass, you got this!' pretty loudly.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Struggling, Cass manages to twist free. She does this with not only Batwoman on top of her, but also Black Widow as well. She has moves that just don't fit into the standard repertoire, and she is willing to dislocate limbs, and as she starts to get to her feet she gets a faceful of Austin's canister.

The tackle that takes her down an instant later is from everyone who can do so, but as she's slammed back down Cassandra breathes in the mist.

And as the holds are put on, the clamps and ties, she lays there with her eyes closed, starting to cry.

She doesn't fight anymore, the tension having left her body. But she's definitely not 'all right'. Nothing about this is all right.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The easiest part is done with. Just curing her. Now the hardest part is here. The guilt. The suffering. Having to deal with the turmoil of having been willing to kill her friends. Natasha knows it all too well. She would glance at Batwoman and speak quietly, "Can you take off your cape and give it to her?" It was the closest they had on hand to a blanket. "We need to get her out of here to somewhere safe where we can check her over for injuries." And where her friends could be with her and help her know she didn't hate them.
    That was what Cassandra needed most, now.

Kate Kane has posed:
Kate's moving to take her cape off and wrap it around Cassandra's shoulders snugly, her hand giving a gentle, slow squeeze to her shoulder, leaning in to whisper something too soft to hear, while she's working to get one arm under Cassandra's lower back and the other under her knees.

She figures Cassandra could walk under her own power, but why make her?

She frowns and nods to Natasha, "I know a place. Someone on duty to check her out, and they're familiar. It's familiar."

She eyes Cass, probably not in the most reassuring way, with so much of her face being stoic, impassive cowl and all, "Think you're up for a motorcycle ride?"

It takes a /surprising/ amount of willpower not to crack a joke about an Uber having surge pricing because of the earlier building explosion, but Kate manages it.

If Cass isn't up for the ride, it's not like Kate can't get her car here on auto pilot... and what're the odds the teenage vigilantes or the Russian super spy are going to note down her license plate if she does? Totally zero.

Austin Reese has posed:
Austin moves up closer to the group once the antidote has been released and the struggling has stopped. He doesn't say anything at first. As Batwoman drapes the cape around her, he moves to help Cassandra get up, "Let me help at least get her to the bike." He offers. He doesn't want to just stand around gawking like an idiot after all. Even if Batwoman doesn't want the help, he'll bck off though.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Standing Cass up is simple. The look on her face, not so easy to handle. She looks devastated. For the first time she won't meet people's eyes. The cape over her isn't even noticed, for all she reacts to it. Not a word, she goes where she's led.

The indomitable spirit that led her to victory after victory's been damaged. There's no fight as she's led toward the bike; she does whatever she's led to do. But as this comes to a close, it clearly isn't over. Because damage has been done, and where it really matters. Bodies can heal, after all.