11196/ACE Up the Sleeve

ACE Up the Sleeve
Date of Scene:	17 May 2022
Location:	Abandoned Ace Chemicals Warehouse
Synopsis:	Barry Allen investigates a disturbance. Wally West and Meggan Constantine tag along. Sharptooth bites off more than he can chew.
Cast of Characters:	Barry Allen, Wally West, Meggan Puceanu

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Barry Allen has posed:
Where oh where has Barry Allen been? Where he always is, of course. That's wherever he's needed. Much to Iris's chagrin, most of the time. It's a lucky thing that even though he's late to most everything else, he's always in time for dinner with his wife.

There's still plenty of time to make it back to Metropolis for that particular appointment, though, and still plenty of work to be done.

The old ACE Chemicals warehouse has fallen into severe disrepair of late, but that doesn't do anything to curtail its use in shady, nefarious dealings. One such deal went down an hour ago. With fatal consequences. No police have been called to the scene yet, but little birds have chirped in a lot of ears.

Loose papers kick up and scatter all over the place as a streak of scarlet and gold terminates in the appearance of Barry Allen.

Bodies, no fewer than a dozen, are spread all over the building and fresh bullet holes litter the walls. It's a grizzly scene. Definitely an exchange gone wrong.

"Somebody really stepped in it this time," Barry says, fists clenching and resting against his hips.

Wally West has posed:
Wally arrives soon after. "I came as soon as i could but I had to boom tube from the moon base first. Uncle Barry! Long time no see. You ok?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
It doesn't help that for most of the state, Ace Chemicals occupies a nasty brownfield site. Who knows what sort of contamination leaches into the soil, what secrets lie beneath the derelict buildings? Attempts to clean it up never seem to work out. All kinds of state and federal agencies haven't done much, snarled in legal wrangling or distracted by better projects.

Gotham's the worse for letting it go untouched, but try convincing the mayor's office of that.

The place is plenty disreputable. Its squalid state would be enough to pull Meggan in to deal with some kind of clean-up by day. By night's another matter though.

She is no criminal. Her birds are the earth and the water crying out at another misdeed done, percolated murmurs reaching the blonde English girl. No dirt touches her sandaled feet, and she is no streak of scarlet or rust. Just an unlikely girl hallowing an unhallowed place.

Going down to a knee confirms by touch what is apparent, far too late to help one of the unfortunates. Of course, it's a hell of a thing for an unarmed, nearly barefoot woman to just emerge from a cracked hall to check on an unfortunate victim of whatever happened. Only open target season.

"Unlucky bloke. Wrong place," she murmurs, tilting her head vaguely in Barry and Wally's direction. When the two converge, it's easier for the empath to pick out the living signatures from the dead.

Barry Allen has posed:
Barry's lips pull back into a smile and those blue eyes of his brighten as they land on his nephew. "Always, Wally," he says, nodding his head to the younger man. "And always glad to have you lending a hand," he says, before he starts to zip from body to body, performing a preliminary examination on each of them while trying his best not to overly contaminate the crime scene.

Reappearing in the center of the room, one arm is crossed over his chest, propping the other up so its hand can run at his exposed chin, "High caliber rounds. Whole thing smells like a setup."

His attention is stolen by the arrival of Meggan, his expression a touch wary. "You didn't have anything to do with this, did you?"

Wally West has posed:
"I mean someone who set this up would probably have been smart enough to leave the scene by now. I mean a series of high caliber shots gets attention. Especially in Gotham. Thats attention no body wants to wait around for." Wally says about the lady that has appeared.

"so um who are you? and are you verified by the B-man?" directed to Meggan.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Green eyes almost as bright as a cat's may well phosphoresce in low light. They can be reflective at odd turns to let Meggan see when darkness drops. She doesn't use a cell phone or a glow stick taken from the boot of a car to dispel the dark. Neither is there any evidence of a master investigator here at work -- just someone who sees the wreckage and has enough wits to check if the nearest person survived by the looks of it.

A little shake throws the waves of her gold hair around her shoulder. "No luck," she warns. "He's gone." A sound of regret drops from her lips as she gets up, facing the two men. "Me? Gods no, I thought another tank blew. Coppers never bother to come out here." English, definitely, though her accent is muddled by Welsh and Scottish enough to be distinct. Wally she looks at curiously.

"B-man? You mean /Batman?/ Oh! Yes, he pet me and said I was good. In gestures, anyway."

She's dead serious, for all that her sunny tone doesn't have any bearing here. Her smile vanishes away. "Someone's alive over there. If you want to check."

Barry Allen has posed:
Meghan's got the right of it. A man is downed in the corner, tucked behind some crates that he'd clearly thought would serve as ample enough cover. The wheezing indicating his punctured lung shows that it was not. "Y-you...y-you gotta get me out of here...fore he comes back..." he struggles to say, his voice harsh and quiet.

Barry's kneeling down next to him in an instant, checking him over. "Before who comes back?" he asks.

"Sh...Sharp...," he trails off, eyes closing. Barry scoops him up and looks between the two. "Keep looking around. I'll be back," he says, The Flash and the struggling goon disappearing in a gust of air and another streak of red.

It's not very long after Barry's bolting off that the sound of car doors slamming outside can be heard. The loading gate begins to raise.

Wally West has posed:
"He /pet/ you?" Wally says with a raised eyebrow.

He then zips around and comes back with a sealed baggie full of spent shells he's picked up from the area. "I found these Unc' could have prints?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Unfortunately the name doesn't seem to ring any bells for the blonde woman. Sharp could be a warning. Meggan stares at the poor fellow in Barry's arms for a moment. Any longer and they are gone, leaving no trace behind. "That a warning or a person?" She worries her lower lip and turns.

Slowly her senses spread out to the last wisps of life clinging hold to the cracked walls and stained floor. "I was a cat then," she explains, offhanded, to Wally. "He's an excellent judge of character. Guessing these blokes are low-lifes, yeah?"

Intuition to pluck out anyone hidden has her walking a circuit. The noise of the car and the gates then provides ideal orientation to turn and face, then glances straight up. Two men with the Speed Force and one university student, who's the target? Here, trouble, trouble...

She soundlessly leaps up in an inverted jump that puts her flat to the ceiling or the gate itself. That jump should resolve with her coming right back down, but it doesn't, as she floats in place. Or sticks. Hard to be sure at first.

Barry Allen has posed:
The gate makes its way all the way up and a trip of goons come lumbering in, clicking their flashlights to life and sweeping their beams through the darkness of the warehouse. "Ah, hell. Looks like somebody's already snagged it, boss..." one of them says before he lets out a shriek that's instantly muffled. Muffled by the many-toothed maw...of a giant shark. Wearing a three-piece suit. And toting a Tommy gun. With a jerk of the big boss's muscled neck, the now-dead thug is whipped across the room and Sharptooth emits a growl, swallowing the chunk he'd bitten out of him. "You know how much I hate hearing bad news, boys. Fan out and find that case!"

Wally West has posed:
Wally hears a comotion elsewhere in the building and seeming disappears as he goes to search out the source of the comotion.

He finds some armed thugs. "Wow you guys are both super lucky and really realy not lucky. Good news I'm not Batman but the bads news is you found The Flash!"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Being up on high floating just a few centimeters off the gate gives Meggan a firsthand view of anyone going under it. The beams of light cutting through the dark surely reveal the bodies laid out in their gruesome arrangements, and she winces when the herald ends up as fish food.

It certainly doesn't help the state of affairs in the warehouse. Whatever the rebellious flip of her stomach threatens, she doesn't opine on the dapper shark's dinner or moral improvement choices. Finding a case he says, and so she flits across the ceiling in search of anything that fits the bill: rectangular, metal or leather, buried among bodies or left lying unattended on a desk. The necessity of floating means shifting her appearance, hair becoming a trail of shadows and skin darker than a starless night. A silhouette amongst the many.

Because if Wally's going to pull attention, so be it, she'll make that search check. Or let the thugs do it and steal their kill.

Barry Allen has posed:
"I thought The Flash wore red and yellow," one of the goons says, clearly confused.

"Never mind that, you dumbass! Open fire!" Sharptooth bellows, hefting his own Tommy gun up with one hand and firing at Wally. The other two goons do just the same.

Sharptooth is only half concerned with Wally, however, as he's wandering deeper into the warehouse, smacking crates aside with his free hand and continuing his search for his aforementioned quarry.

Wally West has posed:
The Flash in silver says "well you guys need to watch the news more often I have had this look for a while now."

The thugs open fire and bullets all seem to stop for a moment half way between the barrels and the intended target. and after a pause they fall harmlessly to the floor as if merely dropped from that height.

Wally West had in the split second after the guns fired sapped the speed and momentum of the bullets making them slow to a stop in midflight.

"I mean you guys are not smart I'm the flash you thought you could hit me with bullets?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Looking from above in the dark has its limits. Meggan isn't picking out a case either for all that she can slink between the shadows and slide past bodies. A silent word said for the dead; no matter what they did, she can offer them that much.

However, plenty of shots and gunfire sound awfully loud in the abandoned factory. It throws her off. Sharptooth probably doesn't have those problems, being a business-shark of direct force. One of those crates he hurls clips her ankle, debris whirling and bouncing off into the distance as though to echo Wally's disbelief. Guns and Flashes, really?

Another circuit sends her in night's dark shadow swirling in search of their missing case. Hopefully no bullets stray her way before she or someone else finds it. Same process as before; if she can feel it, a metal shape lying on the concrete floor or something out of the ordinary to an elemental's perception, great. If not, the old-fashioned grab-and-run is perfectly reasonable.

Barry Allen has posed:
Wally's definitely right about their distinct lack of intelligence, because the two goons come to terms with the fact that their guns aren't working and instead heft them up like clubs and begin charging towards him. Hey, you gotta give them credit. The bullets clearly weren't working, so they had to improvise.

Sharptooth tosses his Tommy gun aside and peels his mouth into a sickening, still-bloody grin, hunching over tossing another crate aside, one that was sitting a little off-kilter. Beneath it? A small metal case, just barely bigger than a human hand. He reaches out to snatch it up, but his claws catch it first and send it spinning across the floor a ways. "Dese damn hands!" he shouts, lumbering off after the case once more. "Swear I'm wring somebody's neck when I'm done here. No good mooks leaving half of the score behind..." he grumbles.

Wally West has posed:
Wally effortlessly dodges the thugs feeble attempts to club him with their tommy guns. But in a whirl the thugs are soon hog tied thir hands tied with their own belts and the shoe laces tied to each other. Wally also leaves their guns disassembled and in an pile far enough away from the tied up thugs to be out of reach. "Well ok this was amusing but I'm gonna leave you hear and call the batman to come pick you up. Good luck losers" Wally zips away to Barry. "Ok Unc' I finished my food need any help"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The girl woven from midnight's weft spots that shape whipped across the ground. When in doubt, dive. Meggan reaches out for the case the moment its glinting shape emerges from the crate. Her inchoate fingers curl around the edges while no doubt the thugs protest this manhandling that leaves them embarrassingly called out. Mincemeat for an angry mobster.

Grabbing the case means moving, not at Barry-clocked speeds but plenty impressive for a non-speedster. There's no sonic boom to betray her. She floats up to her back, protectively cradling said case and the long filaments of her black hair and black arms wrapped around it for extra measure. Up, up...

As soon as she sees that open loading door, flight hits fast as she can safely go to at least get out and look for the guy in red. Or the one in silver. Or Batman!

What the heck is she doing with the evidence? If there's no Flash to be found, she darn will call the Justice League Headquarters about what she's got. Batman doesn't have a phone number, just a billboard in the sky. And yes, she totally introduces herself as "John Constantine's wife - don'thangupplease.'

Barry Allen has posed:
Wally no-doubt catches Barry on his way back to the warehouse. "Finished you food?" Barry asks, brows knitting together as he looks at his nephew in confusion. "Did someone show up?" he asks, kicking it into overdrive and clearing the distance between himself and the warehouse in a near-instant. What does he see? A giant shark in a suit who looks real pissed that he's lost his 'score'. Barry stands there for a moment with his hands on his hips before he finally says, "I really have got to stop coming to Gotham."

A few seconds and a few dozen punches later, Sharptooth is unconscious on the ground and Flash is on the phone with the GCPD.

"No...no it's not King Shark...No. Sharptooth. I don't know, Detective. I've never heard of him either."