13415/You probably shouldn't be doing this in Gotham.

You probably shouldn't be doing this in Gotham.
Date of Scene:	22 November 2022
Location:	Kingston - Miagani Island
Synopsis:	Caleb experiences a delivery going sideways. Power Girl arrives in time to keep him from being shot. Red Hood catches a few stragglers before they can get away.
Cast of Characters:	Caleb Dykstra, Jason Todd, Karen Starr

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Caleb Dykstra has posed:
The city: Gotham.

The time: well... it's nighttime (of course!); just the right time for the criminal element to manifest itself the strongest throughout the city, since people are mostly staying in the relative safety of their comfortable homes - and that's also when the legendary Batman and his associates are occasionally spotted here and there.

For Caleb, it's a time he's learned to fear, as well as a time he's learned to master this fear. Because showing fear is like stepping into shark-infested waters with a gaping wound. So, calmly, he moves through the half-lit streets and darkened alleyways, moving with a purpose and a satchel on his side.

As he reaches an old, derelict building, he comes to a halt, eyes scanning the area. Finding nothing unusual, he paces towards a large steel drum...

Another glance! Was there just... Something moving in the dark? Nah! That's just his mind... Maybe!

He grabs a metal pipe, and vigorously thumps on the drum, one! two! three times!

Silence.

But he repeats the process, one, two, three!

Silence again. Repeat!

And with that, he drops the pipe, and waits.

Jason Todd has posed:
Night time.

Is the right time.

To be.

With the one you love..


The dulcet tones of CCR play loudly in his mask as Red Hood is out patrolling on his bike. In this case night time is the right time to track down criminals doing criminal things. He isn't in a hurry. There are always crimes to be found, even if they're of the petty sort.

And so he rolls along, waiting for the Bat Channel or GCPD scanner to throw an alert his way.

Karen Starr has posed:
    As day turns to night, Karen finds herself... Well, bored. It is not often that she makes her way to Gotham, but it requires something of a direct impetus for her to do so. Lately, she's been antsy- waiting, anticipating, an attack from the Shi'ar that has yet to come. When she's not at the Starport she's in Metropolis. Usually.

    Tonight, however, everything in the city of tomorrow is clean and quiet- so if she's going to work out some aggression, it's either in the Big Apple or in Gotham. Tonight, she's chosen Gotham.

    A lone figure in the sky, invisible against the black of the stars save for those with /incredible/ awareness, the blonde known as Power Girl drifts, waiting for the inevitable sounds of violence, or sirens, to send her into action.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
About ten seconds later, a door slowly opens up. From the dark of the windows, faint streams of light appear, culminating on a target: Caleb. It takes him a moment to realize, those are laser sights - and they're all converging on his chest, some ten... maybe a dozen. Maybe more! If they all fired at once, he reasons, they wouldn't leave much for an autopsy. So, he stays perfectly still - though his eyes search for potential cover spots. Pointless, he reasons, but maybe they are lousy shots. It is kinda dark, too, so maybe luck be on his side if things went south.

Through the door, a man steps out, stern slavic features, built pretty much like a tank. "You got product?", this one asks.

Caleb's simple reply is a slight shake of his satchel.

"If we not like product, it shall be head we give Vittorelli", he says, narrowing his eyes. "/Your/ head." A statement of fact? Nope, the smirk on that face indicates he wouldn't mind it at all. He crosses his arms, and the tattoo becomes visible: Bratva. The Russian Mob.

The young man looks at the dark spots from where the lasers are coming from. "Well, you'd never get a cleaner shot. But then, Vittorelli would want his product back." Keep cool. "And come take it by force."

The Russian growls slightly.

"Hey... Don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger!" He shrugs as a stress reliever. Appropriate, right?

Jason Todd has posed:
Red Hood's mask display pops up with an alert. Oracle was at it again, scouring the interwebs for any hints of trouble. Hints of a deal happening tonight not far from his current location have been passed along.

"... thanks Oracle.." he mumurs as he turns onto another street and accelerates. "was getting boring out here just cruising around."

He should be on site in another couple of minutes.

Karen Starr has posed:
    There's a reason Karen is floating so high up. It's not that she's being overly cautious- it's because she can hear the whole city. Really, she can hear the whole /planet,/ but right now, her attention is on Gotham. Sure, there are a few specific heartbeats she has in her eardrums, and there's always some presence of mind for a few specific voices and communications chatter that could cause her to change course... But none of those alarms are going off right now.

    What is getting her attention is the sound of a deal going down. The metallic sound of a number of rifles. The electrical hum in their wires as the laser sights pinpoint their target. The threats from the Bratva representative hit her ears, and she's on the move.

    Jason is likely to see it first- a streak in the sky, something /moving/ far faster than it has any right to.

    Her acceleration stops just above the gathering, and thundering down onto the concrete is an impressively tall, entirely bulletproof, definitely out of town, blonde woman. This is the sort of thing that isn't supposed to happen in Gotham. You're supposed to deal with regular people in costumes- not the alien freaks that push the Earth out of the way of cosmic disasters and then right back into proper orbit.

    "You're gonna wanna put the guns down. Or don't. It doesn't matter to me either way."

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
The Russian man continues his growl, where it quickly turns into full-throated laughter. More of this laughter comes from the darkness of the windows. Caleb, as life taught him trust is a hard thing to come by, is unsure whether or not this is a good sign. The next move will determine it - either he gets inside to make his delivery, or he gets to climb the stairway Led Zeppelin sang about. His mind drifts towards his family for a moment, before...

"WHOAH!!", Caleb jumps as apparently the ground is shaken by a missile, falling on his ass. His first thought is that he's dead, but adrenaline spiking and quick glance around tells him it can't be. The lifted dust begins to settle, and he sees a silhouette standing in front of him. Then the clearer sight reveals a voluptouos, curvy, muscular woman that transpires confidence and authority.

Needless to say, the next 'whoah!' coming out of his mouth is certainly one of amazement.

Equally amazed is the man that has no time to make a move that would dictate the next step in Caleb's existence. But it takes him a fraction of a second for him to snap out of it, and orders to shoot - Power Girl /and/ the young messenger!

The sound of bullets breaks the monotony of Gotham's nightime. Caleb tries to run for cover - one that isn't the voluptous woman in front of him...

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason Todd sees the blur and he frowns. "That's not going to be very good."

He arrives just as the gunfire begins.

"No. Not good." He is off the bike and walking brisky toward the sounds of gunfire, his mask scanning the area even as his hands rises up, pistols at the ready. Back up seems to be on the way as he picks up movement to his left.

Three quick shots are fired and the two men hit the ground, twitching as the taser rounds unleash their jolting payload. It isn't going to make the scene inside any less horrific he's sure.

He'll know in a moment as he spares a glance around the corner to see where the gunmen are and if this is a rescue or an avenging of the dead.

Karen Starr has posed:
    It is unusual for a person in this situation to just stand there. Sure, her arrival should probably have struck fear, but in Gotham, that probably just means start shooting rather than start fleeing.

    There's a roll of her eyes, and a fold of her arms- the bullets strike her flesh and fall harmlessly to the floor in compressed clumps of metal. Higher caliber, lower caliber, all in the same place or all wildly shot in whatever direction, there isn't a round that finds purchase in anything fleshy.

    Caleb doesn't even have to worry himself- as even before he's found cover, there's a trail of crushed projectiles in his wake. As if something was stopping them before they even got to him. When he's safely behind whatever he's chosen to shield himself, Karen starts rising into the air, just for a few feet. Then, one of the gunmen goes flying, landing in a painful- but living- heap on the ground.

    Each laser, each line of fire, is a revealing light to the Kryptonian- telling her, even without her x-ray vision, exactly where they're shooting from.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
From Caleb's perspective of 'duck and cover', he doesn't notice the blonde super-hero stopping the projectiles meant for him. And so he finds it a miracle when he hides behind what remains there are of a wall that he doesn't have a bullet on him, "Thank you, powers that be..." He checks the satchel for any stray bullet, just in case...

In the meantime, the Bratva men keep their firing, speaking in russian: <<Dmitri, I think it's one of those heroes from television!>>

<<It is one of those Kryptonians, you fool! Fire! Keep firing!!>>

<<Fyodor, get the big ones! THE BIG ONES!!>>

From at least two or three windows, small oval objects are thrown at Power Girl - /grenades/.

In the meantime, Red Hood shows up, and his tactics, even if more subtle, do not go unnoticed for long. One of the henchmen noticed motion, and immediately starts firing his assault rifle at him! <<WE HAVE ANOTHER!! THE GUY WITH THE RED MASK!>>

Cat's out of the bag, now - they expect a full compliment of the Batman and his associates. A handful of them of them run towards an inner room...

Jason Todd has posed:
They're going to be sorely disappointed, and immensely relieved to realize it's only Red Hood. Then they're going to be very sad because Red Hood doesn't need backup. He is the backup. And let's face it? Aside from kicking runners back into play, Power Girl already has this situation resolved and well in hand.

Rolling behind cover as the rounds start flying his way, he waits patiently for a break in the fire. It seems, with the grenades in play, that break in fire is just going to get even louder. He won't speculate what it'll do to the mood of the others. For himself? It's annoying.

"You know. You're only making this worse for yourselves. You really should just surrender before anyone else gets hurt."

Like they'll listen to reason.

The volley of shots fired from his pistols is an indicator he doesn't think reason is going to reign today.

Karen Starr has posed:
    The grenades get her attention. Not before some casual ribbing, of course. "Okay, this has been great fun and all," she states, pausing to zip out of place for the blink of an eye, returning with another gunman, unconscious. "But continuing to shoot when it's clearly not doing anything is kind of the pinnacle of stupidity." She's missing for more fractions of a second, before finally there is a collection of thugs piled in front of her, definitely not happy about their chosen career.

    Fractions of a second, then, can matter. Each grenade is thrown at slightly different times, each one's pin pulled and trigger-lever popped at different moments. That they're not simultaneous makes this all the easier.

    She's in the air in a flash, a grenade in hand- it explodes, without so much as moving her fingers- then, as if she's in multiple places at once, she's doing the same to each grenade as its fuse reaches the end, clutching it and dropping the shrapnel harmlessly.

    "Okay, fine. Hard way."

    Through windows, Power Girl starts flying- a wind kicking up as she accelerates beyond that which can be seen by the naked eye- before returning to the center yet again. That pile of gunmen now has atop it a pile of armaments. Crates of grenades. Rifles. The ammunition. Of course, much of this doesn't come without a cost. Wrenching a rifle or a grenade from a thug's hand is effortless for her- and if it were her cousin, it'd be done delicately.

    These guys don't get the delicate treatment. They get the "whoops your finger was caught in the trigger guard when I ripped the gun out of your hand" treatment. Sure, it's nothing some splints can't fix, but broken fingers and hands are probably the least of their worries.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
With their attention divided between Power Girl and Red Hood, the russian mobsters' strategy - if there was ever time to formulate one in the first place - begins to break down. Two more mobsters fall under Red Hood's expert marksmanship skills. All in all, it's become a good night's work. And a solid one, too - in the inner rooms, the group was storing armor-piercing rounds, grenades, flashbangers, even rocket launchers. These guys were gearing up, and it seemed to be going on for some time - they were just keeping appearances.

Now, it is a known fact that Batman discourages the actions of super-powered individuals, but they do show from time to time. Could this apparent escalation be consequence of increasing metahuman sightings or action? Or was there something larger at play here?

In the meantime, outside, the messenger that was to deliver the package to the now fallen guys? Well, he took the cue to bolt out of there! Subway stations are your best friends, running all over Gotham.

But, Caleb now wonders, how will Vittorelli react to this fiasco? The thought scares him...

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason Todd is impressed. He knows what the Super family can do, sure. But first hand? It's really something to admire.

As Power Girl takes care of the guns, trigger fingers, and grenades, he turns to making certain there are no stragglers to get away. With an overly dramatic sigh, he raises his guns and fires twice each. Two would-be runners are stopped, left twitching from taser rounds.

Turning back as Power Girl has handled what? A dozen? twice that many in the same time frame?

He isn't one to complain at being shown up when it's by someone so far out of his league.

He looks to Caleb as he approaches the center of the chaos as things come to an end.

"You okay?"

Then to the blonde.

"Power Girl. Nice to see you. Got to say I'm a big fan. These guys don't understand anything but violence. Thanks for taking care of them. It would have taken me a lot longer by myself."

"Though you know. Standard boilerplate applies: You're not supposed to be here. He doesn't like you powered folks darkening His city's skies, blah blah blah."

A shrug as he holsters his guns. "You won't get it from me though. We can use your help any time. Even if He doesn't care to admit it or accept it. So. Thank you."

Karen Starr has posed:
    Frankly, being impressed is the proper response. Sure, there's documentation- newspapers, files in the Bat network, photographic and video evidence, even.

    It's just that nothing quite matches watching the impossible unfold before your very eyes; The speed, the strength, the invulnerability. You can read about it all you like, but there's something in the back of the head that keeps it labelled under Not Real until you /see/ it. In person.

    When all is said and done and a number of Bratva are stacked on top of one another for the GCPD to, eventually, come and arrest, Power Girl turns, noting Caleb and Red Hood. The latter has the former set in terms of making sure he's okay- and Karen, frankly, already knows he is. Shaken, but not shot. She'd made sure of that.

    "Happy to be here." Power Girl responds, reaching up to pluck a stray bullet out of her hair and drop it to the ground. "I don't know about that, though. Superman probably could've convinced them to hang it up. I always have a little more trouble getting that done."

    Rising into the air, "Yeah, I know. I've heard it before. Glad to hear someone's thankful, and fully aware that I'm going to show up whether they like it or not. See you around, Red Hood."

    And, with that, she's zooming off into the sky again. Leaving Jason with the cleanup. Not that it's a hard job, admittedly.