15023/Bushwick Kristall...

Bushwick Kristall...
Date of Scene:	28 May 2023
Location:	Bushwick <Mutant Town>
Synopsis:	5 Purifiers try to burn a shop owned by a mutant! Red Sonya manages to apprehend four of them.
Cast of Characters:	Julie Power, Mary Jane Watson

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Julie Power has posed:
It's a warm day of late may, a sunday even, when people, normal and mutants alike, have done their due dilligence. Some worked in the moloch of New York that seemed to never sleep, others spent their day off with their families, taking the warm sun as a welcome gift. But now, as the light ebbed away, the shadows spread.

In the cover of the falling night, in the shadow of the tall brick buildings and a spot that a broken streetlight keeps in the dark, a van stops and a pair of broad shouldered men disembark, clad in black flowing robes. The pair looks around, then nods, leanign against their transport to wait. Over the next ten minutes, the two become five, all clad in similar black, the dim light making it hard to distinguish. Only when one of them lights some cigs and passes them around some distinction is given to the group. Their faces look stern, and in the orange gleam of the cigarettes, a long white strip going down can be made out...

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Something's gone wrong with her best friend. And Mary Jane is trying to figure out what. It means checking places out to see if someone might knwo something. Or has ideas to pass along. Having not had any success with her day job (or her night one), she's dropping by somewhere a bit out of her normal path. Bushwick. She knows some mutants there that might be able to help with something to start on. So, she's going for a jog, a hoodie on showing a caricature of Spider-Man as a cartoon pig munching on a hot dog with the letters underneath 'You'll Like Me When I'm Hammy'.

Underneath said large hoodie are a pair of batons that are sheathed, and over at her hip is a very small off-duty pistol that's for her 'day job' as she jogs forwards. She pauses over as she goes to pass the men. Something about them - the way they hold themselves, the way they carry themselves, screams out to her like a warning beacon. Sos he turns to face them. "Hey guys, you look out of place here." Standing a few dozen meters away

Julie Power has posed:
One of the men turns, the cig in his mouth casting eery shadows over his visage. It's like in those fantasy films, when someone stares into a fire. No, that was a different, more friendly type of light. This... this was anything bbut not gentle. The dim orange glow cast on the roughly chissled featureswould much better fit into... Nothing New in the West.

"Nah, perfect place. If anethin's wrong ids this place is outa place." comes the answer from the guy as he steps over just a little, seemingly trying to cover what the other four behind do, then spitting out to the pavement, the cig pinched between the teeth. His and his comrade's hands are hidden in the sleeves of his long robes, making it hard to discern what those do.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
That's the thing - it's a bit too obvious that they're hiding things. A bit too blatant there. Just a little bit too much that the man is going to screen the others with him over and then Mary Jane's hands would go to slide towards her waist as her hand gets ready. "I'm going to have to ask for your identification, each of you." Her tone is a clear warning over to each of them as she makes a move towards her hips.

"Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'm going to need to see ID's from each of you and keep your hands where I can see them." Hopefully these men are idiots.

Julie Power has posed:
The guy facing Mary snarls a moment, then laughs as he lifts his left hand, the flesh getting quite visible as he extends it out of the long sleeve. No gun there. "Then come hither Darlin', we ain't got nothin' to hide. Just ole' buds meetin' and having a beer. Greg, pass me one?" he invites, though that might as well be stalling for time. A pair of cigaretts is tossed to the pavement as he speaks, crushed by shoesoles.

The front man still shields what they do from sight, though one of his accomplices steps to his sides, a bottle in either hand. One he passes to the talker, the other he keeps in his right hand, lifting it halfway, but not high enough to drink. Two faces just barely illuminated by the burn of tobacco.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Mary Jane's hand goes to slide down, and she geos to draw out an identification card of an FBI agent - the joys of her day job giving her security clearance.. And the ways to have access to things when she needed to. "All right." The badge is visible for the men to see now to confirm it. But while they're triggering all her mental alarms.. There's nothing outright -wrong- that they're doing. SO presuming she doesn't pick up on anything.. The badge is then going to be slid away back to be hooked on her belt as she keeps her expression passive.

Julie Power has posed:
There's nothing illegal in holding a bottle. There's also nothing illegal in smoking a cigarette. Or to have a matchbook affixed to the neck of the bottle. The two men exchange a glance as MJ gets close enough to show her credentials, then they lift their bottles, once again facing the cop. Almost like a drinking motion, but *not quite*. It's the cigarets and the matchbook that make contact, not the neck and the lips. In a blinding flash, the phosphor heads ignite, the smell of a singed beard mixing in. A split moment later, two sparking lightbugs fly away from the faces, the matchbooks at the bottle's necks well ablaze, illuminating the habit of the quintett: Black robes with a stark white cross all over the front, almost like a crusader.

With a shattering cling, one of the two bottles bursts on the wall of the building a few yards behind MJ, the smell of fuel oil wafting over her before the heat of a smaller fuel explosion follows. The second one has taken a better route, shattering a large display window first before it detonates on the inside of a little shop that is owned by an obvious mutant.

And then... it gets obvious what the other three have done as a trio of red dots appears on MJ's chest.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Mary Jane Watson can only swear to herself over at having been so sloppy as to have missed something so obvious as the men went about drinking and smoking. The flames burst out around and hse knows exactly what is going on, what they're doing, and what they are. Her hand goe sto snap back - not to the small pistol holstered at her side, but over to the batons that are slung over her back. There's a shift in her posture as they're both yanked forth and in her hands. The tips charge over as she gives a feral grin.

Her body posture changes. Surprise and off-balance turned over to aggressiveness, glee, and almost a mania as her personalities shift in her mind and one is submerged in the other. She goes to start to laugh even as the three dots go to appear over on her chest.. Then she geos to charge the men! The batons are in front o fher as she moves to try and just smash into the nearest one, even as flames burn over her body and her hoodie to seemingly not even register to her. Her intent is to just close the distance between her and them. They're hopefully going to have her in immediate reach before they can pull hte triggers - so unless they feel like shooting into one another, their guns will not be a factor

Julie Power has posed:
No plan survives contact with the enemy. Such as Mary Jane Watson pulling some sort of weapons. But those are not total beginners: they know what to do. The two fronters dart to the side as their cronies start to spray lead down the road. Not single pulls but fully automatic fire resonates in the street, the flash from the guns casting hellish scenery, their guns decked out with seemingly every gimick that you can buy in a gunstore. And they seem intent to use them to hose MJ off the street...

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
She's at close range, but they still have the time to aim and fire and go at the center of her torso. On full auto even if she has armor she'd be swiss cheesed purely from the kinetic impact breaking every single bone in her body. On full auto the guns will empty their magazines nearly as soon as the men pull the triggers, and within blinks of an eye nearly a hundred bullets would be flying towards her at close range. She's not her best friend. She can't dodge point blank gunfire. She can't jump out of the way..
    But she can jump over them. As the men go to draw thier weapons, and they go to aim at center of mass, fire.. She oges to leap into a sommersault to launch herself over their heads! Them firing on full auto is a blessing, freakishly enough. It means that even if they could reacquire her as a target, they have no ability to shoot at her without fully reloading. So hopefully she's landing behind the nearest of them grinning like a shark.

Julie Power has posed:
Gunfire blazes through the night, two of the guns actually following the arc that Mary Jane Watson takes before clicking out as she is over them. Magazines drop in nigh unison, but the ra-ta-tat of the last gunner, who has trouble lifting his heavier gun to follow continues a little after that. But he spins, around with the smoking gun and a ribbon of amunition belt hanging out of it, trying to reacquire the target so he can cover his conies scrambling to reload... One might fall to the sticks before he can start sawing with moving metal, but...

That's three accounted for. But where are the last two? The sound of shattering glass returns, as one of them stands in front of the burning building, rained on by the glass of an exploding window he threw another bottle into. The other? Where is he?

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
The sticks fly. Titanium with electric shockers on the ends of them. They flash over as she goes for rapid strikes. THe men are in body armor, so she goes for head shots. Presuming she can disable them before they can reload and send thems cattering, she hopefully knocks three down with broken bones and concussions, but nothing that risks paralysis.

But it involves two bullets grazing her, one going through the tip of her collarbone, and a jab of a hot barrel almost to the point of melting the metal to her torso that sizzles and sears over her flesh like hot coals on an iron that she ignores. The fourth man is located, and she goes to hcarge at him. The batons are glowing in her hands as she goes to run at him at full speed. She's surprisingly fast even as she accelerates up to fourty kilometers an hour for just a short distance.. And is hopefully upon him before he can retarget her. Hopefully her weapons strike him fast enough to lay him down.

Julie Power has posed:
As the three men go down and moments later MJ starts to fire on the fourth, things turn into a haze. First, the fourth man starts to jump back and into a fighting retreat. Clearly not as fast as the agent, but he tries to dodge at least, and as she connects with him, he is well and ready to fall backwards in a somewhat graceful manner. He even has the manners to do a double roll before ending on his belly, well outstretched. Second, the van she had just left unattended starts, the side door still open.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Mary Jane is immediately out of position to do something over about the van - there's no way she's fast enough over to catch up with it or stop it, and the building is burning - alcohol fueled flames are going to be horrific to get out. But she can't let the van get away. She can't catch up to it nor does she have something she can throw at it that would be the slightest impediment.. Wait. There to the side over is a freakish thing in New York. A garbage can on the city street.. That somehow still has a lid. A thick metal lid. NO way in hell would throwing it do something.. but time to take something out of Harrison Ford's best performance. Grapple gun pulled, fired to latch onto the back of the van (hopefully). Her jumping on tp of the upended garbage can lid to be yanked along as if sledding on it reeled along by her grapple gun!

Julie Power has posed:
The line latches and, as the car starts to pull out with screeching tires, it turns into a straaange scene. In front, a white van with open door. In the doorframe, a steel cable attached to the frame, pulled taunt. Latched to the cable, a grip held by a young female, who's standing on a steel lid and pulled behind, surfing on sparks.

Behind... the building is burning.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
She can only do one thing at a time. One person against a flaming building will be of little use. She can only hope by the time the van is zooming away that the fire department is there, or mutants who can handle that sort of thing can. The Genoshan Embassy is nearby right?

Skidding along, hand on the edge of the gun to stabilize herself as sparks go from the metal lid acting as a sled for her, Mary Jane huffs and swears. The man driving by now likely has an idea that there's an insane woman tracking him.

Julie Power has posed:
An insane woman soon getting an additional complication as first a lot of glass is showering towards her, and then a handful of bullets from a handgun fired over the shoulder. Nothing well aimed, and the best the driver manages is a pot shot that zooms by right next to MJ's hair, but it's an additional distraction on the driver. Not that speeding away was particularly safe, but speeding, shooting, trying to dislodge someone holding to the van by a cable **and** trying to get somewhere? This drive is on borrowed time...

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
And Mary Jane is very much intent on taking the rest of the time away from him. She has to guess when the many is going along the straightaway, even as the bullet takes off a chunk of her cheek and a good chunk of hair.. She has to time this perfectly since inertia is her enemy. She can't let him zoom along until he crashes into more pedestrians, she has no real way to guilde him.. So she just waits for one particularly big bump to have the sled 'bounce' up in the air, she adds to it with as best a leap as she can.. Then she goes to trigger the grapple like, which yanks her through the air solidly! If it works, there she is accelerating until she's on the top of the van!

... If not, there's a smear on the ground and a lot of meaty chunks.

Julie Power has posed:
On the good part: Mary Jane goes airborne. She even manages to start the rappelling in. But Physics is a... term for a female dog. As the car sveers into a curve, the agent is starting to close in on it... only to be flung right past it as the car itself suddenly stops, having tested the inexscapeable effect of plastic deformation against a solid object - in this case, a fire hydrant. What saved Mary was the hook retting ripped loose by the impact, allowing her to make a somewhat safe landing on the tarmac of the intersection the car tried to take.

As for the driver? Well, the front window is missing, the driver door too, and... there's suspiciously not enough blood for him to be grated.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Since when are physics a thing? Since when does reality not bend enough if one pleas very hard and asks it nicely to let something work? She goes to move around to the side towards the man, going to jog quickly over to put a hand over to his neck (or what there is left of it) to check for a pulse. Presuming there's enough of him left to qualify as 'alive' even in the most technical state..

Then she's going to give him emergency medical attention.

Julie Power has posed:
Just... the driver seat is empty but for a belt tied to the wheel. Seconds ago... he was still there, MJ could swear! Like, one croner ago. but now?

Black on yellow text box: 30 seconds earlier The car just lost its driver side door to a streetlight - and the driver is bailing out right after!