15991/Urban myths and chance encounters

Urban myths and chance encounters
Date of Scene:	01 October 2023
Location:	Gotham
Synopsis:	Closing out old scene
Cast of Characters:	Harper Row, Waylon Jones

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Harper Row has posed:
Bluebird is suited up, fueled up on sugar and caffiene, and ready to do her part. She's left her roost some time ago, having dropped from above, gliding on an unpowered set of artifical foldable wings from a certain stealthy higher mobile vantage. To make her maiden flight on these new polymer wings complete, she's got her birdbuds in her earholes tuned to a special mix. It sounds a lot like X is gonna give it to someone, quite a lot. And for all her prep, the leap into the night sky felt like the world snapping back into fast-forward, where reaction times and angling her slim body all meant hair-trigger reflexes and no time to let her mind wander.

With the other Birds on their own way to other patrol points, Harper swerves and banks, maintaining her altitude to get a good vantage before her swoop below to rooftop or building. Better to use this time to get the absolute best reception and goddess-like vista for her eyes behind her digital readouts. It's exhilirating and scary as F, but she's been taught to use these feelings to be better, not to be a hindrance. She embraces her teachings and course corrects turn her attention to the farthest point before she starts doubling-back along her patrol route. "Alright, what are you up today, Gotham?"

Waylon Jones has posed:
For his part Killer Croc's not terribly suited up or fueled by caffeine and sugar. But then, when most of your wardrobe can be filed into the categories of 'Prison jumpsuit' and 'tattered rags', being able to afford sugar and caffeine is a luxury that you can only dream of. Or grow bitter and resentful of others for having. But when you're practically eight feet and a ton of prehistori muscle, there is a far easier way to afford some luxuries than working a steady nine to five, or hoping that some government bureaucrat decides that the criminals 'drafter' into the Suicide Squad deserve a paycheck.

Which is what leads to the GCPD radio coming alive with panicked shouts and the sound of rending metal from what was supposed to be an entirely routine and arguably boring transfer of seized criminal goods. No freeze rays or Joker toxin or... potted plants? Gotham's more colorful cast of criminals do certainly have unusual items that need securing. But Gotham also has a proud tradition of organized crime, with their bootlegging and gun running and drug rings. The boring stuff.

So, really it's understandable that they wouldn't be expecting their van to suddenly lift off its wheels and slam over onto its side when Croc came barreling up out of a manhole cover barely wide enough for him to fit his shoulders through. On the plus side, the officers in the van are only in for hospital stays on par with the crooks who run into Batman, what with the enthusiastic blunt force trauma, and one Lieutenant Jenkins getting thrown into one of Gotham's last coin-operated newspaper dispensers.

Is it fancy work? No. If Waylon had more drive and ambition he might even find it beneath him, but it's a job, it pays, and that's really about as far as his thoughts on capitalism go.

Harper Row has posed:
Harper's music suffers a draining of volume on a dial keyed into certain frequencies and keywords. Soon as there's that amount of chaos or criminality going on, the pounded beats are replaced by the scratchy reports and the high-tenor of panic carried by voices on the airwaves. With the wind speeding past her microbead, she touches base with HQ. "I'm close, practically on top of that PD transfer. Bluebird to the rescue. Will call in for cleanup when I've got it sorted y'all." Her voice clips off and she dips as a virtual slide of pixels helpfully appears before her eyes. "Rollercoaster of...Justiiiiice!"

She's quite the scrappy sounding vigilante tonight. Fresh and ready to frolick, quite certain she can take on any scumbags. Everything on her feels right. Equipment strapped, angle of descent plotted and the wind behaving, and the gum in her mouth still has some flavour left. She's ready to rock.

The van is coming into sight as she decides to go headlong onto street level, bypassing a rooftop vantage and deciding getting right up close and personal is the way to charge in. The disturbance should make itself known pretty fast and feeling overconfident, she trusts in her reflexes to make snap-judgements and bring some non-lethal Dredd-like dire consequences. Her wings detach behind her in time for her making contact with asphalt and commit to a roll. The wings flop and clatter, but that's all behind her and a clean-up details. She's prepared for a landing, but the scale of strength of display is still eye-widening and would make her jaw drop if not for the teeth clenching. Her fists come up into a fighting stance as she takes stock. "Hope the jailtime is worth all this, sucker!"

Waylon Jones has posed:
Certainly, having access to a city-wide relay network, heads up display, and other technological wonders would make a night of what is, really, at its core petty theft easier for Waylon. But what he lacks in tech he makes up for in the measured and rational application of natural talents.

That's a lie.

But he does make up for it with animalistic displays of brute force. Not knowledgeable in lock picking? Too amped up on adrenaline to politely ask the dazed officers to unlock the van's cargo door? Razor sharp claws and corded muscle work for their own particular brand of lockpicking. Could he have just punched through the window and unlatched the door from the inside? Probably. But after a moment of bracing and then the shrill, squealing shriek of protesting metal, rivets pop, hinges snap, and a door goes flying to be embedded in a brick wall across the street.

Croc's pulling back out of the van and tossing guns, neatly banded bundles of cash, even what was presumably some sort of expensive vase to the ground, gleaming yellow eyes locking on the spritely form of the particular Defender of the Night that's arrived. He lets out a low snarl, eyes narrowing slightly. "Really? What is it with you Bats and your banter? At least the last one tried to hit me with her car."

He shakes his head and turns around to bend back into the raggedly torn hole in the van that used to be a door, "Listen, I gotta find this goddamn book, then I'll throw y'through that plate glass window over there, 'kay?"

Harper Row has posed:
Harper feels her spine try to turn into a question mark at the sound of Croc warning her of how dangerous he is. It really goes well with the level of destruction wrought. Intimidation of some common Gothamite hoodlum ain't gonna work tonight. Bunching her fists and sporting her uniform, and her delightfully vocal fry grating voice isn't at Batman levels neither.

"It's part of the job. Wise-crackin 101, can't get your cape without it." she lips.

Her hands go to her side and unstrap her railgun and the slap of her palm wakes the clip, giving it notice that it is time to rise and fry. The stink of ozone off the electric bullets angrily waking up ploofs from her like a battery overheating. "Let's say nay on the throw...Time to dance 'Zilla!"

Her weapon's muzzle tracks upwards and she gets her finger on the trigger. This is gonna be messy, and she'll probably feel sorry for any non-perps if the electrical charge travels through metal or ground water, but this is Killer Croc. A baker's dozen of shots she intends to pepper him with!

Waylon Jones has posed:
Croc doesn't take too terribly long in the van for his second go round, though it's clear in the way his back is tensing he's getting more and more frustrated until finally he's standing up... and those nearly sharp scales along his spine with a focused application of that ungodly strength let him simply shred through the side of the toppled van, though it does take a moment for him to brace his hand on the actual frame and give it a good solid /hit/ to jar the metal loose as he stands up, grumbling half-formed words and low, primal growls.

It's really just bad timing that has him turning around, half-forming some remark about how capes seem like a really dumb choice for crime fighting, because they can get sucked into jet engines like he saw in this one mov-NUTS!

It's not like /all/ those rounds strike home, becaus a solid four or five hit the heavy leather-bound book he's clasping in one hand... and sure, he scuffed the cover with his claws, but that paper /detonates/ into shreds when railgun rounds meet binding.

A smarter man would rationalize that he was hired to recover the ledger, and if he couldn't succeed on that, surely destroying it and denying the police evidence would be worth a proportional amount of his payment. But Waylon's not a smarter man. And so he misses out on the opportunity to crack wise and taunt Bluebird for having in fact HELPED CRIME! in favour of recoiling as jolts of electricity and sharp impact strike him... electricity arcs across that broad torso, bits of the van's frame even show smaller arcs of electricity leaping from him to the vehicle. Fortunately the battered and beaten crew are laying several feet away.

The remnants of the ledger are hurled aside and any pithy remarks are lost to a /surprisingly/ loud roar before that wall of scaled muscle is charging forward. It's not /fast/ per say, but it's certainly a lot to see barreling towards you.

Harper Row has posed:
Bluebird has never had a chance to test her rounds on someone non-human as near as she can remember. At least they had hides that may have been a bit hairy or furry, but not scales. And not Killer Croc. She should have studied a bit more than assume one size fits all in the jazzy take-down piezolectric department. Her weapon chimes she's rattled off quite a few rounds. Full auto is never recommended. And seeing all that angry mass of monstrous man coming at her, she decides agility is the best course of action rather than trying to just gun him down. "Jaysus!"

She's going to get in big trouble about destroying property, she knows it. But she doesn't want to be a pancake neither, and throws herself into a hasty roll to the right. It's way close to a sewer access point, and it's risk that or experience what it's like to be hit by a city bus. "You can still give up!" she yells, her voice trying to be brave in the face of such an intimidating charge. "Shit!"

Waylon Jones has posed:
Fortunately, when he's angered, Croc isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the shed. Even compared to his already limited intellectual pursuits. And this is far more on the /pursuit/ side than the intellectual. That roll is just in time, barreling reptilian surging forward like some sort of hellish locomotive, which also means he's difficult to stop. Of course, trains can't gouge claws into asphalt to come to a stop.

There's a noise from Croc that might be a laugh, it might be a growl, it's practically more physical bass than heard audio, but those yellow eyes are gleaming, bright and wild and oh so close to mindless, "Y'know that's what Batgirl said! She got away... I wonder if you're as fast?"

And then he's springing forward again, not just a run though, no, he /leaps/, flying through the air because that cuts off one more line of retreat. Hell, it practically means that sewer grating's the /only/ line of retreat!

Harper Row has posed:
Harper can't roll forever. And Jesus is Croc fast. Nothing that big should be so agile. It should make perfect sense to have such amazing control of one's body if its one's primary means of getting a job done. Bluebird can barely track the progress, and all the Red Bulls and powdered timbits, as delicious as they are, aren't giving her supernatural powers. Yet.

She doesn't like the sound of the fact that a comrade in arms couldn't stop Croc. Especially if it's Batgirl. That's the kind of detail that can have an affect on Bluebird. She tenses, head nearly cracking against the street as she grits her teeth and reaches for her utility belt. She doesn't have time to think, just react. The smoke grenade is smashed against the ground beside her and she lurches in a clumsy tumble towards the sewer. It's a tight squeeze and the road rash hopefully can be kept at bay with her costume. The head-long tumble she intends to right on the way down if she can manage it. It's gonna be hell on a rotator cuff but she scrambles down into the wet dark. "Fffffffuuuuuuck!" Despite not having a catsuit or aesthetics, she tries to land on her feet and wing it.