16011/Just another day in Gotham

Just another day in Gotham
Date of Scene:	04 October 2023
Location:	Old Gotham - Founders Island
Synopsis:	When some cretins invade a Gotham Children's Works playground, a simple schoolteacher for at-risk kids and a young heiress are totally at risk and in danger until OSPREY shows up!
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Jimmy Hudson, Austin Reese

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Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    GOTHAM CITY

    Some people would think it's the center of a cursed universe, the epicenter of crime, the home of crooked cops as bent as the day is long.

    But there's the Good Side to Gotham City too. There's charities and workings, funded by the Thomas and Martha Wayne foundation that work for the greater good of Gotham City (and parts of the world beyond), funded by their son, Bruce Wayne, and the many children he has adopted -- or in one case, discovered he had have a tendency to show up in his place.

    The Gotham Children's Works is one of the charities Phoebe favors. And right now they are opening a new playground in Old Gotham, adjacent to one of their service buildings that provide free daycare and preschool services, along with a mini clinic. There's a couple grills set up front going for free burgers and hotdogs to those coming in to use the playground on an unusually hot GOtham day in October.

    Phoebe Beacon-Wayne is in attendence, hair wrap in a playful scarf with rainbow-colored hearts on it, with a light gray skirtsuit in an English cut and big hoop earrings. It was a big hoop day.

    There was an awful lot of hand-shaking and pictures, and she was thankful for a break to sit down on a park bench and enjoy a tofu dog.

Jimmy Hudson has posed:
Gotham City isn't really a place for James Hudson, Jr. The smells are desperate and the sounds are a caphony of angst and anger. Dressed in a tweed suit, complete with brown leather shoes, no tie, and a bright shirt beneath the tweed jacket, he had come to the event, because as a Teacher, he is always looking for new ways to engage his students and open their minds a little further.

Arriving on the scene, Jimmy glances over at the grill and orders himself a burger, dropping the money in the donation jar before looking for a place to sit and eat. Noticing that most of the tables and benches are already filled with families and guests of the illustrious Mister Wayne, when he spies a young woman sitting by herself, he decides to make his approach thataway.

Coming to a stop at Phoebe's bench, Jimmy tips his head in greetings. "If you're holding a seat for someone, that's fine, I was just hoping I can take a break before going to look at all the exhibits?" he asks of her. "Your scarf is very colorful."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe looks up from her tofu dog to Jimmy, and gives a small smile, making sure he has plenty of space on the bench.

    "Please, have a seat." she motions next to her, "Have you been enjoying the afternoon?" she questions quietly, "they've put as much as they can into this new park and playground. Their last big project was an off-site place for Blackgate prisoners on low alert to interact with their families, away from the prison. Which is in lockdown, I think, again." she replies conversationally, and she she gives a soft huff of breath."

    "But the exhibits inside are great. I really enjoyed the Lego Block Batman." she gives a smile.

Jimmy Hudson has posed:
"Thank you." Jimmy offers. His accent is not local. You can almost feel the French-Canadian in his tone and mannerisms. "I was told that Gotham's a lot glommier, glad to have caught it on a good day." he admits with a chuckle as he wraps his burger tightly so it won't spill on his suit when he takes a bite.

"It's good that the judicial system is at least trying to intergrate folks back into society instead of just locking them up and tossing the key down some cold, dark hole." he points out.

"Haven't had a chance to go inside and take a look yet," Another bite, slow chew and swallow. Then he continues. "Was hoping to catch one of the tours when they come available." As he straightes up in the seat, he considers Phoebe and makes an introduction. "My name's Jimmy Hudson. I'm a teacher in upstate New York working with special needs kids. Was hoping to get some ideas for classroom projects today, or at least snag a virtual tour to take back to the students."

It is true. He is a teacher. He is in upstate New York (Xavier's.) and he does teach special needs (mutants.). No lies here!

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hudson. I'd be happy to make sure a virtual tour becomes available. I'm something of a friend of the head of the charit--" she pauses -- and Jimmy may be able to hear the sound of tires squealing, a V8 engine on a van's block revving up, the smell of gasoline and gunpowder.

    "Get down -- get the kids inside! Inside! Everyone inside NOW!" Phoebe calls out as a van comes barreling across the perimeter, striking both grills and sending hotdogs and hamburgers skyward, causing a fire to break out from the sudden expulsion of gas through a broken regulator.

    Goons with Guns spill out of the van, tac masks on their faces as they lift various weapons -- and one launches a gas cannister into the air!

Jimmy Hudson has posed:
He didn't even get her name. Alas. As he hears the squeal of tires, Jimmy is already moving to throw away the rest of his burger instead of just abandoning it on the bench. "I'll help get the kids corraled into safety." he offers to Phoebe.

That is when he hears the crush of bending metal, the whine of an engine overrevving and spilling coolant from crashing into the iron. He moves to the flank, heading around the opposite side of the van from where Phoebe went.

His heart is racing, that familiar adrenaline rush from a sudden thrill that comes from facing danger. Spying a child that hasn't had a chance to catch up to the others, he starts making that way as a goon with a gun swings out of the van.

A hiss of breath and Jimmy crouches, rushing the goon, slamming into him with a broad shoulder to push him back into the van. "Get inside!" he calls out to the child, even as he knows he's about to be facing more problems.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    What's in a name anyway?

    The woman with the rainbow-hearts hair wrap shifts around, as kids are pulled and pushed to safety, and Jimmy goes to the other side of the van, she reaches into that hidden pocket of her jacket and pulls a slender metal rod.

    The kids all make it inside, including the kid who was left out. Phoebe picks up this one, and runs with them under her arm as he cries out, and baseball-skids (destroying her tights and her skirt in the process #TooBadSoSad, and she breathes out, handing the kid through a window. Gas fills the playground from the cannisters, and they're expecting anyone remaining outside to be a teared-up snivvling mess. But they didn't count on one thing.

    THe broad shoulder knocks the goon back inside and into another goon. Now, Jimmy has Double the Goon on him. One raises another gas cannister launcher and attempts to hit Jimmy in the chest with it, while the second raises a pistol and fires three times in short order.

    <We have a hero on this side.> One of them snarls into his comms.

    <Well. Get *rid* of him.> a voice answers. A second van peals around the corner, on their way to start additional crap for Jimmy to deal with!

Jimmy Hudson has posed:
Great, two goons are not better than one. And this /was/ his favorite suit, about to be horribly ruined. No need to hide anymore. Immediately, Jimmy is calling forth the organic steel that covers his skeleton, as he has the option of on or off, and he really wants it on right now.

The gas canister slams into him at point blank range, and there's a whoof of air as Jimmy takes the hit, but he grabs the canister and flings it as hard as he can at the windshield of the van barrelling down upon him.

Which opens him to taking three to the center of mass. The bullets slam into him and he stumbles backwards. Catching his breath as his healing factor kicks in, there's a small snarl that comes from the curl of Jimmy's lip, that hint of a canine showing as he throws out both of his arms and six blades, three on each hand, pop out between his knuckles.

Charging the goon with the pistol, it's not the goon he aims for, instead, he attempts to slice through the weapon, his claws retracting as he aims a punch directly at the goon's face.

Austin Reese has posed:
The GCPD alerts going off in his domino mask get Osprey to turn around and divert from his normal patrol, the GPS guiding him towards where the several livestream feeds are now coming from. How did they do this kind of crime fighting in the 80s or 90s? Seems impossible to him.

It doesn't take terribly long for him to arrive, the sight of people running and tear gas streaming from the playground, he hops up onto the seat of his bike and fires a grapple line to the top of one of the slides. It's not the highest thing ever, but it'll work for this. He slips a respirator on over his mouth and nose as he glides upwards, landing on the metal of the slide for a moment. One of the goons seems to have moved into position at the bottom of the slide by sheer coincidence, and Osprey launches himself down the tube, feet first, coming out right at about hip level for the goon, who gets kicked square in the gut by a boot, and taken down by a fist to the face as Osprey rolls through into the cloud of tear gas.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    In oddly sunny Gotham where we lay our scene, two heroes alike in dignity are currently trying to put the smackdown on about twelve goons from a van. There's a massive greasefire at the entrance to the children's park. The children and all their adults have safely been evacuated, but are watching nervously through windows as a man in a tweed jacket takes a gas cannister to the chest, and just picks it up and SLAMS it into the windshield, where it goes off, crumples, and cracks the glass, willing the van with tear gas -- and now Jimmy's got a claws!

    The goon with the pistol screams out as he's charged, the gun sliced to bits and then the punch breaking his nose through his tac mask.

    The guy with the launcher meanwhile attempts to repurpose a cannister launcher as a baseball bat to brain the brawny guy.

    We'll call them One and Two. One's out.

    Three and Four are trying the doors on the building to try and gain entry, a smokescreen of teargas providing them with cover -- but it also provides two other people with cover.

    There's a Wilheim scream as Three is suddenly grabed from behind and struck with an extension staff, sent off to entangle in one of the toddler swings upside-down.

    Four turns to investigate, and finds himself with his bullets deflecting off a shield with a lazily-spinning eight-pointed star.

    She might not be able to quick change into Oriole, but she *can* quickchange to Balm, blue lenses glowing in the smoke of the teargas.

    And Osprey finds himself coming in on the scene. Five is taken out via a twisty-slide entry to boot to the gut, followed by a blow to the face.

    Six turns to try and rescue Five, shooting his automatic rifle into the smoke with a "AAAAH DIE DIE DIE! WE GOT BAT!"

    "WE GOT BATS!" Four yelps.

    Seven through Twelve look at one another, and make another dash for the door to the building, trying to gain entry.

    A third van is pulling around the corner!

Jimmy Hudson has posed:
There are three dark red pools of blood on the lavender shirt that Jimmy had worn beneath the tweed jacket. Stripping off the jacket to toss it aside, Jimmy swings a kick into One as he starts to go down, slinging him towards the van to make sure he stays down for a while.

*THWUNK!* The baseball slams into the back of Jimmy's head, bouncing off and up in the air. The mutant slings around towards Two and launches at the launcher, claws flashing in the light as he cleaves into the launcher, hitting the firing mechanism, causing it to explode in a rush of compressed air, and Jimmy pushes on, a knee to the solar plexus, followed by a two-handed overhead axe blow to the head.

As he drops, he looks up, just not noticing the arrival of Osprey. Curse words in polite French race through his mind before he launches himself at the group that is going for the door and the kids.

Grabbing the last one by the back of the shirt, he slams him down onto the ground, before he sends a punch into the kidneys of the next one in line.

Austin Reese has posed:
Yeah they should have expected a Bat or two. Going out in the day was smart, but Ospreys also do their best hunting in the light.

He throws himself to the ground as Six starts shooting, whipping one of his knives up through the tear gas into the weapon, to try to knock it upwards, so he can rise back up to his feet and close the distance to Six.

It should be a quick takedown, or so he hopes. He does catch sight of the other guy moving through the goons as well. Doesn't recognize him, so not one of the regulars around town lately. Still, he makes note to try to catch up with that guy as he shoulder throws Six into one of those back and forth rocking horses, which springs backwards and then launches Six forwards into a swing set which wraps him up.

That's not even what Osprey was going for, but he'll take it.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Two is not getting up from that. The blow cracks his tac gear, letting the vrowded tear gas filled van air access his eyes, and he gives out a cry, and he flails as he passes out.

    Twelve is next in line, giving a cry out as he's grabbed and pulled back and slammed into the ground. Eleven gives a yell as he's kidney punched, and Ten turns around, and tries to fire through the smoke in the chaos at Jimmy! "AAAAAAH DIE DIE DIE BATS!" he calls out.

    Six joins One on the swingsets, tangled up in the chains, and really, they're kind of the lucky ones.

    "Ten points!" Balm calls out to Osprey, her voice modified. She's relying on her healing ability to keep the tear gas at bay as she moves through the now thinning cloud to head Seven off the pass.

    Jimmy may see the gray feminine figure incoming, hood pulled forward and blue optics aglow as she swings her staff out, taking Seven down and knocking him into eight.

    "Sorry guys, we're gonna school you out here." she states, and brings her shoulder forward in a hard blow, gifting Johnny 10!

Jimmy Hudson has posed:
See. That's not fair. Her disguise is pretty sweet, Jimmy realizes. He didn't even pack a scarf to hide his face with today. He's mentally marking his mistakes, even as he drops into a crouch so that the feminine figure can swing over him to collide with one of the targets.

Now with the two Bats working together and in concert, he can appreciate that. He also sees it as his chance to not stick around, speak with the locals, the police, the press, or the local superhero corps.

Another punch drops eight, and with Nine closing in, Jimmy punches him in the leg, popping a claw to slice the muscle and send him sprawling and screaming in pain.

Back to his feet and only a fleeting glance to make sure the kids are secure and then back forward. With Osprey and Oriole in charge, Jimmy starts to slip back into the crowd, just another one looking to excape and not get noticed.

Austin Reese has posed:
As Oriole moves past him, Osprey can't help but smirk faintly, "Still gotta catch up to you!" He calls out, slipping out of the gas for a moment, hopping up to grab onto the monkey bars and using them to give himself a swinging boost as he throws a haymaker at one of the las still standing goons. At this point he has lost track of the other guy that was helping out, the chaos and gas still making things a bit on the crazy side.

There's a quick glance to a spot on his HUD inside of his domino mask, trying to check and see how long until the GCPD gets here. Need to make sure all of these goons are boxed up before the cops arrive.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Not a contest -- focus on the kids -- HEY! Catch the guy -- ask if he's related to Badger or X!" she calls out, turning and tripping another couple of the jerks who tried to invade a place for kids to hang out! Jerks!

    The third fan pulls up.

    The side door opens, and out steps a simply... huge.... behemoth of a man. No, it's not Bane. It doesn't look like this guy's on anything except maybe a straight protein diet.

    pfft.

    Complete with the gas that goes with it.

    He punches his hands into his palm, and he looks beyond the haggard looking Jimmy to the two bats beating up his buddies.

    "AIM GONNA MURD-HA DA BATS!" she announces, and goes to try to run over Jimmy in the process!

    The other two who were in the van -- a driver and a handler, look at Osprey and Balm and then back to Jimmy.

     -- and they raise guns at Jimmy, because this is Gotham.

    The big guy immediately closes in on Osprey!

Jimmy Hudson has posed:
With the Belching Behemoth closing in on him, Jimmy grunts. This is totally ruining his day. Before he gets run over, he leaps upwards, using the giant's shoulders for balance, his legs kick up, twist and sommersalts to land behind him.

Thudding into the ground, he finds himself facing two more guns. As they open fire, he has no want to try to catch any more bullets with his body. He jukes hard, zig-zagging in a serpentine motion as he rushes towards the pair. He's not as talkative as Gabby, that much is clear, as he pops his claws, slicing into one gun, while he uses his foot to kick the other to send him spiraling towards Osprey.

Austin Reese has posed:
Catch him? Osprey can do that. Though there's still the problem of the big guy that is coming right for him instead. There's not a lot of time to worry about the other guy that's helping at the moment. Osprey decides to go low, ducking down to dive through the big guy's legs, taking a second to kick the knees out from under the guy, before rolling out of the way of where he'll be falling backwards when gravity kicks in.

Once he's out of the way he kips up to his feet, looking to the guy that was being shot at, and now the guy spiraling towards him. This gives Osprey an idea, as he turns and grabs hold of the guy that was just kicked his way, twisting around and power bombing that guy on top of the big guy at full force, but doesn't release him yet, instead picking him back up and throwing him again into the dirt nearby.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Oh no. Those aren't belches. Belchy the Boss Fight doesn't seem to mind Jimmy. Jimmy is not a Bat. He's a nerd.

    Jimmy zigs and zags along the pavement, and as the two goons are are much better drivers and gofors than they are gunmen keep missing at Jimmy, before his claws pop. Thirteen and Fourteen both scream before they're sent packing, one slamming against the back of the van, the other slung towards Osprey!

    He doesn't make it though, as he slams into Belchy, whose knees are neatly taken out by a solid blow from Osprey. Gravity does its job, and Belchy becomes a Victim of Physics (TM). And the second guy is then bombed on top of Belchy, and then tossed to the dirt.

    A fresh wind takes out the rest of the tear gas, smelling faintly of roses and black pepper, and once the gas is completely cleared out, the girl with the rainbow-heart-hair-wrap comes around, limping, her tights ripped and ran, skirt suit ruined, but otherwise oddly unscathed.

    She gives an upnod to Osprey, and then looks to Jimmy.

    "That school you work at. Did a Gabby Kinney go there at one point?" she asks, putting a hand to the back of her head as if it really, really awfully hurt.

Jimmy Hudson has posed:
No more bad guys? Quick scan around. No more bad guys on their feet.

Jimmy lets out a sigh, because clearly, his plan to escape has been thrwarted by the untimely arrival of wave three of the goon patrol. Lifting his shirt, he takes out the three slugs he caught earlier in the fight and tosses them to the ground.

And then Phoebe speaks up and his head snaps up to her. She knows Gabby? A quick look over the woman and then he nods. "She did. She's also my little sister."

And with that, he's turning to leave. "Forgive the exit, not exactly a fan of drawin' attention." he drawls with a gentle Canadian accent.

Austin Reese has posed:
As the teargas finally clears, Osprey takes a moment to pull his respirator off before moving over towards where Oriole is, "All the kids unscathed?" He asks, hoping she managed to get the ones she was working on rescuing out of there, "Think we should bail before GCPD gets here?" He asks.

When Jimmy mentions being Gabby's sister, his head tilts a little bit. He knows Gabby mostly through Oriole, but they've worked along side each other a few times, "I understand the sentiment." He replies, in regards to not wanting to draw attention. Then again it's hard not to when you're an armor wearing vigilante in Gotham.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe gives an upnod, and offers a fist-bump. "Phoebe. She plays bodyguard for me sometimes, we got your back, Hudson. Be safe." she introduces herself, but accepts that he goes to walk off. She can respect that.

    She makes her way meanwhile towards Osprey, and gives a head up to him. "You good?" she asks, wiping her hands off. "Ziptied as many as I could 'fore the smoke began to wear off. And I left my smoke bombs in my other suit." she breathes out. And then she gives a smile, and an excited wave to the windows. The doors tentatively open. People are snapping pics.

    "Osprey, thank you for coming to our rescue. Absolutely, this day would have been REALLY REALLY AWFUL if you hadn't shown up to save everyone."

    And the other gas grill then blows up, causing Phoebe to duck and panic for a brief moment.

    "... oh god I think that was the burger grease one..."