1694/Sacrificial Dagger Heist

Sacrificial Dagger Heist
Date of Scene:	16 May 2020
Location:	Luxury Apartment in Gotham
Synopsis:	Shen is contracted to steal a dagger by an unknown benefactor. Sneaking into a highrise apartment in Gotham, he gets more than he expects. Caught, Shen manages to impress by withstanding mesmerisation, but a promise of Vampirella's more direct and violent methods force him to flee, leaving a flashbang present. Now, Shen is on the run, and he's the hunted. To be continued...
Cast of Characters:	Shen Kuei, Ella Normandy

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Shen Kuei has posed:
Shen is one of those kinds of operatives who is willing to work for anonymous benefactors if the fee is good enough and the cause is moderately acceptable. This evening, he is stalking a monster. A woman who evidently drinks blood, tortures her enemies, and commits all sorts of heinous crimes. Clearly, only one of these accusation is accurate. However, our interim vampire hunter is unaware of this fact. If this deceit is discovered, the payback will be severe. The target is not the woman herself, but a sacrificial dagger in her possession.

Shen is fully suited up, which for him involves a combination of form fitting catsuit, a long trench coat, and a pair of compact night vision goggles. The trench coat itself is more of a carrier of gadgets and tools versus a fashion statement, and the flowing fabric has some interesting combat applications for the creative mind.

He perches on a balcony presently outside a somewhat luxurious but vacant apartment. He had pretended to be an interested buyer earlier in the evening in order to scope out the available units. This particular unit happened to be perfectly situated a couple of floors above the apartment of one, Ella Normandy.

Rope tied off, he silently descends past one dark window and then another. Finally, he stabilizes himself with the toe of his boot on Ella's balcony.

Ella Normandy has posed:
    How does an elementary school teacher afford an apartment with a balcony? Well, it helps when you don't buy food because all your meals run around on two legs, and the balcony helps her get in and out when it's time to take wing. Vampirella supposes one day someone will notice the half-naked woman with a twenty-foot wingspan landing on her roof and scaling down the side of the wall using nothing but her claws, but in a city owned by the bat, that's probably to her advantage. The kind of people who look up in this town are the people who want to know if the bat is after them, and if they take her for one of his, all the better.

    Vampirella's, or Ella Normandy's, apartment is both tastefully and tastelessly decorated. The delicate side tables support elegant vases holding long-stemmed flowers, the curtains are thin and diaphonous as moonbeams, the paintings are abstract but eerily evocative, the hardwood floor is polished so robustly it nearly glows. But a trained eye would notice the kitchen has no visible countertop appliances other than a coffee maker; there are no bookshelves, no electronics, no photographs; there's only one chair in the living room, a high-backed velvet thing facing a blank wall. The bedroom is more interesting, with a California king bed whose sheets are rumpled, hidden behind thick privacy curtains. The wardrobe is half-full of clothes and things could technically be called clothes with a liberal enough definition of the word, and with weapons. Numbered among them is a dagger Vampirella stole from a troll of the Moondark clan before she cut his throat with it. It's a bizarre thing, sinuous and jagged and made of a strangely white metal, its cord-wrapped handle so thick it's difficult for human hands to hold. Vampirella pays it and the world no mind. She's sleeping, her sheets pulled up only to the waist (and the bed has no blanket at all despite it being mid-spring in Gotham).

Shen Kuei has posed:
Shen is deathly quiet, padded boot soles landing carefully upon the concrete of the patio. He stalks in a crouch to the balcony door and inspects the position of the slide lock. Of course it's open. Almost no one bothers to lock these things, and if someone is crazy enough to sneak onto a balcony, a pane of glass probably isn't going to stop them. Though it is very convenient as he cautiously slides open the door, mindful of the track and any noise it might produce. He's successful in producing nothing the normal human ear would detect, who can say for Vampirella?

One he is inside, he immediately notices the oddities. Shen is both trained and very attentive. The Republic of China groomed him to compete with the likes of SHIELD and the CIA. Educated to memorize details at a quick glance, the lack of certain necessities is stark and even unnerving.

His stalking continues, nothing within the room seemed capable of housing his target, and so he continues to the bedroom, carefully prying open the door and peering into it with nightvision enhanced eyes. The thick privacy curtains draw a frown, he'd prefer to be able to lay eyes on the interior. He listens carefully for the sound of breathing.

Ella Normandy has posed:
    Vampirella's breathing is soft and even. Her jade eyes are wide open and narrowed, though she cannot see through the sun-blocking curtains hanging from her bedframe: someone is in her apartment, someone who smells human (or close enough to it as to make no bones or tiles), someone whose heart rate is only slightly elevated by the danger of being in her home. A professional, a fool, or both, then. She feels her claws yearning to extend from their secret hiding place, and she suppresses the urge to let them grow if for no other reason than that she doesn't need to replace this mattress yet. She balls her fists instead and lies still, not wanting to alert this new prey to her awareness by making the bed creak with movement: she doesn't smell either gunpowder or the oil of a gun, which means if it's an assassin, he will need to move in close to attack, so she can afford to lie in wait a moment. It would be better to confront him outside of her home.

    Less blood to clean up that way.

Shen Kuei has posed:
Dressers are for clothes, so unfortunately for Shen, his instincts do not gravitate him toward that piece of furniture. His original hunch was for the item to be on display, but clear this is not the case. Underneath the bed or in a closet are his next prevailing theories. He monitors the breathing for changes as he stalks on the tips of his toes and fingers. He draws close to the bed and planks to cast his vision underneath it. His eyes narrow behind his goggles, seeing no obvious chests or cases which he would expect. He de-planks and brings his boots underneath him once more.

He moves away from the bed and over to a walk-in closet. He gazes over his shoulder than most cautiously works the door knob. He tests the hinge for squeakiness, he feels a faint tension. He pauses and slips around the door. A syringe is produced from a pocket, he carefully applies oil and waits.. and then he opens the door the rest of the way to rummage within.

Ella Normandy has posed:
    Inside the bed, Vampirella's nostril flare involuntarily at the sweet smell of oil. Artificial, she'd guess, some kind of synthetic lubricant? So the goal is burglary. Fine. Her outfit begins to manifest, scarlet silk climbing up her naked body and sealing to her skin as if painted on (which, in a way, she supposes it is). Men love the costume, and the men who love the costume are more susceptible to the hypnotic effects of her gaze.

    It takes nearly two seconds for the bloodsilk to form. It takes another two for her to rise liquidly to a kneeling position (men love that posture more than the costume) and pull back the curtain, letting the street lights glint off the gold wrapped around her arms, wrists, and fingers, the gold dangling from her ears. She smiles lightly, coyly, as she asks sweetly in her thick and strange accent, "What are you doing here?" Her jade eyes are fixed on Shen's face (such as she can see of it), just as her unholy will is fixed on making him answer. Goggles? She observes herself actually interested to know if her mesmerism will be blocked by such tools. Being interested might be worth thanking him by letting him live.

Shen Kuei has posed:
     Shen freezes then draws a mag-lite from his belt before he stands to turn and face the woman. The street lighting directly in his goggles actually blinds him for a moment before they adjust for the excess light. Well, this one is a looker. A very interesting exercise of mental gymnastics takes place within Shen Kuei's mind. Once upon a time, he actually foiled a metahuman's ability to project fantasies, because the truth was.. he loves what he does. He is one of the rare human beings who has found his true calling in life and all the thrills that come with it.

As a result, Shen is able to keep his mind on the job. It's not that the woman isn't attractive. Oh no, under different circumstances, the catsuit would be a terrible choice of wardrobe, but in this very instance, this woman is an obstacle to him 'winning'.

"Well, since you are awake, we might as well abandon pre-tense, Miss Normandy. I am here for the dagger. If you will kindly hand it over, I will be on my way, and will not bother you any further." His gloved hands dance along the handle of the mag-light as he focuses on her body.. not for the delights it promises, but the tension, a shift in center, any body language that might predict an attack.

Ella Normandy has posed:
    Vampirella's eyebrows lift slightly. He's not attracted to her or the goggles shield him; neither is impossible, both are interesting. So is the surprise. "What dagger?" she asks, honestly confused. She has so many, it's hard to even guess.

Shen Kuei has posed:
"Well this is awkward." He replies cooly, his lips curled into a grin. "White metal, cord-wrapped handle. Used in sacrificial rites? I must admit I wasn't expecting to identify it from many.. other daggers."

He pauses in consideration, "It's a shame you woke up.. you might have never noticed it missing."

He then clicks the mag-lite on to momentarily blind her. It's a very common tactic, not aimed to target any particular weakness. The police use it every day and it's just as handy for burglars and thieves. Completely unaware of her physical capabilities, he will bullrush her, a hand targeted to push against her chest. His objective is straight forward: Pin her on the bed and interrogate her for further details of her dagger collection.

Ella Normandy has posed:
    Vampirella scans her memory and nods. "Oh, that? I thought it was a simple cooking knife." In a way, she wasn't wrong, but the conceptual intersection of culinary technology and ritual murder tool is cast aside when the attack launches. Vampirella's upper lip curls in a snarl as she's blinded (even with the green-shifted nightvision goggles, Shen might notice how dark her lips are compared to her skin and wonder who wears lipstick to bed; but that isn't lipstick). She's fast enough to respond, even with her butt resting on her heels as she kneels for this strange man in her room, but the swat intended to knock his arm away goes wide and only slaps him in the ribs; she's more than strong enough to resist his tackle, but her posture doesn't give her the leverage to do it, and she falls backward, lying flat with her heels still trapped under her butt, like she's angling a photo to look like a double amputee.

    Interesting, but also enraging. Vampirella's eyes lose all color become blood-red; her fingers pop grotesquely as they grow a fourth set of joints and her nails extend and thicken like a raptor's claws. Her muscles bulge tightly, standing out in sharp relief against one another as she reaches for the back of his neck with those murderous claws.

Shen Kuei has posed:
Shen is an incredibly skilled martial artist. He has defeated metahuman and superhuman alike with the application of his incredible prowess, but in all these circumstances, he had not engaged in a grappling match with them. That would just be suicide. Shen is actually very strong, but.. not superhumanly so. The metamorphosis triggers a 'too hot' to touch like reaction. Shen bounds off her and lands on his feet in a fighting stance from Sanshou, a modern style of Chinese martial art.

He reaches inside of his trenchcoat and wraps his hand around a canister, holding the other hand out in front of him. "Well.. This was a detail left off the dossier. Perhaps.. we got off on the wrong foot. Now about that dagger?"

Ella Normandy has posed:
    Vampirella's now too-long fingers close over not flesh but air, which is also interesting. Not many humans can dodge her. Nevertheless, she's rolling with the force of her own swipe, legs straightening out as she tumbles off the bed to somehow land in a crouch on her toes next to where her discarded boots sit slightly crumpled under their own waist. One hand is splayed on the floor, the five digits now wrong and somehow spiderlike, the other hand cocked by her right ear. Her fangs are bared as she sits prepared to pounce... but dammit, this is her apartment. The neighbors mustn't hear a scuffle (she gets enough noise complaints), and she won't sleep in the stink of bleach as she cleans blood off her floor.

    But that reluctance to shit where she eats only goes so far. Vampirella is still and silent for long seconds before flexing and pouncing at Shen Kuei like a panther. Her claws are still extended, but the human doesn't need to know she only intends to cuff him for now.

Shen Kuei has posed:
The woman is fairly terrifying. He has encountered many degrees of terrifying. She ranks well, probably because of the combination of power, visceral horror, and feminine charms. He watches her very carefully, now expecting superhuman feats from her. There were only some many movements possible from a coiled crouch. She could roll, she could extend a leg for a sweep, or should could lunge. She chose the latter, which for many may have been a good choice. However, against Shen Kuei, it is a very flawed decision. It is nigh impossible to change one's trajectory once airborne, even if it's for a split second, such an attack is a full commitment.

He performs a classic sacrifice throw, body collapsing to the ground and rocking backwards. He plants a boot in her mid-drift and launches her into her own closet. In a skilled follow up, the canister he had been grasping follows her, pin-less, a flashbang with a few seconds of life left before its grand finale.

He continues his backwards roll and deftly kicks the closet door shut, and then he runs. He darts out of the bedroom, forgetting any hope for retrieval of a dagger. He leaps to the balcony, grabbing his lifeline and rapidly begins ascending it. He's bugging out.

Ella Normandy has posed:
    Vampirella spots the grenade and comprehends its general nature it not its exact purpose. She doesn't know what kind of damage it can do, but she knows it can't kill her and it can make a mess she doesn't want to deal with. At this point, the only option is to limit the damage it can do.

    She lands beside it on her palms and fingers, like a cat coming down from a leap, legs following. Her monstrous digits could easily encompass the grenade and muffle it, but what if it blows off her fingers? That's a mess she doesn't need to clean. Instead, she swipes in a scooping motion, not even bothering to grab the canister, just swatting it hard toward her window. The breaking glass hurts her feelings, but the following explosion might as well have gone off in her face for all the pain it does her enhanced senses. The sound pierces her eardrums like bullets, the shockwave of the explosion batters her skin, the flash of light is like drills coring her eyes into her brain. She screams an impossibly high, impossibly buzzing, completely inhuman screech; the skin on her back tears open as her wings emerge reflexively, growing to wrap around her like a protective shield. Her regeneration takes care of the pain in only a few seconds, and she's on her feet to chase the human thief even before her vision is back, but her inner ears are useless and she tumbles heavily to the floor, her equilibrium gone. It takes nearly fifteen seconds to get to the balcony, counting the time her wings need to withdraw back into her skin, and by then she's had time to think better of chasing her attacker. People will be looking, now.

    Vampirella smiles grimly to herself. He's clever, but not clever enough to know she has his scent. And a knife he needs to make personal acquaintance with.