17049/Dockyard Dogs Fight

Dockyard Dogs Fight
Date of Scene:	17 February 2024
Location:	Gotham Cargo Docks
Synopsis:	The Dockyard Dogs against a Metahuman gang errupts into violence -- and it costs The Bats one of their number.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Xander Prescott, Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Austin Reese

---

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    SIX HOURS AGO: A snowy Gotham day, several members of the unnamed gang of metahumans involved with the mysterious pharmacutical manufacturing ring that had loose ties to the man running against Harvey Dent for DA -- Phillip Cup,who had been discovered to be one of the abusers of one Phoebe Beacon several years ago when she was kidnapped out of Gotham.

    They were loaded up onto a wagon, their hand sbound, wearing orange jumpsuits and bound for Blackgate to await their actual trials, but the transfer had quietly gone wrong. They were never checked in to Blackgate Prison.

    CURRENTLY: THE DOCKYARDS -- Classically in control of the drug-and-weapon-smuggling DOCKYARD DOGS gang, a long-standing feature of Gotham City since the 1920's. This older dockyard has been somewhat condemned -- the warehouses ar eold and unsafe, OSHA violations everywhere. Some of the equipment is decripit, dangerous and rusted.

    IT's here that the Dockyard Dogs are being lit up by automatic rifle fire and yells. Equipment has been set on fire, and minor explosions of mostly-empty gas barrels rattle the streets every couple of minutes.

    There is pandamonium. The Dockyard Dogs are terrified of something. Some are scratching at their skin between bouts of violence, some raw and others bleeding. Recent releases from prison or jail.

    Part of the vitamin pilot program.

    Metahumans are firing away. A fireball screeches through the night from a tall redheaded man, and another peircing wail echoes through the night with someone's sonic emission tech. The concrete rumbles underfoot as weapons fire fills the night, and the smell of gasoline and fireballs fills the air.

    Welcome to the Dockyards, Bats (and Xander). What is your next move?

    Phoebe lands from above, cutting the pink of her wings off. She had heard the explosions all the way in Burnley, and had broken off her patrol. The blue lenses of her mask take in the wreckage beneath them.

    <Balm to Batfam -- this is a mess -- I'm not in the right armor for close up and personal, but I can get in there and start looking for injured to evac to a pick-up position. Scene is too hot to bring in anyone in the Police!>

Xander Prescott has posed:
    There aren't enough swear words in the English language to account for this level of things going wrong, which is why the thin figure darting from one tarp-covered mount to another, trying to get the hell away, has switched to French. The particulars will be left to the imagination of the reader(s).

    Xander has given up any pretense of the kinda, sorta familiar-ish looking thug he was masquerading as, back to his pale, white-haired normal self. And sans any body armor, which seems like it would have been very appropriate in this situation!

    Actually, that's a really good idea. Crouched low, he presses his hands against his torso and wills the fabric of his puffy vest to be... hardier. It would really be awesome if he knew what kevlar was made of, so that he could imagine that. Instead he mentally pictures ceramic plates, and, yep, suddenly his clothes feel a lot heavier. "Ugh," he mutters to himself, and then he's up on his feet again, running *away* from the danger!

Damian Wayne has posed:
Robin has been involved pretty heavily in the vitamin plot since the incident at Gotham U. While he doesn't know the tie here yet, when he heard of the attack in the Dockyards, he was already on his way on one of the Batcycles. As he gets closer to the scene and hears the pop-pop-pop of gunfire, and as he finds a place to ditch the bike, he takes to the skies, leaping from the motorcycle, firing off a grapple line to grab a hold of the edge of one of the warehouses and yanks himself upwards.

Once he lands, he's crossing the roof to leap off, gliding down to land on one of the cargo containers. <Robin here. I am always well for up close and personal.> And as he is running across the cargo container, a bolo is dropped from his utility belt. Several hard swings and it's flung out, aimed to wrap around the head of the flame thrower and hopefully knock him out of the fight. If he doesn't end up getting the bolo burned to ash.

Not that it matters, he's still closing the distance in a serpentine motion.

Jason Todd has posed:
A matte black Mustang power slides around a corner as it changes direction.

<Red Hood on my way> comes Jason's response. His voice is quiet and focused.

<Fight smart till backup is on site. ETA under five minutes.> Red Hood ends his comm as he shifts the once-vintage muscle car into another gear. "Car. Fastest route to the Old Dockyards." In moments the display projects the recommended route from his present location.

Standing on the brakes, the car whips around another corner before he accelerates onto one of the cross-town viaducts.

On arrival, Red Hood emerges from the car and makes his way to one of the warehouse rooftops to get a view of the situation.

<Red Hood on site. Balm, Robin what is your current location.>

Scanning the scene through his mask's optics, the situation is almost untenable. It needs to be brought under control quickly.

Austin Reese has posed:
Chaos and pandemonium down at the docks. Something like that tends to light up every police band and warning system Oracle has. Osprey had been out on patrol, driving around on a batcycle. It had been an otherwise rather quiet night, right up until it wasn't. He whips a quick J-turn on the bike and revs it towards the docks, starting to weave his way in and out of traffic, <"This is Osprey, I'm enroute. 911 calls are going crazy right now, how bad is it?">

Another familiar voice over comms at least heading in the right direction. As he gets close to the dockyards, he makes a hard turn and brings the bike to a skidding stop in an alleyway nearby, using a grapple line to get up onto one of the warehouse roofs, while starting to try and track potential hostiles, <"Do we have any idea what set this off?">

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "This one's a screamer!" the dark-haired woman with the sonic emitter calls out as Xander tries to get the hell away from the violence.

    She turns her sonic emitters, palm-sized technological wonders that begin to whine as the technology powers up, and aims directly at Zander as he sticks to the wall, running from the danger before a figure in the dark brings down a staff, hood pulled down over her mask comes down to arieal assualt the person in question, as she looks to Xander, and appears to press her lips together in frustration!

    "Forward, take a left. Ignore anyone who's slinging batterangs." she states in a low growl to the other magician, and then she springs back up, and over him, rushing further into the fight.

    <Making my way up the canal, Hood. Saif Hassan is here-- I can *feel* it.> she states into the comms. Saif Hassan, another Homo magi. ONe with a chip on his shoulder.

    <There's a civvie in ceramic armor vest, light hair. His name is Xander Prescott -- if you see him get him up to a rooftop so he's outta the line of fire.> she asks over the comms, <Pretty sure the folks who were trying to make all the pills are trying to tread on Dog turf--> and as another rumble rocks the dock by the canal leading to the river, Phoebe is lost in a great blast of acrid gasoline smoke!

    Robin's involvement and willing to get up close and personal is always favorable. He takes to the skies, grapping towards the edge of one of the ruined warehouses and scatters some snow as he goes through. The snow is wet and heavy -- not like the lighter, crystaline stuff that had fallen before tonight.

    THe bolo spins out and wraps around the Fireball-launching metahuman. He struggles for a moment, trying to tear away the cord and the heavy weights before he stumbles backwards.

    On arrival, Red Hood has come into the chaos. And what chaos there is. Gunfiring Dockyard Dogs have their backs to him as another metahuman begins to charge up what looks like an electrical attack, power sparking all over their body as they bring their hands up, curling fingers and calling down the lightning.

    Austin's arrival nearby to the warehouse roofs give him a good eye view of the goings on, where most people are as sparks begin to catch puddles of fuel on fire.

Xander Prescott has posed:
    If Xander were a Bat, or at least someone well-trained enough that his body could go through the motions of avoiding dying without needing all that much conscious thought, he might have said something like "That's really none of your business!" in response to the crude cat-call.

    But he isn't. So he doesn't. Instead he shouts something vulgar, still in French, possibly something about the woman's mother, and dives behind a stack of pallets.

    When Balm tells him where to go, he doesn't argue. His pale eyes are frantic, looking left and right as he darts forward as she's told him to, then dips left and--

    "Holy shit," he says, shocked back into English. That is definitely Robin on top of a cargo container. And that car in the viaduct? Definitely belongs to a Bat, but he doesn't know enough about them to know specifically who.

    Judging by the car in question, though, one of the ones he especially wouldn't want to piss off.

    Which means it's probably not a good idea for him to duck behind said car, right? Okay. Find cover elsewhere. Except he's currently pinned down, no option but to either run back the way he came (not ideal) or jump out into the open, as all of the convenient cover-like objects have just up and disappeared, it seems.

Damian Wayne has posed:
<I'm moving on the matchhead! Someone got eyes on the distraction Balm mentioned?!> Robin calls out as he leaps from the cargo container. As the flame user is stumbling backwards, there's another grapple line fired, this one grabbing a crane arm that was above the flame manipulating metahuman.

When Balm mentions the pills, he scowls, but he'll address that in a moment. He swung off of the crane - and comes in hard on the off-balance metahuman.

And just like a wrecking ball, he comes in feet first, slamming into the front of the metahuman as he starts to kick and push, using his legs to start to shove the guy backwards, attempting to force him further backwards and maybe towards the nice body of water. He looks like he could use a cool off.

<Do we have a manifest of the prisoners versus the pill trials?> he asks over the comms. It's one of the things he /did not/ check, and he's kicking himself for it. Of COURSE, IT MAKES SENSE.

They weren't just looking to make suggestions of just anyone. That was a red herring.

They want to control metahumans. That's what this WHOLE THING WAS ABOUT.

/FUCK/.

Austin Reese has posed:
From the rooftop, Osprey gets a good look at everything unfolding down below, "Hell." He mutters to himself, picking out a group of targets. With all that smoke coming from the rapidly expanding gasoline fire, but he has the group targeted as he leaps off of the roof, firing a grapple out at the wall of another building to swing down, heading towards that gathered group. Probably more metas from everything exploding around them.

Using the smoke to his advantage he drops off the line and lands with a roll, popping back up after the roll to throw a pair of stinger grenades out into the group, which burst with a loud bang and throw dense rubber balls in every direction around them. Should be more than enough, unless they're particularly powerful metas, in which case he's going to immediately regret some life choices.

Jason Todd has posed:
Red Hood draws his pistols as he crosses the rooftop, <You have interesting acquaintances, Balm.> It's all he has to say about Mr. Prescott for the moment. He's reserving judgment. Probably.

Seeing the gun battle is focused away from him he grins slowly within his mask. Dropping off the warehouse rooftop into dark shadows, the large form of Red Hood rises up and begins firing at the Dockyard Dogs members to start thinning down the numbers.

The volley of taser rounds streak toward their targets. Those that hit emit blue-white electrical charges into their well deserving victims.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Robin: I CAME IN LIKE A WRECKING BALL. I ALWAYS MEANT TO KICK YOU, GUY WHO'S TALL. ALWAYS WANTED TO -- WREK-EK-CK-YOOOU

    Down goes the matchstick with the bolo around his head, down for the count.

    With Phoebe having gone into the flame, the Sonic Manipulator wheels about, the sonic noise keening at painfully high pitched levels, trying to catch Robin and send him flying to a different roost.

    Austin is right about more metahumans, but it appears some of them are in rough shape. One is screaming, pressing back and away from the other, who is itching painfully. His skin is beginning to break down against his cheeks and the back of his hands -- reaction to the cold maybe as he yells that the bugs are coming out of his skin.

    <I punched him for being a dick, once. We made up recently.> Balm replies over the coms.

    Thinning the numbers comes easily to The Red Hood, as each one is struck electrical impulses flash against the impacted Dockyard Dogs -- which is when the electrical using metahuman spots that she has competition.

    So she slings her own round of lightning towards The Red Hood!

    "HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT OUR WORK?!" she crackles out dramatically.

Xander Prescott has posed:
    Being in the thick of it is pretty intense. Xander has no idea how these people do it on the regular, because there's just so much damned noise. He has no idea what direction any of it is coming for, but so far his location hasn't been discovered.

    And he'd like to keep it that way. But he'd also like to avoid being riddled full of bullets or other... well, whatever sort of weaponry is being brought to bear, here. So he presses his hands flat against the newspaper box he's, let's face it, cowering behind. And then he squints his eyes shut, focusing hard.

    He can't turn the entire thing into titanium. That's asking too much for too-new skills. But he can adjust the side he's resting against, transfiguring the bulk of it into a much hardier (and let's hope: more bulletproof) metal.

    Then he collapses to the ground with a "whuff" of effort, sweat beading on his brow. Yep, that'll do it. That's all he's got.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Once the flame dude is guy, Robin flips him over to lock him down, smacking his head against the ground a couple of times. Just because. Once he's secured, there's a few bullets that pock against the ground near him. <We got the metas handled? Going to start dealing with the idiots with guns.>

Coming out from under the cover, he has a couple of birdarangs, flinging them outwards towards the muzzle flashes as he starts to try to make his way along the line, partially crouched down, his expression set in angry stone as he moves.

Jason Todd has posed:
<Not all of us with guns are idiots> comes the dry response from Red Hood.

<A lot of Dogs are down. The Metas.. probably not so much. Yet.>

That's when he has to dive away from the lightning attack from one of said metas. Not completely unsinged, Red Hood grits his teeth as muscles tense. Note to self: add more insulation to armor. Soon.

Aiming his guns at the meta, he empties both clips at her as he rises up and begins to close on her. Like Robin, he has little hesitation in taking things to close range.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP -- The lightning-strike meta goes down, overloaded with the continuous strikes ripping across her unarmored self. Match is out like a light. The dockyard dogs are beginning to retreat, thier numbers thinned by metas and Bats, and they don't want to deal with the Bats tonight.

    That's when Robin and Osprey may smell something familiar, that same sour, sweet smell from the University when the students were all affected.

    Including Phoebe.

    The sour, sweet smell fills the area around them, forming a thick, sticky mist as the aerosol containers -- ruptured by an explosion -- have finally expelled their gaseous mixture as the aerosol catalyst for the fear toxin, embedded in the fatcells of those who had taken the vitamin mixture, spreads over the dockyard.

    That's when the screaming begins. Dockyard dogs and barely concious metahumans alike begin to yell. Bugs crawling from their skin, distant, dead, estranged family members coming to their vision. One of them tries to gnaw at their own wrist, trying to remove it.

    Balm's breathing is audiably harder over the coms.

    <No... no no no...>

    The sound of laughter from a PA system, calling out all over the dockyard echoes.

    "That's right, friends. Now is the time to rid yourselves of your fears, your traumas." the voice echoes through a vocoder, deep amd rumbling.

    "Kill what you fear -- kill the Bats!"

    The remaining Dockyard Dogs stop chewing at their own limbs, and raise their gazes to Red Hood, to Osprey, and to Robin -- and they begin to advance.

    The Sonic Emitter woman screams, and there's a splashing sound.

    One Dockyard Dog has rounded the corner and slings the only improvised weapon he has in hand at Xander --

    "I TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY!" he bellows, and launches himself at Xander!

Xander Prescott has posed:
    Xander can't tell what's going on. He doesn't know the background details on the pills, on the fear toxin, beyond what he's heard on the news about the Scarecrow. Which is terrifying enough, really.

    So maybe he's breathing a little harder than he should be, given he's been crouched down motionless for a few moments now. It's a little shakey, but he's keeping it together. At least until someone jumps out from the shadows, and Xander lets out a shrill yelp before he dives out of the way of the person who actually throws *himself*. Like, who does that?!

    Of course this means Xander tumbles to the ground, but he's righted himself after a moment and extends a hand towards the guy. "Ventus!"

    A sharp gust of wind suddenly sweeps through, hopefully strong enough to knock the Dockyard Dog fully on his ass so that Xander can get up and run. Especially because there's no shot at any further magic from him tonight.

Damian Wayne has posed:
<SOMEONE GET TO BALM, RIGHT NOW!> That from Robin. He sounds angry. Panicked. <Rebreathers on! It's a modified fear gas, anyone that's had the vitamins react and turn anyone that's taken them into mind-controlled...> Any desire for banter with Jason over guns is gone. Instead, he's immediately domonoing his mask, pulling up his map, finding the office of the foreman - that's where the PA system will be.

That's where Sewell will be.

Once he has a bead, a grapple line is fired, yanking him out of the mists, away from the bullets - he's in a straight line towards the foreman's office. There's anger, just pure... unadultered anger. If he gets his hands on someone tonight.

Well, the less dad knows, the better.

Jason Todd has posed:
Red Hood is already in motion. He doesn't even wait to be sure that 'Lectrette the shocking meta goes down. Moving like a charging bull, he begins to shoot his way through the Dogs or Metas even as Robin uses the comms.

The voice is grim and dangerous, <Already on it.>

When of a singular purpose, attempting to slow down any of the Bats is a tall order. Taking one down? That's orders of magnitude harder. It can be done but are any of the Dogs or Metas up for the challenge? Are they even going to try as Red Hood closes in on Balm's pinged location in his optics?

Austin Reese has posed:
Osprey had managed to take down the meta who was freaking out, for his own good, only for the gas to start spreading across the field. Robin's warning gets him to pop his rebreather on over his mouth. The mention of getting to Balm is the only thing on Austin's mind at the moment, though. Sure, would he love to track down that asshole and elbow him in the head until he was a few inches shorter. But Balm had to take priority.

Pulling up her location on his domino mask, pulling out his grapple and firing a line up onto a roof, quickly sprinting across the rooftop as he approaches her location, <"Balm I'm on my way, just hold on a second!"> He sends her via a tight-band transmission, a moment before he leaps off the warehouse roof and lands on a shipping container, sliding down the side of it to get to the same level as Phoebe. Now he just needs to get to her.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    FLOOMP! The Dockyard Dog that had tackled Xander is air-lifted off the pale-haired magician lad (That's a Yugioh card, right?), and he gives a garbled, spittle-soaked cry as he's launched up into the air, and comes down hard on the ground, rattling his bones and knocking him out.

    Robin makes a straight line to the foreman's office. Anger fueling him as he makes his way to Sewell, whose laughter echoes around the dockyard, repeated 'Kill the Bats' slowly being interspersed with soft drone tones and sudden hard spikes in high frequency sounds.

    Robin gets to the Foreman's office, high on stilts overlooking the whole of the dockyard.

    Some of the Dockyard Dogs are beginning to shoot at one another, yelling incomprehensable phrases at each other.

    There is a shadow in the Foreman's office.

    Jason and Austin are coming up on one of the tall cargo cranes, this one has been tagged with 'WARNING -- DO NOT USE -- nodes cover it at strategic, supportive points, up and down the tower.

    Phoebe's location is somewhere out in the heavy, icy mist, which is beginnign to coat the dockyards around them with rhime frost.

    Balm's domino, crafted for her when she first joined the Outsiders, refurbished when she mentored under Tim Drake under her return from New York, gives a warning -- Critical Biodamage. Respiration compromised.

    And another massive explosion rocks the dockside. Each of those nodes explodes, ripping like clothespins ripped off a comforter on a line, the concussive force and sudden heat compromising the crane's tower, and causing it to swing out over the half-frozen canal, spiked with tiny ice floes.

    Over the coms, there's just a hushed gasp, harsh air leaving someone's lungs, and a burst of static.

Xander Prescott has posed:
    Yep, that'll do it. Xander's up on his feet and running, all of his remaining energy pouring into the single-minded need to escape. He launches himself over a parked car (not Red Hood's), slides into a turn that he nearly missed, and ducks into an alleyway.

    He stops there. Finds a better place to hide, a darkened stoop of an abandoned building, and somehow, some way, he manages to pull the tiniest bit of magic left in his veins out.

    "Umbra," he whispers, and the alcove he's crouched in is swathed in shadows, protecting him from peeping eyes. It'll keep him safe... for now.

Damian Wayne has posed:
There's a shadow in the shed. Robin is not going to bother with knocking. Or the door. Instead, the youngest Bat lets loose of his grapple at the apex, just as the crane crumbles, and flies into the air. Nightwing would be proud.

As he descends, a pair of Batarangs are in his hands, his body balled up to bring his knees in front of him. He slams into the glass of the window that overlooks the dock, and both batarangs fly at the shadow...

...which disappears just as they would have struck. Slamming into the chair that was occupied, Robin roars in anger and rips the recorder out of the PA system, and once it's secured... he just starts smashing the PA panel over and over again.

When he finally has a moment to breath, he grates, <Who's got her?> Please, someone have her. Let her be safe. He can see it in the corner of his domino.

                                 IN VICINITY                                  
> Red Hood
> Osprey
> Oriole/Balm

And for the moment, all he can do is wait and gather the card he sees on the floor, picking up the PSYOPS calling card and scowling.

Jason Todd has posed:
Like a gun toting running back for some twisted (American) football league, Red Hood shoots, stiff arms and shoulders his way through any resistance; To be fair between the explosion, falling flaming bits of cargo crane, and the icy fog, there weren't a lot of figures to try and resist.

<Osprey watch it!> calls out Red Hood as the crane collapses down over the top of them. Dodging debris, Red Hood continues his attempts to close in on Balm's location.

Tersely, Red Hood responds to Robin.

<No.> But he is still looking. Changing his optics to thermal, he tries to close in on the last good ping.

Austin Reese has posed:
As that series of explosions go off across the crane, Osprey watches, "Damnit!" He is keeping an eye on the collapse, aiming to keep himself out of the way of any falling debris. He's still rushing towards it though, trying to find Balm in all of that frost and smoke. His domino switches to thermal as well, with the frost it may make it easier for him to pick her out of everything.

<"I'm looking, haven't found her yet!">

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    One final message, over the domino, text based: I'm scared

    Distant miles away in Bristol Township, in the library a duo of dogs were napping. Potato, the big, white, bully-mutt was upside-down with his legs in the air on the floor. Someone passed by outside the door and his thick tail gave a wag, thumping in time against the floor.

    The other dog, the graceful sighthound Idu was on a blanket, on the couch. Idu's head snaps up suddenly. His head turns, ears going akimbo, as if trying to tune into a TV station. And then panic sets in.

    He leaps off the couch, hard enough to rock it backwards, and bounds over Potato. Potato looks confused, and then thinking its a game, he bounds after the red-and-white Desher-Iwiw.

    Idu then skids to a stop on the hallway, collapsing down and slamming against the wall, and gives a wail of pain -- Potato never catches up with him. Idu is gone.

    Potato skids to a stop, sniffing the air, and then whines. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong, Idu just doesn't disappear... normally. Sounding the alarm, Potato backs up, and in panic runs to find one of the humans. They'd know what to do, right?

    A carriage house near the University, new construction, paid for by Myrmidon and by a private donation through a Wayne Shell company curtesy of Papa Midnite and a desire for a mask of a Death God, Caroline Beacon had been getting ready for bed. Her last appointment with the dermatologist, set up through another Wayne grant was tomorrow to finally finish the damage done by a fire years ago that had claimed the home she shared with her husband, the firefighter named Charles Beacon. She paused, lifting the covers, and found a picture of a smiling girl holding a liver-color spotted dalmatian. She picked up the picture, and the glass in the frame cracked.

    "Oh my God -- /Phoebe/ --" she whispers, and raised her hand to her forehead. She reached for her cellphone on her bedside table. She found a familiar number, and called it. In Metropolis, Nick Nottles woke up at the buzzing of his cellphone, and reached to answer with an exhausted "Yello?"

    "Nicky, it's Caroline -- Mrs. Beacon -- can... you tell me where Phoebe is, right now? Have you seen my daughter?"

    Xander would feel a wind. It is cold, and heavy, and whispers to him to *run*.

    The thermal-enabled dominos would find Dockyard Dogs, clinging to the wreckage of the crane which is trepedaciously clinging to its twisted base, threatening to release itself as it sinks into the water further.

    Saif Hassan was bat-cuffed to it. His hands are covered with blood, his fingernails having been pulled out. He's screaming in the quiet after the explosion.

    There's the dull flash of a set of blue lenses under the water, hood ripped off and floating slowly down the canal to the river and further on, the sea.

Damian Wayne has posed:
'I'm scared.'

From his vantage point in the foreman's office, Robin's domino mask picks up the flicker of the mask in the water. <Hood! Osprey! In the water! Marking the location!> And then he's immediately on the comms.

<Gotham Fire and Rescue, what's your emergency?>

<I need a search and rescue boat on the scene immediately in Gotham Harbor. One missing, several injured. Send metahuman containment.>

And another message. <Oracle, Robin. Balm's missing. I need a blimp here now, as well as the Batboat and diving gear.>

His knuckles are bleeding from where he crushed the panel to stop it. He's not giving up hope. She's there. She's a mage, she's going to be fine. That's when the first tears appear underneath the domino. A scrub of his face. No. Not yet. She would not give up on you. Don't you dare give up on her.

Jason Todd has posed:
In the icy fog, the edge of the dockyard comes up rapidly in front of Red Hood's path.

His optic HUD is showing that last ping is in the river.

<Pheeb fight for us! I'm coming!>

It's all Red Hood can offer before he does the illogical thing and dives head first into the river. He doesn't exactly have a diving rig on that mask but the safety features do allow for a hermetically sealed emergency air source for 90 seconds. Enough to get away from Scarecrow's gas attacks among other things. Or give him a chance to find Balm. A chance he is determined to take.

Diving down, he begins searching, the glow from his own optics show as two crimson dots disappearing deeper.

Austin Reese has posed:
There's no thought about getting diving gear, no thoughts about anything other than getting into the water and getting to Balm. Osprey dives into the water without losing a stride, slipping into the freezing, filthy river. It's cold enough that Balm should still show up on thermals, somewhere down here. He's swimming with everything he's got towards the point marked by Robin. He's got to make it, got to find her.

He knows she can heal herself and he can't, but who cares about that. His lungs burning as he keeps searching, staying under as long as he can, until he knows if he doesn't surface, they're going to need to fish him out of there too.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Jason gets to her first. Austin's domino registers Phoebe's as she's pulled up from the murk of the shallow section of the river. Above them, the steel gives a cold, metallic groan, and Saif Hassan panics further, his cries sounding distant from underwater.

    Phoebe sustained 'catastrophic' damage. That's what the readout would say. It was a nice way of saying the damage was incompatable with survival. Her armor was sliced cleanly through, from below her breastbone to above her navel.

    She is limp, and doesn't fight as Jason extracts her, and Austin guards.

Damian Wayne has posed:
While Jason and Austin are retrieving Phoebe, Robin glances down. And he sees Saif treading the water, held in place. Leaping down from the foreman's deck, he lands on the crane. And he starts to walk towards the man.

And he comes to where Saif is hanging, head above water. A jump creaks the metal and pushes it down, dunking Saif under the water, before he bobs back up when the crane comes back up for a moment. "I figure I can do that about three more times before it breaks and you go to the bottom."

Another jump.

"Two." he grunts. "You will tell me everything. You will leave nothing out. And if I learn that you are lying... there are over 200 bones in your body, and I will take my time breaking every last one of them."

He waits for Saif to agree. And if he does, the last thing he'll see if Robin smashing his fist into his face to break his nose and knock him out, before freeing him and fishing him out of the water to drag to his cycle. He throws him over the back like a saddlebag and hops on.

There's plenty of places he can go. But there's someplace in paticular he plans to go. And perhaps someone to assist. Someone that is an expert in information gathering.

Jason Todd has posed:
<I have her> comes the angry, terse response.

Rising out of the water with Phoebe lifeless in his arms, Jason rightfully should be shaking with rage. The rage is there. But in the moment he is focusing it with all the skill of a cold blooded killer. Ironic since he was trying to save Phoebe.

On the dock, Red Hood does not pause to lay her down. There is no amount of CPR or first aid that is going to bring her back.

<She's gone.> It's all he can do to even hoarsely whisper it out.

Marching stiffly away from the river, he doesn't bother to wait for Damian or Austin. Instead he growls through his mask as filthy river water drips from his armored form.

<CAR.>

In moments the matte black Mustang Mach 1 speeds through the dockyard to close in on Red Hood's location before it stops perfectly in front of him.

He moves to the passenger side, calling out, "Door!" to the car as the right side door opens automatically. Laying her in the seat, he slams the door and stiffly walks around to the driver's side as he prepares to take her away.

But to where?

Austin Reese has posed:
When the read out from the domino comes back to him, Osprey manages to keep from yelling out because he's underwater. He gets to the surface, climbs up after Jason, though as he's walking away, Osprey's pace slows and then stops. He just stands and watches as Jason loads her into the car, he doesn't say anything. What is there to say? Jason has her. Robin has Saif. And Osprey has nothing. His fists clench tight, thoughts running through his head. Like where Phil is right now. Once Jason's door closes, Osprey finally comes in over the comms.

<"Take her home.">