17099/Drizzle Down

Drizzle Down
Date of Scene:	05 February 2024
Location:	Chinatown - Founder's Island
Synopsis:	Red Robin and Balm encounter some steampunk lightning throwers, and Talia al Ghul fights a shadow that bleeds.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Tim Drake, Talia al Ghul

---

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Chinatown in Gotham City was a riot of neon signs, Kanji and katakana, fake swords, fake meats, and absolutely real danger in the back alleys and warehouses nearer to the docks.

    Balm was on patrol tonight, in magic vigilante mode. Wearing her gray armor, hooded, with her backpack of tricks in lieu of her cape and utility belt, moving among the shadows of a rooftop as she slips along a slick section of slate, the drizzling, cold February rain striking her domino as she moves herself on patrol.

    She's patrolled this section a couple of times this week so far, on the look out for signs of the Metahuman gang that was trying to make inroads into Gotham City. She was the best to advise on it -- two of their users, after all, appeared to be quite at home using magical abilities.

    Red Robin and Talia would both know that Phoebe doesn't use a bat cycle while patrolling as Balm -- her 'bookmarks' around the city let her fast-travel (as long as no enemies were nearby).

Tim Drake has posed:
    It's night. It's cold. It's raining. So yeah, of course Tim's lil sis is going to be outside patrolling. "I bet Damian is somewhere warm," Tim mutters under his breath as his bat cycle roars like thunder down the street, leaving his black and red cape fluttering wildly behind him.

    << You owe me hot chocolate after this,>> Tim informs over the coded comm system.

    Just to get a quick break from machinegun rain drops beating him in the face, Tim pulls the bike to the side of the street. Three pretty sketchy dudes just so happen to be standing nearby clearly getting reading to engage is something unsavory. Red Robin upnods in their direction as they stare at him wide-eyed.

    "Beat it," he says, lowering his voice in a Batman-y rasp. They immediately turn and run away down the sidewalk, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and Red Robin.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia tends to make a point of staying out of the affairs of others of her own ilk. She is passively tolerated at best by her brethren - both Bats and former confederates, so she takes pains to not do anything in particular to infringe upon anyone's intents. Her stay with the Waynes is one of exile - one that is being slowly welcomed by her if only for the brief period that Talia has found some time of joy with her son and acceptance. For however long it lasts.
    But, she does not push tolerance too far. One does not want to take steps to aggravate the local supervillain community, or draw any of her own numerous conflicts to the city. So she primarily stays out of things. She does not interfere, she does not project. She does not do anything to upset the unsteady peace she has.
    Also one might say she sees things so pedestrian as beneath her. The daughter of the demond oes not bother with such crass affairs, one might presume. But Phoebe.. Well, Phoebe is a girl that for whatever reason to anyone else that Talia has come to care for in her own way. So Talia keeps an eye on the girl. And when Phoebe goes out to investigate things on her own..
    With the large gargoyle statue that the group had encountered so parallel to things..
    She keeps an eye out. Looking mre in tune with what little she knows of Gotham's mystical and malfeasant communes. In other words..
    SHe's tracking Phoebe. But don't call her on it.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    <<Hot chocolate is freely available. At the Cave. Or y'know, the theater. Or my apartment. Or if you REALLY felt desperate, I could Uber-Eats you some starbucks.>> Balm says in a sing-song voice to Tim, and she slides to the edge of the building, skidding to a stop and shaking water off her hood.

    <Brrr. Shouldn't this be /snow/? I'm getting real tired of not having snow to test things out in.>> she calls back to Red Robin as he scares some hoodlums down the way.

    Phoebe takes a deep breath, and she rolls her neck in consideration.

    <<Hey -- I'm getting a weird something. My domino's a little fritzy to the left screen. Any suggestions?>> she asks. She stretches her hands a bit in the chill air.

    <<Also... do you get the feeling you're being watched? Or is Oracle just popcorning again tonight?>>

Tim Drake has posed:
    Red Robin watches the three hooligans beat feet away. He just lets them go. It's not even worth his time. Hopefully he won't read something in the news tomorrow to make him regret that decision.

    When Balm announces that her left eye piece is glitching, he frowns. He was the one who made that piece of tech, and he doesn't like it when his friends are at even greater risk than what is normal for this sort of work. He opens a channel to the main computer at the Bat Cave. << Diagnose Balm L-0, level 2 diagnostic. >>

    << Let me see if I can figure this out,>> Red Robin says to Balm over the comm sys.

    The computer responds: << Low amplitude EMP interference, recommend calibrating visual confirmation circuits to 168.221 megahertz. >>

    To the computer: << Confirm. Disposable access code Red Robin Intervene Brave Seven.>>

    After a moment, Tim says, << Balm, is that any better? >>

    Now that Red Robin has a moment to consider Balm's question about being watched, he looks up and cranes his neck as he peers about instinctively to the rooftops and high place. "No shit," he murmurs to himself quietly. "Something is going down tonight."

Talia al Ghul has posed:
The rain doesn't deter Talia even as she loses track of the pair of vigilante vagabonds. This is rather mild, one might suppose.. When compared to the Himalayans and the festering swamps whence the Lazarus Pits bubbled up from. It's not raining toxic gas, it's not spewing out acid.. It's rather casual - but one's life experiences are not universal.
    She's perched up on a nearby rooftop, taking the time to reorient to try and retrack the pair after having lost them. She's not into the local comm-network so she's doing things the old fashioned way. The two are rather better at blending into the urban landscape than she can quite keep up with - particularly when they've gone still and are blending in fully.
    So, she is not the one that watches them on this eve as she would scan along the area.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    <<It's not as bad. That's not a good sign though. Usually only does that if it gets a direct hit in my face -- and nothing's hit me so far.>>

    Talia may feel like the hair on the back of her neck might begin to stand up. Or the hair on her head begin to stand, like there's an incoming electric storm -- or shock -- or lightnight strike out of the drizzling weather.

    Red Robin may get a warning that ambient electrical levels are rising around him. The hair on his neck might stand up as well -- hair might be a bit too damp to fully draw up.

    -- but there was something coming.

    A pair of KRACK-BOOM!s errupt at the two younger vigilantes.

    Red Robin is faced with someone who looks like they stepped out of a Magic: the Gathering deck. Something that looks like a tesla coil contained in a glass and faraday-cage backpack, with a twin-tined 'gun' mechanism, hooded and goggled, cackling madly.

    "Here birdy birdy birdy!" he chirps at Red Robin.

    Phoebe is contending with one of her own, taller, more armored, but with a similar mechanical construct on his back!

    "I'm gonna get me a Bat Kid to tax-ee-dermy to my wall!" he laughs, starting his advance.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia Al Ghul has a rare moment as she looks down over at the initial engagement of rare befuddlement. Are those children /really/ that inane? There's an even rarer moment of eyes widening in confusino before it was buried. Never show shock, it would slow you down and take your attention away from your adversary. She goes to quickly scan the area about her - is there another threat oncoming that the group on the ground is a cover for? Are there more oncoming threats being drawn into the engagement area?
    She's still not quite adjusted to the almost anarchic state that defined the supervillain community within the cityscape. It takes her a precious second to reorient herself and then reproach her for sloppiness and surprise.. Then she's going to quietly jump over towards the ground and debates how to intervene - or if she should. She doubts that the pair patrollers need backup.. And she's not sure what exactly their adversaries are capable of, which puts her at a disadvantage going to join a fight if she throws off the timing of the pair by arriving in unannounced. So she darts along, circling along towards the fight, using debris in the area to conceal her approach.

Tim Drake has posed:
    While tall, dark, and electric is materializing in front of Red Robin, the costumed crimefighter is already leaping from his parked bat cycle and shoulder rolling to the side. Lights on the cycle's panel go from green to red as the bike automatically activates Sec-Level 0. Woe to anyone who touches it.

    "Let me guess," Red Robin opines aloud as he assumes a defensive posture. "A disgruntled ex assistant manager who is still pissed that Radio Shack went out of business?"

    Over the coded comm system: << Balm, I got trouble down here. >> He glances upwards again at the rooftops. Where *is* that girl?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    <<I've got trouble up here too! Twinsies!>> Balm chipperly states over the coms. Well, chipper for someone that is trying to rapidly heal from an arc of electricity.

    <<Uuuuugh....>> she lets out as she flicks her extending staff a moment, her eyes narrowing as she regards her own enemy.

    Red Robin's electrifying companion takes a few steps forward as Red Rolls, and his head tilts "Radio Shack? What's a Radio Shack?!" he grunts, nose wrinkling.

    "Aww, what's wrong little birdy, afraid to light up the night?" he questions, and then cackles as he releases another pulse of electricity -- good thing about electricity though. Notoriously hard to aim, as the solid CRACKK! echoes on the street level.

    Talia would find herself halted, perhaps, by a person clad all in black. They draw a sword -- also entirely in black -- and their head tilts.

    "Now. Yours is a face that I wouldn't expect to see in Gotham City. I almost thought you were dead." they state in lightly accented English. Something Western European, here long enough to be a muzzy generic accent. The sword spins as they take a reverse grip.

    "I've always wanted an Assassin's head for my collection." the feminine figure in black states, and then moves forward to attack Talia, hoping to keep her off balance.

    

Talia al Ghul has posed:
And once more Talia reproaches herself for having gotten sloppy. First she's taken by surprise, now she's so open in her approach that she's intercepted. She's gotten soft. As Talia is intercepted, she goes to quickly move evasively to try and maintain her footwork. "I never stay that way." She goes to draw her own blade out. The voice might be feminine in tone, but that meant little in the great scheme of things tactically. It could be a vocalizer, it could be magic.. The flatness of the accent is indicative that it's so far suppressed as to be meaningless.
    Talia has her own blade out now as she holds it at ready. "You have me at a disadvantage for knowing who I am and I don't have your name. Might I have the privilege of it before we proceed to try and vivisect one another?" Blade held en garde, as if in a fencing position.
    Time to see if her adversary was a proper bladefighter or not. Fencing was about artistry and control. A dance, a spar. Something which held firm to specific etiquette and rules. Something that fighting had almost no connection to.
    So Talia's position wtih the blade is held up as a taunt. If her opponent reacts to the bait, then she has one small piece of information to help her start to control the flow of the fight. Her enemy had the initiative.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Red Robin lets out a low, pained growl as his rain-soaked form crawls with electricity. Fortunately the armor is designed to ground as much electricity as possible away from its wearer. Still hurts like hell, though.

    Even as Red Robin's mask lenses automatically darken, the vigilante throws a small handful of flash-bomb pellets on the ground hoping to blind his attacker. "How could you... not know what... Radio Shack is?" he asks in genuine surprise as he leaps and rolls away. Red Robin runs directly past his parked bat cycle hoping to lure his attacker closer to it so he can detonate the EMP device hidden in the vehicle. But how do you get under the skin of an electricity-wielding assailant? "I bet your, um, breath...stinks?" Okay, it's the best he could do while running, dodging a passing Uber, and wondering where the hell Balm is and what she's currently up against. "Nailed it, Double R," he murmurs to himself grimly as he sighs.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Shack?! of RADIOS? What kinna Gotham City Nonsense is THAT?!" the assailiant growls, and he proceeds to charge forward, his mouth open, brows knit, soaked with rain over his suit as he charges Red Robin, charging his electricy ray again. An electric hum fills the air -- and then the flash-bombs go off. There's a grunt. And an ARGH! sound, the guy gummed up by not being able to see in the smoke.

    "WHY ARE YOU MAKING THOSE REFERENCES?!" he snarls, "AND MY BREATH IS PERFECTLY FINE!"

    Talia's enemy tilts their head. The black-clad figure simply whispers "No."

    And then they throw a bladed disc, both to attack and distract, and the feminine sword fighter comes in close, moving in to ttack Talia's left flank with an upswing of its long side, trying to slice away at the Daughter of the Demon's side and chest! What is Talia to do?

    The figure moves very quickly, obviously they know what they're doing with their swordskills!

    Above on the rooftop, electricity strikes again, lighting up where Balm had encountered her own foe.

    <<Bruh this guy is wearing Plunderhosen! Do you think they make plunderhosen in orange-and-gray? Can I petition to have that added to the Oriole armor?>> she asks, trying to keep levity, though her voice sounds markedly stressed.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
    Talia has figured out that her opponent is rather skilled. And she's gotten soft. And her opponent has done something that most of the local villain community have never had the taste to do so. The List.
    The Evil Overlord List Law Seven: When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."
    Not quite an exact transferrence, but having the tact to not introduce oneself and give out their name, abilities, and life history was something Talia could appreciate and endorse.
    Of course, it was from the individual trying to kill her, but she could at least respect the professionalism.
    Talia goes to duck underneath the launch of the disk, moving towards her attacker as that blade scythes out at her. She goes to parry it on the inner curve of her own katana, blades clashing. A small blade appears in her opposite hand as she goes to try and rapidly strike as quickly as possible. Not particularly caring whether or not the blows had any particular power to them.. Just trying to make contact. All she had to do was hopefully get some contact with her attacker's skin..
    And hopefully the rather, rather potent paralytics and toxins within would drop them hard when they propagated into the bloodstream. Of course, that required her to get a clean enough hit to do so and for her opponent to be vulnerable to them. Which magic types rarely were.

Tim Drake has posed:
    With a growl, Red Robin increases his speed, luring this weird, former Radio Shack assistant manager even closer to the bat cycle. He literally leaps over a parked car, landing hard on the sidewalk beyond on his back. As he lies on the sidewalk and gets pelted with rain he takes a moment to question his life choice as he brings his gauntlet up near his face and speaks into it, "Echo protocol, detonate." And the bat cycle emits a localized electromagnetic pulse. That, of course, fries its own circuits, but one must break eggs when one makes omelets.

    << Balm, talk to me. >>

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Game recognizes game. The swords clash, the figure in black feels the concussing sense through their amrs, but their stance doesn't break. The figure doesn't seem to blink, and as the smaller blade is drawn out the attacker steps back nimbly, two blades against their one, and then slings out another thrown disk at Talia, giving a soft 'hm'.

    She's playing it safe. Keeping well guarded, and definitely distracting the assassin for the moment. One could almost -- ALMOST hear the smile in their tone.

    Red Robin lures the electric using gunman close.

    He finishes charging his electrical device, he takes aim --

    And gets FRIED by the EMP in the batcycle. The circuts are fried, and the bat cycle powers down as it unloads its full charge. The figure in the puffy pants and goggles stiffens. His own electrical array breaks. The coils in their glass and faraday cage bust in on themselves and crackle before going dead.

    And he faints, too, collapsing down on himself.

    Above, there's another flash, this one in pinkish-gold rather than cold blue.

    <<I was completely serious about the plunderhosen, but this guy is being... a JERK.>> she states, contending with Lightning II: Electric Boogaloo.

    There's a soft POP -- and with a scream the other guy comes flying over the side of the building, a grapple line attached to his foot, and he swings out, back in, and is struck against the building, breaking the glass on the back of his power pack and hanging there with a soft 'noooooooooo! I can't get these at Radio Shack anymore!'

Talia al Ghul has posed:
All right, the game is afoot. Talia Al Ghul goes defensive, even as the two restrict one another - each fighting and feinting to seemingly get an idea of what the other was doing, how they were fighting, and what their style was. Talia hops several steps back with her blade in front of her defensively, the smaller one she had drawn out being used to flick away the disk.. Now Talia goes to switch it up as she moves to yank out another toy.
    One of the standard grapple lines that fired out a metallic dart along a reel designed to latch onto a nearby building with the force to reel along a couple hundred kilograms of mass fast enough to produce whiplash.
    This is in turn fired over at the leg of her adversary. The dart line is hopefully launched with sufficient force that the woman can't parry ro dodge it.. And if she is mobile enough to evade it, then she's being met over by Talia charging in with her katana, going to try and give her a deep scythe to hopefully catch her mid-movement.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim is still lying on his back on the other side of the car that he leaped over (and probably fried with the EMP blast). Directly above him another electro-weirdo screams as he flies off of the building. "What the....!" Red Robin says aloud. He pulls his cape over his face to protect against falling shards of glass as he kip ups to his feet. "Remind me never to piss her off," he murmurs to himself.

    << Uh, and to think I was considering calling for backup. Everything is fine down here, by the way. I'm fine. I might have to call triple-A, though. >>

    Red Robin casually strolls over to the downed, unconscious attacker. Then he glances around at all of the parked vehicles in close proximity. << I fried...prolly...six...maybe eight cars? >>


    He sighs.

    << Maybe twel-twelve cars. >>

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    <<I can portal you back to the Roost, but then you owe me a hot chocolate *and* a cookie, Red Robin.>> Balm's slightly self-satisifed voice comes up. <<That's weird though. I felt something magic and it feels weird that we came across two Steampunk guys in lieu of some actual magic...>> Balm reports, and she leans over the building. <<You good? Any injuries on your part?>>

    The grapple line reels out, it's fired at the leg, and the dart is caught. There's a scream of pain.

    The katana of the Daughter of the Demon rises up -- and then falls down. And once she does, her opponnent dissipates into black dust, clinging like the night sky alight with diamonds to the blade of Talia's katana.

    The figure in black, though? That's all that remains -- the dust on the katana, and blood on the dart.

    "Who even ARE these guys?!" Balm calls out into the night in mixed frustration.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Her blade remains up and ready, and Talia Al Ghul takes in a breath.. Then goes to take out a small plastic vial. "Focused on theatrics." She goes to take out a solid, seemingly latex glove over to start to carefully clean her blade down, pressing some of the dust and ashes down over to one bag, then to ever so gently further take the blood from the grapple ot do the same in a separate container.
    "How good are you at tracking by scent?" Given over to Phoebe in a far too calm way. She meant tracking them by blood. And she'd gotten it just fresh..
    "Are you both all right?" Then she likewise goes to carefully pick up one of the hurled disks from her fight and puts it in a third bag. "HOpefully this gives you something to start with." Blood, forensics, weaponry and metallurgy..