17301/The Broken, The Beaten, and the Damned

The Broken, The Beaten, and the Damned
Date of Scene:	09 March 2024
Location:	Hell's Kitchen Underground - Forgotten Subway Nexus
Synopsis:	Batgirl calls for aid, in breaking up a weapons trafficking deal in the depths of a forgotten New York subway station. Green Goblin makes an appearance, and makes off with a mysterious piece of technology, while the heroes mostly save the day, save for a few bumps and bruises. McDonalds for everyone!
Cast of Characters:	Barbara Gordon, Luke Cage, Matthew Murdock, Norman Osborn, Selina Kyle, Jessica Jones, Elektra Natchios
Tinyplot:	Hunger

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Barbara Gordon has posed:
The Devil is dealing in Hell's Kitchen tonight.

Beneath the streets of Manhattan, in a forgotten construction project, the bowels of a unfinished subway super station is the site of an illicit trade deal. What was meant to be three subway platforms, only ever saw the first two completed, leaving the middle section of the wide open chamber completely devoid of the typical trappings of a fully functional subway nexus. In the wake of that unfinished project, the chamber has become a regular place for homeless to gather, or drug deals to be conducted, or any other number of illegal activities. Such as tonight...

In the dark subway nexus, three huge Semi-Trucks have somehow managed their way through the network of empty tunnels, to find themselves parked in a half circle pattern, with each tailed by a black and white striped circus tent, pushed up against the back of the truck, likely serving as a showcase for the goods on sale here tonight.

Gathered around the entrances to each tent, are a classical Gotham sight to behold... in the form of men dressed up as 'sad clowns' each adorned in black and white face paint, and matching clown clothing.

Having recently arrived, four sedans are parked at the south side of the three semi-trucks, and their multi-colored tents. These vehicles are being exited by men in black suits, and scowls upon their faces...

headlights on the sedans are shut off, as the men begin to stride toward the clowns that are now gathering to greet their newly arrived guests.

"What is it with Gothamites, and clowns?" One of the men in that arrived in the sedans asks, as his group approaches the gaggle of gathering sad clowns.

"What is it with New yorkers and pussies?" One of the clowns brazenly responds, causing the men in dark suits to tense up a little.

However, the lead clown, and the man stepping forward to represent the leadership of the local gangsters both converge, and glance each other over. "We're not here to argue, and name call." The New yorker tells the Gothamite leader of the Clowns.

"Agreed." The Clown states back. "We got a lot here for you and yours to look over, and I think you're gonna like what we are offering, pal."

"We'll see." The man says as he tucks his shades in to his inner jacket pocket. "Lets have a look, shall we?"

Meanwhile:
Batgirl lurks in the shadows, on the perimeter of this developing situation. Concealed beneath the voluminous fabric of her black and gold cape, the caped crusader sends out a beacon to all nearby members of the Defenders, and other allies, to join her at this location. Her beacon bounces across all nearby allies' devices, as she raises up from a kneeling position, and begins to move with a graceful stealth toward a concrete pylon to get a little closer, as she waits.

Without her drones, however, Barbara is not as able to predict and plan for what could comm from the shadows, and one element of this she cannot plan for is the alien technology being used to her disadvantage.

Beside Batgirl, two figures decloak, their bodies shimmering out of thin air, each one leveling a weapon at Batgirl, as she suddenly straightens up, raising a batarang reflexively from her belt, and unleashing it toward one of the two men!

A burst of light blasts in the darkk, an explosion of electricity smashing in to Batgirl's armored form, sending her tumbling backward, and sliding across the dirt strewn ground.

The man struck by the batarang is cursing as he rises back up from the after-shock of being hit by that dangerous weapon, the second man stalking toward Batgirl. "Come on, we got a Cape." he tells his partner. "Tell the boss?" The man asks, keeping his weapon leveled on the downed Bat. "Lets take off her mask, I wanna see her face." He says with a sneer as he approaches.

Back at the three black and white striped tents, an alert comes to the leader of the 'Sad Clowns', causing him to take a moment from his guided tour of the three tents, to read what comes over his smart phone. %

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Back at the three black and white striped tents, an alert comes to the leader of the 'Sad Clowns', causing him to take a moment from his guided tour of the three tents, to read what comes over his smart phone.

"Trouble?" the New York Gangster leader asks the sad clown boss.

"Nah. Not anymore." The clown says with a smug expression sent back to the counterpart in this deal. "Lets make a deal, huh?"

The two men close in on Batgirl's form, one of them reaching out for the downed redhead's mask, moving to attempt to pull it off her face as she lays in a stunned heap upon the filthy floor of this forgotten subway hub.

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke Cage was nearby. At least, near enough it was a quick cab ride over thanks to one of the many cabbies that are happy to take Luke wherever he wants to go. After all, he's Harlem; he's _New York_.

Luke gets out of the cab and fiddles with his phone and the communicator in his ear even as he tosses the fare on the front passenger seat of the cabbie.

"Ay yo, Luke! It's on the house!"

"Nah, Carlos, tu casa es mi casa. Now get goin'. It's gonna get loud."

That's all Carlos needs to know to peel on out of there.

Two minutes later, he murmurs into the communicator: "Y'all here? I'm 'bout to make a scene. Poppa brought his laundry day clothes, so I don't even care if I get shot."

He walks quiet for such a big guy, but when he reaches one of the sedans, and lifts a hand and then brings it down on the hood, //hard//, making a hole.

"Hey. This Little Timmy's birthday party?" He looks around at the (probably recognizable New York criminals) and then fixes his hard stare on the leader of the Clowns. "You guys wanna find out how many clowns I can fit in one car?"

Matthew Murdock has posed:
There's been as much communication between the Defenders and Batgirl as is possible, but when there are secret identities and masked vigilantes involved it isn't easy to forge proper communication lines. He'd discussed the weapons flooding into Hell's Kitchen in passing, even done his part to 'reclaim' them from some preliminary buyers, but he hadn't been privy to the plan to take down the hub beyond showing up.

Fortunately, he's there when the clown thugs approach the semi-conscious form of Batgirl. As the first nears, the side of his clown masks proves it isn't designed to stand up to a thrown billy club. The crack is sickening, likely coming with a shattered jaw and fractured molars. That other Devil is not immediately visible, moving low through the dark.

The remaining clown immediately disappears, activating the cloak around him. A sneering chuckle escapes him, before a figure in dark red emerges and strikes the seemingly empty air. The clown lets out a gasping choke, struck in the solar plexus, and something heavy and invisible crumples to the floor. A straight forward jab just like dad taught him. Invisibility doesn't mean a whole lot to Matt Murdock.

"Batgirl," he hisses through his teeth to the armored vigilante, keeping his senses otherwise alert for further danger. Alert enough to hear Luke start the party on his side, which brings a smirk to his face.

Norman Osborn has posed:
With the arrival of the trucks, all but the drunkest or most stoned of the homeless present knew to move away. And thankfully took with them their friends who were not quite coherent enough to realize their presence wasn't welcome.

So it is that the forgotten detritus of society above are mostly huddled up at the far end of the would-be station. One man holding a shoebox to his chest like a cherished possession. Once he sees that those in the trucks and sedans aren't paying him any mind, he opens the box and starts pulling out coasters from various bars and restaurants. Setting them before him on the ground, each with great care.

Beside him is another indigent, wearing an old threadbare black sweater with a tattered trench coat pulled up around himself for warmth, a winter hat with a deep brim that comes down nearly to his neck on the sides and in back pulled down low to shelter him from the light. He seems to be passed out cold, given how the other homeless around him start at the sound of weaponry but he stays still.

The man with the coasters rapidly gathers them back into his box, closing the lid as he staggers to his feet and heads off down the tunnel, along with most of the others. Leaving just the most passed out behind.

Selina Kyle has posed:
Catwoman has been her for a while, actually. She heard from her criminal network about the massive deal going down, and she's been crouched in the shadows for some time while the mobile circus sets up.

Hers is a comfortable perch... it was easy to go unnoticed when you're dressed like one of the homeless, after all. But underneath the layers of borrowed clothing she wears her black outfit. Her work clothes. So as the other homeless move away she slips into the shadows.

There is a flash and the commotion across the way as Batgirl is jumped. And shortly afterward another figure lights up Catwoman's thermal imaging goggles. A figure throwing a billy club. Okay, then, that's covered.

Catwoman works her way right up close to one of the tents. She steps out of the shadows for a moment, then there is a <CRACK> as the whip lashes out. Catching on part of the rigging, she tugs hard and throws her weight into it. The tent fabric rustles, then there is a loud <POP> as one of the lines gives way and it starts to sag inward.

Selina Kyle has posed:
In all the commotion, over the comms comes a single word. "Meow."

Jessica Jones has posed:
Bada bada bada bada goes her phone. She has pho-noodles in her mouth as she picks up her phone and sees the bat symbol. "Hwah Ha Hell.." she says with a mouth full. She finishes eating that and taps on the black bat. A map comes up, a call for backup. Well - Batgirl has always been good to her and seemingly never asking anything in return. A few cases were closed thanks to her highly suspect intelligence gathering techniques.

The corner noodle place is a favourite of hers. She props the noodles on top of the bowl and says, "Keep it warm for me? I've got a quick thing to do." The store owner gives her a look of 'wtf?' but does honor the request.

She gets there in time to see Matt drop an invisible foe. She walks up and crouches down. Finding an invisible arm she lifts it up and then drops it. "Huh. That's new," she says. The last thing they need are Hells Kitchen gangs getting their hands on invisibility.

Dressed in jeans and a hoodie she is anything but heroically dressed but that is the norm for her. She doesn't have a secret identity after all and that usually means lawsuits come her way. Luckily she knows three great lawyers, two of which work for the same law firm.

Jess stretches her neck to the left, then the right, then pauses at the terrible pun Luke throws out at the clowns. "...really," she mutters under her breath before she pulls out the ice pick she brought for tonight's adventures. Walking along the side of the truck she thrusts the pick in to each tyre. PSsssssssh. These trucks won't be going anywhere fast.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
Batgirl may have been without her drones but that doesn't mean there wasn't backup. And in this case it came from an unlikely side. Not exactly a Defender. Not exactly a Bird of Prey. Elektra threaded the line in-between, the light and the dark. And tonight she was an ally.

The lights of a car suddenly turn on at the end of a tunnel and the vehicle roars into motion. Not just any vehicle though but the Batgirl's Batmobile, rushing towards the fray and zipping right past that beggar with the coasters, making a couple of those fly. Those tires screech and the car goes for a spin and the hood opens up, a figure fully clad in dark jumping out from it. A different suit from what Elektra normally wears, fully dark, reflecting light, clinging to form. The figure spins in the air to land near the unconscious Barbara, and coincidentally Daredevil.

"Look who decided to come out to play." She whispers, the smirk felt in her voice. Does she mean Matthew? Most likely.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Right as the crouching clown was reaching for Batgirl's mask, two things struck him at the same time. The first was the electric security system built in to Batgirl's helmet and mask itself. A shocking burst of electricity caused the man to recoil his hand, but a second later he was struck in the face by that thrown club! It leaves him tumbling backward, and his rifle discarded to the dirt. He clutches his face with his numbed hand, as Daredevil goes to work on the second man, even cloaked he is no match for the real Devil of Hell's Kitchen!

At the sedans, Luke's bold stride right up to the gangster vehicles has two of the men left to guard the cars, spinning on their heels, each one drawing a handgun that they level upon the big man who just smacked the roof of one of their cars. "Who the /hell/ are you?" One of the gun pointing men asks, in a thick Russian accent.

"We will find out how fast your body sinks in the Hudson." The other fires back to the hero of Harlem. "Get the fuck outta here, or we'll ventilate you." The first man kindly offers at least an option for Luke, unknowing what the man in rather normal looking clothing may be capable of.

Such options are quickly retracted when one of the tents begins to fall in upon itself, and two of the clowns see the arrival of the Catwoman, while across the way at the opposite tent, Jessica's arrival is heralded by two of the Semi-truck's tires getting some new 'speed holes' added to the sides of the tread. This garners three clowns to turn, and face her, each one leveling weapons at Jessica. "What the fuck, Bitch?" One of the clowns cries out, his voice oddly high pitched, as he quicly looks to his two partners, "Light her up!" He shouts in that ear-piercing high-pitched voice. Summarily all three open fire at Jessica with some kind of electric pulse rifles!

The two near Catwoman begin stalking toward her, one of them sneering at the woman in black. "Aren't you out of your litter box?" One of them asks, "I'd expect to run in to you back home, but not here. Consider me a big fan though..." He says in that smarmy way that a creepy man excells at.

With the commotion breaking out, the two facing Luke, suddenly start backing up toward the main force of their group, both of them leveling their weapons at Luke, and opening fire right at his broad chest!

"I'm okay," Batgirl says, as she starts to rise up to her feet again. She turns to the man who'd been smacked in the face, and delivers a hard kick to the side of his ribs, making him topple over once more. She looks up toward the others, as they are converging on the deal gone south. "This could get out of hand fast." Batgirl says to the Daredevil. "I don't even know what these weapons are exactly capable of..." She notes, just as her vehicle roars up on to the scene, and Elektra nimbly leaps from the interior of its two-seater cockpit. Batgirl cheks herself over with a quick look, her left wrist coming up as her holographic bracer activates. "Nice timing, on everyone's part..." She mutters, as she punches something in to her computer. From the top of her Batmobile, two bat-shaped drones detach from the armored plating, their buzzing fans lifting them up in to the sky as they fan out over the situation unfolding.

In the growing chaos, men are rushing out of the tents, coming to check on what is happening. The dark suited gangsters at the leads, leaving behind the clowns in 2 of the 3 tents to start arming themselves up with the very goods they were peddling here tonight.

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke sighs. "Man, everyone's a critic."

The firing starts and Luke walks forward, ripping off the sedan's hood, and as he gets shot at, he starts to roll the hood into a cylinder, stalking towards the guys shooting him.

He takes a swing at one, and then the other, not really using his full strength --he doesn't want to kill them-- but it's enough to break some bones. "Don't make me play nine innings with you motherfuckers."

If he can get his hands on their firearms, he'll ball them up and start pitching them at clowns and gangsters.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Jess has been hit with tasers before. But this fancy 'electropulse rifle' is more like a power grid. Dodging is not really her forte, she tends to be a bit like Luke and lets the blow land before making them pay. Dodging futuristic weaponry is definitely out of her forte.

With a 'wompf' the rifle 'lights her up' and she feels all her muscles tense at once and then go floppy. Her heart stops. She drops with a thump to the ground.

"Nice," says one of the clowns and cautiously approaches. He presses fingers to her neck. No pulse. "She's done. These weapons kick ass!"

Jess pulls in a gasp for breath. Everything hurts. Her heart beats wildly and her eyes go wide. She kicks the clown between the nads hard enough to knock him up in the air. Scrambling up she snatches his gun and throws it at the second clown a little too hard. She's not going to fire the thing - killing really isn't the forte of the Defenders.

As the two clowns drop she catches her breath, "Fucking hell..." She looks down at electropulse rifles. Batgirl was right - this is no ordinary arms deal going down.

Selina Kyle has posed:
Selina Kyle casually coils her whip as the two clowns stalk towards her. "A girl like to know she's popular with the boys." she purrs, watching as they separate to try an flank her. They don't get the chance.

The clowns may be expecting her to use the whip since it's already out, so the sprint and flying kick comes as something of a surprise. One goes down, his head thumping loudly onto the pavement. The other has a moment before he rushes her as she kicks the one who just went down. A backhanded strike, and her claws shred fabric and muscle while he screams like a little girl. A roundhouse kick knocks him down as well, but at least the screaming stops.

Catwoman turns towards the tents as others start to rush out and join in... whip at the ready when she sees them all with weapons. Especially after watching the light show when Jess gets hit.

Matthew Murdock has posed:
"Not a surprise," Matt says to Jessica with a subtle shake of his head, "Been popping up all over the place. Little men with alien gadgets trying to get a leg-up. Invisibility isn't quite the trump card they thought it'd be."

When Jessica lets the invisible arm fall back to the ground, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen steps forward to place the heel of his boot on it. There's a definite crack along with a muffled groan from the invisible heap on the ground. In the same smooth motion, he dips to pick his billy club up from the ground and straps it to his thigh once more.

"Don't look at me," Matt says with a smirk as Jess comments on the clown pun, "He's your plus one."

The familiar voice, scent, collective bio-rhythms all point towards Elektra being the new and sudden arrival. The smirk disappears from his face, though he doesn't turn his face away. Batgirl provides a welcome distraction when she starts to talk shop. He inhales, picking up different scents - mostly the varying degrees of sweet that make up smokeless gunpowder.

"I'm picking up nitrocellulose, DBP, diphenylamine ... all the usual ingredients for a gun party. But there's other things there I don't recognize. Smells like a Walmart for scumbags looking to put a big hole in something or someone."

When Jess is getting shot at again, Daredevil turns to return to the fray.

"I'm gonna look inside these tents."

Norman Osborn has posed:
As the fight is joined and the bad guys swarm towards the heroes, the sound of faint snoring can be heard coming from one of the indigent men. He's got three flannel shirts on for warmth, and a stocking cap. His nose is red and thick and veiny. And the sonorous snoring that come out of him might be considered a mating call were there any water buffalo around to hear it.

One of the other men does slowly stir and then sit up. He looks over at the melee breaking out over by the trucks. Then turns his sleepy eyes towards the tunnel on that side of the station. He rubs his eyes and looks back towards the chaotic scene. "Oh, shit," he mumbles.

"Get a load of this," he says to the guy in the winter hat, who is curled up in his coat and sweater and not looking like he's getting a load of any of it.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
That Matthew doesn't even answer back at Elektra is a win for the former(?) Hand assassin. The smugness can be felt on her expression even if not exactly seen by the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Yet she won't linger too long on that because there's clowns to take down. And Russian mob.

"Your Gotham is starting to seep into New York, Batgirl." She comments about the clowns. What's next? Some surprise Harley Quinn pop up from somewhere? She would shudder at the thought if she wasn't too busy picking up one of those alien rifles, turning it in her hands and levelling it up, "Going to provide backup." there's a brief glance at Batgirl, assessing her condition, followed by a sharp nod, "Go."

An electric shot zips past to one of the men harassing Luke before her attention goes to keeping Daredevil's back safe. Or perhaps make him nervous that Elektra has one of those rifles pointed close to where he is at. Finger could always slip.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
The man that Jessica delivers that crotch-rearranging-kick to, ends up on the ground, clutching his groin and spouting out a series of very nasty curse words with regard to her character, physical features, and more. He's in a lot of pain. Three more of the clowns dressed in black and white hued attire come rushing out of the tent they were beside, one of them clutching an arm load of metalic circular devices. His right hand grabs hold of one, and without really much thought given, he activates it and just lobs it at Jessica! The device bounces on the ground, rolls around on an uneven design to its surface, before it suddenly bursts in to a giant bubble that spreads out about six feet in diameter before it collapses in upon itself, literally erasing everything that had fallen inside that bubble it created. The sad clown looks with wide-eyes at this result, before he reaches for another of the vanishing grenades, and begins to arm it!

The men inside the 3rd tent, that Catwoman cut the support lines from, are shouting as they try to evacuate from inside the collapsed interior, some of them crawling out on their stomachs, as they find themselves entering the fray of the chaotic fight outside. One of the men draws a gun, and from his prone position, he attempts to take aim upon Selina, and unleash every round he has inside his loaded weapon at her!

The majority of the criminals are gathering up in the middle of the three tents, all of them watching as Luke Cage uses a hood of a sedan like a baseball bat, most of them in surprised awe at the display of strength, while the center tent shuffles when a large form exits from within it.

A massively overweight clown in black and white, steps out, lumbers through his people, and raises his right hand up, it covered in a silvery glove, adorned by flickering lights. He glares at Luke, standing nearly as tall as Cage, but where Luke has muscle, this guy is pure fat folds hidden inside a lot of clown clothing! "Lets see how you like a bit of lightning!" The giant sad clown says, as his glove crackles to life, his fingers squeezing around a giant shining lightning bolt, that sizzles in the subway station stale air! He holds the five foot long bolt of lightning up over his head, brandishing it for everyone to see, before he throws it like a javelin right at the chest of Luke!

Meanwhile, Batgirl follows in beside Elektra, her Bat-drones dropping flares to help light the place up, giving Elektra, and everyone else, a bit more light to work with (save for Matt of course.)

Rushing ahead, Batgirl joins Daredevil at his side, as more clowns rush toward Catwoman, Batgirl throwing out a bolo-line, catching one of them around his knees, and dropping him with the tangle of wires and weighted tips.

The homeless gathered around the corners of the subway station are mostly all rising up, now starting to flee the tunnels from the wild fight taking place here.

Matthew Murdock has posed:
Typically, Matt would assume Luke is perfectly capable of handling his own business. He's known the guy to shrug off bullets and collapsing architecture like nothing had happened. But the fat clown earns the Devil's attention, and the strange glove on the man's hand is redolent of the sort of bizarre technology they encountered at the Pier. He smells the ozone in the air as the lightning bolt forms, and is already moving when the bolt is flung through the air.

Despite superhumanly sharp senses, they don't call Matt Murdock Flipper and he's not faster than lightning. Rather than trying to make space for Luke, he instead tries to help draw the Fat Clown's attention with his own actions. The sheer mass of the man makes getting in close a poor option, so he instead keeps his distance.

The baton leaves his hand, not directed at the strange and otherworldly weapon but instead at the Fat Clown's temple. Bulky or not, people have their weak points and he knows them well.

"Don't know how you work with this down in Jersey," he says to Batgirl over the din, "The smell is distracting. My first gang of jackasses wearing greasepaint."

Luke Cage has posed:
Dodging lightning is not as easy as people like The Flash or Quicksilver make it seem, but at least Luke Cage is smart enough to do two things: first, he lets go of the makeshift metal baseball bat, because that would be problematic; second: he's wearing thick rubber-soled boots. That's just incidental, not on purpose, but he's Luke Cage.

He's been electrocuted before.

The blast hits him in the chest and the boots manage to avoid him getting stuck to the ground. Instead, he just gets tossed back against the sedan behind him, crumpling the trunk.

"Bro." He looks up at the big Clown. "You realize I'm the guy the Iron Fist punches //as a special move//, right?" He reaches into the trunk of the sedan, pulls out a tire iron, and launches it at the guy's legs. It's gonna hurt. Then he sprints at the Clown.

"I also sometimes listen to him when he gives me tips!" Luke ducks in and then claps his hands right next to the Clown's ear. Now, he's not the Hulk, but he's still superhumanly strong and that clap? Well, it can't make cars flip and fly off, but it can pop a few eardrums, //easy//.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Jess lets out a sigh of exasperation as more clowns come around to stop her popping tyres. "Oh come on. Do you buy all that makeup whole sale or something. It's a wonder the FBI haven't caught you already." She peers at the grenade. Grenades bad. Even if she can survive them they do a lot of ouchie damage and it can take days to recover.

Diving to the side she sees the hole in the side of the truck and the ground and a bit of a pillar simply... gone. "Oh fuck," she states as she sees him arming another one. Jessica doubts she's fast enough to get up and dive again.

Instead, as he lobs the grenade she launches up in to the air and spears down from just above the truck with fist out as she punches him from above.

Now in the thick of the other two who joined him she grabs one by the shirt as he punches her in the face. Her head glances back a bit and she gives him an angry look before tossing him in to the second. She follows up against the two by putting her knee to their back and raining punches down on them, "Just.. Stay.. Down."

Selina Kyle has posed:
Guns? Really? The clown opens fire at Catwoman but she's already anticipating the shots. Cartwheels and handsprings keep her ahead of the gunfire, anticipating his aim just a bit faster than he is trying to anticipate her movements. He only gets off a few shots before the whip lashes out and she jerks it back hard.

Now Catwoman has a gun.

There is no hesitation or remorse as she starts shooting clowns, shots ringing out fast and accurate. Selina may hate clowns, but she's spent too much time around Batman. Every shot she fires quite precisely hits a shoulder joint. Can't shoot a fancy space-rifle if you can't lift your arm, now can you?

When the gun is empty she flings it like a boom-... er, like a BAT-a-rang at the nearest, injured clown and charges into the fray.

Norman Osborn has posed:
More of the poorly dressed homeless are leaving. Some of them watch out for each other, two of them going over to help the wakened man to his feet, while another shakes the snorer. "Come on, we gotta get out of here," he says.

The other moves to the man in the trench coat. "Wake up," he says quietly, giving the man a shove. "What the hell?" he murmurs, and gives a soft wrap to the shoulder he touched. The faint thunk of something hard can be heard though the knock is muffled on the shoulder. He reaches for the hat, pulling it back to see a pair of round green glass eyes looking back at him.

"Thanks, didn't want to oversleep my alarm," the Green Goblin says. He leaps to his feet, his warglider pushing aside the debris it was buried under nearby. Still dressed in the shabby trenchcoat, Goblin jumps on the warglider and jets for the least-attended truck, avoiding the heroes and arms dealers both as best he can.

Elektra Natchios has posed:
Choosing to not engage directly Elektra clings to the shadows. For while these clowns may have been using alien technology to become invisible Elektra has honed her skills over the years. The art of going undetected. It's how she moves from shadow to shadow, that body suit absorbing the light around her to make her virtually a shadow.

A shot rings past Daredevil's shoulder to strike at one of the clowns before Elektra moves to another spot. Another to give good ol' Jessica some cover from all the grenade lobbing and the beatdown she is delivering on unsuspecting clowns. And as Elektra moves? She makes sure to pick up a few goodies.

You know, like a couple of those grenades that she saw being used in such a manner. Could be handy in the future. Something on the corner of her eyes calls her attention and she spots the glider. How curious. The gun is leveled a moment at the glider but then she lowers it, moving back to providing support.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Daredevil and Luke are both tag-teaming the giant fat sad clown, his Lightning Glove activating again, as he falls to his knees from the hits to his head, and his legs. The crackling bolt that he summons, lights up the entire central area between the three tents, though on his hands and knees, the big guy can only swipe it around on the ground, causing it to hum hungrily like a Star Wars weapon! "Get off'a me, you freaks!" The big guy says, as he tries to swipe at Luke's legs, while thrashing his shoulders toward the Daredevil, trying to pin Matt up against the Semi-truck that Jessica ruined the tires on!

Selina's skill with a handgun would impress even John Wick! The men that she fires at, taking rounds before they even realized the femme-fatale was coming for them! This causes a rather devisive reaction in the New York gang members, and the Gotham sad clowns. The remaining New Yorkers rush toward their remaining vehicles, the ones that haven't been badly damaged. They begin piling inside them, with headlights coming on, and wheels spinning in the dirt of the unfinished subway hub. While on the north side of the fight, the Clowns rush toward the north facing Semi-truck. Its engines come online, and it begins to pull away, with clowns hanging off the sides of it. This, would in fact, be the truck that the Green Goblin is now flying toward, and its already on the move without him even reaching it yet! Two clowns are on the box car of the fleeing truck, and they open fire on the incoming Green Goblin, lobbing those pulse stun rounds at him, bright blue balls of electric power!

Elektra, meanwhile, finds a number of the scattered Vanishing Grenades laid out on the ground in the wake of Jessica completely smearing the clown on the ground, and with the bulk majority of the clowns that are still up now hanging off that fleeing truck, Jessica is left mostly outside of danger, save for the still-kicking fatso that is trying to desperately stake Luke or Matt with his lightning bolt melee weapon!

"We have a problem." Batgirl announces. "The Green Goblin is here, because of course he is." She states, now rushing toward her vehicle. She steps up on top of her Batmobile, and is quick to drop down in to the cockpit of it. "He's making for that fleeing truck." She announces, as the two sedans filled with new York gangsters are headed southward toward the dark subway tunnels that they had arrived through.

So much chaos, with one tent collapsed upon itself, the other across from it yet untouched, and one being drug behind the Semi-truck headed toward the north tunnel.

Luke Cage has posed:
"Fuck is the Green Goblin doing here without Spider-Man? I'm gonna have to talk to that wall-crawler about what his buddies do at night." Luke leans back and dodges a thrashing move from the large Clown.

"So tired of this." He balls up his fist and then just hauls off and puts it to the Clown's jaw. It's not the hardest he's hit someone; not even close. But it could crack oak, and that should be enough to make this guy regret his career choices, if not his dietary ones.

Matthew Murdock has posed:
They say you never hear the shot that gets you. Maybe that's true, but Matt certainly tenses as he feels the shot that sails past him. The ripple through the air, easily pinpointing it in his mind. He almost wants to swear, but then there's business to attend to here. He is slammed up against the truck by the reversing fat clown, letting out a grunt of pain. He doesn't relent, however, trying to wrap his forearm around the man's difficult-to-reach neck while brutally hammering his fist over and over against the top of his head.

"Green Goblin?" Daredevil calls out incredulously, before the whir of glider engines finds him and he grunts, "We're a little busy with Ronald Too-Much-McDonald's!"

He continues to hang from the monstrous man's back, his attacks less calculated and martial and more in the vein of a despearate, bloody beatdown. He watches as Luke swings at the guy, leaning away from the fist aimed at the clown's face.

"The glove!" he insists, wrapping a leg out to one side to try and drive his heel into the clown's elbow. Hissing through his teeth as the lightning-sword flashes noisily through the air.

Norman Osborn has posed:
The agile warglider does a barrel roll while Green Goblin twists his body as the electric blasts fly towards him. One of them passes close enough to leave the faded black sweater and trenchcoat smoking. "You ruined my suit!" he cries back at them. Just before the warglider dives to take him into the back of the truck, Green Goblin whips a pair of pumpkins towards the ceiling.

They stick into the roof of the tunnel and then detonate, showering the truck with bricks and rock. If the blasts aren't enough to collapse the tunnel, they do drop a lot of heavy, painful debris of the clowns shooting at him.

The Goblin has disappeared inside the back of the truck. Not much time passes at all though before there's a sudden explosion on the side of the truck's trailer up near the front, leaving a gaping hole large enough for the villain to egress.

Selina Kyle has posed:
Catwoman charges into the pack of injured, disarmed clowns. Between kicks and slashes, the leaves nothing but unconscious clowns in her wake.

And she may have picked up a few... accessories... along the way. Something pretty is tucked into her belt, and does she have one of those fancy rifles slung across her back?

Then Clowns are rushing towards a truck, mobsters are running to their cars, and some crazy green guy on a rocket scooter just launched into the air. "And I thought Gotham was colorful." she murmurs. "At least the arms deal is busted."

All the same, Catwoman jogs over after the Goblin, pulling up short as the side of the truck gets blown out.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Between the choking abilities of the Daredevil, and the meaty punch of Luke Cage, the fatso sad clown is dropped to the ground, left to lay in a heap on the floor of the filthy forgotten subway station. Beside him, the lightning bolt sizzles upon the ground, but is soon shrinking in upon itself until it vanishes back in to the glove's power source. The glove is left simply blinking its lights upon the large man's hand...

All across the area where the middle platform was originally meant to be built, there is discarded weapons, knocked out criminals, and alien technology that no one really likely understands the true power of, but with the two fleeing sedans to the south, and the more dangerous target of the semi-truck to the north, Batgirl's Batmobile is headed in that direction. The armored vehicle's heavy treaded tires kick up dirt in their wake, as it roars past Catwoman collecting her loot! It speeds after the Semi-truck just as the Green Goblin blows out the opposite side of the trailer behind the main cab. Batgirl is unable to prevent the Goblin's escape, as her focus is more on that of the truck itself. The tires of the Batmobile extend gnarly metal spears that twist and turn with the rolling wheels of the caped crusader's car, while inside its cockpit, the Batgirl pulls hard on the steering yoke, slamming her car in to the side of the Semi as it passes in to the northern tunnel, debris and strewn weapons in the wake of both vehicles.

A pair of surviving clowns both leap from the sides of the truck, while the two ontop that were knocked out by the Goblin slide across the roof of the trailer, dangerously close to tumbling off its edge.

The Batmobile manages to tear the tires of the Semi-truck, causing it to veer out of control, and run grill-first in to a cement pylon where it is instantly stopped, sending up a blossom of sparks and smoke in to the otherwise shadow-filled tunnel.

The Batmobile zips on past, spinning around ahead of the disabled Semi-truck, its headlights coming on brightly to shine back at the truck, as two Bat-drones sweep in from above, one of them capturing a fairly fantastic image of the green Goblin making his escape...

Luke Cage has posed:
Luke picks up a random something after the clown goes down (maybe one of the pulse rifles) and catches sight of the escaping Green Goblin. He hefts the rifle, takes aim, and then launches it like a boomerang he doesn't expect to get back, hitting the side of the glider and sending the Goblin into a short tailspin.

"Yeah, me and webhead gonna have a chat. JESS, you okay?" He starts to pick his way through the wreckage to find Jessica.

Matthew Murdock has posed:
As Ronald the Clown goes down, Matt does a graceful dismount from where he was practically hanging off the large man's back. The first thing he does is prod the inert glove with the end of his billy club and, feeling no immediate danger, he picks it up and tucks it away into his belt. The eyes of his mask don't meet Luke's (they never do), but he does not his head in the international sign of men telling each other 'good job, other man.'

"Whatever these gloves are, they're not just StarkTech in the wrong hands," says the Devil to Power Man, "They're from somewhere else. We found a gun down on the pier that felt the same. Most of this stuff seems high-end but still conventional. But this is something else entirely."

But then Luke is taking off seeking Jessica, and Matt just clicks his tongue against his teeth and mutters: "Right."

He doesn't go after the Green Goblin. He's already moving and fast, not to mention he's being chased. The part of it he doesn't mention is the aches and bruised ribs he can already feel from being bounced around by Big Clown. He lifts a hand to mop up a bit of blood from the corner of his mouth with his glove.

"What do you mean I've been fighting again?" he says to himself, as though rehearsing a line in a script, "Nah, the line for egg drop soup at Golden Palace was fierce ... "

Norman Osborn has posed:
Green Goblin zooms out of the trailer, making an agile turn to start up the tunnel. That's just when the thrown weapon from Luke cage hits the glider and sends it weaving and shuddering. A little plume of smoke emerges from the engine.

Green Goblin calls out a curse back towards the heroes. "You'll have to take the stairs," he says, whipping pumpkin bombs up into the ceiling to try to cave it in as much as he can as the warglider flies off, having to shut down the smoking engine, but still stay airborn.

Selina Kyle has posed:
Okay, this is falling apart pretty fast, now. Catwoman has her loot, which includes a nice assortment of all the goods represented for sale tonight.

That's the real reason why she was here, after all.

The Batmobile engages the truck, others engage the Goblin, and now Catwoman decides that it's time to make her own exit.

There is more than one way in or out, and Catwoman chooses the road less traveled. She'll have to thank Goblin sometime for providing the distraction.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
The Bat-drones had attempted to tail the Goblin, but his blasted pumpkins cut off their ability to track him. It left the Goblin with a fairly clean exit, save for the damage sustained to his glider by the well timed, and aimed, throw from Luke.

The remaining Sad Clowns were gathered up, and the NYPD would eventually make their way down in to the tunnels to start placing people under arrest.

Batgirl got a number of faces identified through her drone technology, with the names of many of the fleeing New York native gang members being given to the Defenders.

More alien technology retrieved from the hands of the criminally inclined, but how much yet remains out there, just waiting to be used to harm the innocent, and benefit the evil?