17648/A Shocking Situation (AitM Scene 1)

A Shocking Situation (AitM Scene 1)
Date of Scene:	20 April 2024
Location:	SoHo
Synopsis:	The Shadow and Domino stop a high tech robbery.
Cast of Characters:	Allen-James, Neena Thurman, Natasha Cranston
Tinyplot:	All in the Messaging

---

Allen-James has posed:
    Saturday Afternoon, New York City.

    It seems an odd time to be visiting a bank, but in New York, particularly in the busy, trendy area of Soho, there's always people moving in and out of buildings. AJ had come into town with some of the other college students from Xaviers, at their insistence on him getting some new clothes, rather than bumming around, as he is right now, in a grey hoodie, grey sweatpants, and a t shirt under the hoodie. The zip up dangles, undone, as he walks between stores, looking at clothes. "I mean, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't waste money on this stuff.." He complains.

    The argument with ihs new friends is interrupted, however, by a THUMP, and then a crackle, then what sounds like thunder, as the glass on the front of a bank crashes outward into the street. This causes screams and fleeing from the stores to its right and left. For the moment, the exact nature of the source of the noises, and the explosion, is hidden inside the building.

Neena Thurman has posed:
On a nearby city street a blacked out sports bike and equally blacked out rider roam through traffic, with a firm suggestion the rider is not enjoying being stuck amongst the cars the way she darts to and fro whenever possible.

Domino's always got places to be and the all black bike helmet save for an artistic pair of dice painted onto it makes sure she doesn't stand out /too/ much while running around. Under the helmet is an earpiece which gives her a chance to catch up on some other business matters while getting from one point to another.

"It's just not like it used to be, you know? Look, I'm not gonna start digging around for scraps. Something big will find its way into my lap sooner or later. Ugh" she sighs. "What I wouldn't give for some /excitement/--"

Up ahead glass explodes outward in a glittery shower, the shockwave jolting through the ground and straight up into the bike's suspension.

"--Call you back."

A quick rev and the bike cuts through the lanes and takes a detour onto the sidewalk, though it's more to get away from the cars than anything. Kill the engine, grab a gun from concealment, join the party. That's the plan, at least until she figures out what the heck is going on!

Natasha Cranston has posed:
            Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Man?

    ... Some reasonably solid rumors have reached the Shadow's ears that a small time gang has obtained some strange weapons. However, so far her sources haven't been able to pinpoint who, how, why or where from. She has every confidence that will change with time, but as of right now she has no clues and nowhere to start looking, so instead she's spending some time downtown maintaining her cover identity of "Jenny", urban runner, jogger, capoeirista and occasionally sociology student.

    She's just coming out of a clothing store with some promising new purchases in one bag when the bank opposite the street explodes.

    She takes a moment to mutter about the irony of serendipity before she joins the rest of the milling throng and runs for cover... Except her specific chosen bit of cover is a slightly aged-looking cab whose door opens almost before she reaches it.

    "Thank you, Benny," she comments as she ducks inside, then reaches for the handle of the secret compartment beneath the passenger seat. "Drive for a bit; you'll want to put some distance between yourself and any stray shots."

    Benny chuckles as he pulls out. "Not going to hang around here if I can help it, boss. Think you can get changed by the time I reach the corner?"

    Natasha flashes him a grin through the rear view mirror. "It's a race."

Allen-James has posed:
    Most of the Xavier's students have the good sense to work crowd control, and pull back themselves. But Allen-James has always been an overachiever. Flipping his hoodie up, to hide his face, he starts to slip forward, particularly as he sees Domino rushing for the building. He isn't familiar with the woman who skids up on the morotcycle, but he sees her grabbing her gun. Jenny, AKA Natasha is hardly noticed, as she dashes for her cab, and starts to get changed.

    Inside the building, there's more thumps, and another WHUMP CRACK BOOOM! and the sound of maniacle laughter, before a voice can be heard shouting, at the top of their lungs, clearly unable to hear well any more.
    "Dammit you idiot, I fuckin tole you not to do that inside the building! Now look at this, we're gonna have cops here in like, no time. Quit playin around, and help me get this vault door off.." there's a creaking, cracking sound inside as well, as the robbers work.

Neena Thurman has posed:
Isn't it great when the teams are easily identified? Then again, the albino mercenary easily falls into that 'grey' area of not knowing which side /she's/ on, but the guys robbing the bank? Super easy! Getting involved would be both a community service and a chance to pick up a few interesting new toys for Domino's own arsenal.

Although she has to believe there's another lady around here with luck to rival her own. Check out how easily she was able to get a cab in NYC! Simply unheard of! Though, in Dom's eyes it also means a few less civilians to risk getting caught up in this here attempted robbery.

Leaving the helmet with her bike she shouts and waves at the crowd "Get back, get back!" while hustling toward danger, flicking out the stock of a very compact little automatic prior to rounding the corner. Try to get a look at the opposition first, proper intel matters! If she can figure out who the group leader is, all the better. Though as much as she'd love to just start blasting...

"This is the part where you all give up!" she calls into the building.

Natasha Cranston has posed:
    It's a close race, but Benny wins it -- by the time he's approaching the corner Natasha has only just finished slipping on her pistol harness and struggles into her greatcoat.

    "Looks like reinforcements have already arrived," he comments, noting Domino through his rearview mirror. "Think I've seen her before, on the side of the angels."

    Natasha nods, putting her hat on in the same motion. "From what I've heard, fortune tends to favor her. That should Come in handy," the Shadow finishes as the carmine scarf slips into place as well. "Keep a safe distance and try not to draw attention; from the looks of it they have a lot of firepower and very little trigger discipline..."

    As far as any outside observer is concerned, Benny's cab slows down briefly to take the corner before speeding away -- and with the chaos going down by the bank, nobody notices an unattached shadow flitting along the sidewalk...

Allen-James has posed:
    The crowd scuttles back away from Domino, the albino with a gun clearly someone who should be paid attention to. They pull back, and some pull out cameras, starting to take amateur footage that will give blurry documentation later, of what comes next.
    The shadow finds it fairly easy to slip through the crowd, as AJ's classmates continue to push it back swiftly.
    Inside the bank, there is a creaking, cracking, SNAP sound, that is followed by a huge CLANG, as a vault door bounces out from the back of the bank, smashing through a wall, and the front desk, and rolling into the lobby of the really wrecked bank.

    Through the new hole into the back, it's easy to see the three bank robbers, which we'll call Big, Bigger, and Tiny.
    Tiny is a small woman, leaning up against the wall, ear muffs on like she's at a firing range, fiddling around with what looks like glass jars, but with grenade pins, and electrical arcs dancing inside them. She's also got a backpack on one shoulder, slid around to one side so that she can reach... whatever's inside it. Her hair is a bright green dye job, and she's got a red dragon tattooed on her cheek.
    Big is a tall man, muscular and powerful looking, and he's the one shouting, and yelling at Bigger. He's got on a backpack with tubes going to a Big Pistol on his hip. The backpack has tubes running out of it and back into it at seemingly random places, as well, and golden lightning dances up and down the tubes like a light show.He's balding, and has a red dragon tattoo on the top of his gleaming scalp. Bigger is a HUGE black man, well over six feet tall, and made of muscle. He probably played football in college, but it looks like that was a while ago, and he's laughing at the shouted complaints of Big. He's got a red dragon tattoo over his left cheek. He's wearing a backpack like Big, but he's wearing gloves, shoes, and a helmet that tubes link to, rather than a big gun.

    AJ cautiously peeks into the bank, and then over at Domino, and shrugs, shifting his shoulders visibly. "Don't think they can hear you." He points out, even as Tiny looks up.

    There's a moment, a split moment, when her eyes lock with Domino... and then she's popping the top off the lightning bottle grenade thing she's holding, and hucking it towards Domino with a scream, "HEROES TU IDIOTAS!" Her voice lilts in a shout to get the attention of Big and Bigger.

Neena Thurman has posed:
It might be for the best Domino's warning isn't heard, it gives her a little more time to mutter "What the hell..?" at the peculiar equipment these three on the inside are running around with. Seeing the vault door come tumbling along like it's no big deal is even more alarming! What IS that stuff and where did these nobodies find it??

Whatever it is, they're quickly doing a lot of damage with it all. But if they have tech like this in the first place... Why hit up a bank? The pieces aren't adding up.

There's also the sense of someone else, the pale patch-eyed lady turning to look at AJ who's hovering nearby. "The unexpected but inevitable team-up, I assume. Got any party tricks?" It can be so hard to tell. AJ might be a mutant, a metahuman, or a LexTokker without a sense of self preservation. Inquiring minds wish to know more.

Before they get far with introductions Tiny cuts Dom off at the chase. Those weird looking glass jar grenades looked like /prime/ targets for her to shoot but now one of them is being thrown toward them both. The first thought to reach her voice is "DOWN!" while her personal defense weapon does the opposite and goes UP, rattling off half a dozen shots in a split-second to try and catch the grenade in the air!

Hit or miss, now's a /great/ time to move her pale white butt. If these three can knock a freaking vault door around like a ball of yarn then there really isn't any good cover to be had, anywhere. She'll grab AJ by the hoodie if she has to!

Natasha Cranston has posed:
    Correction. Two potential allies. Better yet, Domino's rather... Expressive... personality means she's drawing all the attention -- meaning that none of them are paying attention to the shadows behind them.

    Before acting, the Shadow does a quick check of the bank's interior to make sure there aren't any additional would-be robbers still inside the bank, then turns her attention to those interesting backpacks to see if there's an obvious way to make them stop working in a controllable fashion other than shooting it or hitting it with something heavy.

Allen-James has posed:
    It would take one hell of a lucky shot to shoot a spinning jar grenade thing out of the air... but that's what Domino manages to do, what with her luck and all.

    A ping sound can be heard, then a shatter, as the glass cracks under the bullet, then shatters outward in a spray of lightning and explosives that is best described by the thunderclap that follows it, and the pressure wave that nearly bowls AJ off his feet.

    The only thing that saves him from going down, in fact, is a glowing orange shield that appears on his hand as the grenade is tossed, and grows as he waves his hand through the air, 'painting' a surface area of about the size of Captain America's shield. He gets it in place quickly, and it breaks up the WHUMP of the blast wave enough that while both he and Domino feel it rush by them, and kick at their legs, it doesn't hit their upper halves nearly so badly. A stumble, and a duck, and the orange shield stays hanging in midair as Domino tugs AJ down by his hoodie.

    The Shadow doesn't see any additional enemies, the three of them apparently figuring they were enough to knock over an unoccupied bank. Their backpacks, unfortunately, aren't normal tech, with a variety of buttons, connection points, and other such things, which could be 'turn off', or 'self destruct', it's hard to say.

    Bigger laughs again, as the explosion of the 'grenade' rocks the building. Tiny ducked behind the broken counter tops when the grenade went off, and Biggest weathered the blast wave with just his braids blown back. Big just yells, "STOP THROWING EXPLOSIVES!" at Tiny. Around Big, a sphere of force can be seen, crackling and sparking lightning as the blast wave makes it visible, then dying down with a whine on the backpack, which has a bright glow through all the tubes now, slowly fading back towards 'normal' levels.
    Biggest, though.. Biggest laughs wildly, and claps his hands together, sending a wave of lightning sparking over his whole body, then another clap makes a sound like thunder, as he shoots lightning and a wave of wind out towards the heroes... but it grounds out on the bank vault door that he forgot about, groaning, "Dammit, B... Shut UP! There's heroes, and she's got explosives. What do you want her to do, dance for em?"

    Big snarls angrilly, "I want to be able to hear again!" he shouts, as he pulls out his big hand cannon, and starts a whining build up of lightning, traveling down the tube, and forming in the muzzle...

Neena Thurman has posed:
Having another ally on the inside is a detail which Domino isn't yet aware of, though it'll sure be a handy wildcard the moment it's brought into play. Until then the albino's drawing aggro nicely enough, if not unintentionally. So it goes when you're the first one to tell the bad guys to knock it off.

She's also half expecting to be sent flying by the grenade thing but something orange flashes out of nowhere right before she's tugging on AJ for a hasty relocation. "I'll take that as a yes!" she answers her own question about him having tricks.

More power builds before the dust settles from the previous detonation. Dom's own ears aren't working so great but she can still see Not Good Things happening amongst the three. This whole 'sitting duck' thing? Not her style! She could keep taking potshots but this merc knows a losing battle when she sees one.

"Gonna run interference" she tells AJ. "If you got anything fancy, now's a good time!"

A familiar crawling dances down her back as she jumps out of cover and /runs into the building/ like she's tired of living. Biggest makes for the best target so she sends some live fire his way in the hopes of damaging /something/ he's wearing. The backpack, the stuff on his arms, whatever. It all looks rather prototype-y to her with all of the exposed bits and pieces. In theory all it'd take is breaking any single piece of the chain to cause it to stop working.

As for the other two, well... Tiny's smart enough not to fling grenades at her own teammates, right? And Bigger, he's reckless. He just might speed along the team's downfall by missing a shot meant for the achromatic mercenary.

Roll the dice.

Natasha Cranston has posed:
    Putting a bullet through those backpacks would be the most expedient way, but there's no telling how much energy would be released -- and Domino's luck tends to limit itself to protecting Domino, not others in her vicinity.

    On the other hand, something blunt and heavy...

    Big's first warning that he's not as safe as he thinks he is is when someone he can't see slams a chunk of rebar into the side of his pack, tearing away a couple of the sparkling leads.

Allen-James has posed:
    AJ shakes his head, "I just make shields.." he motions at the orange glowing circle in hanging the space where the store's front wall used to be. "Wish I had one of those laser guns right now." He muttered to himself, making a note to ask Bishop for one when he gets back. Does it take a super hero license to carry big blasters around like he does?

    Domino's charge draws all the attention, with Big raising his gun. His shield visibly ripples down, as he blasts wildly at the charging woman, elecrtical bolts reaching out, but always seeming to hit... something else. A chair. A light fixture. The vault door, again, the shots go wild as they're squeezed out.
    Tiny has a better solution than throwing hand grenades so close. She tosses out a handful of.. marbles? Yes, they look like marbles, though, rather than swirls of glass inside, there's sparks and electricity dancing, waiting for someone to step on them, and discharge their electric payload into their feet.
    Bigger claps again, trying to send lightning at Domino, but as sparks dance over his body, her shot clips one of the tubes over his shoulder, and he let s out a surprised howl, body spasming.

    About that time, The Shadow clunks Big over the back of the pack with a bit of rebar scavenged from the ground. It breaks the pack with a spark, and a sizzle, and Big shouts in fear, as he slides the pack off, as the backpack starts to whine,a nd clearly build towards an explosion. Tiny views this as an excellent time to get the fuck out, and jumps down a hole that was blown in the floor at some point, trying to escape through the tunnels that were how they got up into the bank in the first place.

Neena Thurman has posed:
Almost immediately the stakes are raised and raised some more, but Domino's already in motion. Stopping her stunt now would not end well at all for her, so she keeps the momentum. Things explode every which-way but it's those odd little marbles which change up her plans. Having something more to trip up the opposition is great! But those aren't normal marbles...

Sprinting turns to leaping and cartwheeling and all sorts of crazy wild acrobatics as some defense is pushed back against her offense. Do not step on the marbles!

Something ... unexpected ... happens to Big. She missed it, but the end result seems so worth it. Bigger is doing the ten thousand volt tango, Big's backpack sounds like it's about to go critical, and Tiny's making a dive for the underground.

Really, it's the overcharging backpack which concerns her the most. This is why her last ditch effort to get some distance from the thing is to land, kick it really really hard...

And try to send it down the escape tunnel after Tiny. Sorry, not sorry!

Natasha Cranston has posed:
    Big, on the other hand, is in a bit more trouble than he thought - mid-flail his arm suddenly connects with something else - something that grabs his wrist and redirects his already uncontrolled flail into an even more uncontrolled tumble that ends with him face down on the ground and someone expertly kneeling on his shoulder, still holding his arm close to the tension point. The unspoken but explicit warning being that any attempt to move or free himself will result in said arm being dislocated before he can finish blinking.

    From Domino's perspective, a tall figure in a black greatcoat just materialized out of mist and shadow and threw Big to the ground and into an arm lock without missing a beat.

Allen-James has posed:
    The backpack turned explosive makes it nearly to the tunnel, where it explodes in a WHUMP BOOM! of lightning and thunder, arcing otu all around it. Again, a wave of pressure blasts out from it, knocking Bigger off his spasming feet, and washing over the Shadow and Big as they move to the ground moments before the explosion. The black greatcloak flaps epically in the blast wave, which washes over Domino as well, before petering out and just gusting out of the open air front wall.

    The back half of the bank is Wrecked, with part of the building collapsed on the vault doorway from the blast, and the sewer getting nearly as much rubble as up top.

    "Well. I guess that's one way to do it." AJ muses, eyeing the two people who just took down three super crooks in an instant.

    "Get off! This is a violation of my rights!" Big yelps, struggling in Natasha's grip. "Let go!" he struggles uselessly as he tries to thrash his way free, doubtless hurting himself more, and likely getting a dislocated arm for his troubles. Bigger is out cold on the ground, and doesn't look like he's getting up any time soon.

    In the distance, but swiftly drawing nearer, the sound of police sirens can be heard..

Neena Thurman has posed:
Watching all of those dangerous looking marbles jump with the underground explosion is kind of cool but Domino's glad the building's still standing and those still inside of it haven't just been erased from reality. As she starts to pick herself up off the floor to the sound of Big yelling out in protest she finally gets to see their mysterious wildcard in action. "Not sure where you came from, but..." she finishes with a thumbs up.

A lot of the fancy gear used by the baddies is big and awkward but she takes a chance, collecting a few of those not-marbles and a jar grenade if she can find one. Quickly, too. She'd much rather not be here when the cops show up.

To Big in particular, her parting words are "Be glad she got to you first. I would've just killed you."

Yeah, she's just going to walk out and leave the rest of the mess up to everyone else. "Nice hustle, everyone!" she calls out with her gun raised up in the air Wolverines-style.

It's a real shame some of the cash from that vault didn't happen to land inside one of her pockets, though.

Natasha Cranston has posed:
"I get that a lot," the Shadow replies to Domino with what was probably a wry chuckle before the voice mask distorted it, then turns to Big. "If you're concerned with your rights, the police will be right here to read them to you. Unfortunately for you, you have information I need first, so we'll be going now..."

    The Shadow stands up, pulling Big along like a rag doll despite the difference in size and drags him into the nearest shadow. "You'll have plenty of time to confess your sins to the police afterwards..."

    Sinister laughter echoes through the plaza for a moment, and then they're gone.