17994/Red Reign: Bitter Rematch

Red Reign: Bitter Rematch
Date of Scene:	20 May 2024
Location:	Gotham City Tower
Synopsis:	Mary and Cassandra Cain face off once again and again, Cassandra escapes her, but this time, with some scars to show for it.
Cast of Characters:	Cassandra Cain, Mary Seward
Tinyplot:	Red Reign

---

Cassandra Cain has posed:
A night out in Gotham wasn't generally the safest of things in some districts, even with the Batman and his Family patrolling the streets. Adding a swarm of vampires making to stalk the street and feast on its people? Well, the bat family was working overtime.

Orphan had already intervened, a mugger or two, an attempted robbery...but the plunge of a sword and a showever of ash and dust had spelled the end of one of the more aggressive new members of the flock.

Now? Cass herself had swept up to a rooftop, her communication to the caves about the vampiric encounter as a footnote to the previous one.

It was going to be a busy night.

Mary Seward has posed:
Indeed it would be. Worse, it was about to get even busier.

Two nights ago, Mary met with a one Selina Kyle, in the middle of a hunt in the Gotham Diamond Exchange. They "hit it off" much like Cass did with her back in Chinatown. The difference being however...

Selina wasn't able to get away like Cass did

Having her right where she wanted her, Mary converted the Catwoman to the ranks of the undead. That granted her two important things: 1, a new recruit. 2. Knowledge. All the names that the self-proclaimed protectors of Gotham's called themselves, what they looked like, basics...Not everything. But enough. One of them stuck out to her.

Orphan. Ninja-type girl.

They'd met before. That girl had the nerve to taser her and kill one of her vamps. That required payback. This time, without her getting to run off.

Lucky for Mary, she caught a glimpse of the girl perched on top of Gotham City Tower, as she flew across the sky, on a hunt. "...Oh, there you are."

She swoops down towards Orphan in no time. "

"THERE YOU ARE!"

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Unexpected. Absolutely. Unaware of the fate of Bruce's feline flame, Cass herself wasn't aware that the vampiric stranger knew more of her beyond just that she was a 'bat'. Still, maybe it was for the best that she wasn't quite as close with Catwoman as others might be.

She sometimes struggled with the whole 'closeness' thing, but she was getting better at it.

Still, one of the best lessons the 'born killer' had learned from the start about ambushes was not to announce oneself, something the enraged Mary seemed to have done her the grace of forgetting.

Reaction screams and she turns, dropping low from her perch and flinging herself down into a dive and swing to a lower position on the rooftop.

The last thing she wanted was to fight a vampire atop a narrow perch after all!

Mary Seward has posed:
Mary Seward snarls as she finds herself hitting Cass' perch. "No, no. You don't get to run this time!" As Cass drops, Mary leaps. Her body shifts into mist, everywhere but her arms.

She rushes forward with the breeze of the wind, as she grabs at the swinging Cass, fully forming when close enough.

"Not from me!"

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cass could move amazingly, a sight that could make most trained acrobats and gymnasts blush...but she couldn't swing from a grapnel and have both her hands free to fend off a target she couldn't strike. A strike from her leg in a sharp kick simply passing through fog in that moment before she was tackled out of her arc an slammed down onto the concrete.

It hurt, after all her control of her own decent had been removed. Still, she's not quite knocked out...instead there's a grunt of pain, the only verbal noise she'd made so far before she struck out with a series of attempted sharp blows.

After all, if Mary was solid enough to tackle her...she'd be solid enough to strike or flip off her...right?

Mary Seward has posed:
Being solid was one thing. Being fast was another.

When she had first gotten the drop on Mary, the vampire was toying with her, distracted by her own sense of grandure, and dangling her with one arm.

Now, she was ready. She was fighting. She evades Cassandra's strikes, save for one. That one made her snarl, causing her to lash out with a strike of her own.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cass was well trained at fighting, perhaps the best trained fighter out there in the world...some days. Not that there hadn't been some serious drawbacks to getting her to that point!

Still, that level of skill didn't mean she was anywhere near the strongest, something she was reminded of as she was forced to wrap up her arms to shield herself from that strike that only her armor saved her from more serious injury. It was probably going to bruise.

A nerve strike? Well, it would paralyse a human, perhaps even kill them if she desired, but it wasn't practical. Instead Cass brings her hands out from that guard with a grunt of effort, attempting to slash out with one of her throwing blades before kicking her hips up, intending to roll the pair of them and get herself back to her feet.

Mary Seward has posed:
Mary Seward hisses when Cass's blade cuts her flesh. It heals almost just as fast.

"Last time you struck me with one of your hidden little tricks, ORPHAN, you killed one of my own and let the rest screaming. For that, you will pay and pay and PAY!" Suddenly, Mary's speech has gotten more verbose. Slipping into her old speech patterns from centuries prior? She was most certainly raging.

As Cass raises to her feet, Mary kicks at her. One hit was bad enough, another so soon after just as Cass was regaining balance?

Cassandra Cain has posed:
A crazed foe was an easier to control foe, her father, mother and the Batman himself had pressed that lesson. Of course, that raging foe could also offer significant injury, so she'd have to hope she could keep it up.

If Mary was given time to calm down, there was almost certainly an edge or two that would be far tougher for Cass to keep up with...but fighting superpowered combatants in hand-to-hand? Well, that was another day for a Bat.

The kick comes, but Cass flows with frustrating ease, reading that body-language cue to avoid the second strike and dipping back only to handspring upwards.

Mid-leap, she reaches to her belt and attempts to fling a pair of flashbombs down towards Mary.

If they worked? Well, she preferred the idea of fighting a blinded Mary to one at full strength.

Mary Seward has posed:
Even in her fury, Mary is caught by surprise with Cass's flashbomb barrage. Had she not seen this before, she'd have been left completely vulnerable.

Cass already pulled this trick of last time, however. She knew what it meant, and thus how to respond. Her speed afforded her the time she needed to react.

"Not this time, kid."

With a push of her hand , the flashbombs are blown, with the force of wind behind them. Redirected towards Cassandra, and turning the tables.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
With no space to organise her sonic trick from last time? Cass had been forced to try and make use of disabling a single sense. Unfortunately? It wasn't to be. Perhaps she'd expected Mary to dodge, to cover her face or otherwise evade, she'd probably accounted for it...

But even for Cass, magic was much harder to account for.

With the flashbombs thrown back at her by a sudden gust of wind she was forced to turn her face away, if only for a bare moment...but it was a moment of opening for the vampiric foe, however brief.

Mary Seward has posed:
Brief was all Mary needed. A predatory grin stretches on her face, as she blazes through the grab onto Cassandra, moving past the flashbombs in the instant they're about to go off.

"...Now, to do what I was gonna do before you so rudely ran out on me last time..."

She hisses, and opens her mouth wide, revealing her fangs. She goes for Cassandra's neck.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Ironicly enough, Cass' own training had been the trap that had snared her. She was seized, she was grasped and as her eyes opened once more her limbs were restrained enough that she was faced with a reality in those slow moments of perception that only came from disaster.

She was going to be bitten.

That didn't mean she was done, even as the fangs sank into her. A cat might have been claimed, but the Orphan bat was...frustratingly stubborn.

Whatever sensations, whatever strength might be robbed from her, she doesn't try to pull herself free...perhaps Mary would think the girl had surrendered for a few moments where she'd taste of the girl who squirmed and shivered in her grasp.

Right up until that other familiar gambit suddenly screamed to life. This close? The sonic burst was going to be horrendously painful even before Cass' gloves suddenly surged with voltage and the girl struck out to shock the vampiress.

It would buy her a window, but not a window to try and strike down the vampire...she couldn't be sure she could finish the fight before Mary regained the upper hand or her 'children' returned.

And so those flashing smokes returned as she made to slip away, a slapped pressured bandage to try and stem any bleeding left behind while the girl who hadn't spoken a word was left to ponder how she'd tell the Bats or the Outsiders on how she'd had such a close call...

Mary Seward has posed:
Mary Seward savored the sweetness of both her victory and Cassandra's blood. Holding her close, she sips the girl's life down her own. Invigorating, Empowering.

Soon, like Selina before her, she would be one of them...

That was...until she brought out that extra trick. Of course, the sonic. How could she have forgotten about the sonic. What allowed her to escape the first time was able to do so once again.

Mary shrieks in horror and pain as her ears are assaulted at full force. By the time she recovers, Cass is already gone. She was yet again robbed again of claiming the Orphan as her own.

"...Coward...COWARD!" She screams. "Run as much as you wish! Run, and run and run! It won't matter! That's two strikes! TWO STRIKES! If you ever see me again, you won't GET to escape again! You won't! Live with that fear! LIVE WITH IT!"

Storming off, she takes to the skies once more, probably looking for whoever she would take all this aggression out on.