18182/Gotham by Night

Gotham by Night
Date of Scene:	06 June 2024
Location:	Blood Spot, Warehouse Club in Gotham East End
Synopsis:	A build up to a finale. Batman has brought together a group of heroes to push the remaining vampires out of Gotham. Their victory is Pyrrhic, but the undead are largely gone from the city. Vampires have long memories, afterall.
Cast of Characters:	Bruce Wayne, Talia al Ghul, Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain, Julia Pennyworth, Essix, Allen-James, Dick Grayson, Gar Logan, Eric Brooks, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Mary Seward
Tinyplot:	Red Reign

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Bruce Wayne has posed:
There's been a lot of build up to June 6th. The Gotham Knights have amassed their soldiers, they've called in their allies, and they've collected their gear. Plans have been gone over. The marching order is issued. Now is time for execusion. Those unfamiliar with the methods of the Batman find themselves in a downsized Batcave beneath the Gotham City Cemetary. Project Mausoleum. Where weapons, armor, and vehicles to transport the farious amassed troops are been prepped throughout the day.

Bruce. The Batman.

He peers at his soldiers, all of them wearing armor specially designed for the combat of Vampires. All of them wielding weapons specifically issued in the destruction of the same. The speeches have been done and Batman doesn't give them anyways. Nobody here needs motivation. They know what's at stake. There are /actual vampires/ in Gotham. Information they recieved from Oracle and her drones using heat signatures to track the largest collection of undead in the city.

It's the territory of one of the most violent street gangs in Gotham. The Rolling Blocks are a sizable force. Well armed, well organized, and now, as it turns out, vampires. There's upwards of forty or fifty of them that the Gotham Knights are aware of. All of this information is shared, freely (which is an odd thing from Batman) amongst the allies. All of them are on comms.

The ride is a quiet one, at least with regards to Bruce. He drives the modified batmobile, an APC carrier, and pulls it up alongside an old warehouse that was converted into a club some time ago. Now? Well, there's a lot of dead people inside. <<"Everyone form up.">> He says in his husky, deep voice as he swings out of the top of the modified APC carrier and stalks towards the front doors of the warehouse. A glance over at Tim with a fractional nod. Then he looks to the doors, takes a step forward, and kicks them in.

From the gloom, heavy base techno assaults him as he steps into the stroping red lights of the converted club. Armored, cape laying down across his chest, the sudden intrusion draws dozens and dozens of eyes towards the Dark Knight who, against every mythos about him, hasn't snuck in through the rafters. He walked in the front door.

He looks to his left and lets cold blue eyes trail across pale, bloody, faces as he turns his head. "You're out number old man..." Someone shouts into the sudden silence when the music stops.

One by one, the Gotham Knights push into the gloom behind him. Above him through windows on seconds/third stories. In the back. A perverbial army brought together for a single purpose.

Get the god damn vampires out of Gotham.

"Debatable." He says in his gruff, intense voice.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia al Ghul has come with far, far more than a loadout than she would normally. She's come ready for war. Two large katanas on her back, each coated in heavy acid, with a dissassembled scythe as well for close quarters. A large multi-barreled cannon of some sort with a variety of heavy shells on it. Several small magical spheres provided to her by the Justice League Dark that were weaponized sunlight, and one extremely heavy version forged from Dragon's Blood for an emergency. Amulets passed around to those who would take them that were in theory supposed to help with preventing infection if bitten. And one final thing that Corben had said would help avoiding detection which she had given offers of to the others to use if they wanted some hopefully added help.

She was ready for hopefully whatever conflict they had. Her final thing being an array of small explosives, monofilament blades, and whatever else she could get away with from the.. 'Shipments' she had taken in of some more specialized equipment.

Fighting large numbers of undead in close quarters was not fun. But something she was trained for. They were lucky - hopefully these would just be fledlings with no elders present.

She would speak softly as the instructions would be to form up <<Ready>>

Damian Wayne has posed:
Flying alongside the APC is an enormous winged creature: Goliath, a bat dragon, the last of his kind. He has been fitted with pieces of protective armor. Not that he needs it. A pissed-off Damian is like a Sunday school marm compared to a pissed-off Goliath. An armored Damian with three katanas in various spots on his back leaps out of the APC and hops on Goliath's back. He waits for AJ to mount up behind him.

"Third floor, G," he says to Goliath. "Let's get these fuckers." Goliath lets out a wicked growl and takes to the air, carrying Damian and AJ, along with Essix who is in a special pouch on Damian's utility belt. "Watch your eyes," Damian says to AJ just as Goliath plunges through a picture window at the top floor of the building. Damian leaps down off of Goliath and immediately draws a katana in one hand and a UV grenade in the other.

Oops. There are vampires standing a kind of watch up here. He is immediately on a catwalk above the main chamber with at least a half dozen of the creatures in his vicinity. "Essix, take left!" he blurts out as he spins around at lightning speed, swinging his katana as the League of Assassin trained him to since he could even lift a katana. A vampire head spins down, down, down toward the main room.

With a wicked hiss a vampire leaps on Damian. He brings an armored arm up to push it back. "These fuckers are strong."

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Born and raised to kill, trained by the Batman to spare foes...tonight? Well, Cassandra Cain would be using both sides of herself.

It wasn't the first time she'd face the legions of the 'Blood Queen', indeed she'd bested the Queen herself twice, though the last had been more 'barely survived' than truly bested as the feeling of her blood being drained from fangs in her throat had stuck with her. She was cleared, she was back in action and now? Well, thanks to the JL dark and hunters who'd equipped them? She wasn't improvising.

The several-times-blessed and treated silver sword sat sheathed at her back, similar (or maybe even a spare borrowed) to the one Blade himself carries. Treated throwing blades, those modified UV grenades...Cass was ready as she silently slipped into position with the rest of the Knights, her eyes narrowing behind her mask as she awaited the signal.

For all the gear Orphan had to change things for this confrontation, the biggest edge was the most important: the 'Orphan' had the Bat Family and more with her...

The signal comes and a flash of that blade reduces the first vampire to dust, it's cry strangled out by vocal cords ashed, but Cass was already wordlessly sweeping towarda the next.

Julia Pennyworth has posed:
Julia Pennyworth doesn't usually do a lot of vigilante stuff. She doesn't wear a costume or stalk the rooftops at night. She isn't a detective and generally doesn't like cops. She does hide her identity, however, this time by wearing a helmet along with the armor, a dark visor keeping her identity hidden. Not for her own sake. For the old man's. Not that he couldn't take care of himself. Still, the less roads that lead back to him and his 'chosen' family, the better. She supposes.

Not the time to grind those gears, Pennyworth.

She has a bandolier with stakes for use in close combat, along with a selection of firearms armed with phosphorous rounds.

Oh, and a portable flamethrower. She'd actually been trained to handle one, back in her days in British special forces. She would be liberal in its application.

"Locked and loaded."

Essix has posed:
The claws and bites of vampires have no effect on her, so unlike the Gotham Knights, Essix requires no armor for protection. Nightwing had trained her with batons, a non-lethal weapon that she had started to become rather good with, but tonight called for something more.

As Robin swung into action, she can feel his movements speed up. When he calls for her to go left, she expands from the pouch with lightning speeds, launching herself at a vampire before he can attack Robin from that side.

The something more... A few hours before the Gotham Knights had gathered, she had gone to a catholic priest and sought a blessing from him to /be/ a holy relic. So as she flung herself at the vampire, she went from her natural gelatinous form into a massive octopus and wrapped her tentacles around the thing.

To kill... it wasn't something she felt she could do, even in this situation, but she would start holding the vampires with her tentacles, making it easier for the others with slashing weapons to kill them. As a temporary holy item, her touch burned like fire, but it wouldn't kill.

Allen-James has posed:
    Allen-James, AKA 'Rebound' for this little soiree, is wearing one of the lighter sets of armor that Batman provided this hunting party, and adjusting a mask that covers his eyes, and much of his face. It leaves his hair out, in a wild wash of curls, and he keeps poking at it, unused to the feel of the tightness on his cheeks and up to his forehead. The neck portion of the mask is special kevlar, to keep biting off his neck. Over the armor, he's wearing a hoodie. It's different from his normal hoodie, though. Long, white, almost a robe like garment, save that it is open in the front, and clasped at the neck like a cloak, though it has sleeves that are tied shut around the wrists. The armor gleams black and intimidating underneath, built for speed and strength enhancements, which Rebound will doubtless need tonight. He's got a sword too, a thin, long saber that is surprisingly strong for its thin profile. A belt with various pouches full of random stuff that Rebound isn't really sure he knows how to use well enough to bother with it, but, how hard can a 'uv grenade' really be to throw?

    The young mutant hops up, leaving a glowing orange foot step in midair as he lands behind Damian and wraps an arm around him to stabilize himself. As they crash through, he lets go, ducking his head slightly to let the glass flow over him, bouncing off his hoodie harmlessly. Then he's leaping himself, saber flashing out. He's never killed a person before, but he manages to make himself move as he sees a second and third vampire charging towards Damian's back. A swift swipe of his left hand leaves a glowing circle that one will have to move around. It punches it, no doubt thinking that it can just shatter what looks like a glowing pane of glass, only to have it reflect most of the force in a rebound that flings it backward.

    The other, Rebound faces head on, ducking under a wild swing, and coming up with a slash through the vampires arm which, with the enhancement of the armor, takes the arm clean off, then a twirl of the blade hacks at the neck of the vampire, who throws himself backward, with an angry screech, getting a cut across the chest rather than beheaded.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Nightwing is wearing his usual armor for this foray. The only change he needed to make was adding a leather neck protector so nothing gets too bitey with him. Well, that and the fact that the sheathes built into the armor's backpack are currently holding a pair of swords instead of his usual electrified batons.

    He steps in after Batman and moves to the left, flanking the older crimefighter and looking around with his mask HUD in IR mode. He doesn't want to accidentally use the swords on any actual human who might be in the club, so starts marking all the room temperature targets. That done, he pulls the swords out of their sheathes, revealing 2 straight single edged blades.

    The music thumps over the scene as everything else goes quiet for a moment, then the undead horde seems to gather itself and surge forward and the melee is joined. His swords sweep out, one removing an arm from one vampire as it tries to protect it's head, the other slicing through a neck, followed by that vampire bursting into a cloud of dust.

    << Ok, watch each other's backs, let's get this done. >>

Gar Logan has posed:
Presenting in a one act play: how Beast Boy got dragged along on this very important mission.

"Why the hell are you on my couch?" Tim Drake asks.

"Sleepin.'" Garfield Logan insists. "It's an old Doom Patrol technique, yo."

Tim simply hitches his gloves up and grabs for the scruff of Garfield's neck.

This is how a bright green bat ended up hanging from what Beast Boy is mentally calling the Bat-APC. He is sure there's a bat logo on this ride somewhere. The big man was all about the branding. It was inspiring, really. It was easy enough to catch up: some maniac had inexplicably decided a Gotham street gang needed vampire powers. Beast Boy's known vampires were real since he was eight and found out the Chief owed Carmilla, Queen of the Damned, alimony. It was something like that, he got hit with a brick and Robotman got really mad. Good times.

The green bat flaps out of the Bat-APC, banking on hardened Gotham hoods, undead or no, being startled by a wild, rabid animal in an enclosed space. Garfield forgot that it's Gotham: he gets a few shocked yelps but one of the Blocks shoots wildly at him. "It's a rival clan!" He shouts, having really gotten into it. Beast Boy does what bats do and flies directly into the Block's face.

There's a fleshy pop that sounds for all the world like a full body sneeze, as the bat turns into a bright green kangaroo that kicks directly into the Block's chest, sending the vampire flying back into a pool table that breaks apart under the impact. The kangaroo shifts into a hummingbird, does a loop-de-loop, and lands as a green skinned mostly human crouched on one of the tables. "Hey, they're doing a Twilight reboot." Beast Boy grins obnoxiously, planning on drawing fire. "Think I could pull off Edward Cullen? 'Bella, I have the skin of a killer.'"

Eric Brooks has posed:
Any war is a question of logistics and morale. Any battle, a question of combined arms and competing tactics. To the Gotham Knights, a nest of vampires is a crisis level event. A reason to arm up for bear. A reason to go hard, heavy, with everything they've got. For the Daywalker? It's just Thursday. There's whole -neighborhoods- with this problem, if you travel far and wide enough. A time or two entire towns have nearly been consumed by this line of the bloodsucker, or the other. Bad dreams where pretty much every X-Man has ruled them-- you get the idea.

Blade is on the same page as the Dark Knight... what needed to be said has been said. He's clad in a reinforced leather longcoat and sleek, dark body armor beneath and at key points overtop it, his eyes obscured by opaque shades. He's not one of the Family, not really; but he certainly passes. For the dhampir, this is one step of escalation over standard kit; in this case: Two swords, one rather unique big game caliber revolver, and a myriad of small arms and throwables on bandoliers and holsters cinched expertly all over his lithely muscled, towering frame.

Blade foregoes the high-tech ride, pacing the drive on the rooftops and keeping watch along that flanking point. By the time the Dark Knight kicks in the doors, draws all attention to his team, the Daywalker has landed, silently, like a floating shadow on the club's roof. As the vampires within rush to respond to the Batman, Blade calmly tracks several with eyesight to put a hawk to shame.

Then Brooks drops through a skylight in a shower of glass refracting nightclub lighting and onto the catwalk overlooking the dance floor, landing in perfect synch to cut two men in the same motion with which he draws his sword. One undead creature that was once a woman comes apart at the waist; another who was once a man rushes headlong into losing his-- well, head.

Gravity barely has a chance to take hold again before the Daywalker has that large revolver out and aligned, hammer pulled. One after another a quintet of sanctified, vampire-killing rounds cleave through the throng, over-penetrating targets in a blood-spraying cacophony of impossible precision. In this operating room, Blade is the surgeon.

Tim Drake has posed:
The build up to June 6th has been one of studying, inventing, weapons modifying and a general sense of making sure that the plan is going to go off without a hitch. All the way up until it was time to roll out, there's been an individual on the team that's been triple and quadruple checking everything inside Project Mausoleum. All the weapons. All the armor. All the vehicles. It's all been hand checked by the man that probably spent the last couple days coming down here in this particular Batcave to make sure everything's ready for this moment right here.

Tim Drake. Red Robin. (For now, anyway.)

Red Robin's chosen vehicle for transport to the location is his red and black motorcycle that has yet to be renamed because he's been having a bit of an issue with naming things lately. Unlike the Batman, Red Robin's brain almost seems to operate on a more childish and gimmicky level. It's also part of what makes being one of the Gotham Knights fun. There's still a part of doing this very needed job fun.

Thus the smirk that comes across his lips when Batman just kicks in the front doors. Aw yeah, there's stealth or no pretenses here. Not this time. This is straight up Gotham Knights heroic levels of violence and it's coming right for the world of darkness that the Rolling Blocks have created.

The vampires that have filled this location are far too many and that's something that Red Robin has planned for. He's got a utility belt full of modified equipment and a staff that he's just extended with a swipe. His own cape seems to almost be ready to protect him from some things like bites and claws of the dead variety. Red Robin's movements take him into a direction opposite of Batman, and maybe even some of the others, since he's focused on trying to make sure he doesn't double up on locations. The numbers game might be against them if these vampires have been multiplying so the more they can take out in this rare moment of surprise is something that he's going to make sure to do. From within the utility belt come a handful of his own trip down nostalgia lane: Bangarangs. They have been modified since their original purpose to include explosive UV lighting. He moves with a defensive strafing motion, sending four of those Bangarangs into the vampiric fray for a series of loud bangs and explosive displays of UV light to put some of these vampires in prime defensive and/or burning positions to be obliterated by some of the others that have gathered to put this nest to rest.

Red Robin has always been down for the teamwork angle so keeping the vampires from spreading too far, keeping them somewhat contained, will make those with blades and other slay worthy weaponry that much more effective.

"Yeah. What they all said." comes Red Robin's dry wit to add to the one liners being doled out.

Jason Todd has posed:
Red Hood had his own encounter with some of these vampires in the past weeks. They cost him intel on a mob stakeout and sent him for a swim in Gotham Harbor for his trouble. He's still trying to get the smell out of that set of armor. It's one of his favorites. They were going to answer for their crimes against the nose. And that whole vampire thing too. That was important too. But he really likes that set of armor.

Like everyone else, he is armored to the teeth and loaded for bear. Even if they're not going on a bear hunt, it's a situation they can't go over and can't go under. So they're just going to cut a swath through the middle, straight to the heart and cut the sickness out of Gotham once and for all.

During the ride, he sits silently among the others, his broad shoulders demanding more space than the average person. His head tipped down, casting a scowling expression from the angle of the optic lenses.

On arival, he isn't the first one out. Batman wants to go first and Red Hood has no reason to be in a rush. There are more than enough targets to go around.

As they enter the warehouse, his mask's audio dampers filter out the music. Who knew that vampires had such crap taste in industrial music? Next he tapped his mask and the light spectrum from the lenses. As others begin unleashing physical attacks on the vampires, Red Hood has chose to begin by needling them with pure spectrum UV light. If they can't face him without being burned it makes his half of the job easier. The first vampire his 'dread gaze' falls on hisses and tries to recoil away only to find a prismatic sphere rolling under its feet. After a moment it erupts in its own flare of Ultraviolet light as if it were a grenade.

It may be a war but it can still be a field test at the same time, right?

Bruce Wayne has posed:
There's a surge from the dance floor of the converted warehouse towards Batman. Everyone in this room, every single figure that has followed the Dark Knight, is dangerous, but Batman? Most of these vampires, even when they were human, feared the Bat. Imagine the reknown that comes with bringing their master the Batman? Either his head or as a thrawl? They rush towards him in a wave and he doesn't move. He watches that mass of bodies press towards him and those who have chosen to take the front entrance along side him.

He waits. Lets them get so close that they're too far engaged to back away when he gives the nod. A fractional dip of his head, loosing the Knights to the singular task for which he has brought them all together tonight. Then... and only then... does the Batman move.

It's a rush of violence.

Anyone who has never seen Batman on the attack might be surprised by how quickly it happens. The first Vampire to come at him swings a clawed hand and Bruce ducks back just enough that it passes harmlessly in front of him. Then he kicks, but not straight ahead. His right foot catches the inside of the vampires left heel and knocks it off balance. His left fist comes out sharply, catching the thuggish blood sucker in the jaw. Then his head dips, just enough, that the swung fist smashes against the hardest part of the cowl (and head), using the momentum of that punch to shatter vampiric bone. Never stationary, Batman twirls and cracks the fiend across the side of the jaw with the back of his right fist and sends him twirling through the air.

A glint of steel, a whistle in the air, and a silver batarang hurls from his palm in the same motion that he's ducking beneath a roundhouse kick. It cuts out wide and loops, catching one of the leaping vamps in the side of the neck and sends ash spraying across his cohorts when it cuts through undead flesh, while Batman is pushing forward like a linebacker. Lifting the roundhouse kicker in the air to use as a battering ram into the horde.

Old man, indeed.

There's glancing blows visible in the complete chaos of bodies where Bruce disappeared. He catches a kick, punches into the femoral artery, then hurls the figure to the side to shove people away from him. Another silvery glint and a wakizashi pulls from the small of his back, running along the fangs gauntlets of his forearm, to severe arms. His left arm comes up to block a clawed attack, protecting his face, then follows through with the blade along his left arm to leave a long, blistering, gash across the attackers jaw. All the restraint that he's kept over himself for twenty years, all the stop gaps to his true capabilities?

They came to fight vampires.

    But Batman is the monster.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Using the power-assist of the armor, Robin manages to hold back the vampire that leaped on him. With the UV grenade he has in his other hand, and again calling on that power assist, Robin plunges the device so hard into the vampire's mouth that teeth shatter. The creature takes a step back, staring at Robin with a shocked expression. He lifts his hand and looped over one fingertip on a ring is the pin from the grenade. The masked vigilante grins and moves his hand such that the pin swings back and forth on his finger. Then he shoulder checks -- with the power assist of his armor -- the dude toward Essix. "Alley-oop, my favorite goop!" Robin calls out. He is already turning to assess Rebound's situation as Essix uses a tendril to send the vampire flying over the balcony, falling toward the main room. The falling body almost reaches the ground when the grenade detonates, sending out waves of UV line along with dust that uses to be the vampire's body.

"Behind you, Re!" Robin calls out as he launches a karate side kick at a vampire that was on Rebound's six. It's just enough to slow it down so the capable mutant hero has a little more time to deal with it.

And then we get to see a bit of what Old Damian was like...that 12-year-old out in the world on his Year of Blood. Some have heard about those horrors but have only been able to imagine it. Taking out a second katana, Robin begins to twirl and weave and spin like some sort of elemental force. Blades flash, power-assisted legs kick, his forehead lunges into head butts. It's difficult to separate out where one move ends and another begins. It is, perhaps for those who have gotten to know Damian on a personal level, a little horrifying to watch. He's really just a mechanism at this moment, a mechanism that was grown in a vat on Infinity Island and taught that one kills or one gets killed.

When the advance is done, a trail of dust comprised of several former vampire bodies litters the catwalk. Now about 12-15 feet away from Essix and Rebound, Robin turns to face his two close friends. In just those few moments of this particular attack sequence...Damian the person became absent from those eyes. They are empty, emotionless, cold. In this moment, he is once again Heir to the Demon. Ra's would be proud.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia's temperament is more suited over towards subtlety and stealth. Instead this time, she's going for heaviness. Don't engage vampires in close quarters. Even if you can match them, they can swarm. There are no immediate signs of heavy hitters, so best to thin the herd while they can. The heavy cannon over on her back is taken out, and she moves to take ou ta three round clip for it. She goes to load the gun, moves to switch it up and arm the auto-cannon. She can't risk the use of the heavier bolts in an enclosed space, and these aren't blessed or UV rounds. But they're something a bit more simplistic.

Namely hollowpoint buckshot. She goes to click the gun and fires the full three round clip over into the nearest batch of vampires - whether or not they're evasive. The blast of the weapon as it fills the air with shrapnel over is hopefully enough to secure one end of the room, as three small grenade launcher's worth of blasts empty the clip with about as much short range firepower as an anti-vehicle claymore mine. Three rounds fired, she goes to put the weapon back over her back. Specialized wepaonry wasn't always needed when it came to things. She had to save the heavier equipment for when they got deeper. Now.. Now was clearing and sweeping.

Essix has posed:
This was Essix first real combat, the number of vampires alone seeming never ending. Six of the eight tentacles find one to hold, their arms pinned against their bodies. When they try to bite at the tentacle itself, the find their teeth do nothing. No wounds, no blood, no marks at all.

Bite, bite, bitey bite... nothing.

The aggravation and anger in the six she holds becomes obvious as they start growling and attempting to bite even harder, but she holds on tight, offering the targets up to someone with a weapon, even danging one over the railing. Inside of her a battle rages, to kill or not to kill. Were these Vampires able to be saved? Processing the logic as easily as one breaths, she comes to the decision once and for all. She will not kill.

<< I cannot kill, those I hold will need someone to end them. >> She says over the comm, though no sound escapes from where her large form is presently wriggling as a kraken. Lifting the vampires up high she smacks them against the walls, the ceiling, even the floor. The two free tentacles swat creatures away from Rebound and Robin, too many might overwhelm them and they needed space to fight.

When Robin turns and he 'disappears', there is a sensation that ripples through her akin to fear. This was not the Damian she knew, not the Robin she had joined in combat, this was someone else and she wasn't certain she liked him

Gar Logan has posed:
"You're more of a character actor!" One of the vampires shouts, hurling a sharpened pool cue at Beast Boy like a javelin.

"So you've seen my work!" Garfield says, and shifts into a marmoset, leaping and grabbing the pool cue with his tail and flipping into the air. The scent is.

It is a lot. Batman is killing people. Dead people, sure. Their blood is stale and worse, tainted, and every one of Beast Boy's forms can smell the unnatural stink of these creatures. Of Blade.

The silly little monkey shifts into a lime green tiger, complete with black stripes. A full grown mountain tiger is a six hundred pound ten food long battle tank that smashes onto the vampire at a pouncing speed. The monster is trapped under the weight and might of the beast, which grabs the sweating monster's head in jaws that could crack it open like an egg.

This sweaty little victim.

There's another pop, and Beast Boy is crouching on top of the Block. "Meep meep." Garfield says, tapping the vampire's nose with his finger. "Had you worried didn't I?"

Beast Boy shifts into something that doesn't eat human flesh: a large green octopus that grabs at the two vampires taking advantage of their friend's impending death to sneak up on the shapeshifter, knocking their heads together.

Eric Brooks has posed:
The last chamber empties, the Knights all engage, and the Daywalker, it might seem, is everywhere in the club-- all at once. Even next to a powerful vampire, Blade is fast, strong, /alert/. Even next to the Batman-- or any of the other masters in the fray-- the dhampir is an expert combatant, with a rare mastery at any range.

Where one vampire starts to charge a firing Knight's position, a finely honed, silver-infused knife penetrates its skull; then embeds with a sharp thud into the wall beyond. Where a group tries to reorganize for a coordinated charge on the Batman's position... a UV grenade clunks merrily into their midst, reducing a quartet to ash.

Blade himself is a blur of acrobatics and lethal violence, bisecting a face with his katana in the middle of a fully inverted backflip, before landing and emptying an Ingram into a charging duo, center mass. He never stops scanning the battlefield-- with those predator's eyes, and those sharp ears, the latter of which allows him to deflect a backstab and spin about, longcoat flowing behind him as he sights in his revolver once more.

The speedloader that fed it falls away, its use lost in half the blink of an eye, as five reports sound once more; nearly in unison. Five shots, more than five kills, the first set of impacts striking those held aloft by Essix. They're making stellar progress.

Allen-James has posed:
    Rebound moves smoothly from his slashing swiping spiral of swordsmanship into a backwards kick, rather unskilled, but good enough to make contact, where his foot glows orange. When he hits the vampire that Robin warned him about, between the armor, and the repulsive force of the shield around his foot, he launches the vampire up into the air, and over the edge of the catwalk all by himself.

    This gives the vampire in front of him time to stumble back, and another leaps into the fray, wielding a chain to slash and whip around at him. Rebound flickers his sword out confidently, deflecting the chain in a swipe, then forms a shield over his left hand, and slaps it out of the way as it's whipped back. Ducking forward, he steps into the air with his glowing foot, and erupts like a rocket forward, leaving a glowing footstep behind again. His left hand glows under a buckler like shield which he uses to batter away a desperate slash of the chain, before he's inside the range of it, and slashes out with his sword, while he slaps the buckler against the air. It sticks there, and he bounces off it, flipping upward suddenly, so that his attack comes from an unexpected angle, actually making contact with the vampire's neck. The slash takes its head off, and the vampire dissolves.

    Mid flip, Rebound kicks out, driving himself back towards Essix, <<Assisting Essix.>> he says into coms simply, as he heads towards the octopoidal ooze, to assist in killing the vampires.

    Damian's looks give AJ pause, his own eyes glowing a menacing orange under the mask, energy leaking out as he glows and pauses for a moment, looking into the Heir of the Demon's eyes.. Then he's busy, as a vampire manages to punch him, and send him stumbling to one side. "Shit." he growls, angry at himself for getting distracted.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Compared to the joyful antics of Damien, the humor of Gar or even the cold indifference of Blade himself, Orphan seemed more...instinctive.

She didn't tend to talk much, that much was pretty well known. Hell, she had to be taught to talk at all by the Bat family, but for now she moved like someone lost in a dance of slashing, stabbing, dodging violence.

One acrobatic leap high into the air, Cass's arm extended to hurl her own silver-edged batarang, planting the pointed edge directly into the head of one Essix had restrained before Blade finished the others.

A hand clamped down on her shoulder and the girl twisted, already 'feeling' the non-human body in that touch alone and Orphan twisted, a slash of that sword splitting the creature transversely before she stood and slashed upwards, quarters of vampire already crumbling as she held the weapon ready for the next step of this Gotham Knight violence.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Just like he can do with his batons, Nightwing brings his swords end to end and twists, screwing the elongated hilts together and forming a sword-staff out of them, freeing up one hand. He raises that arm, and with a 'phut-phut-phut' of compressed gas, pellets fire from the forearm launcher. Most of the time these would be smoke or knockout gas. Today? Holy water.

    As three of the vamps scream as their bodies turn to ash from the pellet impact sites, he moves forward into the crowd, sword-staff spinning in a glittering arc. Several more of the vampires burst into clouds of dust as his weapon scythes through them repeatedly. One vampire avoids the blades and actually closes enough to grab his arm. This is when the armor's built in grapple defense comes into play. Waves of electricity jolt though the vampire, making it twitch uncontrollably, falling to the floor. Nightwing takes a moment to slash one of the blades across it's neck and moves on.

    He's careful not to get too far from at least one of the other Knights, very aware of the swarm possibilities inherent in a fifty to fourteen battle. Vampiric strength blows are mostly absorbed by the heavier armor he wears these days, sometimes staggering him to the side a little, but he does his best to move with any blows he can't avoid. At one point he simply leaps backward into a somersault, landing on his feet and spinning the blades to remove several vampiric limbs at once. Followup blows reduce the ex-owners of those limbs to clouds of dust.

Julia Pennyworth has posed:
Julia Pennyworth uses the flamethrower to clear a path forward for her, lashing out here and there with a kick to send her victims sprawling into one another, spreading the fire. A horrifying sight, perhaps, all these burning bodies, but Julia remains stoic behind the visor of her mask. Any emotion she might feel doesn't show in the way she annihilates what is put in front of her.

Eventually, she's flanked and the nozzle for the thrower is knocked free of her hand, lost in the general scrum. She blocks a biting attempt, reversing and leveraging the vampire attacker over and onto the ground with a resound CRACK. She draws and stakes within seconds after, having spent hours training this particular technique to finish the job. With the thrower itself lost, she shrugs and unhooks the tank from her back as she activates the communications channel in her ear. "Tuxedo-One needs a wide space. Things about to go boom-boom, ya feel me?" she says as she flings the tank into a horde of approaching vampires, drawing one of her phosphorous-loaded revolvers and firing at the thing to set it off in the midst of the cluster.

Tim Drake has posed:
Red Robin is focused on attempting to line some of these vampires up for the others to take down. UV Bangarangs keep being launched to keep the vampires from getting too far away. Red Robin is completely focused on making sure that the vampires stay within striking (or flaming or tiger-ing or hollow-pointing or Blade-ing) distance. Every once in a while a grapple line will sink into the flesh of a vampire and yank-sling it into the direction of one of the others.

Red Robin really does like the teamwork.

OctoGar (get it?) gets a particularly chubby vampire sent in his direction. For squeezing purposes, maybe? Who knows. Or maybe Tim just knows how to work with Gar... almost as much as he knows how to work with the Knights. He doesn't have to think. He just teamworks.

That does leave him open for the arrival of a couple of vampires headed in his direction. He takes a step back and twirls his staff, reaching out with the extension to trip them off their feet. One goes down first and catches the end of his staff to the chest. There's a fangy grin as he looks up at Red Robin. "Hahaha! Sticks can't hurt me, you idiot!"

There's a grin from Red Robin, then the sound of a *schluck!* followed by the vampire's eyes going wide for just the moment. He has enough time to raise a hand and flip Red Robin off before he explodes into dust.

Red Robin shrugs. "Duh." And he swings is staff up to blow the remaining dust off the stake that's now sticking out of the end of the staff before he dives back into the fray for more vampiric targets.

Jason Todd has posed:
As the rest of the Dark Knight's Army begins to work through the gang of undead, Red Hood moves to one side, seeing movement from a hallway. Another sunlight grenade is tossed deep into the hall to cut off their path of retreat and then he draws his pistols. They're not his standard guns and, in fact, look rather cobbled together. The muzzles are lenses and a number of wires run around the outside of the gun frames before trailing down to battery packs on his weapon belt. With a flick of thumb switches on each, he begins to fire volleys of, well, light. The silver-white orbs streak across the distance to the vampires cut off by the grenade behind them. Things don't go quite as planned, because not all of them turn to dust - but every one of them that is hit finds themselves with half dollar sized holes singed through them. But it's okay, the next volley of light takes them out - just not the one that jumps at Red Hood from behind him. The screaching, hissing and clawing ganger has ideas that they're going to succeed in this attack.

Staggering a step forward, Red Hood scowls inside his mask. He isn't afraid of being bitten easily, he's up armored like everyone else. It's just the piggy back ride that is annoying him. Using his right arm to get the ganger in a headlock, he brings his left pistol up under the hissing guy's jaw and vacates his skull with a point blank blast. It's an insta-kill.

"Fuck me! It worked!" he quips. It just takes closer range than he would care for. And on his belt one of the battery packs is starting to get much warmer than it did in testing. That might be a problem soon.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
The initial volley from the Knights is penetrating deep into the unbeating heart of this horde. They leaned too heavily on fledgling undead powers, they mistook their new, untrained, abilities as superior to the decades of training represented by the protectorate of Gotham City. Now their short sightedness is costing heavily. Dozens have been rendered to ash beneath the combined, focused, assault of Batman's troops and allies. Including the Dark Knight himself. Who is a tiger in the midst of the unclean.

His short bladed silver wakasashi slashes side to side in controlled, twisting cuts. Trusting that anything that gets beyond or above him is taken out by the allies he's called in to assist in this dangerous endevor. Particularly when one of the Kindred leaps high and has their head slashed through by a silver knife thrown from Blade. There's no looks of appreciation. There's no time for it. Bruce is surrounded, deep in the throng.

Ash blasts across him when he cuts through the neck of an attacker, severing it. Then turns and hurls the short blade. The weight isn't designed like a throwing knife, but it thunks into a vampiric chest with force agumented armor force to knock him out of his leap onto the floor. Where a heavy booted stomp smashes his chest around his unbeating heart.

<<"Red Robin. You know what to do.">>

One vampire leaps upon his back and tries to bit into the heavy armor around his neck. Another bullrushes him around the waist. Batman grip comes up, grabs the one upon his back, and flips him down over his shoulder to knock both of the attackers to the ground. Then sends a back kick into a vampiric midsection to knock a little room around him.

His shoulders roll, his head weaves and he thrusts his wrist down wiggling them. A pair of silver blades SHIK from sheaths along the inside of his forearms. Bring it. Intense. Stalking forward. A kick comes at him and Bruce stabs them in the groin, pulls his arm up, and stabs the other blade into his gut. Hissing smoke errupts from the point of impact, with Batman bringing his fist back with the fins along his forearm, coated in silver edges, slice along his face. Ashes.

<<"Nightwing. I need space.">> He calls out quietly in comms.

He has several small orbs on his utility belt. UV grenades, which he whips out like marbles. Creating a circle around himself in the red-strobing light of the dance floor, but no sooner is there space, Rolling Block Bludsuckers are filling it. While Bruce is slamming down a box pulled from the small of his back, roughly the size of a video game system. Once it's on the floor, he abandons it. Until someone can clear some space for him to uplink it.

All this chaos has drawn attention.

Darius Marrow, known on the streets as Iceburg Marrows, steps down the stairs leading to the VIP section of the club. Slowly clapping his hands, "A'ight mother fuckers. I don't give a shit who you are.." He flexes his shoulders, ripples of flesh, and he takes on a hulking, monsterous form. Voice deep, hissing, as he more resembles a giant hulking, bat, complete with a voice one might expect from such a massive creature, "Y'all in my mother fuckin' spot."

He leaps up in the air and lands with a crash in front of Cassandra. "Sup girly. Whatchu got?" He may have picked the wrong one.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Two vampires from the main room who watched Robin's instinctive, machinelike killing spree suddenly leap uuuuup all the way to the catwalk and each one grabs one of Damian's arms from behind. Even with the power-assist armor, Damian is unable to pull free from their preternatural grasp! Lightning fast, one of them attempts to plunge its fangs into Damian's neck, but of course he meets the extra armor plating in his upgraded suit. With a hiss, the both immediately throw Damian over the edge of the catwalk, leaving him to fall three stories to the main level below.

Then they turn to rush Rebound!

In order to reach for his grapple gun, Damian releases the two katanas. These are masterwork weapons forged by the ancient masters of Infinity Island, layers of steel folded with precision and perfection over and over and over again, creating blades so sharp it is difficult even to create a sheath that can contain them. And TWO of these are now hurdling down toward the floor in the main room.

Robin reaches down to grab his grapple gun. But there are too many modifications to his armor! The release jams and he cannot remove it. In that moment, the mechanism in Robin's eyes is gone. Damian is back. He merely looks up to watch Rebound, perhaps wanting that to be his final sight in this world as he plummets toward the ground unhindered.

<< I'm so sorry. >>

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Now it's time to give the others some room to owrk with. Talia has a few small UV grenades with her that have a spectrum broadcast approximating the frequencies of sunlight. She goes to take out two of them, primes them, and then hurls them forwards into the space around Batman, going to try and work at cleairng him a bit of a path. It's likely that the grenades, which aren't quite on the exact spectrum of sunlight, will do little more than stagger the vampires and disorient them if even that. But all she's doing is trying to give him some space to work.

And then as Darius Marrow goes to start his grow routine, she ponders. "Curious." She would muse while watching, and then quickly dart to the side before her assessment was complete as three avmpires would stalk towards her. She would slash out with her katana, coated over in acid and strike at one. Her blade would immediately be blocked, next counterstrike as well. That would catch her by surprise as she was flanked. Falling back, another strike of her own parried. Another slash sending her staggering.

On a full retreat now, with each rapid splice over of her blades avoided as if they were slashingthrough air. Her strikes get faster and faster, almost desperate now as she's on a full retreat. Fighting individuals that could match her own skill and speed was surprising. Much less for every strike to be virtually predicted and countered.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Batman's request is heard, and Nightwing immediately turns and heads towards his mentor, sword-staff held in one hand. The other arm comes up again and a volley of holy water pellets start hitting the vampires around the Dark Knight. He takes two running steps, dives between two vampires and comes to his feet right behind Batman.

    Both hands move to spin his weapon in a glittering arc, vampire dust hanging in the air as he cuts loose with a Darth Maul worthy attack sequence of acrobatic kicks and weapon strikes, clearing out the requested space around the device Batman dropped to the floor.

    << Do your thing Batman, I'll keep them off you. >>

    It seems about the right time, so he pulls a UV grenade from his utility belt and tosses it just a few feet forward to land at Batman's feet, the flash of the grenade clearing out all the vampires around him.

Essix has posed:
It was a lot, perhaps too much for Essix, but she continued to reach out and grab vampires with her tentacles, and offer them up to Orphan and Rebound, or hold them out for Blade to shoot if he wants. She didn't feel guilt or anguish over the others killing the vampires, though the fact that they turned to dust comforted that small part of her that thought they could be saved. There was no salvation for creatures that far gone.

As Robin is shoved go over the edge, she chirps out a panicked. << Robin! I got you! >> then a tentacle is there to wrap around his body and keep him from hitting the floor below. Extending out the length of the appendage, she turns her best friend round so that she can put him on the floor on his feet.

The other free tentacle lashes out angrily at the two vampires that had just thrown him off the catwalk, smacking them in the back to knock them off the catwalk.

Revenge. They wanted Robin to hit the ground from three stories up, now they will.

Eric Brooks has posed:
In a broad sense, 'make space' is Blade's entire role in this fight. The Bat didn't have to say it, but he did anyway: there is no level of friendly casualties in this fight that is deemed acceptable. Even if the risk -has- to be taken. So it is that while the device in question is not the dhampir's direct objective, the space around each of the other operatives -is-. As Talia is forced back, a vampire facing her suddenly sprouts a new orifice from his forehead. This happens to be prompted by the last of the BFR's sanctified reloads, which also cleaves through a creeping creature of the night slipping in on her rear flank.?

In a blur of flashing steel and spattering gore, Blade's trajectory towards the careening Damian vectors off at the last moment-- as Essix grabs the newest Robin-- and instead intercepts the myriad falling vampires from up on the catwalk. From there, Nightwing covers Batman, and Blade covers Nightwing, landing in the midst of the artificial sunlight and cutting a wide, whirling swathe of impossible to follow swordplay into the throng that seeks to re-seize the space in the explosion's wake.

Darius Marrow is on the periphery of his vision in the same moments, a sharply inhaled breath bringing the scent of his blood's potency to the Daywalker's nose. The Slayer's eyes narrow; one way or another, this uphill-iceskating wannabe Max Payne 4 cameo motherfucker's timer is ticking.

Gar Logan has posed:
The Beast Boy octopus's tiny eyes widen as Dick Grayson pulls out a damn grenade. Quick, quick, think, think, Mento'd kill you for hesitating.

Beast Boy shifts into a naked mole rat, still bright green, and mostly eyeless. He still covers what little eyes he has with his claws and is spared the flashbang. He is not spared the vampire, however. A big one with buck teeth looks down at Beast Boy, pulls a foot back, and punts the naked mole rat across the bar. Garfield shifts back to mostly human, slumping and accidentally hitting the tap, causing cheap beer to spill all over the floor. Some shapeshifters have proportional strength and endurance to soak up lucky hits on smaller forms. Ant-Man does, Garfield remembers. He does not.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Darius Marrow, 'Iceburg' or not, wasn't going to be sinking this outing.

The challenge Cass's way? It was simply met with a little roll of her shoulders and twirl of her blade before Cass surged forwards, blade at the ready.

If he'd wanted someone to swap trash-talk, he'd picked the wrong batling!

He was big, tough and...boisterous. To Cass? His body language might as well give a flashing neon warning about each swing or strike as she twisted and danced around him.

Of course, that didn't make it effortless, thanks to their beyond-human strength and speed.

A swift strike, a slash at one extended arm comes before she coils low and springs high, slashing down at the VIP's face.

What did she have? Well, a sword with his name on it!

Julia Pennyworth has posed:
Julia Pennyworth goes full Jane Wick. Phosphorous pistols, used with maximum efficiency. Heads and hearts, as point blank as she can get them. The armor helps, breaking off a few fangs when she gets lunged into, heavy boots to drive into chests and drive them back to finish them off with a blast to the face. Their heads popped like lit matches, burning to a stub before the rest collapsed away. Some didn't quite dissolve, new infections, bodies of mingled ash and flesh. She stomps a few of those heads along the way. Who would want to come back from that, if they even could? The oblivions she offered was a mercy.

So she told herself and she believed it. The only person who had never lied to Julia was herself.

"Don't get cocky," she shouts at Red Hood, ducking a slashing pair of claws to fire the last round of that clip into the thing's heart. She shakes off it's remains in a cloud of dust as she clicks another clip in place, marching ever forward.

She can read the battle well enough to shift tactics somewhat, shifting from pure elimination into giving more defense, for the Batman, for Orphan, for Blade. Keeping the annoyances at bay, letting them focus on their parts to play. Part of being a squad, ingrained into her brain through the first camp she'd spent dragging herself through the mud. Work together. Destroy the enemy. Survive.

She'd once scoffed when her father told her that Batman called his crusade a war. She had been in war, after all. What would a poor little rich boy know about war?

But now they've gone to war together and she knows that the battle here is just as dire, just as dangerous and required just as much strength. Didn't mean everything was forgiven or forgotten. Didn't need to be. This was about doing what needed to be done.

Allen-James has posed:
    Up on the catwalk, things are getting intense for Rebound. Damian has gone over the edge, and the vampire that hit him clawed at his flowing hoodie, grappling it to drag him back, trying to bite and finding the armor under the white hood.

    Rebound proves that he can make those shields anywhere on his body, as an elbow drives into the gut of the grappling vampire, but doesn't dislodge him, just stuns him... Which would be enough time for the young mutant to work with, if others didn't arrive. Grabbed and clawed at, Rebound takes a punch to the head that looks like it really rang his bell. Damian can see it, as he's falling, four vampires starting to physically grab and overwhelm the young mutant.

    Then an orange glow pulses.. once.. twice.. three times.. This time, as a pulse of light and force erupts from Rebound, it's not a shield. This time, it's a sphere of kinetic energy which BOOMS in competition with the music. Waves of light flash out like an orange strobe light from AJ as he lets his energy out in a sphere of force.

    It's like a grenade going off, destroying the catwalk around him for a distance of about ten paces. It hurls all four of the vampires off of him, breaking bones and bodies in the process, though that doubtless won't last long. They hit the wall of the club, then fall downward to the floor in three rough impacts.

     AJ hangs there, for a moment, in midair, the eruption of force holding him in midair for a long moment, before the waves of light pulsing out of him die down. He's panting, as he starts to fall, but apparently still has enough juice to kick the air, and hurl himself downward, where he lands in a super hero crouch right behind Robin.

    "I think I broke the catwalk." he says as he hefts his saber, and shakes his head, trying to orient himself as he rises to his feet. "Should we get your swords back?"

Tim Drake has posed:
<<"Affirmative.">>

Red Robin is paying attention to the comms to make sure that he's focused on Batman's voice. He's been waiting for that call and now that he's got it, he's already moving into position. See, he's been playing defensive quarterback (don't try to figure it out) for this entire fight but now he's gotten the signal from the offensive coordinator to make things happen the way Batman wants them to happen.

The change in Red Robin's demeanor and actions is that he's now focused on bopping through the vampires and trying to, well, traverse them. There may be a staking here and there along his path but it looks like Red Robin is headed for a location as opposed to trying to actually fight them. UV grenades also get used the moment he reaches his destination, which to be honest is actually around a corner. But that's why the grenades get left behind to create a bit of a UV wall of light.

Red Robin only needs a moment and that's all he's going to get. His gauntlet computer is up and his fingers are dancing across the holokeys with way too much practiced speed. The warehouse's schematics are spinning above his arm and one after another the floors color schemes flip from red to green.

Another smirk from Red Robin as he shuts down his computer. <<"On your mark, Batman.">>

Jason Todd has posed:
Through all the chaos (and fun because, c'mon..) Red Hood moves closer to Batman. They don't see eye to eye on methods. Usually. Tonight? Red Hood still isn't killing. The undead are already dead. But hopefully Aunt Kate can get better. If not? Well that'll, uh, suck. A lot.

As the BatGadget is deployed and Nightwing tosses UV grenades, Red Hood helps to clear one quadrant around Batman. Still using his guns, he faces one of the stronger vampires. She gives him a fangy grin before she blurs, speeding from one spot, to another. "Seeing double?"

She doesn't seem to be bothered by the UV beams from his mask lenses and that is noted with a pause to spin dials on each pistol.

"I've got two guns. One for each of you."

As the female vampire screams and begins to streak back and forth as she prepares to strike out at Red Hood he stands still, his pistols held at waist level. Calmly he pulls the triggers and a flare of energy fans out from the focusing lenses at the muzzles, sending two wide cones of pure sunlight into all of the space occupied by the stronger vapmire. There is nowhere for her to run from the full powered blast. A brief scream is cut short as the vampire is vaporized - at the cost of his fancy sunlight blasters.

On his belt the battery packs have had fuck-all with this degree of power drain. Seams burst as electrolyte is vaproized within the cells and the cases expand. Intense heat builds quickly to a flash point where the packs catch fire.

"Hot! Hot!" Red Hood drops the pistols (whose cabling has already melted through in this whole system failure) and smashes the quick release on the battery harness. He isn't going to be bitten to death and he sure as hell isn't going to burn to death by his own weapons. As Batman and Red Robin do their nerdy techno things to move this strike mission forward, Red Hood flings the battery harness down that hallway again. "Fire in the hole..." he warns. Sort of. None of the good guys are down there. The bad guys don't get warnings.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
This is chaotic, but it's nothing Bruce is unused to.

He's keeping track of his family, even in the heart of overwhelming odds. He sees Damian falling, but no sooner does his son tumble over the edge does Essix descend to help. He sees Cassandra facing off against Darius.... Hell, he almost feels bad for Darius. He really picked the wrong one if his intention was intimidating her. Nightwing is at his side, hurling UV grenades. They errupt in a brilliant light that burns through the vampiric horde trying to push in around him and the device on the floor. He nods to his first protige, then to the dark visage of Blade on high, looking over the pair of them down on the Dance Floor.

Bruce dips down onto a knee and brings up his wrist computer. He'd given Tim the signal and Red Robin is setting up the connection to the clubs lights, but the crux of the plan was in that device Bruce was working on. The shouts and screams all around him. It opens along a seam under the commands on his wrist computer, which he abandons in favor of working the command prompt screen on the device itself. Connecting to the hacked lights Tim has been working on.

Jason is beside him, he glances up at his second son and nods.

Then resumes his work overriding the command prompt with a series of invert hacks Barbara had designed for him. She hadn't really known what for, only Tim & Bruce really did, but when has that ever stopped Oracle from producing results? There's a change in the flashing lights of the club. From red, to orange. From orange to blue. Then the quality begins to change. There's blasts of UV light. In long beams that cut across the dance floor, whirling around harmlessly across the Gotham Knights. But to the vampires?

No bueno.

Darius? Well... he's no chump. Never has been. Now he's got a heart full of vamp blood and thinks he's a damn God. He swipes at Cassandra, who isn't there when his fist passes through empty air. Then swings at her again... only she's not there again. Because damn, she's fast. Cut, cut... his face sprays hissing blood along the slash to his jaw from her blade. "AHHH FUCK!" He stumbles backwards. Clutching at his jaw, the realization that he's not using any cheat codes here. The Gotham Knights really, actually, are this good. Mistress! We're under attack! He's running. Fuck that. Disgression is the better part of valor. Massive bat wings carry him upwards, eyes looking back down over his shoulder at Cass, when he should be looking up.

At Damian, Essix, AJ, and ... god help him... Blade.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Even as she continues to hold off her attackers, Talia Al Ghul is in no way actually getting in anything of her own. Each strike is deftly countered, parried, or dodged. Talia Al Ghul is far from t he best in the world, but she's still a highly skilled assassin. So when facing off a random vampire, the fact she is being matched blow for blow is rather galling. And the fighting is too fast for her to try and switched to a ranged weapon. The blows that she and her adversary are exchanging are getting faster and faster, rougher and rougher, and yet she's getting no edge over in her melee. No time to go for any of her rather nastier toys in the mix that she'd brought wiht her. She quickly assesses how the flow is going over, and goes to brace herself.

She's being herded, the fight is still going on, and while the enemy is on the retreat it's hard pressed to say whether any are capable of disengaging. And she will not put the others at risk.. She goes to switch up her tactics. She parries to the side, twisting over as the vampiric entity goes to slash at her. Her blade twists up, just enough to maneuver the strike partially out of the way.. Her own counter would be dsirupted by a small dagger thrown at her.

The next twist of a strike dislocates her arm and breaks it, leaving it limp at her side. Katana clattering to the ground.

She's too high on adrenaline to feel any pain, even as she goes to shove her way forwards. The next strike goes at her disabled arm once more. She goes to lean in forwards, taking the strike aimed at her ribcage over her arm. The blade slashes up and over, cleanly separating the edge.. There is a slash. There is a scream.

Her left arm falls, cleanly severed over at the shoulder. She goes to in turn slash her right arm over to embed her blade in her opponent's gut, twisting it around and skewering her katana with acid, poison, and paralytics over through it's body, it's spine, and clean out the back. Adrenaline still surging as she's cut her opponent nearly cleanly in half. She stumbles, barely coherent as her..

Opponent goes to stand up, moving to snap it's body back into place and seems to regenerate, glowing eyes indicative of something far, far worse.

The Hand. The next counterstrike hits her ribcage. And goes out her lung.

Mary Seward has posed:
In that moment, a portal of swirling white smoke suddenly forms in the air. It was without warning. Technology or magical capabilities for this was unlike anything these bloodsuckers have displayed before tonight. Before the Bats and their allies could take a closer look, what was inside came to them first. A figure shrouded in darkness walks leisurely out of the portal, one foot out before the other. Their mid-air entrance suddenly closing. She emerges in full fold.

A few of the heroes present would recognize her. Just a few. Damian, His Mother, Essix, and Cass, definitely. The rest would be seeing this woman face to face for the first time...same for her with them. Judging by the way she looks over them all...It'd be an understatement to call her unimpressed by the introduction.

"Well....What the hell guys, why didn't I get an invite to your little party? None of you thought to invite me?"

She scoffs, continuing to look around the place. She finds those she's already fought before. The ones she's BEATEN before.

"Hey there, pipsqueak. See you brought your mama and your goopy friend with you again...That's nice. Is the techie Buffy stan here, too? I'm REALLY looking to repay him for his-..." She finds Cassandra with her gaze. "Oh..." Her cocky smirk turns to a bitter sneer. "You again...I'll get to you later."

She turns to the leader of the team. Bruce himself. "You must be the Batman I've heard so much about...I was kinda expecting you to be bigger. Scarier...Gotta say...I much, much prefer Batwoman. She's really...Well, I can't get into detail, there's a kid here after all..."

Then, her gaze falls on Blade. "...Oh, and you brought HIM! The Daywalker himself, oh I'm so honored! I've heard so much about you, killing you is gonna stay with me forever..."

Now, she looks back to the rest of the team. Full of people she doesn't recognize or can vaguely piece together descriptions of.

"Anyway, hope you all had your fun...your little shit-show, slaughterfest. Fun wasn't it? Fun indulging yourselves in a massacre...cause we're not human like you. So that makes it okay...and you all wonder why I hate you so much." She laughs. "...I step out for a while and you people cause havoc. Unbelievable...."

She looks to the her army. Her servants. Her spawn.

"Don't worry, baby! Mommy's back from vacation! She's gonna take you all to your new home...Just come over here...while she deals with all the bad men and women."

Damian Wayne has posed:
<< Thanks, Essix! >> Yeah, the mechanism is definitely gone, and Damian has returned.

He watches as Rebound uses his amazing repulsor power to send several vampires flying, and then land heroically down on the ground next to him. There is a look of pure relief in Damian's eyes. "Show off," he says as he turns to retrieve his katanas, both of which lands blades down, piercing the concrete floor like it was butter. "Batman's going to make you pay for that catwalk." With a grunt, he pulls both blades out of the floor.

There aren't really all that many vampires left. The Gotham Knights and their allies and associates have wracked up quite the body count, even if all the bodies disappeared. But there are enough vampire that several of them start circling Robin and Rebound. There is shrieking roar from above as Goliath smashes through yet another window (couldn't he have just re-entered through the last window by broke?) and dives downward three stories to the main level. He lunges at the throat of a vampire and tears it out, then swipes an impossibly strong paw, ripping what's left of the neck and separating the vampire's head. All of it turns to dust.

With an actual /grin/ on his face, Robin looks at Rebound. "That's my boy. I taught him...I taught him how to do that."

Essix has posed:
The destruction of the catwalk changes nothing for Essix. Two tentacles extend to the ceiling allowing her to dangle there while ensuring that Robin is safe on the ground. One tentacle went toward Rebound, prepared to keep him from falling, but he manages on his own.

Now her attention is back on the vampires, her senses scanning the room in a way that no human could fathom. No eyes required, no ears needed, she can sense Darius taking to the air. It was a smart move on his part, after all these were all just humans with weapons, right?

Wrong.

<< You are not getting away! >> she says both on the comm and out loud as she whips one of her tentacles at the large bat vampire thing trying to get away. Wrapping around his ankles, she snaps the appendage to throw him back onto the floor below, close to Robin, Rebound and Blade.

<< Present for you gentlemen! >>

Eric Brooks has posed:
Essix trips Marrow-- no, /rips/ the vampire to the floor, and Blade leaps from a standing position into a long, graceful arc off the crumbling catwalk. As he lands, a single thrust drives the razor's edge of his sword through the leader's brainstem. A quick twist severs the spine.

In a flurry of motion, those that rush to save their leader, to stop the legendary slayer, fall as well; in pieces. A quick arc, a flick of a preternaturally empowered hand, and blood is cleansed from his katana as the Daywalker rises, holding his guard around the preparations for just a moment, as he takes the newly arrived vampire's measure.

It's immediately apparent this one is no rabid fledgling; old, honed, powerful. This prompts a fanged, wolfish smirk. Not quite mirthful; not quite wrathful. It is what it is.

"Damn did you crash the /wrong/ party, you pasty old bitch."

Julia Pennyworth has posed:
Julia Pennyworth gets temporarily overwhelmed, pulled down by a couple of vamps at once. She rolls with them, fighting to defend. Joint holds and leverage don't do as much against the undead. The armor helps. And the stakes. One she doesn't even need the weapon, driving her elbow hard enough into the thing's ribcage that it splinters, driving into its heart, staking it with its own bone. Not as lethal as wood but enough to incapacitate it. Long enough for Julia to recover her guns and her feet.

BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM.

Make sure they stay down.

"FUck 'em up, squad!" she shouts.

Gar Logan has posed:
The Bats've gone totally wild, Garfield thinks faintly, trying to recover as two of the Blocks, panicking from Blade going through them like a blender and Batman suddenly being into katanas try to grab Garfield and shove him against the bar. They're probably going to eat him, he thinks.

Suckers. "You guys know I'm contagious right?" Garfield laughs, green tinged blood running down his mouth. "My superpowers come from a blood born virus dummies!"

The two vampires look at each other as their boss becomes an evil bat angel to abandon them. Their perception of what is possible has been radically and violently expanded.

Having bought himself time, Beast Boy turns into a whole ass gorilla, grabbing both grapplers by what is generously called 'the torso' and smashing them together hard enough that he can feel the bones crunch. "Robotman taught me that." The gorilla says. "Ow. Talking hurts. Need to do it more."

Allen-James has posed:
    As Marrow crashes down, Rebound moves into action, dancing forward towards those who scurry towards Blade, and Robin. He kicks out with a foot, setting small, glowing footstep sized panes in the air, at ankle level as he dashes by several vampires, tripping them as they find his forcefields, smaller and weaker now that he's so winded, but enough that they have to move more carefully through them, as they reflect force exerted against them. This disruption gives Robin more time to get his swords back.

    Rebound shifts away from the crowd, as Blade deals with many of them, and the sweeping lights of the UV hacked light show deal with more.

    Normally, he'd be relaxing right now, but the arrival of the Vampire Mistress has him step back, sword held defensively in front of himself, for all the good it would do him. He's panting, winded, tired from his explosion. That always takes a great deal of energy out of him.

Tim Drake has posed:
Red Robin has used his vamparkour skills to get back to where the rest of the gang is and make sure that he's in line with the rest of the Knights (and Friends) to be there for the arrival of the Mama Vampire(?) and her opening speech. He listens, while also arming himself up and preparing for whatever shenanigans may be about to become necessary and afoot. He looks ready to pounce but he's also the kind of soldier that will listen and wait for the commands from Batman.

Despite being aligned with everyone, Red Robin looks as if he's just ready to do whatever needs to be done to make sure everyone in here makes it out alive. There will be no casualties on their side. Not a single one. Including, perhaps more than anyone, Batman.

"Sooooooooooo..." Red Robin may be quipping just a bit. "Team Edward?"

Red Robin knows that there are others in here that are way more equipped to deal with this threat so making sure that he can at least toss a sarcastic comment in there is good enough for the moment.

He's got a few UV Grenades left, though, just in case. And two Bat-Vamp-Repellant Sprays.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
He was lucky to still be standing, already Cass was twisting to reach for her batarang as the large vampire flees the tiny girl figure of violence. Into much bigger, better-armed figures.

A toss of the weapon, but it was aimed to bury the weapon into Darius' leg and send him toppling into the clutches of her 'brothers' and Blade before she turned.

To Cass? He was already dead and she was already moving to carve a path through some of the scattered vampires who had been attempting to encircle her during her momentary one-on-one.

It wasn't going well for them.

Then Mary was here and Cass turns, a shift of her grip on her sword.

Round 3? Maybe, but for once it was Cassandra that had backup! Then again, she was far from the only one with an axe to grind and Blade had been in this fight for a lot longer.

A glance left, a glance right, she was reading her allies as much as the enemy, waiting for that signal to attack the 'Big Bad'.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Your sense of righteousness is misplaced." Bruce had expected the Mistress. Hell, maybe he was looking forward to it. She'd plagued his city and attacked his people, but hadn't sent him an invitation to dance. Maybe he hoped the device was active before she arrived, but there's little he can do about that. Timing, incident. These are out of his hands. So he glances up to his two eldest sons, Jason and Dick. "Make sure this gets connected." He tells the latter, "Make sure nothing touches him." He says to the former.

Because Bruce has a date with an ancient evil.

The Dark Knight pushes up from his kneeling postion and turns to stare up at the hovering Mary. "If your intentions is to play the victim, you missed the plot. This isn't a slaughter of innocent creatures. Your kind see us as cattle. Your children didn't know how to be subtle..." He stalks across the dance floor, face grim beneath the cowl where he's looking up towards her.

"So they chose the path of most resistance and it crashed directly into me." Bruce's steps bring him up beside Blade after the Dhamfir lands in the center of the dance floor. "Enough talk." His wrist blades retract into the sheaths inside his gauntlets so his hand can hiss the katana from over his left shoulder. The blade glints, "You hurt my family. You hunted my people." The blade turns over in his hand, a glance to Blade. A nod. Then he looks back up at Mary and pushes off the ground with the armored suits augmented strength boosts. Swiping it at her in a wide arc as he lands upon the rafters. Bringing him more inline with her height.

"Try that with me."

Damian Wayne has posed:
Surveying the battlefield Damian suddenly notices Talia's predicament. "Shit," he mutters and he breaks into a full-on sprint toward Talia. Twice a vampire tries to interdict. Twice a head goes flying and dust explodes everywhere.

<< Talia's down! Talia's down! >>

Damian tugs a coagulant spray from his utility belt as he lets his katanas clatter (again) to the ground. "You're fine, you're fine," he keeps saying as he sprays the coagulant over the stump.

<< DOES ANYONE HAVE OXYGEN ON THEM? >>

He lies Talia back. "You're going to be okay, alright? This is nothing. You got this, Talia." Yeah nothing but a dismembered arm. And a punctured lung. Robin is utterly exposed and vulnerable as he attempt vainly to stabilize his mother's severe wounds with practically no medical gear.

Essix has posed:
With Darius out of the way, Essix drops to the floor and as she lands, she swipes her tentacles around to knock vampires back to clear a path toward Robin.

Hearing him scream changes her direction from where he had been to where he was now. Octopi don't normally move that quickly on land, but this one does. She closes the distances, knocking away any vampires going for Robin, until she reaches him.

She can't heal, and only knows basic first aid, but what she can do is get Talia out and to medical attention.

"Robin, let me take her to a hospital," she says, already starting to shift from an octopus to a very large eagle... too much Lord of the rings. "I can have her to medical attention in minutes... I can take you both if you want."

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Nightwing nods as Bruce gives him the order to get the device fully powered up and connected, kneeling down and putting his sword-staff on the ground beside, trusting Jason's ability to keep any incidental vampires away from him while he works. A quick look at the screen on the device shows him where to pick up the chain of commands, and he starts typing where Bruce left off.

    It's a testament to his training that he doesn't let what's going on distract him. Attention always on the job at hand, Bruce taught him that early. He hears Damian's comms, but keeps his attention on what he's doing, trusting that one of the others will assist his youngest brother. Especially now that the head vampire is here, getting this working is more important than any one of them.

    Sometimes the crusade calls for sacrifice, it's something they all chance every time they suit up and head out into the night.

Allen-James has posed:
    Rebound chases after Robin, protecting the other young man's sides as he rushes to Talia. His saber slashes at, and wards off a vampire before he punts it away with a glowing foot. Then he fumbles at his belt, finding... UV grenades, which he tosses out, then a vial of holy water in a squirt gun. He tosses that out, then grabs his belt, and rips it off, tossing it behind himself to Essix and Robin. "I have a medkit in there somewhere." he says, having grabbed it along with all the other gadgets that he didn't have much use for, really, not having their positions memorized or their uses drilled into him.

    Instead, he focuses on what he /is/ good at, dashing forward and attacking a vampire. It's fast enough to dodge his saber, but when it slashes at him, he manages to get his left arm in the way, and a glow erupts on it like a second sheath of armor, blocking the cut, and sending its arm out wide. AJ whirls his sword, and takes the arm off at the elbow, before the vampire can recover from the reflection of its force.

    It pulls back from him with a shriek of rage, and AJ doesn't chase it, more concerned with protecting the space around Damian and Essix for the time being, than chasing down any vampires. He becomes a roaming orange beacon, as he wards off young vampires trying to take advantage of Robin's distraction.

Mary Seward has posed:
"...Jeez, what are you, my dad?" She shakes her head, not even seeming to have been listening for most of Batman's declaration of war. "...I've lived like way, way too long to get scolded by a grown man who dresses like a winged rat."

Of course, there was much else to listen to. The fighting, the stabbing, the slicing, the shooting, the one-liners...All that got her attention much, much more.

"...Hurting your family, hurting your-..." She pauses for a moment, finding the words to say next. "You wanna talk down to me about hurting your little dress-up MANSON FAMILY? Let's get things straight, little bitty batman...I went easy on these little pukes of yours. Your squadmates...But, you all came, took my leniency and spat in my face over it...and now, I'm pretty pissed, I'll tell you!" She speeds up and pokes him on the chest. "So, now, you're gonna see what me hurting your family REALLY looks like..."

In that instant, she turns to mist, moving away from Batman and flying towards...

"Eenie, meanie, Miney...."

Julia.

"You'll do." Her arms materialize first, finding their way around Tuxedo One. Mary fully forms and raises Julia up and tearing loose her firearms before slamming her into the ground. Hard. She drags her against it for a while, before flying upwards, dragging the poor girl with her.

Her vision finds the bright light of Rebound. Protecting Damian and Talia alonside Essix. That won't stand.

"Help me out here, miss..." She whispers into Julia's ear, before tossing her down towards Allen-James. Either he and Essix, would have to worry about catching her, or getting hit by her. Either way, she rushed down for the opening she needed for the mother and son duo.

"Touching. Real touching." She grabs onto Damian's cape, pulling him up bringing his face right down on her knee. She punches him in the gut three times for good measure before tossing him aside. She then stands up over Talia.

"...Sorry bout your arm there...I know...Let's make the rest of you match." She raises a foot, bringing it down on Talia's leg. Her other leg, and her good arm. All with a the crunching of bone accompanying her stomps.

"...I gave you a chance to leave me alone." She snarls down at Talia, before flying up.

"COME ON! TAKE YOUR SHOTS AT ME!"

She looks directly at Batman. "Name your favorite ones in a top ten! The bottom five, I'll KILL! The rest, I'll turn them all right in front of YOU!"

Tim Drake has posed:
Red Robin is doing what he kind of does best and that's observing. Watching. Getting a lay of the land of Mary and the Vampires as well as the movements and locations of the Knights (and Friends) to be prepared for whatever happens next. His focus seems to be on Batman but he's very likely got everybody pinged on the lenses in his mask so that he can keep track of their entire crew.

Trying to keep up with Misty Mary is not exactly an easy task but Red Robin does his best. He's too slow to protect but he does look primed to attack. Or at the very least follow Batman's lead with all of this.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH. There's a howl of agony over from Talia over as the remaining limbs she still has attached are brutalized and crushed. Her lung has been punctured, breathing is hard. She's in shock, disoriented, and unable to focus. She's dimly aware over of Damian by her, and then not any more. She goes to try and lift up her remaining arm. Twisted over like a pretzel, posed over like a paper mache balloon animal. Her body twitches over, barely able to breathe at this point. Her hand manages to go down over towards her side. Despite the limb being twisted about, despite the bones of her hand shattered into dust.. Her hand goes to reach down over for the Dragon's Fire sun grenade the Justice League Dark had given her.

But it's more of a desperate flail. Her eyes are bleeding over and she's drooling as her lung is collapsing. She can just sort of poke at it. Moving to slowly roll it over, each second seeming like an eternity over as she wouldn't be ablet o work it off her belt. Her hand presses to the pin.

removing the pin requires functional fingers. She doesn't have any. Her wrist tries to press at it, unable to budge it. Her struggles slow as her breathing fades and she starts to go still.

But one last bit. Her arm goes about, crawling over the floor even as she's able to find what she's looking for, half turning her body. Her severed limb.

She picks it up, using the shorn off part of her limb as a lever. Then a fulcrum. Pop magic solar bomb off of belt.. Roll.. Pin.

Her breaths cease.

Jason Todd has posed:
"He always gives you the smart jobs. Well. You and Red Robin. Wonder why." Sarcasm is more than a defense mechanism, it's a weapon. It cuts through tension to help him focus. Or that's his story.

As Batman gives the order, Red Hood gives a half nod to him and a glance to Nightwing. "Okay. Do your... thing. Whatever it is. You guys never tell me anything."

Turning, he frowns as he hears the report on Talia. There's nothing he can do right now. This is a war and in war soldiers get hurt and regularly die. Dying isn't in the plans tonight but if he were to break away from his assignment, more than one of them could end up dead. Or undead.

As Nightwing works, Red Hood switches from the now fried blasters to something more Street yet also appropriate for himself; A crowbar is pulled from behind his shoulders. It's worn and has been through at least one fire it seems. It was garishly painted at one time but the design has flaked and faded. Still, the words 'Hahahaha!' and 'Boom!' can be made out if one had the time to study it. In his other hand is a length of white ash wood, sharpened to a point on the end. There are a couple notches cut into the shaft farther along its length. Pausing long enough to pour a vial of holy water along it. Will it help? He'll find out. At the worst it should annoy the vampires he stabs with it.

Taking a guard posture, he surveys the area while Nightwing continues working. He sees Julia grabbed and then thrown and Talia injured further.

Yeah, this could become a real world of suck soon.

"Nightwing, whatever you're doing, your window to finish is closing quickly" he growls.

Gar Logan has posed:
"Oh shit." Beast Boy says, looking up from the messy ruins of the two vampires he was helping heal from their childhood trauma. "Loud girl in hot pants. It must be the Master Vampire!"

The horrible gorilla grins at an invisible audience. Okay mostly Nightwing. "As revealed in my streaming hit, 'Seduce the Master Vampire'. Guess what I do in it?" Someone throws off Damien's mom's arm and Beast Boy looks a little horrified. Okay. Okay. She can turn into mist and is really angry.

Ah hah.

Beast Boy cracks his knuckles and his body painfully shifts. Big animals hurt more, but Garfield is used to it by now. Arsenal (the original) used to make him, well. The crux of the matter is that with some effort Beast Boy changes into a full sized African elephant, likely destroying a bit of the bar from sheer size. The elephant stamps on the ground, thunders forward, and holds its trunk out.

It breathes in, forcefully, while charging. The idea here is to force the ultra mobile Mary to make a choice: deal with being stepped on, trapped in the elephant's snout, or sticking to human form and dealing with Blade and Batman.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Take their shots.

It wasn't Cass' first shot she'd taken with Mary, but by far it was the one she'd been best equipped for!

A rush of motion and wind as Cass whirled and threw her modified batarangs in a rapid salvo.

Mary was almost certainly fast enough not to get skewered, but it might keep the airborne vampiress on the back foot and unable to rush the injured Knights or allies.

"Come on..." Cass speaks, the first words she'd ever actually spoken around the foe she'd faced twice, but hey...she was either sure she could face Mary better now with the right sort of weaponry....or she was trying to use herself as bait to give the others time to take a better shot and get the wounded to safety.

Not that Mary was lacking for threats or targets as the green elephant charged her!

Eric Brooks has posed:
Mary talks; Blade reloads. It's not the speedloader, this time. One after another, rounds that could fell an elephant are chambered in his revolver, and the Daywalker draws and emits a long, put upon sigh. There might be more urgency if there were any forewarning of the elder vampire's onslaught on all the more vulnerable members of their entourage rather than Batman or Blade themselves.

"Cowardly /and/ sadistic, yea?" The dhampir's voice is of the old world, but not the aristocracy of Great Britain; rather its underclass. He's been tired of this breed for a long time; even without the vampire part. One after another the revolver rotates, the hammer trips, the rounds discharge at the airborne Mary. Not dead on target, mind-- right and left and center, almost in perfect synch.

As the rounds work to box her in... or at least draw Mary's attention for the scant instants he needs, Blade leaps straight upwards, whipping a modified phosphorous grenade at her position. The cloud of brilliant, charged light, hanging in the air in a heavy cloud, is meant to prevent convenient transformations, you see.

Inverting, the monstrous monster slayer lands in a perfect superhero crouch on the ceiling of the club-- and then comes in in a whirling, physics-defying dance of aerial swordplay. Ideal would be the vampire's head; but really, any and all limbs and their attached bits and bobs are on the table. It's hard to tell, but the Daywalker seethes with fury at the display...

Allen-James has posed:
    AJ will regret this later. But in the moment, he doesn't hesitate. He leaps upward, glowing footsteps appearing behind him as he catches Julia, letting the force of the catch spin him around, in midair, as he slaps a handprint to slow his awkward spin. He lands down on the ground with a thump, careful to cradle the young woman.

    It's only then that he realizes that in catching Julia, he did just what this monster wanted of him. He should have maintained his position. He should have protected Robin and Talia.

    Instead, he's out of position, and can only cry out. "ROBIN!" he shouts, clearly distraught, as he holds the young woman that he caught. His glowing eyes redouble in intensity, as rage and adrenalin do more to refill his energy than a week of rest could. He leaps into the air, dashing on those glowing footsteps again, crashing through a window as he heads out to the APC to put Julia in it, before turning to head back into the club. He doesn't know if he can kill the Vampire Lady, but he has decided he'd like to try...

Essix has posed:
It was her.

Essix remembered the last time they crossed paths with the vampire Queen, and just what happened. The little alien couldn't forget a moment of it even if she wanted to, her photographic memory was much like it sounded, images, sounds, words, everything remembered exactly as it happened.

Never in her life had she seen anything so violent and cruel as this Queen, and the emotion that Essix felt was completely new... hatred. She hated this vampire Queen, she wanted nothing more than to throw herself at the bitch and start tearing her apart. But there were needs, things that had to be done, and new emotion or not, she had been training to stay focused.

Forced to dodge out of the way of Julia to let Rebound catch her, she leaned out and away from the man as a thick tendril sprang out from the eagle's side to catch Robin before he slammed into a wall. Even as she snagged Robin from the air, she took one step forward and wrapped a massive claw gingerly around Talia's body. Lifting herself into the air, the other claw moved to help support the woman, while the thick tendril set Robin on his feet by Rebound.

<< I will take your mother to hospital. I will protect her while she is there, this I promise. >>

If Essix was required to follow the laws of physics, an eagle the size she was would never be able to get altitude inside the club. Instead, she folded her legs up against her body with Talia protected there, sent out two massive tendrils to grab the wall on either side of one of the broken windows, and using every ounce of her strength sling shot herself out into the night sky... the window may not have been large enough, but it was now.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
She didn't know.

It's not Mary's fault. Nobody could blame her in retrospect. The people she turned? She wasn't asking the right questions. She looked for weaknesses, she looked for secret identities, she asked about strengths. What they all should have asked was, 'Yeah, but what about Batman?' And that's fine. She's old. She can be forgiven for over looking the perverbial elephant in the room next to the literal elephant in the club.

See, what they'd have told her, if she asked, is that Batman doesn't come to a fight without stacking the odds. She's a master vampire, he knows that. He's talked extensively with Diana. He's heard the capabilities of the vampiric mistress from someone with whom she had to pull out as many of her tricks as possible... He's spoken to Selina, who has seen the weight of Mary's dark magics at work.

Cassandra. Damian.

He may not have seen them first hand, but he knows.

She attacks his people, his family, and threatens their lives. Tosses Julia, hurls Damian, and stomps Talia into the pavement. If her goal was to intimidate him... she missed the mark. See, Bruce will sacrifice every one of them just to give her a black eye. It isn't a matter of winning for him, it's a matter of standing on the playground amidst the bigger, batter bullies, and throwing hands. They're definitely leaving with a bloody nose.

Talia had given them amulets that hide them from the vampiric senses and Bruce grips it, smashing it in his grip to rub the magic inside across the front of his armor. It renders him as a void in her heightened senses, when she's tossing Julia into the air.

He reaches behind his back and pulls one of the veils of elixirs. Silver nitrate in holy-water. He smashes it on his knuckles and flexes his fists inside his gauntlets when she grabs Damian and tosses him in the air away from Talia.

Then there's Dick, Jason, and Tim. "Protocol Rising Sun, activation code Seven oh seven three eight alpha eitht two."

The strob lights become concentrated beams of UV light cutting across the dance floor. Chasing after Mary retreating from Gar's attempts to literally inhale her mist form or Blade's corralling her. Distracted. Bat waits.

See he doesn't have to hit her a lot.

He just has to hit her hard.

She'll never see it coming when he leaps off the catwalk and glides on his wings, tracking her across the cutting rays of sunlight tearing through her minions, threatening to envelop her in that coalescence series of beams. The cape wraps around him, spinning. Throwing ONE punch. Augmented by the powered armor he'd constructed specifically for an engagement against vampires. From a hidden position. With a fist coated in holy water. Right across her jaw.

Will it kill her? hah... no.

But it'll make her wish she asked a whole lot more questions about Batman.

He lands in a roll and spins around, glaring at her. "What's wrong? I'm just a human." Smokebomb. She can't sense him, his suit is insulated against thermal vision. Another fist hits her. "I thought you were tough?" Another fist comes in. "Break someone's legs who isn't injured." A kick. Pushing her back towards Blade. Batman stalks out of the smoke. Fists clenched.

"I've harder fights from Kite Man."

They'd have told her he'll use psychological warfare.

Damian Wayne has posed:
The brutalized Robin is barely able to keep his feet. He was kneed in the face by a superpowered being, and then punched in the midsection where his previously broken ribs were still healing. Any normal person would be unconscious. But ain't nobody ever called Damian normal!

Picking up his katanas, he makes his way toward Rebound. His gait is wobbling. His face is pulped. His breathing is ragged. His dying mother is being carried off by Essix. But through all of that he actually grins a little, displaying blood-soaked teeth, toward Rebound. "Told you... I'd show... you a good time."

Then the light show begins. Robin peers over at Batman doing his thing, assisted by his brothers. He nods in satisfaction even though he is too wounded to do much to help. "You messed up, bitch," he mutters, knowing his words will never reach Mary's ears.

He tugs out a UV light device that was constructed for him by Caleb Dykstra. With a click of a button, it erupts into UV light. "C'mon," Robin says to Rebound. "The best thing we can do for them is to make sure the egress path is clear. The power supply in this thing will only last a few minutes."

Robin puts a hand on Rebound's shoulder and starts to hobble toward the exit to make sure the path is clear to the vehicle. Goliath flies down and walks beside him.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Finishing off the commands on screen, Nightwing is picking up his sword-staff when Bruce gives the activation command and the club turns, pretty much literally, into vampire hell. He looks over to the vampire queen just as Bruce starts in on her. He glances down at his weapon, then two more 'phuts' of compressed gas fire a holy water pellet onto each blade. He then mimics Bruce and crushes his amulet as well, concealing himself from vampiric senses.

    That done, he runs quietly towards her, taking advantage of the fact that her attention is almost certainly focused on trying to follow Batman's movements. He knows she's hurt a lot of his family, not to mention citizens of Gotham City, and he's not happy about it. To the point that coming up behind the woman, he does his level best to ram his holy water dampened blade through her spine.

    Maybe he'll succeed. Maybe he'll miss as she tries to dodge Bruce's unrelenting attacks. But at the least, he might distract her enough to let Bruce get a more serious hit in on her.

Allen-James has posed:
    AJ returns to the building in the same way he left it, an orange blur breaking through another window. But what he didn't have last time was every grenade he could grab from the APC, dangling from belts and harnesses. He hurls the UV light grenades up in the air, letting them go off in bright flashes and thumps. He hurls the holy water grenades out like they're candy being passed out at a parade. He's more or less careful to avoid the Bat Folks, but he's not entirely concerned with the vampire specific ordinance as he sends it out like it's going out of style.

    By the time he's crashing down beside Robin, he's thrown half the grenades he's carrying. He snorts softly, "Yeah. We should get you out of here." he says, under no illusions that he, even in his borrowed bat armor would fare any better than Damian if this Queen turned her attention to him. He keeps tossing out grenades like party favors, trying to add to the inhospitable environment of the club.

Mary Seward has posed:
Thus, the chaos begins. Mary just couldn't help but make a game of it all, now the other players get their chances to chime in too. After the unnecessary violence she engaged in, she's looking to get more done.

She hears Cass throw her batarangs towards her. That simply warrants a turn of the head, and the wave of an arm.

"Nah, I'm saving you for last. It's sweeter that way."

Her hand swings back, and sends them protjectiles flying out towards their wielder.

She hears the stampeding elephant towards her way. There was one transformation Gar didn't account for. Rather than a bat, or mis, she turns into...A beast. She begins to shape shift into something big, hairy and strong. Her move is to punch Garfield back. Away from her. Give her the space she needs to just go on a full on massacre...Until.

She hears that pin from Talia's grenade drop.

She has an instant to look back at her.

"...You are such a bitch-"

As it goes off, she lets out a shriek.

Out of that beast form she goes, forced to go flying off as her normal self.

Perfect for the Daywalker's intervention. His little cloud of phosphorous combined with the assault of UV light ensures she won't be pulling that psuedo-werewolf trick again.

Yet, she's still got enough fight in her. To counterattack...that is until Batman and (the former) Robin intervene. Bruce's strikes land...and to her shock, she feels them. "Oh, blah, blah. All you do is TALK!" Hypocritical, and a sign that he's getting under her skin. Significantly.

She ducks back from Dick's spear in the nick of time, thanks to her trying to get out of Batman's way. It cuts the flesh of her abdomen, but doesn't go through her chest.

"Don't you start with me!" She reaches back to grab at Nightwing, leaving herself open for Bruce kicking her right into Blade's swords.

"Shit-" She moves to dodge, and gets more slashes across her body, her limbs this time. How ironic, she loses half of a hand.

She staggers, still remaining on her feet, looking around frantically.

"...C'mon, c'mon. Just go to the teleporter. They're focused on ME, GO, GO GO!" As if she needed anything else splitting her attention, she's giving telepathic commands to her surviving vampires, urging them for their escape towards the portal she came through.

Jason Todd has posed:
As Nightwing arms the light-bomb and Batman goes toe to toe with Mary, Red Hood looks at the amulet around his neck. He shrugs. What the hell. Crushing it, he has only a little confidence it'll work but seeing Batman is getting in shots on the queen bitch, maybe it does.

There is such a thing as too many cooks in the kitching. Batman and Nightwing and Blade can fight her. Red Hood starts picking off the minions since they can't sense him now. He grins predatorially behind his mask as he begins to hunt for himself.

The hook of the crowbar wraps around a vampire's neck, wrenching the spine and snapping it. The wooden stake following through the heart. Once impaled, he snaps the stake at the notch. A new tip ready and on to the next.

Then Mary tries to send her fucked up 'children' toward a portal. Well huh.

He watches a moment to see where they're running and he pulls a whole bandolier of grenades. Pulling the pins, he throws the strap through that portal. They may make it through but they're going to have a bad time waiting for them on the other end.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
This was the difference really, for any and all to see. Cass might be one of the best fighters out there, martially she'd been told in the past that Bruce himself could match her...but that was a lie. Cass could fight, but the tactics, the planning, the skills that went beyond just death and yet made him better for it? Well, she was a long way from that.

Forced to parry and dodge her own flung batarangs, Orphan was but a witness to the rest of the battle.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"Big talk, small action." Bruce presses the advantage, hearing that his words, if not his attacks, are getting under her skin. How many times has that been the deciding factor in victory? How often has he out-wit the Riddler when outsmarting him wouldn't be enough?

But it's a combined effort.

The weight of the Knights raining blows and blade upon Mary with their allies. Batman keeps pressing the onslaught, along side his sons, along side Blade's blade. Where there is a swung blade passing near Mary, Bruce swings a coated fist to catch her and shove her back. She's putting in her lumps, she's laid down several of the Knights, and she's left huge gashes in Batman's armor, but even with his arm off he'd keep coming. He's human, but he doesn't know when to stop.

Like his family.

The push forward until the oposition moves or they die.

Jason is playing keep away with the minions, but they're fast little critters. Scurrying back into the safety of her portal, what remains after the brutal battle. A dozen or two make, half that number errupt in a howling spray of ash. Through which Batman chases Mary. Pushing her back, bleeding. Both of them. Until she, too, has nowhere else to go. The UV emitting light beams come fully online and the whole club is suddenly bathed in artificially created sunlight.

Even if they push her to the sea, Bruce isn't sure they can actually beat her. Even in the intensity of the Rising Suns generated sunbeams. So Mary's left with a steep choice, the portal with her minions or the UV emissions and most of Gotham's vigilante. It really is a rock and a hard place.

Mary Seward has posed:
Mary Seward chooses the hard place.

After all the warnings she got about the bats, she didn't take them seriously. Even when some of them showed they could give her a run for her money, she still was totally confident she could win out in the end.

Here, she was shown just what happens when you underestimate them...

Memories for later. Rage for later.

For now, she leaves, hopping into the portal behind.

"...When I see your face again, I'll tear it OFF!"

With that threat, she disappears.