18260/Keep Gotham's Water Clean!

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Keep Gotham's Water Clean!
Date of Scene: 29 June 2024
Location: Gotham City Reservoir
Synopsis: Batman and Delphi post up at the Gotham City Reservoir to keep Scarecrow's minions from poisoning the city. Both end up under the effects of the toxin, but manage to keep the city safe!
Cast of Characters: Zoe Mills, Bruce Wayne, Carrie Kelley




Zoe Mills has posed:
Gotham City Reservoir.

It was a race against time, finding out about the Scarecrow's plan, stopping his production of this new fear toxin, and now having to try and stop the man's lackeys from poisoning the reservoir.. and all of Gotham. Batman and Red Hood were able to team up to take down the Scarecrow, but today calls for more technical expertise, so for tonight it's Batman and Delphi on the case!

Dr. Jonathan Crane has thus far not given any indication of who he's sent to poison the reservoir, or how many of them there might be making the attempt. But there are only three key points where the reservoir can be 'added to', so they at least have that much going for them going in.

The toxin itself is something... new. Insidious. And strong. They need to not only stop the toxin from being introduced, but need a sample of it to analyze for when the inevitable 'test cases' start showing up around the city.

It's nearing midnight, the time of the attack, and the employees of the reservoir are hard at work, monitoring the water levels and maintaining the stations that regulate the flow of water to different stations around the city. Unlike at Ace Chemicals, there don't seem to be any goons playing lookout, but the security at the reservoir is going to be much tighter overall, meaning they'll need to find a way around the cameras and badge-locked doors. With the security growing tigether the farther in they go, they'll want to play it careful so they don't end up bogged down with security guards and police while they attempt to save the city.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
For two weeks, Bruce has been keeping himself isolated except for Alfred while he tries to decypher the poison in his blood. It wasn't immediately apparent, but as soon as he started feeling those tingling sensations and rising levels of anxiety (then anger), he quickly came to the conclusion that he'd been exposed despite his prevention efforts. Which said a lot about this new formula, it was absorbed rather than injested. From his cursory examination of his blood, it had the same basic chemical structure to the original fear toxin, but was far harder to isolate against.

He was able to formulate a temporary vaccine to keep the worst of the effects at bay, but the longer it coursed his blood stream without an actual sample to test for, he was having to take increasingly more doses of that vaccine to keep himself from devolving into a furious lunacy.

Which is a secret he's kept from his protiges and children.

They didn't need to know. Because if they started questioning his motives they may question his orders. Even affected by Crane's poisons, Batman is indominable. He's indominable because he has to be.

Now he's perched in the machinary of the resevoir over looking one of three spots where the poison could be introduced directly to the water supply. A quiet beep and he loads another vile into a small injection port built into his gauntlet, loading himself with another dose of vaccine. It was now at once an hour. Time was running out... for himself and for the city.

<<"Delphi, report.">>

Carrie Kelley has posed:
They can't be in three places at once. There's only two of them - so Delphi has done the next best thing. Her first stop was position number two where she set up some cameras behind a grate. Now she was hot footing it as quickly as she can to position number three.

Delphi dances across large pipes where the light doesn't fall and grappling up on to a building top ledge. Down through the ventilation system and crawl spaces. She arrives stealthily with her chest rising and falling - her breathing muted through training.

<< "In position" >> she replies with subvocal comms. Brief responses are better than wordy ones. Her wrist computer screen, a Wayne Tech variant of e-ink so it doesn't emit light, shows the video feed from the other side of the facility.

Scarecrow was one of those villains who reared his ugly face so rarely that she'd never actually faced him as a threat before. The unknown was exhilarating.

Zoe Mills has posed:
They see the usual routine, security guards passing by every 18 minutes on a patrol, watching them go from one spot to the next, idly chatting over Gotham Knights and their chances to go for the pennant. An employee or two will show up now and then to check or change a setting on the computers controlling the flow of water. Janitors move about with their rolling carts, and it looks like, setting up to perform a scheduled washing/waxing of the floors that will keep the area around each access point barred from other employees at intervals.

Cones and signs go up at the first access point, a pair of janitors working together to get the area prepped, swept, and mopped. Going through with shammies to dry off the floor in preparation of the waxing. There's movement in and around the access point as they work, but nothing seems overly suspicious... at first.

The longer they're watched, the more it seems like there's almost a sort of dance being done. The two men moving in tandem and around one another, and it soon enough becomes apparent why... they're positioning themselves and their tools to block the cameras.

Carrie will notice similar goings on at the second and third stations, perhaps even a touch sooner as she's able to see two of these events unfolding at the same time, making the 'dance' a little more obvious in the doing. None of the janitors approach the access points themselves, but they are clearly setting up for SOMETHING. It's about to go down.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Bruce is more than willing, and completely capable, of sitting in a single position for as long as he needs to, but he can feel that tickling sensation of doubt creeping into his usually stalwart mind. 'Was the information they recieved false?' 'Was it misleading to put him in one place while Scarecrow acted out his plot in another?'

Logically he knew this was false.

A glance at his computer set into the inside of his gauntlet showed a rise in his heart rate, a constant visual monitoring. The expression on his face sours, even more than normal.. The vaccine is efficacy of the vaccine has dropped again. His mind is circling on this fact to the point he almost misses a key detail that he'd never have missed under any other circumstance: the positioning of the carts.

It takes him far too long to realize it.

Something that might actually be noticed by Delphi. That he hasn't said anything about it, himself. It's a small matter, but one his closest protiges would pick up on: Batman doesn't miss things. Especially not important ones.

So when his voice does come, it's late, <<"Mind the carts.">>

As he adjusts his position to get a better view of what the pair are doing in their dance. The posture. Attempting to read them while constantly looking at his monitor.

120 bpm.
     132.
         140.

Carrie Kelley has posed:
There was always the threat that there'd be three fronts at once. The city needs its water which is why it has three different turbine systems. It's also safer that way in case one gets contaminated with e.coli or worse. In this case the threat is something wholly new and far worse than diarrhoea. The system was designed to have one, may be even two, shut down. So long as one keeps running the city won't go dry.

<< "Damn." >> Delphi knows Batman knows what that means. It means there's going to be a bunch of collateral infrastructure damage and the city will have to foot the bill. That often means a generous donation from Wayne Tech.

Batman hasn't mentioned it yet. Perhaps she needs to set things in motion, << "Do you see that?" >> She considers a moment. A good plan is a simple plan and Scarecrow isn't like the Riddler, he doesn't do elaborate plots. Batman's reply tells her they are good to go.

Carrie takes the detonator switch out from her belt and times her action with Batman, << "Ready?" >>. Click, boom, the regulator computer system goes up in smoke at station two. The turbines there spin down and the valves close. The fire alarms go off and the evacuation notice sounds. It's actions like these that create the divide between regular law enforcement and the Bat family of vigilantes.

Next, she drops out of her hiding place in to the facility and puts on her rebreather. She's not taking any chances with these Scarecrow goons. They will have to escalation their timeline now that an alarm has been raised. Her dark cape falls behind her and she makes haste toward those janitors.

She kicks in a swinging door and knocks one of them off guard. "Parties over," she says through the voice modulator. Delphi never used to go for the intimidating appearance but with her new kit she certainly brings it in spades. "Surrender up now while you still have all your teeth."

Zoe Mills has posed:
Once everything is set up, the cameras blocked visually and the waxers covering any sounds that the cameras might pick up, the pairs of janitors move to the doors, one each opening said door to admit someone wearing a security guard's uniform. Whether they are actually security guards, well, the Bat Fam's computer system is second to none and will be able to run facial recognition if they can get a decent shot of each one.

Things are going smoothly.. until the computer at the second access point is blown. The trio at that part immediately alert the other two paries that there's something up and to hurry with the plan. Things need to escalate, NOW.

One thing that occurs now that was perhaps unintended... the fire suppression system kicks in to combat the explosion at the second access point. There's a hiss of forced air and a wet sort of foam that rains down to keep the fire contained. Carrie, by virtue of being quick to engage, will get splattered by the burst before it trickles off and dies out. So do all the trios at the access points.

All three 'security guards' rush to the access points in an attempt to get their payload deposited, working the valves and manual levers to open the ports so they can dump the toxin in. The 'janitors' will form up in front of the guards to cover them while they work.

At the third access point, the duo that face off against Carrie will grab weapons (a large wrench and a length of pipe), running at her in the hopes they can overwhelm her long enough for the toxin to be deposited.

At the first access point, the trio are in a sort of triangle formation, with the guards frantically working the vlaves and levers while the two janitors pull a blackjack and a club to await any possible intrusion, keeping about five feet of space between any two of them at a given time. Batman may notice that one of his duo is looking around more and more nervously while the other seems to grown more and more annoyed, with the guard also nervous, but for the moment, the fear of the Scarecrow is overriding whatever fear might otherwise be riding him.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
It's not fear that Bruce is feeling, but intense anxiety. Double guessing himself where he never would before, throwing questions into a careful plan can create chaos, even for the Dark Knight. Who watches for a few seconds longer, trying to get the perfect angle so as not to mess this one moment up. How often has he done this before? How frequently does he make split second decisions? How many times has he been wrong?

The answer is few, closer to none, but in his mind the seeds of descent are growing.

Circling...

    And becoming anger.

When the fire suppression system goes off right next to him, spraying him across the stubbled jaw with a wash of water and foam, he's shaken out of his constant thought to stare at a trio of janitors forming up around a security guard beneath where he's perched. Anger... Fight it.

With grit teeth Batman drops down from the rafters into a crouch, cape spread out around him in a black pool of weighted cloth that pulls up against his rising form until he's standing impressive in the flicker of lights and the dripping shower of water from the nozzles above. Furious.

He moves too quickly and catches a blackjack across the jaw. Hard enough to knock most men flat, hard enough to knock stars into his eyes, but not enough to put him down. Only to snap whatever was left of his control of his fear fueled anger.. With a deep growl, both his hands slap together on eitherside of a Janitor's face, over his ears. Rupturing his eardrums. Rupturing his eardrums and straight kicking him in the gut with enough force that he very well may have lacerated his liver, but certainly hard enough to knock the remaining janitor's, on slippery foam covered concrete, into an awkward waving arm tumble upon one another.

"Step away from the access port." It's a growl, gravel. Nails on a chalk-board. "Or I'll hurt you." Did he say hurt? No... wait, did he say he'd kill him? Batman shakes his head violently and hisses.

A hiss that becomes out howl of pain when a taser hits him in the side of the neck and buckles him down onto his knees before the Janitor who managed to get his footing in the seconds Bruce wasn't watching him. Get his footing then wield a weapon he should have been able to easily deflect if he'd been paying attention..

Then the kicks, the wrenches, the fists. Pounding on his cape covered shoulders and the back of his cowl covered head.

Carrie Kelley has posed:
The trio of 'janitors' would be laughing if they weren't also dumped on by the fire suppression system. Carrie is not laughing though. She is trudging across the slippery goop. She doesn't have far to go as they rush her in return. The first to reach her, she blocks his wrench with an armoured forearm. The strike makes her slide backwards and him slide awkwardly to the side.

She pushes him off her and to the wall which gives him some semblance of balance back. With the 'security guards' rushing ahead to try and do their deed she grabs from her belt her bow. It's a compact thing until she flicks it and it extends on both sides and strings itself in one easy motion. From its shaft unfolds an arrow which she presses the tip in to her belt to arm it with a weapon.

As Carrie lifts up the bow to aim and fire the second of the janitors crashes in to her and she topples to the ground. The arrow is loosed and hits the ceiling, bounces off it, and hits the floor, a net rapidly expands around nothing.

The second janitors hammer comes down at her and she deflects it with the shaft of her bow in to the floor. As he yanks it back the bow snaps and she uses the two halves like batons and strikes at his torso and wrist from below him.

With a leg kick she bucks him off and finds herself sliding along the floor once more as the first janitor kicks her in the armoured ribs. She's not sure who gets the worse of that - her ribs or his shin.

She pulls bola's out from her utility belt as she props up on one knee and begins to spin them as her world view cracks around her. She can feel her heart starting to race as flames erupt in her mind about her. Crane's new toxin is in her. She's back in her original reality and the multidimensional gateway device is about to explode.

"Batman!," she cries out as she throws the bolas at an imaginary goon even as the real one rights himself and comes in for another kick. Batman cannot hear her here and the Batman she's calling to existed from her memories from 9 years ago. A different Batman to the one she now calls father.

Carrie pulls up her cape to shield from the non-existent flames and grits her teeth. As the janitor's boot hits her in the chest she sprawls and slides up against the wall. The violence snaps her back to reality. Sort of. The man is no longer a janitor but a desperate looking scientist with a glint on his spectacles. A man doing something he should not. A man breaching the barriers between different versions of Earth.

Carrie, Robin at the time, steels herself and pushes off the wall tackling the janitor to the ground. She punches him several times in the face until he stops fighting back, then rises up and spies the scientist rushing off through another door. It's the security guard. She gives chase. "Batman I'm losing him!"

Zoe Mills has posed:
That insidious slow burn of a toxin worms its way through Batman's systems, amping up his heartrate, his breathing, fraying his nerves, and boosting his aggression response to almostuncontrollable levels. It spikes as he is challenged by these janitors, these minions. They would DARE to stand against the Batman?! The Dark Knight of Gotham City inspires fear in the criminal set, but they have the BALLS to stand up to him!! Not for long.

The first man drops, screaming, his weapon lost as his hands clap over bleeding ears, then lost as he's kicked back into his co-conspirator to tumble away and hit the ground in a lump of foam-covered bad guy, moaning on the ground. The second, knocked down but not out, responds with his own amplified dose of the toxin, letting out a growl as he scrabbles to his feet, pulling a taser and shoving it against Batman's neck, depressing the trigger. The mixture of water and foam coating him acting as an excellent conductor for the electricity, though it disperses faster from the suppressive effects of the foam. The man bellows at the Dark Knight, pummelling him without thought or care to his own safety, enraged past the point of no return.

The 'guard' at that first access point, however, is halted dead in his tracks by those growled words from Batman, the threat so clearly stated, his own version of the toxin kicking in as his heartrate jackrabbits and sends the man fleeing from the scene with a scream of pure terror, his dose of the toxin still firmly secured in his pocket as he never managed to get the port open to dump it. One point, secured.

For Carrie, it's her initial exposure to the toxin, an earlier, less stable version of it. Prepped weeks ago and set up within the reservoir's fire suppression system for just such a possibility. Let it never be said that Scarecrow didn't think things through, his plans meticulous and careful and kept as quiet as possible. But it's enough to affect her judgment, to give her flashbacks and hallucinations of earlier times. Of worse times. Amplifying that fear response even as she battles through it, trying to keep her objective in mind.

The janitors are rushing at her with makeshift weapons raised, ready to clobber her for daring to interrupt Scarecrow's plan, both amped to a rage that pushes them beyond reason, and beyond care of their own safety. They swing at her, kicking, lashing out however they can, getting in a few licks before she's able to incapacitate them (at least for the moment). The 'guard' is likewise taken by fear and flees from her, taking his own dose of the toxin with him.

In the second access point, the two janitors have started a fight between themselves, fear-fueled rage driving them to attack one another while the guard frantically works the access port. He has better luck than his fellow mules, able to open the port and dump the dose of the toxin in.. to the only non-working station. It may not be pumping out to the city, but its there, ready and waiting for the computer station to be replaced and turned back on....

Bruce Wayne has posed:
Even in the height of the toxin induced fury there's a part of Bruce's mind segmented off. An shakable will power for which there are few peers. He feels every smash of wrench against his back, the side of his face and arms up protecting his head, and still he's wrestling control from the anger. From that anxiety. With the hiss of machinary matching the clank of heavy objects off the thick cloth cape covering his vital spine, he reaches out and grabs one of the trio now circling around him swinging their weapons down upon his body. His arm circles around his leg and he pushes in the foam, sliding across the slick floor to shove the man off his center of gravity while rolling forward to slam his elbow down, hard, across the janitor's jaw.

That elbow comes up and around to catch the downward swung wrench along the long fins jutting out of his forearm, twists, and pulls the weapon against his side. In the same motion as he yanks the arm towards him and thrusts his forehead into the bridge of another janitor's face. The last catches the hurled wrench, thrown side arm like a batarang, across the front of his mouth. He'll need dental work.

They're all alive.

That's a miracle.

Standing, heart racing, breathing ragged, Bruce turns to look in the direction of splashing footfalls. Carrie.

Batman!

He hadn't heard her over the distance, but through the comms.

And he's moving now to intercept, positioning himself directly in the path of the guard trying to escape from her. A sudden dark silhouette in the limited lighting, flickering through the soapy halls. A massive dark shadow stalking forward with so much fury in his eyes and bare teeth behind lips peeling back in a snarl.

Hopefully Delphi gets him before Bruce does.

Carrie Kelley has posed:
Carrie chases down the guard and tackles him to the ground. She can see the fear on in his eyes. The scientist had that same fear but for very different reasons. She takes out her rebreather and demands, "GIVE ME THE DEVICE YOU FOOL BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!"

Her heart is racing, it's fear motivating her. Fear is what Batman taught her to conquer - but you can never really conquer fear, only channel it in to something more powerful. That's the lesson Carrie learnt. Every time she faced off against impossible odds that fear was there and she used it to push ahead.

She raises up her gauntlet'd fist and the scared guard hands over his vial. Carrie thinks she's getting the multidimensional gateway device. She looks down at it and then back at the terrified guard. "It's too late.... you've killed us all."

The boom never happens. She realises it's not 9 years ago and the goon beneath her is scared out of his mind. She also realises that she has been whammied with Crane's toxin. The fear of that elevating again. She slips the toxin vial in to her belt and zip ties the man, then checks her security feed. Damn, they're trying to get through station two.

There is a looming figure that strikes terror in to her heart. Batman. He is there and she is not meant to be here. "Batman-" a pause as the revelation of her situation sets in. "I'm compromised by the toxin. Station two is still in danger." The fog of war is in her heart, in her brain.

Even as she says it she can feel imaginary heat from the flames coming back. She feels a shiver run down her spine as adrenaline races once more. Fear- an ever present conspirator in her crime fighting life. Her eyes widen as she battles against it.

Bruce Wayne has posed:
"I've been compromised for two weeks." As high strung as Bruce feels, Batman sounds completely in control. What he feels and what is seen are not the same... he moves deliberately, fishing something from his utility belt. A syringe gun and a small vial of amber liquid that he loads into the back with a twist. "Get to the last pump." He says to her, hand laid on her shoulder in an almost fatherly manner.

A gentle squeeze.

Reassurance.

    The grip tightens.

It's not reassurance at all, he's taking a grip. Holding her as the syringe gun comes to the side of her neck to administer the last of the toxin vaccine he'd created for himself. It no longer has any effect on him. The toxin has progressed too far for the limited effecacy. But Carrie? She's only recently been exposed. It should give her hours of control of the fear.

He releases her shoulder and tightens his jaw. Teeth grinding together. Only now, now that she too is no longer gripped by terror, that she can see the tears welling in his eyes. Not sadness, not even anger, no... control. He's fighting with every fiber of his being to keep control. "Go. Now."

Batman always has a plan.

    Even when there is no plan.

Zoe Mills has posed:
The second guard fled from Carrie's display of violence, fleeing downt he corridor blindly, his own fear kicking into overdrive and chasing him every bit as much as the former Robin. Sadly, for him, Batman steps into the corridor directly ahead of him. Shrieking in abject terror, the man collapses tot he floor, cowering and curling up into a ball, as a child might when confronted with a figure of terror. Then Carrie is there, yelling, demanding he hand 'it' over. The vial, shaking, is held up as he pleads for his life. "Please! Don't hurt me! I didn't.. I wasn't.. AHHH!"

She has it, she has the sample. They can analyze it, create an antidote, dose the whole city if they have to. But it isn't over yet. Both admit to being affected by the toxin, Batman with a more refined and potent version. Carrie with an earlier and more unstable one. Who will be able to fight off the effects long enough to reach the trio at the second access point? Will it be too late?

Batman approaches, using his last dose of the vaccine to give Carrie the help she needs to (temporarily) overcome the effects. Sacrificing his own equilibrium so that the mission can be completed, the city saved. And just in time, as both are alerted to incoming police and fire presence. They're on the clock now, and it's ticking down faster than ever. There are surely other employees that would have been caught by the fire suppression system. They'll need to be rounded up, tested. And someone needs to warn the incoming authorities of the dangerous nature of the watery foam coating the corridors of the reservoir. To say nothing of the medical attention that will be needed for the grunts left behind.

The needle pinches, stings, the vaccine cold as it enters, the shock of it hitting her system going to work, not removing the memories, but returning her control over them. She can function now, clear-headed, at least for a time. She can race down the hall, skidding in the foam on the floor. The two janitors are bloodied and beaten, attacking each other in lieu of another target. Neither able to put up much of a fight, though both with bellow and growl and swing on her regardless. For the guard.. he's turning the final crank that will open the access port and allow him to deliver the toxin into the water supply. Even if it's unmoving now, it won't remain that way for long.

Carrie Kelley has posed:
Carrie is sharing a moment with her adopted father. Her second adopted father. How he kept it from them for two weeks she does not known. May be Damian knew and didn't say. May be Batman just kept it to himself hoping he'd have the time to right this wrong. But time is up - her pupils dance as the vaccine is injected in to her system.

Its affects are instant. Clear headed. The anger she feels is for her father putting himself in this situation. He could have told them - he can rely on them. But that's what he's doing now. She cannot let him down.

Carrie's boots hit the floor and she is running. A batarang comes out of her utility belt and she tosses it ahead of her at a security panel. It embeds and fries the circuit forcing the door open just as she reaches it.

She kicks off the wall at a turn and slides past the two beating each other up. There is no time to talk this guy down, no negotiations, this is the win or lose moment and she cannot have mercy for the 'guard' who is, sort of, a victim too.

She tosses at him pellets. They are dazzlers exploding loudly with bright flashes of light. Carrie is ready for it and she crashes in to the guard to get him away from that port.

She can feel his knife stabstabstabbing at her torso armor. She growls a little and headbutts him. Her cowl is armoured - his is not. She lets his limp body drop down and she takes the toxin out of his hand. Two samples. There are more out there but now a different clock is ticking.

<< "Lucius, It's Delphi. I have the toxin. Be ready. Batman and I are both infected." >>