18514/The glowstick gang

The glowstick gang
Date of Scene:	06 July 2024
Location:	Burnley - Bleake Island
Synopsis:	Color coded for your convenience, the glowstick gang is defeated by Rebound, Robin, Kid Devil, and Talia.
Cast of Characters:	Allen-James, Damian Wayne, Talia al Ghul, Kid Devil

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Allen-James has posed:
    << Calling all units, calling all units, Disturbance at Akron and 95th, I say again, Akron and 95th. Reports of... Glowing gang members. Proceed with extreme caution. Set a permiter at 92nd and... >> The report on the police scanner is fairly vague, and seems focused on containment.

    The reality on the ground is somewhat... chaotic.

    Not far from the Paradise Club, in the heart of Burnley, there are a number of young men and women. Their clothes are tattered and torn, stretched around muscular forms. All of the members of the gang are wearing glowsticks strung through cheap looking cords, dangling like raver toys, in various bright neon colors. But their bodies glow with colors that reflect the color of their glowsticks. Their skin emits, in the dim light of the evening in Gotham, a neon sheen. Their eyes a brighter glow that seems to flash out like flashlights. They are all gathered around a pair of young men, who are laughing, and trading punches. Both young men are wearing green glowsticks, and every time they punch one another, the glow from their skin seems to flash and pulse brightly.

    Rebound looks down on the scene, dressed in his white robe and the mask that Robin gave him, his own eyes glowing orange through the lenses of the mask.

    << I don't know what we're looking at here, Robin, but that is not normal. They're not doing anything but having a fight club right now though, I can see how it got called in. They're pretty close to the club, and people are avoiding them. >> he says, tapping his mask to share his view point with Robin.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Perched on the edge of a roof, Robin looks down over the scene. His face offers no clue as to his inner thoughts. He is calm and stoic. His father's son. Behind the opaque shields of his domino mask his eyes scan back and forth taking in the details.

<< I don't know what this is but I know it's not good. Nobody goes around kicking people's asses in this town but us. >>

He looks down to an information display on his left gauntlet to see who is nearby. "Talia?" he says to himself, surprised that she would be out and about.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
She wouldn't ordinarily go on something like a patrol. She's mostly made a point of staying out of local affairs, so as to not antagonize any of the local villainous community, which she was still on speaking terms with. But her recent injuries that had healed had given her a reason to go out and push herself. She needed to evaluate how her recovery was going, and that was not something that could be done by exercise and sparring. She needed to go out and -fight-. To see how she would fare.

She's out here on her own, without her katanas - there are rules she has to follow here in the city as part of her parole. Instead she has a pair of large batons on her back made out of heavier metal than the ones used by the Bats - a sign they weren't from the armory. She wasn't on the communicaitons channels so she was not synced in with the others as they coordinated.

Instead,s he was moving up along the rooftops, trying to get herself fully overhead of the moving gang members and to a place where she could get a good ambush position.

Kid Devil has posed:
    Kid Devil comes meandering toward the scene, blipping from one rooftop to the next. He'll stop, and consult his tablet, then look around. He tilts the screen a little this way and that as if trying to orient which way is north. Or up. Or down. Finally he gesture-pinches a holo map up out of the display and taps thoughtfully on his chin while he studies it. "A-haaaa," he concludes.
    Then, resolute, he turns That Way and resumes his journey, punctuated by pops of sparks and smoke.
    Suddenly there he is, on a higher rooftop across from the others, glancing to his tablet-- the alley-- the tablet again. "What an *odd* energy signature," he mumbles to nobody particular. "The way it... spikes. Pew. Pew. Pewpew. Oh! It must be when they hit each other."
    The demon-looking teen is so wrapped up in his analysis he has not yet noticed the others. But then they're all so sneaky, and he's really not: just standing there playing on a screen while his tail twirls behind him. From his position on the roof, at least, the people down below won't spot him.

Allen-James has posed:
    The young men continue fighting, laughing and hitting each other harder and harder, until one ducks a blow, and the swing goes right into the wall of the building they were near. There's a loud cracking noise, as his hand goes deep into the brick facade of the building, shattering it as he yanks his arm back out. A HUGE uppercut throws him off his feet, and sends him sprawling.
    His opponent roars his victory, to the laughing and cheers and jeers of the crowd, and girl with a blue glowstick steps up, as the downed guy gets dragged out of the ring. Someone claps their hands, and then they're all doing it, causing rhythmic flashes of light, and suddenly, they all.. stop, and the fight begins.
    While the green guys seem to have some sort of super strength, though, not on the high end of anyone's scale, the girl with the blue stick is... fast. Not Flash fast or anything, but faster than most humans. She darts forward, shifting and turning this way and that, slipping by every punch of the big green guy, tagging him with sharp jabs that flash bright blue and green with each impact. It doesn't seem to slow down the guy though, he just yells in frustration, and keeps swinging at her.

    << I mean... Pretty sure I don't want punched with any of that. I don't suppose you packed like, knockout gas or something? >> Rebound asks softly, looking over across the street at Robin. He notices Kid Devil, hand straying to his side which the demonic looking tech savant helped patch up the day before, and grunted. He tapped a message on his phone, and kicked it over to the young hero's cell, waving as the text reads 'Look Up'.

    As yet, he has not noticed Talia at all.

Damian Wayne has posed:
<< If you don't want to get hit then just don't get hit. >>

He drops down from the roof, activating an electrical charge in his cape as he falls, turning it into a sort of makeshift parachute. He lands just outside of this fight circle. and crosses his arms over his chest. He stands there for a moment or two observing before piping in with, "Excuse me. Uh, this never ends up working for me, but the Batman always insists I try words first. Then I get to do things /my/ way. So: please disperse and return to your homes. I am declaring this an unlawful disturbance of the peace."

Then he pulls out a baton from behind his utility belt and snaps it once. It extends out into a staff. One corner of his mouth quirks up into a slight smirk.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
And as the group is hit from the front, Talia can only make out those coming to respond first to the gangers when they drop down to announce themselves in a way almost to taunt. If Damian is paying attention to her posture there's the lightest indication of a smile from her. That only perhaps he and his father could read from her if they were to directly observe her. Or Cassandra Cain could pick up. But with that done Talia Al Ghul goes to take the moment while the gangs are all focused on the immediate threats from ahead, from the demon looking teen..

To drop herself as quietly to the ground as she could, using a hand along the edge of the rooftop to slow her descent without a grapple..

To then hit them from behind, the heavy metal batons she was wielding moving rapidly. Her strikes that to strong humans that would break bones if they hit cleanly. She's not hitting to cripple - but hopefully breaking limbs is enough to take anyone she hits out of the fight.

Of course, her strikes won't do more than phase someone in armor or with enhanced strength, and there's still the slightest bit of noise from her having to keep her hand on the wall on her way down, so she's not guaranteed to get a clean ambush if even that.

Kid Devil has posed:
    Kid Devil glances at a notification blooping onto his screen from Rebound's message. He frowns, perplexed, and of course looks straight up into the sky. Nothing noteworthy there. Then he lowers his gaze, the luminous yellow eyes sweeping rapidly over the adjacent roofs until he spots Rebound and Damian. With a grin and a cheerful wave, he then teleports to the other roof, causing a muffled snap of the air. "Hi!" he whispers. "You feeling alright?" He nods toward Rebound's side.
    As the happenings down below continue, the tablet in his hand emits a series of chimes. The devil teen continues to speak quietly while he shares his assessments. "Oh, hey, this one's different. I think the sticks are emitting some sort of field, and it's... maybe... reacting with a substance they have in their bodies? That part's a little more of a biology problem, but there's definitely hey where's he going--"
    Kid Devil's words ramble together as he watches Damian impulsively fling himself into ambiguous peril.
    "He do that a lot?" he asks Rebound. "Could you suggest to him *not* to smash the glowthings yet? Without knowing more about them, there could be a containment breach, or an overload."
    That's about when he spots Talia, dutifully amplifying the chaos on the scene. "Who's *that*?"

Allen-James has posed:
    The gang members don't look up until Robin actually speaks, too focused on the fight to notice him dropping down beside them. Their situational awareness is total shit. When he speaks, it distracts Big Green in the middle of the circle, and he turns his attention outward. The blue glow stick girl turns a duck into a roundhouse kick that knocks the big green guy out cold, and laughs a wicked laugh. She does a backspring away from him.

    As the crowd is distracted with Robin's approach, Talia lands and starts going to town, and the world will never know whether they would have surrendered or not. Someone with a blue glow stick goes down as she breaks their arm, but her next hit is to a guy with a red glowstick. The hit probably broke his arm, but it ALSO releases an explosion of fiery red energy that flings several of the gang members around her away, and possibly her as well if she's not expecting explosions to come from hitting one. A big green bruiser steps forward, flinging himself at Robin with more speed than many might expect, always thinking that 'Big' and 'Strong' means 'Slow', when in fact, that isn't always true.

    Rebound sighs, and gives a shrug to Kid Devil. "Well enough. Pardon me. I have to go help my partner in chaos." He says, and leaps over the edge of the building. He kicks the air, launching himself downward faster and then, right before landing, twists and flips and surrounds his foot in glowing orange. He lands on someone with a yellow glowstick, and bounces off without any real evidence that the poor guy just ate double the kinetic impact of a roof top drop. << Uh.. I think Yellow means armor or something >> he says, as he is launched back into the air, and kicks out to spin off some of his energy, drawing a baton himself. << Green is for super strength, maybe? Blue's for speed. Red seems to be fire? >> he muses onto the coms as he slaps the air and gets out of the way of a green guy who shoots up from the ground in a leap, nearly catching him with a leaping uppercut that would make Ryu proud.

    One of the red guys starts throwing energy balls indiscriminately, and the heat of it sends several of the other gang members scrambling away, some of them turning to run, still laughing and whooping as if this is grand fun. In fact, all of them seem to be laughing, still. Even the guy whose leg got broken.

Damian Wayne has posed:
This is complicated all of a sudden. Robin's boyfriend is here. His mother is here. (He hasn't noticed yet that Kid Devil has arrived.) When the green fellah launches himself at the boy wonder with surprising alacrity, Robin barely leaps obliquely out of the way.

"I should have been a plumber," he quips half to himself. "I wonder if that adult education plumbing apprenticeship I saw online the other day is still taking students." All of this is said as Robin is twirling in a circle as a green freight train is steaming past within inches of his. He completes the circle and slams his staff behind the man's knees to send him to the ground.

Robin glances up as Rebound makes an appearance. He fires a grappling line up to one of Rebounds platforms, which sends the grappling line bounding up high and fast...taking Robin with it. He shoots up into the air and does an acrobat flips. As he comes back down he once again activates the electrical charge in his cape so he come to a (relatively) easy landing right behind Speed Girl. "Talia, incoming!" he announces as he sidekicks the girl directly towards his mother.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
How lovely that the group has color coordinated themselves. Up against meta-beings, knowing what exactly they can throw at you makes things simpler. When facing groups of them identifying their capabilities is a godsend for holding your own. Even someone skilled will hvae problems fighting those that physically outclass them. And while Talia has a significant skill edge and most of these thugs might just be brawlers.. It gives her that edge when facing someone that could take a chunk out of a wall with a punch, that could run faster than a Formula One racer, that could shrug off a racing car smashing into their chest on the highway.

This gives her an edge in a fight where she would have a much harder time if they weren't color coordinated. Talia spirals - very literally.

She spins, she jumps, she leaps. She has to make sure she has maneuvering room in a fight where she doesn't have gadgets. No poison, no tricks, no traps. She can't let herself get pinned or run out of room to maneuver. She has to hit hard and hit fast. She goes for vulnerable points holding back just enough to avoid crippling.

Joints, kneecaps, shoulders. She doesn't go for headstrikes or neck strikes. That would risk crippling or killing her targets. She tries her best to be a whirlwind of chaos, moving in and out of the gangs.

Kid Devil has posed:
    "'Go track down this anomaly,' they said," Kid Devil mutters to himself. "'Unusual energy readings in Gotham!' they said." He sighs and folds up his tablet to pocket it, as he continues observing the commotion below. At first he seemed content to watch, leaned over the edge of the roof and resting his chin on his hand. It's actually a lot of fun to watch a coordinated team working a large crowd like this. Tactically fascinating!
    But then he spots someone tossing fireballs and perks right up. That looks a lot more dangerous than an alley brawl. Kid Devil goes diving over the side of the roof just like the others.
    A portal rips open beneath him; another one right next to the guy with the red glowstick. As the devil teen plunges into the fiery ring up above he flies out sideways down on the street, applying all that gravitational force to tackle the flame-tossing jerk.
    He snarls, flashing a view of the little fangs. They're probably more adorable than menacing, but he tries.

Allen-James has posed:
    The gang members are Not Prepared. But then, when are they ever. You'd think that, living in Gotham, they'd know that if you do weird things, the Bats show up. Instead, they're always surprised. The green guys are tough, but not so much more than a human that they can avoid face planting when their legs are swept. The blue sticks are harder, not so much because they're tougher, but because they've got some level of reaction speed that lets them slip and duck away from most strikes that they see coming. But, none of them are particularly skilled, and a few feints or unexpected angles are enough to take them out easily.
    The problem children are Reds, who seem to explode with fiery energy when they're struck, and yellows, who shrug off most strikes as if they were made of rock. Still, ranged attacks can deal with the red sticks, and there are even ways to deal with the yellows, if joint locks and other such manipulations are used on them. For fighters on Damian's and Talia's level, these poor chumps are a proverbial fish barrel to shoot into.

    Damian's kick launches the blue glowing girl across the way, where she is dealt with in midair while she can't dodge by a swing of Talia's sticks. A yellow glowing girl dashes at Damian, less fast than the green or blue guys, but with the sureness that he can't hurt her.

    Kid Devil tackles a red stick, and while there's a burst of flames around the two of them, it's not even a tickle of the heat that the Demonic teen has on hand, no where near a real fire manipulator.

    Rebound flips off a couple platforms, bouncing upside down over the heads of some gangers, swinging his baton skillfully at a green glowing teenager, with enough force to send his arm limp to his side with a bellow of pain. Rebound's arc flips him upright, and he lands on a blue guy's shoulder with an orange foot, shooting himself upward, and the guy down in a heap.

    Several of the Yellows are running, as are most of the remaining blues. The Greens and Reds seem content to try to duke it out with the Bats and the others who have shown up to help.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Robin upnods in Kid Devil's direction. "Kid Devil, didn't know you were in Gotham. Better hide before Batman sees you. He'll kick your ass." He's probably just joking right? I mean, right? Just...just his way of goofing off mid-fight.

Right?

That's about the time that one of the reds whips a fireball at Damian. He manages to turn his back to it where his flame-retardant cape diffuses the shot. He starts to run and the red lobs fireball after fireball at him. Damian is...my dude, he is fucking /fast/, and the red is having a difficult time getting a bead on him with the flaming attacks.

"Rebound!" he calls as he running at top speed to avoid the flaming spheres, which are getting closer and closer to him with each throw. "A lil help?"

Is that...a smile on Robin's face? Is he actually /enjoying/ this? The caped rapscallion is actually having a good time right now!

Talia al Ghul has posed:
The fireballs are new. But fortunately telegraphed enough that Talia can keep herself out of the arc and immediate line of sight. The rest of the gang members are in the way and Talia can bckpedal enough in the melee to get more room to maneuver. This gives her a partial moment to disengage over from the fight to try and get a better idea as to how to reevaluate the abilitie so fher enemies as Rebound goes to start jumping along like he's in a video game platformer. That.. Actually makes quite a bit of sense given his name.

The reds are the more dangerous ones, but Talia's not eqiupped to deal with fire throwers at close range. She doesn't bother to pursue those fleeing.. Ther eare still pelnty of hostiles on the battlefield. That leaves the greens.

And Talia goes to start looking for things to pelt them with. She doesn't have specific thing sto throw.. But carefully thrown debris, metal, and rocks aimed at heads hopefully is reasonably effective.

Kid Devil has posed:
    Kid Devil keeps his body heat restrained, for now, not intending to cause any serious harm to these street goons. Even with the flames erupting around him he's still playing nice. He's just a nice person like that.
    The devil boy looks up from where he's pounced the goon to give Robin a quizzical look. "He would? But why? I'm just trying to help-- on your left! Everyone says he's *kind of* a jerk, you know."
    He grabs at Red's glowstick and yanks to snap it away, claiming the prize for himself. "Try to get the sticks away from them!" he suggests to the others. "If I'm right that should shut down their powers. I'll try to handle some of the red ones. I mean, the other red ones. Not me. You know what I mean!"
    He kicks his way off of his first target, sending the mook reeling in Damian's direction, and dashes toward the next of the amateur fire-flingers. Along the way he lets out a roar he clearly means to be frightening. And, hey, being charged by a demonic teenager, even in Gotham, must count for something.

Allen-James has posed:
    "What happened to if you don't want hit, just don't get hit?" Rebound jokes, before he lands on the red's shoulders, glowing energy covering his legs from his feet to his hips, far more than he usually uses, but it protects him from the blast of heat that surges out as he knocks the red that was throwing fireballs at Damian down. He leaps back into the air, bouncing away from the guy he just crushed like a goomba.

    A green yells out and laughs in that manic energy, clearly having just as much fun as Robin, at least until a rock from Talia hits him in the head, and sends him sprawling.

    Several of the reds try to throw their energy at Talia, trying to shut down her own throwing spree.

    One of the Yellows charges Robin, though, compared to the greens and blues, they're pretty slow.

    Taking the glowstick away sends a surge of strange energy into Kid Devil, and the glow does start to slowly fade from the guy's eyes and body.

Damian Wayne has posed:
"I guess I like the pain," Robin quips back to Rebound. The two seems to have a flow and chemistry to them.

"Robin to Batman," Damian says into his gauntlet...which, by the way, doesn't even have a comm system in it, "Kid Devil just called you...WHOAH..." He dodges the Yellow's charge. "...called you a jerk!"

As the Yellow comes around for another charge, Robin tugs a grenade from his utility belt. He clicks a slider on it and rolls it toward the charging attacker. It FOOMFS to life, spreading thick, heavy, industrial glue all over the ground, catching the Yellow like an insect in fly paper. The Yellow starts growling and swinging wildly at Damian, who turns his back on the man to survey the scene. He can /aaaaaaalmost/ reach Robin but not quite.

"Well damn, I was hoping this was going to be harder."

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia's outfit isn't insulated well against flame, and the arcs of the fire are wide enough she doesn't want to be at risk of them. So this has her diving to the side to avoid them. The throws are sloppy and wild, so she can evade them rather deftly. An dhopefully them focusing over on her leaves the Reds vulnerable to the others to try and get in closer range at them. So what exactly has lead to this color coordinated gang feud? That's something to be followed up on and investigated later after the beatings have been given.

Kid Devil has posed:
    Kid Devil steals another stick from one of the fire-throwers and gives him a super-strength spin-kick. But calibrated enough to bounce him into a nearby fence, not to kill him. The devil teen has to pause then, looking down at the unexpected effects coursing into him. "Oh, it tickles! What is that..." He burps, blasting out a gout of flame. "Ah! Sorry! Excuse me. That was--"
    His eyes flare brighter.
    Upon hearing Damian's joking, Kid Devil's cheeks glow with a yellow flare. "Robin! You can't tell him that! I was just quoting *other people*, it's not the same!"
    The pilfered red sticks still in his grasp seep more Weird Energies and Kid Devil wobbles unsteadily on his feet. "What is... don't feel so... hot."
    He collapses onto a pile of trash. Without his conscious effort to restrain it, his body temperature soars back up to its unmanaged levels, causing the garbage to suddenly ignite. At least now the red glowsticks tumble loose from his grasp, and several moments later Kid Devil starts to rouse from the fainting spell and bring his thermals back down to somewhat safer levels. But there's still a trash conflagration around him, which prompts him to helplessly mutter, "Oh."

Allen-James has posed:
    The last of the Reds goes down to Kid Devil, but the sticks seem to have a rather... intense effect on him. The trash burns merrily as he recovers, popping and crackling as he gets to figure out what to do with all that new, fresh fire that he started.

    "Get.. back.. here.." The yellow huffs angrily at Robin, swinging and grasping at him, but unable to break free, given his lack of any other super power, besides being super tough.

    The last of the greens goes down to Talia tossing metal can at him. There are maybe half a dozen groaning, knocked out, or broken limbed gang members scattered around, and Rebound drops to the ground beside Damian, looking over the scene as well. "OK, new rule, no body picks up the glow sticks of doom." He says, eyeing the trash fire with the demon at the center, moving around and carefully pulling the glow sticks off by their cheap plastic strings, rather than touching the glow sticks themselves.

    "You guys ever seen anything like this?" he asks Damian and Talia.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Robin momentarily switches his ear comm to the GCPD frequency. << Robin to GCPD, the scene is secure. >>

He casually strides over to stand closer to Talia, Rebound, and Kid Devil. "Not me. This is a first as far as I know. I'm going to get some blood samples and analyze them in the Bat cave. Batman is going to want to hear about this too." At the mention of Batman, Robin shifts his gaze to Kid Devil. There is a hint of a smirk on his lips.

"Everyone okay? Did anyone get injured?" Robin asks the team.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia al Ghul would take a moment and consider, "Of these sorts of enhanced beings fighting?" A few times. "Color coordinated in such a manner? This seems more of a.. Local tradition." By which she means only something that could happen in a place as crazy as Gotham could have.

"Perhaps there was some sort of external influence setting them at one another or origin?" Presumptions for later. This fight has given Talia an idea of how her healing is going and how far she can push herself. Which is why she came to fight.

Kid Devil has posed:
    Kid Devil reaches behind him for... the backpack he forgot to bring. He groans and rolls his eyes, then looks around urgently for something to douse the fire. "...should know better than to get into fights like that," he scolds himself. When he spots the active club nearby he blinks inside there-- causing a few startled screams-- to retrieve a fire extinguisher so he can put out the burning garbage.
    Fwooooosssssshhhh.
    Somewhat glumly Kid Devil% stands there with the extinguisher in hand while he ponders the scenario. "No, no, it's all very weird. I should take some samples back to the lab."
    He eyes the red glowsticks sitting nearby, but doesn't move to pick them up yet. When he spots a stubborn flicker in the trash pile he unloads the rest of the extinguisher on it.
    Soon the whole corner of the alley is flooded with the cloud and dust and ashes.

Allen-James has posed:
    "I think they were fighting just to have fun with having super powers." Rebound opines, frowning and looking down at the gang members who are glowing less and.. shrinking a little? Where before, they all looked like ripped body builders of one sort or another, their muscular forms are retreating back to mere mortal proportions. The greens and blues on the grounds lose the most, but the yellows and reds shrink some too.

    The glow sticks are already starting to run out of glow, fading as they hang from Rebound's hand, and he frowns down at them. "Do you suppose they're dying because we took them off them, or they just ran out of juice normally?" he muses, unsure of the answer himself.

    The police sirens start to close in, now that Robin has called the all clear, and Rebound nods, "Well.. I guess we should.. stick around and give a report?" he asks, seeming unused to the way that the Bats and Enforcement work together here in Gotham.

    Soon, the gang members are all packed up, and a few of the glow sticks have been snuck away for testing, but the vast majority are 'evidence' in the GCPD lockup.