5474/How To Save A Life

How To Save A Life
Date of Scene:	07 March 2021
Location:	An Abandoned Warehouse that sits below one of the Hyperloop stations between Gotham City and New York City.
Synopsis:	An informant with information about the Kandarian Dagger is murdered before he reveals his information. Mercenaries show up to silence Oletha. Ash is looking for information about how to use the knife and crashes the meeting. Batwoman tracks the mecenaries from Gothham. At the abandoned warehouse in the suburbs of Gotham and New York, a battle between all of these forces happen. A deadlite appears but is quickly dispatched. Batwoman and Oletha defeat the other mercenaries. Batwoman leaves a warning for them to stay out of Gotham.
Cast of Characters:	Cinque Evers, Ash Williams, Kate Kane

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Cinque Evers has posed:
Since beginning this dark vigilante path, Oletha has had more than his share of clandestine meetings with informants like the one he is intending tonight. There are just still too many gaps in his information network, so Oletha needs people like Booker "Scooby" Williams to enlighten him on current criminal activities.

Waiting in the shadows of an abandoned warehouse, Oletha secretly ponders how much he has grown fond of these little meetings with "Scooby" that he is going to actually miss him. Last time they met, "Scooby", he told him that he actually saved enough money to get out of the game, and was planning on buying a truck stop in Georgia. As Oletha laughs at the thought of a Scooby's Truck and Snack Shop, he realizes he should have seen the lights of Scooby's Porsche.

When the agreed upon time has passed, Oletha begins to get worried. Booker sounded a bit scared on the phone. So overcome with fear that Booker wanted to meet away from the city. He had heard rumors about some strange artifact that was being smuggled in, and had a bunch of weird deaths tied to it.

Unknown to Oletha is that there are rumors coming from Gotham's underworld that a specialized group of mercenries have been hired by a fixer there to silence a problem for one of their clients.

Ash Williams has posed:
The radio is cranked as the beaten Oldsmobile cruises through the night, a pile of empty beer cans scattered on its backseat. Ash crushes another one in his mechanical hand and tosses it over his shoulder with a clatter before reaching for another in the dwindling cooler on the passenger seat. With a crack and hiss of the can, the middle-aged man belts out a few salacious lyrics, starting to weave into oncoming traffic before he swerves back over with a blare of horns.

"Asshole! Learn to drive!" the only slightly inebriated Ash hollers before he downs a swig, can kept in hand while the other remains on the wheel, bobbing his head along as he looks for the turnoff.

"C'mon baby, where you at? Where's my lucky lil warehouse...helloooooo," Ash spying the marked address as he turns down the entrance. Stealth? None. Ash pulls up to the building and parks under a light before he gets out, hesitating a moment before he leaves the chainsaw behind, but holsters his shotgun on his back and revolver on his hip. Cinching his belt a notch tighter to really toughen up his image, he downs the last of the beer and lets it drop on the pavement of the parking lot before approaching the warehouse and applies his usual level of diplomatic charm. He slams his metal hand on the door and starts hollering, "HEY! Anyone home? Specifically anyone home who knows about Kandaria? A sleazy little weasel named Marco told me ya might. I know you're in there, I see a light on!"

Kate Kane has posed:
    The Bats keep solid tabs on anyone coming or going that happen to have... We'll call it /contacts./ Anyone who has, shall we say, a /history/ has some level of surveillance run on them. It's impossible to move in Gotham, or on its borders, without some psycho in a batsuit raining on your parade. It's so easy for these people to slip up and slide back into old ways that even informants like 'Scooby' get watched.

    Such is why from a nearby rooftop, a gargoyle nigh impossible to see by human means stalks its edge. In her hand is a high tech pair of binoculars, zoomed straight in on where the informant was supposed to meet some unknown contact. On her chest, a crimson bat. Already, she doesn't like the way the night is turning out.

    If things were going to go smoothly, Booker would already have been here.

    Even in the outskirts of this city, nothing goes the way it ought to. Folding the binoculars to the point that they fit in her belt, Batwoman plucks up another gadget, firing off a grapnel to get herself onto the roof of the warehouse. By then, Ash's truck is already pulling up. Her frown deepens. This is already so very wrong.

    Slipping down into the rafters of the building, she perches- and waits- for whatever this /new/ meeting is going to cause.

Cinque Evers has posed:
Unable to recognize Ash's truck?s headlights, and further being surprised by the knocking that followed, Oletha reluctantly decides to maneuver to a better location to get a better view of this unexpected guess to the party.

The moment that Oletha steps out of his hiding spot, a crackle of energy is heard and a flash of blue light is seen as Booker "Scooby" Williams' dead body is teleported in and begins to fall from the ceiling above Oletha. When "Scooby" William's carcass hits the ground, several more crackle of energies begin to reverberate in the warehouse as mercenaries begin to teleport into the warehouse. One of the mercenaries, "Five Minutes to we jump out, Mark and K... The mercenary pauses in mid speech and sniffs the air, "Why are you here! We were not told you would be here!" The mercenary points to the front door imploding them open to reveal Ash's location, We came to silence, but we caught a bigger prize."

The rest of the mercenaries are caught off guard by their comrades declaration to cause a pause in them forming their task, until another another member assumes command. "Five minutes to jump. Mark and Kill. This meeting is too close to Gotham for our client's liking."

Ash Williams has posed:
     "Alright well they're not opening the door so, I could sneak around and find another way in, pick the lock, or..." The shotgun roars as both barrels fire and the knob along with most of what's around it vanishes and the door flies open. Ash steps in, reloading with a 'ka-chunk' of both barrels before he snaps it back into loaded position for proper dramatic effect and takes a quick and strategic assessment of his surroundings, having missed the initial teleportation His assessment?

"Oh hey fellas, was looking for the local NRA chapter, looks like I found it huh?" Not surprisingly several guns are immediately pointed his way and Ash cocks his head. "Man I was joking but maybe this really is an NRA meeting. Look I'm just here to find out about a little knife I've got, if we could all just calm down," he deadpans.

As he speaks the click of a couple safeties coming off can be heard and Ash purses his lips. "I've got beer in the Delta. Anyone? Brewski?" he tries with a nervous smile, his metal hand raised in seeming surrender but the shotgun still gripped in his other.

Kate Kane has posed:
    The lack of surprise from Batwoman is unseen by the others, but the truth of it is- this is just how things go. Of course the informant's corpse falls from a portal in the ceiling. The typical scowl of the batfolk deepens heavily, and she starts stalking along the rafters.

    More noise of teleportation occurs, and Kate locks her eyes on the mercenaries that arrive. That tech is far too high for Gotham. Magic may be involved. Metropolis? Questions. Sadly, she doesn't know the answers. Sadly for the mercenaries, they do.

    With silent steps, Batwoman arrives above the invading mercenaries, and prepares a few surprises. From her belt, she slips a small handful of metallic beads, and holds them out above the mercs, just as Ash blows open the door. Her eyes flit to him, an unknown quantity- some idiot with a gun. The chaos, however, could be useful.

    Her fist keeps closed around the smoke bombs. Now may not be the time to drop them- but as soon as either side opens fire? That'll be just the right opportunity to drop in and start taking them down. She just has to wait.

Cinque Evers has posed:
One of Oletha's gifts is being able to multitask, even when one part is his multitasking is grieving over his informant. Oletha checks Scooby's pulse in a futile effort to see if he is truly dead. Oletha quickly analyzes that even with the damage sustained in the impact of hitting the ground that he has been dead for a few hours. At the same time he is checking on Booker, his gaze perceives the red lasers from the rifles that are being trained on him by some of the mercenaries.

The other mercenaries keep their rifles pointed on Ash as they wait for their boss to start marking sense of this guy offering them beer in the middle of a hit. The mercenary leans over to their leader, "The fixer wanted the civilian count to be at a minimum. We can switch to non-lea....<Blood-Curling Scream>

The mercenary profession is not one of those careers where group-think is rewarded, especially when the mercenary?s boss reveals himself as deadlite. The deadlite rips the head off of the mercenary offering the suggestion, "No, We want the Kandarian Dagger!" The head gets tossed in the air towards Ash. Obviously, this is when everyone starts to pull the trigger as they aim for Ash, Oletha, and the new threat of the deadlite.

Oletha is crime fighting on a strict budget, so he can only afford to drop his single smoke bomb to give him time to drag Scooby?s body and him towards cover, "I am not going to leave you here, and you are not going to be the only one that is going to die tonight." It is only enough smoke to give him a few moments to drag the body, and the smoke covers a small area.

Ash Williams has posed:
"AGAIN?! Don't you white-eyed freaks have anyone else to both-WOAH!" Ash's quip cut short, the sight of a head being torn off with bare hands not even drawing a bit of surprise from him. He'd seen WAY too much of stuff like this. Bullets though, well he was in less shootouts when it came to the demonic and quickly dives his way behind the nearest crate of goods in the warehouse, the distraction of smokebomb and seeing one of their own murdered not having done the merc's aim any good.

"Why are any of you assholes still shooting at me?! Literal demon guys! Focus!" Ash reprimands from behind the crate as at least two of the assault rifle wielding soldiers of fortune keep their sights on him, bullets thunking into the wood...and then drawing a strange strangled cry that has Ash furrowing his brow in confusion. He turns and Ash slams his metal hand through and inside the crate, hoping to figure out the noise and find out what is blocking the gunfire for now...and pulls out a rubber chicken by its neck. He stares long and hard at the fowl and then with a shrug tosses it up in the air. Reflexively both mercs track the new bright yellow target, while Ash stands up and pivots, shotgun in one hand and revolver in the other. BLAM goes the heavy shotgun while the revolver lets off three rapid BANGS of its own and each merc drops to the floor. The rubber chicken lands with a splat soon after and a final dejected sigh of its air bladder. Ash spins the shotgun with a practiced twirl and grunts, "That's right boys. Poultry in motion."

Kate Kane has posed:
    There's a lot about this Kate doesn't like. A man's head gets torn off. Some guy is now a 'deadite', a term Kate is likely to learn soon, and when she does, she's going to hate that. Someone weaponizes a rubber chicken, and in Gotham, that's a capital offense.

    The deadite mentions a Kandarian Dagger though, so that's an important piece of information.

    You don't run around doing this job for long without meeting some people that help you understand quite fully that magic is indeed real. Kate's personal priority there is that it is perfectly allowed to be real as long as it isn't in Gotham.

    As soon as one man bites the dust, her hand opens up, and amongst the screaming and beginnings of combat it'd be nigh impossible to notice them drop to the ground and then begin to emit highly pressurized smoke, each one containing enough thick smog to make firearms all but useless with the lack of line of sight.

    Then, she descends. Her boots are the first to land, and they're aimed squarely at the mercenary directly under her, who she intends to serve as an unwilling platform upon which to land- and it won't at all feel particularly pleasant.

    The smoke is her friend, and instead of serving as a cover for escape, the filters in her mask allow her some almost-normal sight through the fog in order for her to start executing takedowns on the mercenaries. She has help- Ash's marksmanship inversely proportional to his own intoxication.

    By now, though, it's quite clear that there's a bat on the loose in the warehouse, which might even put a modicum of fear in the dead.

Cinque Evers has posed:
Oletha rests Booker?s against a crate where he can easily be seen once this is all over with. Oletha loads his Navy colt pistols with armor piercing rounds, "Time to work!"he additional smoke bombs alerts that there is another person invited to the party, and Oletha realizes that he is too close to Gotham to start blasting people with lethal force, "Feckin Gotham!" Oletha holsters his pistols as his frustrations and rage rise enough that the first mercenaries he encounters will need several surgeries to be able to feed or walk again due to their broken limbs, and to be able to father children to the attacks to their groin.

Ash's comments about the mercenaries should focus their attention on the demon does cause some to take heed, but they kill some of their teammates so they are still fighting a fight on two fronts. The deadlite is carving a path to Ash as they pop the head off another mercenary and toss it again at Ash while mocking, "We want the dagger! You only bring death to those who cross your path!

The moment that the mercenaries did not happen when one of their members went down by Batwoman. There was a level of fear already due to the presence of the deadlite which to the mercenaries thinking this could still be caused by one of those weird mutants,, but now it is mixed with outright panic. "We lost track of the target, and our leader is popping heads off people like a feckin Pez dispenser. Now, I think we got one of those heroes from Gotham. Gun and Run until our teleporters are charged up again.?

Ash Williams has posed:
"Keep talking ugly, it'll make you easier to find in this smoke. And unless you forgot I bring death to a lot of you jackasses too. I'm still batting a thousand against you ugly sons of bitches," Ash mocks back as he reloads and he isn't bothering with anything like nonlethal. If he hadn't left it in his car he'd probably be trying to drive a chainsaw through a man's chest by now. His gun snaps closed and he lets out a cough as the thick smoke continues to pour in around him and fills the room. Not good, despite his confident words he knew the undead demons had a way better advantage when it came to seeing through stuff like this. He needed an alert, he needed...his eyes light up and he tears into the crate of rubber chickens, tossing them haphazardly every which way around himself as they splat on the floor a good dozen feet or so in every direction.

His loud mouth is silenced then, his eyes jerkily scanning back and forth. Did he see a shadow there? A sinister laugh sounds through the smoke. "We have you now Ash, we're bringing you straight to...HOOOOOOOOONK" goes the rubber chicken as the undead demonic entity steps on it and looks down in surprise. The six shots of the revolver that follow don't kill it, they only stun the monster further as Ash unloads the pistol into it while stepping forward, more chickens letting loose their displeased wails under his boots.

Up close to the bleeding demon, Ash shoves his shotgun under its chin as it gurgles trying to heal, its demonic strength momentarily sapped by the silver tipped bullets. "Don't," it pleads. It knows what's coming. It's not the gun it's afraid of.

"Cluck off and die," Ash's gravely voice lets out before he pulls the trigger, the deadite's head practically vaporizing in a cloud of gore that spatters over Ash, cockily reloading the gun with another twirl and looking around the smoky interior. There by the door he came in, it was clearer, the open door letting the smoke out and revealing the exit. "Time to boogie," he bravely notes, rushing back outside to his car, more rubber chickens bellowing under his steps.

Kate Kane has posed:
    The noise from the smoke is a combination of things- thuds and slams, the sounds of men screaming and panicking, firing at whatever they can. Planning for when they can escape. The deadite roams, but it's not interested in her, nor is she going to take it on- the last thing she needs is to get into a scrap with a metahuman- or whatever it is- and get shot in the back by one of the luckier mercs.

    Besides, the gun-toting rando can handle himself, she guesses. Maybe he's lying or just crazy, regarding his boasts- but to her it doesn't necessarily matter.

    Idly, between one short melee with a mercenary and another, Kate places a call.

    It's over before it's really begun- when you come to Gotham, you need to be prepared for certain things. Many of these mercs weren't. Whether they're dead, or incapacitated- or deadite and then double-dead, one has to wager what the proper term is- the mercs are down. Some may even have been able to 'port out, but that all depends on their tech.

    When all is said and done, the smoke has yet to fade.

    From within it, comes a voice.

    "Get out of Gotham. Stay out. Your only warning."

    She doesn't have a whole lot to go on, but maybe once she can actually get a hold of Zatanna the sorceress will be able to tell her about the dagger. She'll get Babs on it, too- see what a really nosy sort of google search turns up.

    For now, though, the authorities are on the way, and she's not going to stick around. A lot of leads, not enough time.

    Long before the smoke clears, and by the time anyone does anything to check within it, Batwoman is already long gone. When and how she vanished from the fog is a mystery- and may just be a tiny bit unsettling.