6279/Owl bait

Owl bait
Date of Scene:	19 May 2021
Location:	Dixon Docks - Chinatown
Synopsis:	Owlnapped
Cast of Characters:	Strix, Irina-As17

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Strix has posed:
Now that Strix is free from the clutches of the Court of Owls, she's been free to venture out on her own. Dick had informed her that it's still dangerous to go out there fully decked out in her Talon attire because of the kidnappings, and had convinced her to wear a tracking device should that ever happen. So when she ventured out this night, she made sure to have that tucked into her costume as she left.

She's not exactly sure /what/ she's going to do now that she's out. Now that she doesn't have a shadowy organization telling her what to do with every waking moment of her life, she's kind of at a loss as to what to do with herself now. So she's decided to try this vigilante thing a go, and headed out to someplace where she could expect to find trouble, and headed out to the docks.

Right now, she's sitting on her heels on top of one of the many warehouses that line the edge of the docks, watching a crew unload cargo from a nondescript ship. There's a few armed guards keeping an eye out as the dock workers do their job, and she wonders if that means that they're smuggling something into the city. How can she tell? She'll have to ask Dick about this later.

Irina-As17 has posed:
The trio are mostly annoyed at her choice of location, as generally the docks involved lots of people with automatic weapons and other sorts of trouble, but they didn't think it would be enough to compromise the mission, therefore they continued. The first of them takes position on a building far away, his hawk-like eyes narrow upon Strix in the distance, and then he shoots off.

Immensely powerful back muscles send it rocketing towards her at enormous speeds, they had been told she could heal in seconds from wounds, so they weren't pulling any punches. It was like a biological missile coming at her, a mixture of scales and feathers lining his body under the typical black kevlar armor, the same Irina used.

Strix has posed:
Something's up. Strix can feel it and it has nothing to do with the armed guards down below. Well honed instincts alert her right as this hybrid man thing launches himself at her, and she barely manages to twist away from being knocked down.

She lands in a three point stance, and then immediately does a backflip to get some distance between the two of them, unsheathing her swords. More instincts kick in and she leaps at her attacker, swords first.

Irina-As17 has posed:
A crater is left behind where the man lands, on his fours with his legs tensed. His yellow eyes focus on her as she comes in and he raises an arm high, muscles making the black armor creak as they tense. Rather than actual wings, he has them lined along the underside of his arm, and with a powerful swing, he creates a huge gust of wind in an attempt to launch Strix into a nearby warehouse gate, taking advantage of the fact she was airborne. He creates enough wind pressure with the swing of his arm to send several crates and barrels nearby flying.

Strix has posed:
Strix can't do much about the gust of air while she's in midair. She's sent tumbling towards the wall of a warehouse, and just barely manages to get her feet under her to soften the impact, before landing on the ground. She shakes her head to clear away the dazed, and rushes towards the hybrid, low to the ground this time to help against another blast of wind.

When she attacks, she doesn't attack for a vital organ or anything like that. She slices the patagium to neutralize his wind attack, hoping to shred it so it'd be one less thing she'd have to deal with.

Irina-As17 has posed:
There's a powerful gust of wind as the man launches himself upwards, blasting his wings at the ground to shoot quite high into the air. It lifts up some dust and knocks a few more crates over. Strix can hear a srrchhchh sound, as if someone was twisting rope, coming from right in front of her. The second member had gotten enough time to come in, and was completely camouflaged within melee range.

She punches forwards with agility that far exceeds what Irina used to have. When she does so her arm becomes visible, going multi-colored and letting the owl see that it was twisted like a screw. It was headed straight for her chest, and would untwist explosively on impact, causing a drastically more powerful impact. Meanwhile, the man above withdraws something from his belt and loads it up.

Strix has posed:
Strix wasn't expecting a second combatant, so the punch takes her entirely by surprise. The fist impacts her chest, causing her to lose her breath as bones crack underneath the great impact. She gasps for breath even as the bones start to mend themselves, and quickly gets back on her feet.

She crouches low, swords held defensively as she searches for this new player, while still keeping an eye out for the one that's airborne. She'll strike out at either if they were to get close, like a coiled snake.

Irina-As17 has posed:
There's a hissing sound from above as a pressure rifle sends out a hail of 6 syringes flying down at Strix. A moment later the acute eyes of the hybrid animal man follow her every movement, and his arms flap upwards, producing an explosion of air that sends him down towards her with a leg out stretched. If this hit her it was most likely going to cave in her torso.

There's another twisting sound, but this comes off with a loud snap as a camouflaged tentacle cuts through the air like a whip, extending about three times its normal length into a high-speed arc, which was being used to swipe across the back of Strix's thighs, in an attempt to leave very deep slashes and limit her ability to move around.

Strix has posed:
Against one of these things, Strix would be able to take them on, and probably win. Against two the odds wouldn't be in her favor, but she'd still be able to put up a fight. But three? It's only a matter of time.

She only catches the hissing of the pressure rifle in the nick of time, being able to dodge half of those darts, the others impacting squarely in the shoulder. She twists around in time to dodge the airborn attack, slashing upwards with her swords to catch him in that leg. The tentacle, however, she wasn't expecting and it catches her in the back of her legs, causing her to go down on her knees.

Irina-As17 has posed:
In favor of taking Strix down, the hawk man takes the hit to the leg, letting it cut through his kevlar guard and then surprisingly tough flesh. Once he lands next to Strix there's a thud as the camouflaged octopus woman jumps away, and then the hawk brings both of his arms down, producing another blast of wind in order to push Strix into the ground and also get away himself. Within her shoulder the syringes start flooding her with a potent anesthetic to knock her out, though they didn't know if it would be effective or not.

Right about then the third one arrives. This one wearing just shorts, a very large man who was clearly a mixture of hippo and grass hopper, with huge, thick legs and chitinous carapace all over his body. He comes flying in from above, having just hopped from where he was all the way here, and with the greatest physical power of the group, aims to smash a fist directly into Strix's abdomen, hoping to put her in a state where it would take a significant amount of time for her to recover.

Strix has posed:
The anesthetic doesn't put Strix down... there just isn't enough of it, but it does slow her significantly as her body works to process it. She struggles to keep upright from the blast, but just isn't strong enough to fight against that hard enough to dodge the Grasshippo. The punch nearly lifts her off her feet, causing her to drop her swords and lay limply on the ground. She struggles to get up, coughing up black blood, before all the trauma and drugs catch up to her and she slumps to the ground, unconscious.

Irina-As17 has posed:
The trio let out a sigh of relief in unison, a few more darts are shot into her body just to make sure she was going to stay unconscious long enough. The grasshippo grabs onto her and the other two nod, he crouches and launches off with extreme force, even more than the fish hawkman. He soars over the city, landing onto rooftops and then hopping away again, much faster than waiting for a vehicle to come pick them up. Instead he goes right out of the city where a truck was parked.

She's shoved into the back, where a stretcher was laid out with an IV drip packed full of anesthetic nearby. He closes the truck door and it takes its leave towards the base. Luckily, he never bothered getting the rest of her gear off, since he was in such a hurry to get there before she woke up again. That means she's taken all the way down the three levels of the underground base and to the lab before the signal cuts.

Luckily for her, the organization was led by fairly smart people who recognized that it was much less likely for people to come bother them right away if the missing person showed up again quickly. So after about a day she's released, once tissue samples are acquired from various spots on her body. This marks the beginning of the siege on the single lab responsible for all these unfortunate events. It was just a matter of time before the battle began. Knowing this, the scientists work furiously on their ultimate project.