6803/=Long Island Smuggling

=Long Island Smuggling
Date of Scene:	05 July 2021
Location:	Long Island
Synopsis:	An agent of SHIELD hiding from HYDRA meets an unusual and unexpected ally as she attempts to stop a illegal arms transaction.
Cast of Characters:	Michael Erickson, Jessica Drew

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Michael Erickson has posed:
    RED HOOK, BROOKLYN
    11:42 PM

    He has lived on this planet for nearly forty years, now. Witnessed interstellar attacks, the incarnation of the Phoenix Force. Served the interests of an empire a galaxy away, one who would consider this planet with all its bizarre mixture of technology and lifeforms as a cauldron of potential threats to its existence. Cal'hatar of Chandilar, officer of the Shi'ar Imperial Forces, soldier and spy. He has lived on this planet for nearly forty years, and has seen - and reported on - a wide variety of strange occurances and carried out the will of his government.

    Tonight, though, he indulges in his /other/ mission. Protecting these people who live on this planet. They take everything they can find, humans do. Technology that they might never have developed on their own. Use it for their own purposes. And this isn't always awful - look at the microwave oven! - but too often they take a technology and use it for no reason than to oppress their fellows, to harm innocents. At one point, long ago, he might have been amused at this. When the arrogance of his youth was still upon him. Now, though. Now he just works to prune it away. Not as Cal'hatar of the Shi'ar Empire, though. He wears a different face tonight.

    A second skin of metal clads his contours as if poured, dark crimson. Like muscle. Here on the waterfront, near the mouth of the still-poisonous Gowanus Canal, he lurks in the dark overlooking a stretch of the long pier that curls along bay. Down there by a slip, a delivery-style truck sits low on the ground, weighted by its cargo and the armored panels hidden under its friendly paintjob. Down there, men in black tacticals stand around, waiting for clients. It's a deal; his contacts, long cultivated, have filtered it down to them. Magnetic-coil rifles, weapons that the criminal underground calls 'nailguns' thanks to the long alloy flechettes used as ammunition. Primitive for a man who melted legions with thermal lances and neural cannons, but not for this planet. Certainly nothing that criminals should be set loose with.

    So that's why he's here. That's why he watches. Waiting for the moment. But not yet.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Protecting her adopted country has become difficult of late. Jessica and other agents of SHIELD have been running for their lives since HYDRA hijacked the government into thinking that SHIELD was the enemy. Fortunately, it hasn't stopped all operations, only made them doubly hard.

Perched high on a stack of containers, Jessica has a spider's eye view of the operations below. Unfortunately, working this case without backup puts her in jeopardy. Nothing new there, she muses, shifting position to hang head down along the wall of a container.

She is not in her iconic red and black costume, identifying her as Spider-Woman. Without identifying badges on it, black tactical armor suffices, the armoring an added reason for them. Slung across her back is a P-90, the submachine gun from SHIELD armories, a calculated risk if she is overpowered, but the criminals working below haven't been identified as being HYDRA. Yet.

Spider sense tingles along her spine. Jessica searches the dark, extending her hearing to the maximum, listening for incoming cars or aircraft. Nothing. Curious that.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    And so, they lurk. The Spider and the raptor-born, though on differen ends of the scene. He squats on the top of a warehouse, watching them from behind the faceless metal mask of his helm, the world projected in holographic miniature against its interior. A panorama of night, washed over with heads-up display elements, vision brightened as if in the middle of the day thanks to technologically augmented senses. A flick of a glance to one corner engages certain modes, triggered by the tightening of pupils. Red metal becomes black, so black as to become a shadow among shadows. Light falling into its substance. Holographic skin cast about him he moves, running along the roof of the warehouse, silent, undetected by those below. In this way does he set up the strike to come.

    But not yet. Not yet.

    Lights on the pier, coming in from the city. Another truck. Customers coming in, from the way those in black shift and prepare for the arrival of the truck to whom those lights belong. Flurry of activity, the back of the delivery vehicle being unlocked, catches flipped. Men get into guard positions, unsligning compact submachine guns and other small arms in preparation for those who come. They always have to show their guns, people like this. Something about arms dealers needing to display their wares on their own security. In the shadows along the pier he moves, stealing carefully between buildings, crates, parked cars. Approaching the site of the exchange. He'll need to determine exactly who is buying before he jumps in to smash them all.

Jessica Drew has posed:
The distant clatter of a truck running over a loose utility hole cover tells Jessica of incoming customers, an explanation for the recent flare of her spider-sense. She thought there was more time - a miscalculation on her part though knowing who their clients are will piece together the mystery behind the clandestine guns.

Down below, the men unloading pick up the pace. Ten crates are stacked outside the truck, forming a screen between them and the incoming truck. Headlights flare then go dark as the truck comes to a halt.

As Jessica prepares to move to the ground, a distant sound stops her. She raises her head, testing the air for an explanation: footsteps, light and fast, thrum on the other side of the truck. The men below don't react. Something is coming.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    Something is indeed coming, sure and fast as gravity but as of yet invisible - drowned in shadows, Cal'hatar moves like the wind in his metal skin, chooses the route that has no lights, skirting the concrete along the edge of the water. Sees them standing, plain as day. Their attention is trained on the truck as it approaches; it comes to a halt a few meters from the other, and men pile out of its cab and the back of it. No tactical gear here, just street clothes, mean faces. Organized crime, maybe. A gang. It doesn't matter. They're just militant tribes. The city's full of them. It means nothing to the approaching warrior.

    A lean, young man approaches the men in the tactical gear. Smiling, then smirking. Piss and vinegar filling an expensive tracksuit. "Ay ay," he calls, wearing the accent of the city, thick and easy. "S'us. Which one of you's Bernie?"

    "I am Bernhardt." One of the men step forward. Hard face. Stoic. Accent is European. "You are Bumpy, yes?"

    "S'me, all right." Kid grins again, white teeth slightly missarranged. One of them is gold. "Yeah I'm here for Mister Pastorelli, told me to look over whatcha got before we pay over. Lemme see the rayguns, yeah?"

    Bernhardt gives the young man a look that says /everything/. Contempt for this skinny Italian kid. He should be dealing with men. But he turns and nods to one of his companions, who begins to work the hatch on the back of the truck.

    And in the background, the footfalls continue, impossibly silent. A velvet freight train, almost inaudible. But not to her.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Cursing silently to herself, Jessica drops to the ground. Whatever is on approach here could well blow her cover and screw the exchange. An overachiever, she had wanted to trace back the origins of the guns and stop them from entering the city. A third party does not suit her.

Without thought, she leaps to another container that allows her to flank the trucks below. She wants eyes on whatever approaches. Sensing more than seeing, a shadow runs at a blistering pace toward the parked trucks, giving her less than five seconds to decide if she will be facing a friend or a foe interested in the shipment for themself.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    The truck's back door rattles open, revealing a number of ordnance crates, low and long. One of them is open, and one of Bernhardt's men produces a sleek weapon made of black metal and plastic with a long ribbed barrel that looks as though it might have come direct from the set of a Hollywood sci-fi movie. Not that this means anything in these days of alien invasions and apocalyptic threats. Bumpy lets out a low whistle as the man in black tacticals brings the rifle over, letting the kid take it and look it over. "Man oh man," the kid says, grinning that gilded grin. "You German guys, you're still just making the best out there, aren'tcha?"

    /The best./ The thunder of Cal'hatar's movement stops at that, and he's only a few meters from the site now. Too many lights to make big movements, too easily seen despite his holographic camouflage. He waits a moment longer, looking at faces, tracking the new arrivals. Gangsters, maybe, but he notes the weapons under their jackets, in their waistbands. Advanced versions of slugthrowers, chemical-driven, matter weapons. Primitive as a stone club to the Shi'ar, even to the mag-coil rifle cradled in Bumpy's arms, but in the context of the day it shows unusual sophistication among the criminals making purchase. Should he step in? Should he wait?

    No. No waiting. The holographic blackness melts away, revealing him as the Red Sentinel, gleaming, blood-red armor, like Coppola's Dracula in the moment of the fall. The faceless helmet, framed between exaggerated shoulder pauldrons, reflecting the faces of the men as he leaps from below to land upon the pavement amongst the two parties.

    << GENTLEMEN. >> The voice that emits from the helmet is a hissing whisper, a distant growl of thunder. Undertones of an ancient beast. << IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO COME OUT OF THIS INJURED, I SUGGEST YOU ALL GO. NOW. >>

    They won't, of course. And he knows it. No threat to him at all. But he at least likes to give them the chance. There's a moment there, suspended like a perfect drop of crystal, time captured. The moment of reaction comes.

Jessica Drew has posed:
The decision is taken out of Jessica's hands though she still hasn't decided if this red-suited being straight out of a comic book is a friend or foe. Involuntarily, she raises a finger to the ear nearest the thing, protecting her hearing, the bass tones rattling deep in her bones.

Is he naive or merely trying to be fair, asking them to leave? Of course, she would have done the same thing. More quietly, of course.

Stopping, she pivots with spider grace on the side of the container and drops to the ground, the P-90, loaded with ICER rounds, in her hands pointed toward the men. Her contralto is a whisper compared to the augmented voice, "I'd listen to him if I were you."

Shrugging, she motions to each group with the tip of her submachine gun, asking calmly, "Who first?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    If you were listening, you could hear a pin drop. But they aren't - at least, not to the sounds that may fall in the background. They're staring at the two newcomers, the pretty girl with the Belgian machine gun and the red creature plated up like an action figure straight from 1980s cartoons. Bernhardt and his people are careful as they step back, all as one with excellent precision. Military roots, must be. But they say nothing. Yet.

    Bumpy, on the other hand...

    The kid is still smiling as he looks between the two, as if he'd just seen a pair of his favorite movie stars roll onto the scene. "Aw, man, now that's...that's just perfect," he says to his boys, gesturing with one hand to the two new arrivals. "Don't you just love this town? I just -- I just /love/ New York." The rifle is tossed onto the ground, a clatter of metal on concrete. He's still smiling. "Okay, officers, ya got us. Ya gonna take us in, now?"

    << THAT IS THE PLAN. >> But the kid's demeanor has him wary. It isn't the first time something like this has happened to him, and he knows usually what comes. << GET DOWN ON THE GROUND, ALL OF YOU. SLOW. >>

    But Bumpy's attention isn't on the armored figure, now. Instead he's looking Jessica's way. Winks. But when his winking eye opens, it's burning red, and suddenly Bumpy is awreath in a nimbus of flames. A wall of heat radiates from him, so extreme that it drives back his men, seems to suck all the moisture from the air. And yet he smiles, features but suggestive shadows in all that flame. Now the trouble starts.

Jessica Drew has posed:
"Damn," said in a crisp English accent is the only sound that escapes Jessica as the heat washes over her face, tightening the skin uncomfortably. The fire-proof tactical suit absorbs the worst of it as she flips backward out of its initial range.

This is the second time Jessica has been completely caught off guard in less than ten minutes. The mutant boy must be a singleton or well-protected for him to not be on someone's list. She opts for well-protected; his abilities are too dangerous for them to remain secret for long.

Speed is her answer. Using the side of a container as a springboard, Spider-Woman pushes off into a high arc over 'Fire Eye' boy, the P-90 spraying ICER slugs down on the thugs indiscriminately as she lands on the top of the delivery truck.

Shots ping off the metal near her where she landed but she is no longer there. She has already flipped over the side to come at the gang from the opposite side.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    The sudden wave of heat, the rattling of primitive weapons - yes, the ICER rounds are still yet primitive to the man in armor - and for a moment he is transported back a galaxy away, to distant urban sprawls which he walked as a soldier, a uniter of worlds. On Jatuur they had such weapons, and they had mag-coil rifles, too. The mushroom cloud of flame that was Bumpy is ignored in the moment; he remembers too easily the sting of long metal flechettes as they tore through the battle armor of his fellows, a long-healed wound in his thigh. He moves, but not in the direction of the superhuman threat. Instead, he leaps forward into Bernhardt and his men, and where his fists connect, human men unprepared for the sheer force behind those armored limbs spin away like ragdolls of meat and splintered bone. Nobody will die, but they will spend time in hospitals. One cannot be hit with a man like that without coming away limping at least.

    "Bitch, I am going to roast you alive!" Bumpy's laughter is twisted with the heat, coiling upward with the smoke and flame that roils from his limbs. A naked silhouette beneath the column of fire, the stun rounds vaporize in the immediate corona of heat that rolls from his body. Then his friends begin to recover from the shock of their fellow turning into a walking pyre and their current, single target. She's just one person, submachine gun or no. Just a girl, they probably think in their ridiculous, macho way. Soon to suffer the consequences as a couple go down hit by the ICER shots, but the caseless, high-velocity rounds that race forth to meet her aren't for show.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Jessica has heard the epithet before and ignores it as the prattle of a small mind. The man's attitude, and others like it, had come as a surprise to the mutant woman, brought up cloistered in a laboratory and HYDRA training, when she first broke loose from her bonds. Now, used to the outside world, it still rings hollow.

A flechette rips her armored suit like thin cloth leaving a fiery trail of blood on her upper arm. She ignores that, too, and leaps, unfolding like a spider from its web. She reverts to something more natural, leaving the P-90 in its sling around her back, hands surrounded by a green glow extended before her, she blasts the homeboy, 'Fire Eye'.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    His men scattered, Bernhardt is backing out fast, performing what they call a 'tactical retreat' that isn't so much tactical as it is 'getting the hell out of Dodge in a bloody hurry'. He unholsters a pistol as he charges around the side of the truck to the driver's side of the cab, a handheld version of the sleek rifle he gave the now incandescent punk. He has seen war, but he has not faced /that/. Nor has he any intention of doing so. Let the Italians rot.

    But there, behind him, is the red figure, and it is upon him in an instant. He squeezes off two shots direct into the armored thing as it lands upon him, but it doesn't stop - the whine and crackle of magnetic discharges are followed by tinny clanking as the long darts land, but they are answered only with a single, swinging punch that lands squarely center of his torso. Body armor gives, trauma plates splinter. He feels ribs give way as a livid red moire of pain snaps down over his vision. For just a moment, before he blacks out, he muses at the existence of such monsters in the world, but then his eyes close and there is only a second's flash of Bumpy's flames behind his lids before unconsciousness takes him.

    And then, there is Bumpy. Bumpy is a confident man, young as he is, because it's easy to be confident when one can convert onself into a blast furnace on command. He revels in this power, laughing as he takes a step toward Jessica as she takes the ground once more, but what he doesn't have is /experience/ -- so he's taken quite by surprise as Jessica's blast of bioelectricity strikes him full center in the chest. For all his fire, for all his bluster...

    He goes down like a rock.

    Blazing away like an unconscious bonfire on the ground, his fellows take off running down the pier. No honor among thieves, gangsters, or street filth in general, it would appear. With Jessica's successful dispatch of the unfortunate punk and the Euro tacitcals sprawling in their own pain, that leaves now only the lady and the beast standing. Which they do, now. Standing opposite one another, existing on wildly different poles.

Jessica Drew has posed:
The downed paisan gutters like a candle in a strong wind. A slightly stronger blast would have stopped his heart forever. The blast was meant to make it skip a beat or two. Venom blasts don't melt in fires.

Jessica wrinkles her nose at the smell of burned hair as she brushes back a singed lock that had escaped her billed cap. Taking her hat off and shaking out her dark hair which falls to her shoulders, she scrutinizes the blank faced red form before her.

Friend or foe?

"Who are you exactly?" Her voice tense from suspicion and the adrenaline of the fight. "How did you know about this trade going down?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    He stares at her from behind that blank and gleaming visor - his armor, oddly sleek and chunky at once, sprouts a pair of flechettes that jut from his chest like knitting needles, needles that he now extracts and tosses away. Not quite strong enough to penetrate, but that is not something he should have put down to fortune. << I AM THE RED SENTINEL, >> he tells her, letting this serve as the only explanation. << AND YOU ARE? >>

Jessica Drew has posed:
"The Red Sentinel? Never heard of him." Oh, WAND and SHIELD are going to love this. Jessica glances at the boy lying at their feet then back to the armored man, suppressing a sigh. If he was a HYDRA agent likely he would have attacked her already unless he somehow doesn't know her identity. How many wall clinging women with the ability to shoot bio-electric blasts could he possibly know? Just as well, he doesn't know her, she doesn't like the notoriety attached to crime fighters by the media.

"A crime fighter like yourself," she temporizes.

Reaching for the phone in her belt, a burner necessary to protect her identity, she holds it up. "Look, I'm going to call the police to clear this mess up. I don't want these guns. I would like to know where they came from though. Do /you/ know?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    << GOOD. >> This is his single reply; he reaches for his belt, then, and tosses...something...into the back of the truck. There is a hiss of something, like an angry snake, and suddenly a white flare fills the back of the truck. The heavy smell of flames and ozone fill the air as whatever he tossed in rapidly begins to burn through the rifles and their cases, and likely soon the truck itself if all is left alone. Though the light filling the back of the truck is bright white, hard to look at, he stands silhouetted in its flare.

    << TANNHAUSER, >> he tells her. << UNDERGROUND LABORATORY GROUP BASED IN GERMANY. HOW THEY GOT HERE, I DO NOT KNOW. BUT THEY COULD TELL YOU, PERHAPS. >> A nod to the sprawled Euros lying in the dust, now illuminated by the flames seething inside the truck and those dying out around the fallen Bumpy. Twins suns of criminal stupidity.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Blinking, the SHIELD agent takes a step back from the truck, looking from the armored man to the rapidly growing flame devouring the truck. "Well, great. You'll have every emergency service in the City on us now. Interesting gadget, by the way."

Jessica's gaze follows his to the presumptive Euros, "I doubt it. Maybe the leader could. I can't exactly drag him through the City over my back right now. But, thanks for the tip. How did you get it?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    << IT IS MY JOB TO KNOW. >> A nod is given her -- and then he just walks off, back to her, beginning to melt into the darkness. Trusting her not to shoot him, perhaps, or simply not seeing her as a risk. Who knows?

Jessica Drew has posed:
"Crikey. That was weird," says the mutant woman. After assuring herself that no one will die from a gas tank exploding, she stares into the darkness where the man, she is making an assumption, stalked off. With a shrug and a final look around, she goes in the opposite direction. Sirens wail in the distance.