7926/Face, meet Fist

Face, meet Fist
Date of Scene:	22 September 2021
Location:	A warehouse in Gotham.
Synopsis:	What began as a fistfight turned into explosions and collapsing buildings. Business as usual, in short.
Cast of Characters:	Kate Kane, Naria Shepard, Dinah Lance

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Kate Kane has posed:
-Right now-
CLAK CLAK CLAK!

The flash of the submachine gun illuminates the interior wall of a darkened warehouse in temporary white glow of the arching muzzle. The shadowy figure the goon is trying to shoot remains just out of visible distance, swinging across the belfry high above on a hookline fired from a grapplegun.

"Who the /fuck/... It's a bat!"

- Seventeen minutes and thirty seconds earlier -

"Yeah bro, Gotham Knights are going all the way this year." Yuri, a Russian American gangster linked to the Bratva is standing around the interior of a well lit warehouse with a few dozen of his closet friends and compatriots. All of them armed to the teeth, armored for bear, and overseeing the exchange of military grade weapons from the back of one van, full of white dudes with Russian names, to a van full of Chinese dudes with Chinese names.

It's Gotham City. This is what Tuesday looks like.

Batwoman had gotten a tip, from a friend, whose name isn't important suffice that she trusts the friend. Normally she'd got at this alone, but that's a lot of white and Chinesey dudes down there. So she'd sent out a call to a similarly tempered associate with multiple points of connection to her.

<<"Want to kick some Russians until they shit themselves?">>

Naria Shepard has posed:
Gotham tended to be a darker, dingier and dangerous place in most people's eyes. Saying nothing of the Bats that defended her.

And that makes the citizens all the more willing to cut loose, abandon some inhibitions and enjoy the excitement of Rave's namesake.

One more show under her belt, the bluenette woman lazily zips her way through the city, the girl wrapped in her club attire weaved her way through the city.

Was it a good idea to snap some selfies and patrol in the Bat's city?

Well, time will tell!

Dinah Lance has posed:
<<"Kick. Punch. Elbow. Knee. I'm in.">>

Dinah was out and about, bike roaring between her thighs, outfit on, spoiling for a fight. She'd started doing the legwork on tracking down these "Screaming Meanies" the mayor had mentioned--nobody takes down a cop on her beat!--and when that dried up for the night she'd been left frustrated and nursing a serious desire to kick some ass.

Then Kate called.

"Thank you!" she murmured, turning her eyes skyward.

There may have been a bat in their belfry, but their troubles were only just beginning. Roaring up to the warehouse seemingly without any time to stop, her engine got, incredibly, LOUDER as she approached. Because she saw...

1. The chunk of curb taken out forming a short ramp.

2. The hood of the junkmobile, a good solid '70s model back when cars were made of actual steel.

3. The window.

Naturally a Bad Idea<tm> formed in her head.

Front tire hit the curb ramp while she manually yanked back on the handlebars. Back tire hit the same curb, throwing the bike high enough in the air to land on the hood of the car. The slant of the windshield propelled the screaming bike further into the air and ...

Through the window the CanaryMobile<tm> thundered, scattering spalling glass like the deadly knife blades they were. At the top of the arc she leaped from the bike, letting it wind up in a trajectory that took it into the Chinese van. As for herself, she had eyes on one of the Russians.

Yes. That one.

The one with the machinegun that was spitting lead.

Boots. Meat head. (sic)

Kate Kane has posed:
- Seventeen minutes and twenty nine seconds later -

Batwoman landed out of her side flip, rolled over her caped shoulder, and only spared a casual glance over at the shattering window that abruptly ends the machine-gunners day with a boot to the brainpan. Red lips form red smirks and her hand drops to one of the pistols on her armored thigh to pull it in a smooth practiced motion as she moved in a twisting motion over her knee, onto the oposite foot, dancing her away from the spray of pistol fire trying to track her shadowy figure approaching yet another armed Thug.

That same pistol stabs forward with a ruthlessness that borders on jubilation at the gagging sound it illicitly creates when the barrel force iron thrusts directly into someones Adam's Apple. using the barrel of the gun like a baton, her elbow bends after the connection with her other hand coming up to grab the back of his neck just above the armored colar in a gauntleted grip. Keeping him there, turning him as she needs towards another individual firing entirely too many bullets in her direction.

All of them soaked up in the back of his MilSpec armor.

The barrel twists off his throat, lays on his shoulder, and SNAPS a bright flash of light that propels a rubber bullet, then another, and another, at the gunman shooting his own friend. The cheek of them.

It also sounds like a thousand shards of metal stabbing the man she's holding in the ear...

He'll never hear out of it again.

She does not care.

Pushing him forward with her body tucked down to use him as a battering ram into the man she'd just pelted with rubber bullets.

<<"Let the Chinese guys go.. I put a tag on their truck. We'll pay them a visit later.">>

Naria Shepard has posed:
Gunfire and crashing vehicles wasn't exactly subtle, that much was plain to see even in Gotham.

Her path headed toward GCPD for a little snap with a certain searchlight was suddenly brought to a skidding halt before she redirected herself towards the chaos and sped in a stream of neon light in her wake.

Zipping into the scene, the young woman seemed to simply appear, sitting atop the wrecked van and looking down at the skirmish, her hair and eyes glowing with that same neon-blue light.

"Oh this is awesome!" she exclaims as her eyes sweep over the caped crusader and blonde bombshell alike, then she 'disappears' in a bright streak of light before her leaping form drove her feet into the back of one of the thugs.

She wasn't much of a martial artist compared to the other two, but the excitable ball of laser did have her speed to make up the difference.

Dinah Lance has posed:
<<"Hey, my bike's in there! I'm going to take it out first!">>

Priorities are priorities.

Still, this was Kate's crime scene. It's Kate's rules. This just adds an extra puzzle to th...

"WTAF!?" The sudden blinding, zipping light just added another dimension.

<<"New player on deck. Powered. Not sure whi...">>

Then Rave hits the back of a thug.

<<"Never mind. Newb on our side. Keep her safe.">>

Condescend much?

That being said, it's not that challenging a fight. Dinah has mastered the art of not being where the bullets are flying (albeit often by mere centimetres) and she glides around between the thugs, letting them take their own not-so-friendly fire while she dances.

She likes punk.

Slam-dancing for the win.

Heel to that delicate bone between the eyes, breaking both orbs and necessitating a long hospital stay for concussion as well as some corrective surgery.

Elbow to wrist with knee to elbow, bending the latter in a direction it was not designed to bend.

<<"Just like good old times, Batwoman!">> she exults over comms. <<"I don't even feel a scream coming on.">>

Famous last words. Spoken as one of the Russians gets the bright idea of bringing out one of the sale weapons.

The rocket launcher.

Kate Kane has posed:
Batwoman is not a musician, she's not conducting some orchestra full of different instruments to create some beautiful masterpiece. Which doesn't necessarily mean she's not creating music, or that she's not an artist, just that whatever is produced is born out of some real messy violence. The pistol slams to the side against her bodyshield's neck just as Rave jump kicks her intended target out of the way, rendering him no longer required.

Freeing her up for some more fun.

Her cape sweeps up and around in a wide fan, the heavy ends of the weighted garment slapping hard against the cheek of a Russian thug to knock him just enough off balance that she can slide across the floor without threat of being liquidated with machinegun fire.

Back up on her feet within his personal bubble, her fist cracks forward against the bridge of his nose. The kind of jarring forward thrust that stops oposite momentum with an immediacy that throws legs out from beneath a person and drops them like a bag of blood squirting wheat on the concrete. Another comes out from behind a stack of crates, pistol in hand aimed in her direction, and she's already moving. Slapping her gauntlet down over the receiver as it slides backwards when he pulls the trigger, finger hooking down to disendgage the latch before it's fully extended. This does two things:

1. Renders the gun imcapable of firing.
2. Launches the receiver into his face like a projectile when it the firing pin drips out of the bracket.

A straight kick hits him in the solar plexus, all of her weight behind it sending him crashing back into those boxes.

Rocket launcher

"Fuck fuck fu-!" She jumps and side flips over a barrier, firing nonlethal rounds at the Bratva wielding the launcher before she disappears on the otherside of the concrete divide.

Naria Shepard has posed:
Rave could dance this dance, hell the girl thrived on it. The flashing light of muzzle flare, the sharp rythm of gunfire and the heavy beats of boot meeting mook and mook meeting concrete.

It was thrilling.

But that didn't mean the 'newbie' didn't understand the danger of a rocket launcher, after all just because she could outrace an explosion didn't mean she had the strength to pull two other people with her at that speed!

Clearly, the best play was a little more...direct.

That neon comet zips past and all of a sudden the launcher is...gone, the man who had been holding it tumbling over with momentum before Rave just sort of...appears behind the concrete barrier next to Kate, launcher cradled in her arms against her chest and almost certainly still primed to fire.

"I uh...have no idea what to do with this..." she offers, even as the shock of her movement passes and chunks of cover start getting hit by gunfire once more.

"Can I just yank the rocket out or....?"

Dinah Lance has posed:
This is something everybody is going to laugh about afterward, right? Because of course Rave, not being on the Birds' comms, didn't hear it when Dinah said, <<"It's OK, sugar, I'll take out the rocket.">>

Breath in.

Clench the throat just SO.

She starts to breathe out ...

... and the rocket disappears, its wielder thrown back by the momentum of what took it.

Dinah saw the streak of light. She even saw that the rocket was gone. But it was too late. She was already singing.

The Cry rings out, lancing straight for where the rocket and its wielder once were. Not being there to absorb the carefully (instinctually) metred energy, the Cry continues lancing out. Into the truck. The one filled with Russian weapons.

And ammunition.

Ammunition that does *not* like being tickled by tightly focused sonic energy.

It starts off small. A clip of machine gun rounds goes like *foom*. Which triggers a chain reaction going from that to *foom foom foom* to *FOOM FOOM* to **FFFFFFFFFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMM** as all the heavy weapons' ammunition starts to cook off all at once.

Dinah stands in awe as her little scream blows apart the back of the Russian truck in a glorious fireball, half of which is momentarily channeled out in among the Russian soldiers now desperately trying to jump out of its way.

"Wow!" Beat. "It's beautiful!"

Flames are beautiful in their own way. As are collapsing windows and catwalks, shattered by the concussion. As is the twisting of one of the load-bearing pillars the truck was parked next to. Ominous groans, creaks, and snapping sounds ensue as the weight of that part of the building starts to push pieces down.

Kate Kane has posed:
Streak with a launcher in hand and she finds a pistol pointed right at her forehead when she appears beside Kate... Eyes wide behind the whiteout lense of her cowl, but she knows immediately this is a friendly... and lowers the gun. "Okay, yea- hand..." Reeeeeeeeeeee of singing. Canary Cry.

Even the sound dampening of her cowl can't stop that from dazzling a little.

She had her hands on the launcher though and squints behind her lense the ammunition starts to cook inside the truck. "GET DOWN!"

Bullets are going every where. Plinking off the walls, body armor, and other vehicles. "Okay okay.. let's go!" Grabbing hold of Rave's shirt above her shoulder, she hoists her up and angles her towards one of the side doors, "Don't stop until you're outside..."

Batwoman leaps over the wall, still carrying the rocket launcher by the shoulder strap. Headed to get some of the Russians who aen't being cut down by the explosive ammunition situation... and who are absolutely still trying to FIGHT her?

The launcher makes a surprisingly good melee weapon.

Swung by the strap, it hits a Bratva in the side of the head and knocks him behind another vehicle... one thick enough to eat some of the bullets now trying to cut through her own armor. "Canary! Stop staring at the pretty lights!"

But a bit of wall is blocking their exit now...

And Kate has a rocket launcher.

Which she swings up onto her shoulder, takes aim... and fires... since there's wounded and potential casualties to get out of here. "Time... to... go."

KA-BOOM!

Naria Shepard has posed:
There's not much shirt to grab, but the message is well enough conveyed. Rave is pulled to her feet, a glowing streak...that doesn't quite head outside.

Instead the woman zips forwards, scooping one of the Bratva out of the way and hucking him over her shoulders.

Why were all these guys so damn heavy?!

To the normal eyes of most the crazy streak of light swirls around the room, only occasionally seeming to form as the girl in the club gear trying to lend a hand...(and maybe snapping a photo or two).

In truth, the bluenette girl was zipping along, nudging and redirecting what projectiles she could out of the way while the other two pull the -too heavy- Russians clear

When she finally comes to a stop the young woman is perched in the clear, bringing her her slightly burned fingers to her lips.

Dinah Lance has posed:
Someone said Canary lacked courage once.

Once.

Now most people wish she'd show a little less courage. (Spelled: S-U-I-C-I-D-A-L I-N-S-A-N-I-T-Y.)

Somewhere there is a large number of such people watching this scene on some ... alien ... 3D television thingie ... or something and all at once palms are meeting forehead with a loud slap. Why this joint face-palm of doom?

Because Canary, unlike a sane person, runs TOWARD the cooking-off rounds and the fireball.

Now Batwoman has her cowl and cape to protect her from heat and flames. Hell, they offer some protection from the small arms rounds. Rave has her lightspeed. Canary?

Oh, right. She has her scream which she's using to good effect to pulverise rounds in flight. Doesn't do anything for the heat. She'll have to rely on crouching and using her leather jacket for when that starts to cause a problem, but she's safe from the rounds at least.

Mostly.

Her target is the man closest to the explosion: the rocket wielder who was knocked out of the path of her scream. Sure it was his fault that he wasn't there and thus the rounds cooked off, but still, it's not nice letting people die for a misjudgment.

"Hop on there, stud," she says as she grabs the guy and slings him over her back before racing back as quickly as an overloaded but extremely fit small woman can pull off.

The race slows down as she grabs another's wrist and drags.

The race speeds up briefly as the shock wave from another round cooking off propels her forward.

<<"They need to hire more slender help if they want me to keep saving them!">> she groans into comms, turning back to grab another pair, fishnets torn, jacket smoking.

Kate Kane has posed:
BATWOMAN OKAY

Kate is dragging Bratva, who need to cut back on third breakfast, by the buddy strap at the back of their armor. One, after another, after another.. while Canary is busy screaming bullets into submission. "It is a shame she's straight." Sometimes she can't help herself.

Finally clearing the rubble that was a warehouse a little bit ago, she falls to her backside and leans up against the engine of her suped up motorcycle. Soot smudged across her visible face with a pile of Russians around all of them.

"When they tell this story..." Chest heaving a little with each breath, carrying them guys was a lot of work, "Can we say it was the Russians that blew up the building?" Her cowled head rolls to one side to look, first at Dinah, then over at Rave. "Please? I don't need any lectures this week."

Naria Shepard has posed:
With the chaos of cooking ammo done and the whole collapsing building thing over, Rave gives a last little shake of her slightly burnt fingers before looking up at the pair as Batwoman speaks up.

"I mean, they -did- bring that stuff there, so...kinda always their fault?"

A shrug of her mostly bare shoulders, the speedster actually laughs and smoothes out her skirt before hopping off her perch. "That was AWESOME though, with all the," she begins, miming the explosion and then turning to Dinah, "And you literally metal-screamed bullets away. That was -so- awesome. You should have seen what it looked like at hyper speeds!"

Okay, the newbie was excitable.

Dinah Lance has posed:
Canary has paid the price for her impetuousness. I mean ... ah ... Russians' perfidy. She's singed. She's exhausted. There's muscles in her back she didn't even know she had now protesting by twitching violently and causing intense pain.

Her eyes are alight with joy.

"THAT WAS FUCKING FUN!" she says, pausing in her victory dance only long enough to kick one of her pile of Russians trying to sneak away in the teeth. "Stay put!"

Then it's back to the victory dance, consisting largely of punching the sky and whooping.

"Batwoman you always bring the best out of me!" she continues, and then pauses, staring at the new kid.

"And I have no idea who you are, but thanks for the help. You OK? This outing got a bit rougher than usual."

A bit.

And in the middle of the joy, the concern, the whoops and the power dance, the sound of a van squealing tires out can be heard. The Chinese gangsters, not wanting to mix it up with two infamously violent chicks, had quietly PUSHED their own truck out of the danger zone and are now peeling off down the street with the few weapons they'd already stashed on board.

It takes Canary a few.

"Hey! MY BIKE!"

Kate Kane has posed:
Batwoman reaches out and pats Rave's arm, then uses her arm to push herself up to her feet. Contrary to popular misconceptions, the Bats are actually people. Even well trained people get tired when being shot at, blown up, and carrying a score of heavy russians out of a burning building.

"Strong work." Said to the New Kid, "Blah blah blah, don't do that again, blah blah blah... customary Gotham inodctrination speech." Two fingers pointed out, she draws a cross in the sky, "But you're forgiven this once, my child."

Right up until Dinah screams about her bike on the weeeee of squeeling tires.

Kate steps up beside her blonder, but equally violent friend with her arms crossed over her scarred up armor with the big red bat symbol on the front. "You should learn how to park." After murmuring this, she holds up a device about the size of a cellphone. "We'll go get your bike back.." In a long suffering, tired voice.

Naria Shepard has posed:
Greeted, appreciated and given the warning speech that entirely went in one ear and out the other, Rave was all too happy to share in the joy of celebration with Dinah right up to the moment the squeeling tires begin and the van takes off with pilfered goods and Dinah's bike.

Dinah's mad, Kate sighs and Rave? Rave is practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, eyes practically pleading with the Batwoman.

She -had- said not to do it again...but c'mon, it was chasing badguys!

Dinah Lance has posed:
Canary claps a hand on Rave's shoulders, and for the first time in ages, can actually look (slightly) downward to the other's eyes. "It's OK. We need to let them get away so they think they're safe. I'll get my baby back later."

Eyes swivel to Kate.

"Right?..."

She then turns her head in the direction her bike is being rushed off headlong in, plotting revenge.

Kate Kane has posed:
Kate takes a solumn breath and nods to Dinah, with a glance back at Rave, "Yeah, it's key to everything. They run off and tell their friends they just got thier asses handed to them and then we come hand their ass to them." Hands up, little shrug, "You'll catch on." Smirking, just so, beneath the edge of her cowl as the van speeds off towards their final destination.

"Right now I need a drink and some advil."