8129/Keep Arms and Legs Inside the Gondola at All Times

Keep Arms and Legs Inside the Gondola at All Times
Date of Scene:	05 October 2021
Location:	Amusement Mile - Gotham City
Synopsis:	Orphan and Bluebird have another team up. This time its Cass who was about to be overwhelmed when Harper shows up. Her presence tips the tide back in the martial artist's favor and she's able to rescue the two children who had been being attacked by Agressive Hyena-faced Acrobats.
Cast of Characters:	Cassandra Cain, Harper Row

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Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cassandra slams into the ground, the fall from three stories up rough even for her. One of the hazards of fighting on rooftops is the potential for a fall, and gravity comes for everyone.

The hyena laughter from above lets her know that her dance partners have noticed the tumble, though she's not moving well after that kind of a crack. They'd been fighting on the ferris wheel, moving from rod to post, when the slick grease managed what the hyena-guys hadn't.

She keeps it in, long training keeping her quiet. It's just so weird, the world's spinning suddenly. But she's trying to rise, before they manage to kill their hostage.

Yes, it's a hostage situation. Someone in the top car of the ferris wheel, and four insane acrobats. Gotham, amirite?

Harper Row has posed:
On a self-imposed patrol this evening, Bluebird is in her new outfit. A navy blue bodysuit with pale slate blue ankle boots, shin guards and armored knee caps is worn under a jacket, zipped up to her neck, which is also navy blue with azure stripes across the shoulders and down the outside of the arms. Gone are the tinted shooting googles, replaced by a blue mask that evokes the sense of downswept birds' wings. A sleek, futuristicly designed, bullpup-style rifle is held at the ready as she takes cover as the manic peal of laughter follows the sight of a body falling.

Taking sight along the length of her rifle she aims at the hyena headed acrobat that she saw kick Orphan with a two-footed flip-kick and pulls the trigger firing a single electric bullet from her gun (with a faint electric whine followed by a soft cough) towards the villain.

Sure, a hit will stun him and he's likely to fall... but he thought that was good enough for the young woman he was fighting also, right?

Cassandra Cain has posed:
The sound of a rifle gets their attention, alright. Seeing one of their number stiffen, then fall, even more so. They laugh again, mockingly, though they don't know Harper's direction. They're distracted, they're anxious. They're not attacking the hostages.

"I hope she's okay," one of the kids says to his friend, a littler girl, wayyyy up top. The girl looks like she's wet herself, her eyes squinched closed. Worry is keeping her from moving. Her brother, too, but he's tryin to be brave!

Cassandra, forgotten for a half-second, uses the time to get to her feet. She has a second, the falling guy landing heavily a few feet away, and she starts to climb once again. Not even giving herself time to recover, she reaches for a bar.

Her hand misses it, her vision not entirely in line, and she frowns. The sight is visible to Harper. She should not be climbing. Hell no.

Doesn't stop her though. A moment later she's working her way up, moving as fast as touch allows. And the hyena acrobats start to fling rocks, which bounce off of her ruthlessly.

Harper Row has posed:
("Rocks? Where did the rocks come from?") Harper thinks as she takes a moment to sight a point near each of the three remaining acrobats.

After the first visual pass across the three points, Bluebird stands as she lines up on the first point - the heel of the shoe of one of the acrobats (may or may not contact flesh, should surprise either way) - and shoots. Taking advantage of the gun's semi-automatic nature she takes two steps from the first point of cover to another while lining up the next shot and fires at a support bar next to another of the acrobat's head and fires (shock may travel to a point he's leaning against but this is more for surprise).

Lining up the third shot as she slips into the shadows again she fires, this time having aimed at the center of mass on the third remaining acrobat watching for the effects of the shots while also taking a moment to glance at the first, currently fallen, acrobat to see if they, like Orphan, is clambering to their feet after the fall.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Ah, but now they're on guard. The targets are harder, and trying to avoid. But you know what's really hard to avoid? Bullets. Bullets are hard to avoid. That makes their scrambling for cover less helpful than comics would lead one to believe.

A mocking laugh from one is cut off, as he tries to scramble and climb. Then he's falling, landing in one of the cars below him, and he lands face-down in there. He kicks, he tries to get out. He's not the last to get shot.

The next manages to somehow avoid Harper's sniping, moving behind a post. He didn't even do it on purpose, he was just moving erratically, but with a quick motion he's safe.

Then Harper's eyes spot the guy on the ground. Moving, yes. He was downed for amoment, but they know how to take a fall? Seems so. He's moving toward the controls, to turn on the big wheel. Considering how Cass is moving, probably bad.

She ducks behind a bar, her motions becoming keener though. Harper is bying her valuable time, and she's gotten to the center hub. without the Bat's tools, she does all of her work by hand. She has to duck another sweeping kick, which she punches in the foot in passing. The hyena yelps, then retreats. Hit and run tactics. Nasty.

Harper Row has posed:
("These guys are tough,") Harper thinks as she snap aims at the guy on the ground as he /stands up/. ("The prototype of those had me knocked out all night!")

Bluebird double taps the trigger and the semi-automatic gauss-railgun hybrid launches two bullets in quick succession at the guy who's already taken one of these. First is aimed at the guy's back ("Center of mass, easiest target,") while she allows the second to sweep down a bit hoping to hit him in the lower back or the glutes.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
The guy on the ground isn't moving fast at all. Harper's shots have little problem landing, and the guy makes a strangled noise before collapsing.

Onto the controls, which activate as the lever goes down.

Cassandra, in combat with two hyena-men, nearly falls when the entire bloody wheel starts to move! She slips, she's dangling by one hand, and if the hyenas weren't also distracted she'd likely have fallen again!

In fact, she does fall a moment. She grabs for another bar, landing the grab with both hands, and her teeth clench. Then she's pulling up and launching herself. She actually throws a tackle at a guy, who manages to squirm and make it difficult. It's difficult to see exactly how she does it, but a moment later she's got a grip on his throat.

Then two more hyenamen glom onto her, and the group is laughing as they kick at her, the wheel turning, turning, turning..

And the kids, they move toward the ground...

Harper Row has posed:
("Dang it, I was hoping to stop him,") Harper chastizes herself as she dashes toward the controls. The gun is held somewhat steady despite the run, pointed toward the ferris wheel which she keeps an eye out for a potential snapshot at one of the active hyena-obats.

Seeing such a potential target she tripple taps the trigger in an admitably wild shot but with three bullets maybe one or two will hit the target and have an effect?

Getting to the controls and the downed hyena-man, she doesn't even attempt to move him without a tool initially rather she just leverages him off the controls with her gun - having triggered the safety first!

A quick examination of the simple controls prepares her for when the kids' gondola reaches the bottom of the circle. Wanting to warn the other woman but also provide as little information to the villianous acrobats, Bluebird yells out a simple, "Pending!" with the hope that the other woman will get it.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Not a word that Cassandra's learned yet, but she's a little busy anyway. The slow, agonizingly slow turning of the giant wheel seems to take forever, and Harper's new location loses her the clear view she had a moment before. She misses Cassandra's fight with the three acrobats, but it's probably pretty epic.

Sounds from above seem to come from all directions, the park's acoustics being weird. Yelps and snarling, with the occasional actual yell, mix with crying from the little kids who are drawing closer. They're nearly there, nearly to the ground, when a falling body bounces off of bars, rungs, and gets stuck in the gears.

It's not Cassandra, thankfully. The guy -screams- though, the gears doing bad things to his arm!

Harper Row has posed:
The entire ferris wheel shutters as it comes to a sudden stop with the 'poor' man's humerus lodged between the teeth of the drive gears which are grinding into the fleshy bicep and tricept... a bloody mess begins to develop but is failing to grease the wheel.

Slinging her gun across her back, Bluebird runs to the gondola containing the kids and jumps up to reach it. She pulls herself up so she can stand on the front lip just eight feet above the ground and brace herself on the upper edge while she disengages the simple retention lock on the safety bar.

"You'll be okay kids," she says to the pair of siblings.

"Sissy wet herself," the annoyed nine-year-old boy says about his little sister.

"Sorry," the six-year-old girl whines out an apology.

"You stay here while I get your sister down and out of the way," Bluebird says to the boy and adds, "Come with me," in kind tones to the girl, "I'll be right back for your brother."

Lifting the girl into her arms, Harper jumps off the gondola and lands into a side roll keeping the little one on top of her. She stands and carries the girl to a place of safety before turning to return to fetch her brother.

Just as the wheel jerks again as it gruesomely grinds at the bone trapped between the gears.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Much screaming occurs, which doesn't sound hyenalike at all, but it's just that one who's so noisy. Upstairs, with the ferris wheel no longer jerking like a person having a fit, Cassandra finally manages to get ahold of her opponents.

She's hooked a foot in a bar, and uses her other foot for stability as she lashes out at them. They keep backing off, their insane motions hard to predict, but she's started to get the hang of them. Vision clear, she's doing...doing well. And then she turns and gives one the opportunity he's been waiting for.

When she feels the wind of his attack, she twists and releases her hold with her foot. The other guy was about to come close, about to join in, and for an instant she's caught both of their feet.

Without even a thought she twists in midair, and kicks out with both feet, one to each side. A perfect mirror of two men falls from the wheel, one crashing into a hot dog stand and another into a noodle shack. She catches her breath, looking down from above.

One of the guys starts to get up again...but he's close to Harper.

Harper Row has posed:
The little girl begins to cry as Bluebird dashes away from her even though it is in order to retrieve her brother.

Seeing the guy clambering to his feet, Bluebird drops into a fighting crouch and with a spinning movement sweeps them out from under him so that he falls back to the ground with a pained exhillation as the wind is knocked out of him. Returning to her feet, Harper idly pulls her gun's trigger - safety long disabled after the earlier use of the rifle as a lever - easily landing one of her non-lethal electric bullet in the center of mass only to step away from the man to get to the ferris wheel.

Slinging her gun again on her back, Bluebird calls up to the boy. "Jump and I'll catch you!" which she does with relative ease, only taking a step back as his weight slams into her.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Brave kid.

Cassandra looks down, nodding at Harper as she saves the two small humans as she'd been trying to accomplish. She then drops, landing by the guy who's in screaming pain, his bone being torn apart, and slams her heel into the gears.

She shatters the entire mechanism, taking it offline for a while, then punches the guy in the jaw. A moment later she's wrapping him so he won't die, a decency she's apparently prepared for. Medical tape, but not a batarang? Girl has priorities it seems.

And the children cry, in Harper's arms.

Someone should call an ambulance or five.

Harper Row has posed:
Emergency services are called. Ambulance, Police, even Child Protective Servies. The kids are mollified with DumDum pops Harper had thought to load in her jacket pockets on the off chance of children. When the officers of the GCPD arrive on scene the offenders are still unconscious, the kids are sucking on the cheep lollipops and there's no evidence of the 'Blue Lady' and the 'Fighting Angel' beyond the deformed metallic foam bullets, the bandages on the mangled arm and the word of two scared but unexpectedly under-traumatized children.