8922/Anarchies in Progress

Anarchies in Progress
Date of Scene:	03 December 2021
Location:	Robinson Park - Miagani Island
Synopsis:	That villainous Anarky is at it again! He (mostly) gets away with it, too! Really, though, did he have to call Misfit and Red Robin fascists? Rude.
Cast of Characters:	Tim Drake, Lonnie Machin, Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe

---

Tim Drake has posed:
    It's a typical night in Gotham. Cold, overcast, with the streets coated in a disgusting grey mix of fallen sleet and grime. No winter wonderland to be seen here, that's for sure. Red Robin has nearly paid off all the I-O-Us he owed various Bats for covering his patrols while he was recovering from a series of injuries a while back.

    And at least having a shadow for the evening makes this a little bit more exciting for Tim. He's gotten used to life as an Outsider. Which, despite the name, actually involves a lot of teamwork. So it's nice to have company.

    "...and I still don't think he's realized that I lost that rapier," Red Robin says, finishing up a tale he's been trying to share with Misfit in-between beating down a couple of guys trying to mug someone on one of the walking trails in Robinson Park and an attempted car theft near Finger Castle. The poor security guard would've had to walk his patrol route instead, and that would've been no good. The tale involved stealing a sword of Robin's, using it for a costume, and then inevitably having to stab it into the mass of a giant sand scorpion that tried to kill his best friend. It was like a whole thing. Anyway.

    The computer system used by the Bats to coordinate crime stopping--no doubt Oracle's work--flags a crime in progress being reported near their position on the corner of a rooftop with an expansive view of the park. Tim pauses and frowns at the notification that flashes across his HUD. "That's pretty close by," he says, and his attention turns, scanning the streets.

    Indeed, a flash of bright light erupts on a nearby street, reflected off the sides of the buildings. Smoke begins to billow upwards into the night sky. "Looks like we've got someone firebombing GCPD squad cars." He removes his grapple gun from his utility belt, and looks over at Charlie. A slow smile spreads across his face. "You ready?"

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    "No more militarization of the police!" Somebody is shouting into a bullhorn, as flames lick up from the burning veichles and smoke rises toward the sky, "Thanks to the military-to-police pipeline, where vehicles and weapons are purchased from the government by the municipality using your taxpayer dollars! Do you know what other shiny new toys the GCPD just bought? Armored Personnel Carriers! Six of them!"
    Another humvee goes up in a tongue of fire, as Anarky perches on a building nearby, talking into a bullhorn at the people on the streets below. "Do these *weapons* make your streets safer? Do they make you feel more secure? Of course not!"

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    Winter Wonderlands are reserved for places like Metropolis. Maybe New York. But not Gotham. In Gotham the Christmas Trees are half as likely to eat people or at least maul them if Ivy is around and on a tear.

    "Well...... how imporant is the rapier?" is the question back at that juncture of the story. The redheads head cocking to the side like a curious sort of canine in her cowl and goggles. She is fully kitted out in her gear, the weighted gloves and strategic joints making very short and fierce work of the muggers and car theft look out. Genuinely the young woman just loves saving people. It doesn't matter if it is a demon summoning sorcerer or a petty mugger really.

    The firebombing comes up on her goggles HUD as well and she peers at it for a moment. "Sure thing Robin." she glances at the direction of the bright light. "Hm" she muses and then grins "Race you there." and promptly cheats taking a leaping step and then vanishes in a slash of pink and purple smoke.

    Cheater.

    She appears on the nearby rooftop mere moments later in a slash of colorful smoke. She looks down at the burning vehicles below in the street and then up to Anarky as he stands with his bullhorn across the street on the opposite building. <<"It's a guy with a bullhorn yelling about the military industrial complex and military to police pipeline... just one guy though. I think I'm going to go punch him a couple of times.">>

Tim Drake has posed:
    "Probably not too important, given he hasn't noticed it's gone yet," Tim admits with a light shrug. "He's more of a katana sort of guy, anyway." No, he's not going to say it. But we're all thinking it: what a weeb.

    The smile on his face widens into a rare grin as Misfit proposes a race and *immediately* cheats. He's laughing as he fires off a line from his grapple gun, his cape spreading out behind him as he's pulled up into the air. It's a couple of blocks away, but their previous vantage point provides them a fairly clear, straight shot to the scene of the crime.

    Red Robin drops down into an alley significantly closer, and then he pauses. First, he pinches the bridge of his nose through his domino mask. Then, he sighs. "<<Let me guess. White mask, hoodie, anarchy symbols?>>"

    As he rounds the corner out onto the street, his suspicions are confirmed. "<<I'll work to clear out the sight-seers before anyone gets hurt,>>" he says over the encrypted Bat comm-line. "<<Just... try not to punch him in the face, okay?>>"

    That unusual request made, Tim reaches into his utility belt as he heads towards the conflagration and the crowd of civilian onlookers.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Said man - it's an armored leather jacket with a hood sewn into it, gahhhhhhhhhhhhh - stands up with his bullhorn in hand and says, "Demand transparency and accountability, rise up and say you will not live under the tyranny of continued abuse from the police!"
    He doesn't seem to pay any mind to the vigilantes closing in on them, if he's noticed them at all. He pushes a button on a remote and another humvee goes up. "It's all right, THEY'RE INSURED!" He says, into the bullhorn.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    Charlie pauses there <<Why would I avoid the face?>> she asks puzzled. Though it should be noted that Tim didn't say don't punch the Anarchist.

    She steps and vanishes again in a slash of smoke across the way. Only to appear a heartbeat later behind Lonnie as he shouts about them being insured and not to worry. A gloved hand reaches out to tap tap tap on his shoulder. "I mean... just because they are insured doesn't mean they will turn around and spend the money on something good like mental health care or housing the homeless because they were burned up..." there is a beat of a pause then an added "Also it is pretty dangerous for the onlookers and what if one of the gas tanks blew up and lit a building where people live on fire?"

    Her outfit, armored. Definitely legit. The bat symbol looks a bit more like a quirky M than a any of the other bats the crew wears. Also she seems to like goggles and all the colors are slightly off kilter from Batgirls or any of the rests.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Well, guess Tim's clever plan to steal all of Lonnie's hoodies and make him unable to do anarchies has failed. Damn. Red Robin really thought he had something there. Instead, he strides towards the crowd, backlit by the flickering flames from the armored vehicles burning mere feet away with his expression set in a furrowed line.

    The typical assortment have gathered: mostly people holding up their phones to record the incident, though several have their arms in the air, calling out to Anarky in support. "ACAB!" "Down with the pigs!" and the like. No one particularly threatening, though as Red Robin assesses the situation from afar, he's able to spot more than one person in the crowd who look like they might be concealing weapo--oh, yeah. Yep, that's a baseball bat. The firelight glints off the aluminum as the older gentleman wielding it lifts it into the air.

    One by one, the windows of an as-yet-untorched cop car are smashed in. An underhand throw lobs a cryo-grenade into some nearby flaming wreckage as Red Robin darts over, grabbing hold of the man by his jacket.

    Naturally the man swings the baseball bat at him instead, but Tim anticipates this and ducks out of the way, which puts the man on unstable footing. Quick as a whip, Tim twists his arm, disarms him, and kicks the bat away before pushing the man towards the rest of the crowd.

    "Time to clear out. Go back home to your families before the GCPD show up in force!" he calls out.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Lonnie spins around and and says, still into the bullhorn, into Charlie's face, "WHEN THEY COME TO DRAG YOU AWAY BE SURE TO SHOUT 'BUT I'M ONE OF YOOOOOOOOOOOOU'!" And then he holds up a little noisemaker at the other end of the bullhorn. He clicks it, and the widget makes an old-school Dial-Up modem connecting noise... amplified by the bullhorn. Right in Charlie's ear.
    Then he pushes the bullhorn at her and jumps off the edge of the building. He pulls out his phone, and uses that as a slightly more powerful amplifier. "Demand more from your government! Demand accountability! Power concedes NOTHING without a demand. It never has, and it never will!"

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    Charlie winces as she gets assaulted, sonicly, like that by the bullhorn shouting and then noisemakering. "Crackers!" is shouted back as she reaches to slap the bullhorn and ends up with it in her hands as she steps back away from Lonnie.

    She blinks <<He fell off the building! I didn't even hit him!>> yeah she is shouting over the comms, that was loud in her ear and she didn't have the dampeners on her cowl on.

    She steps to look over the side and see if he splats.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The aural pain gets passed on to Tim, who flinches slightly when Charlie shouts across comms. Thankfully his system starts adjusting her volume automatically, but that first moment is enough to make him stumble a little. "<<I'm sure he's fine,>>" Red Robin calls back--once he's sure he won't accidentally yell, himself, and continue the vicious cycle.

    And of course, that lapse in awareness doesn't go unnoticed by the crowd that is slowly being simmered into a proper mob. Thankfully, Tim manages to get his arm up to block as another onlooker steps up to him and throws a punch.

    Both he and Misfit get notifications through their onboard systems that the GCPD is indeed on the way, scrambling a large response team. Anarky probably has his own means of finding that out.

    "Go home!" Red Robin shouts, again. "No one here is going to report any of you if you do! We can't stop what the police will do when they arrive!"

    Because in Gotham, exactly what that is remains up in the air until you see precisely which officers arrive. And Tim isn't fond of playing the odds.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Provoking a confrontation between the citizens and the police is exactly what Lonnie had in mind, so as to agitate the people against the perpetual boot on their necks. And hes, he is indeed fine, he produced a grapple gun, which he engineered from the ones SOMEBODY keeps in his utility belt, and uses it to swing to safety before he retracts it and then where others might book it, he goes back to his adoring followers, and grabs another bullhorn.
    "Don't let the fascist followers of the Bat tell you to meekly accept injustice and excess! An expensive costume and pretty face does not equal authority! Rise up!" He says, to the crowd. "If they will not give you equity, will not give you justice, will not give you accountability, than you *take it*!"

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    Charlie watches him swing away on a grapple, with a very familiar seeming gun and technology. <<Actually he is fine. I think he stole one of our grapple guns though.>> pause <<Don't we have those all.. I don't know.. lojacked?>> she watches the whole riling of the crowd with a new bullhorn. "Fascist!?" she blinks behind her goggles and leaps off the building.

    Maybe calling the teenager a fascist was the over the line. Probably.

    Regardless she vanishes after about five feet of falling and reappears behind Lonnie, angled to plant her boots and the momentum from the falling into his back if he doesn't manage to dodge it. She isn't going for real harm, more to launch him into his followers and maybe seperate him from his bullhorn. "Jerkface!" okay smooth Charlie... smooth.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Even though they're on basically the opposite sides of the crowd, somehow Tim echoes Charlie's "Fascist!?" with one of his own.

    He keeps his grumbling about Lonnie stealing his grapple gun design to himself. Instead he replies with a "<<He's a tech genius. No doubt he manufactured it himself, based on our gear.>>"

    A couple more of the crowd have stepped away to confront Red Robin directly, so he's dodging and weaving as he talks over comms. Like Misfit, he's not aiming to cause any real harm. These are just disenfranchised citizens of Gotham, who ultimately Tim has no quarrel with. Mostly he just doesn't want any of them to end up in Blackgate.

    Or worse. Arkham.

    The sound of sirens is clearly audible now, bouncing off buildings as an entire fleet of GCPD vehicles is on their way to respond.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    As the cops begin to pull up, Anarky says, "Fight smarter, not harder!" He says. "Today we've struck a blow, tomorrow the battle continues! On the streets, in the courtrooms, at their meetings! Don't let them get comfortable-"
    Then Charlie lands on him, and he says, "OOF! Hey-" He's pushed backward into his followers, and then reaches down and whips a smoke grenade off his belt at her feet. "Scatter! Remember, they don't give a damn about you, and you don't need them!"
    Having done hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage, he seems ready to book it and vanish into the crowd, himself.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    Charlie lands in a crouch ready to follow it up one would imaginer. Then she gets a smokebomb pretty much right in front of her. With a deep resigned sign she straightens and taps her goggles switching vision modes <<Smokebomb Robin.>> she says sourly.

    "I'll find you later you jerkface and I will put my boot .. so very very far up your ass!" is shouted into the smoke and the chaotic crowd that Anarky disappears into.

    <<Call the play Robin>> still sounding miffed.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Ultimately, Red Robin gets what he wants. The call to scatter by Anarky is enough to convince people to do what he himself has been yelling at them about, so Tim disengages, taking several steps back to allow people to rush off. He taps the side of his domino mask to switch to thermal vision too, though trying to find Lonnie in the chaos is right out.

    Instead, Tim lifts his arm and types into the control panel there. He sends a text to Anarky's phone:

    we still on for italian tmrw?

    "<<Well, he was right. They *do* have insurance. ...They'll be cleaning this up for days.>>" He steps away from the billowing smoke and tosses another cryo grenade out, though by his estimate the emergency responders should be able to contain the fire before it spreads.

    As he finds a perch above the scene, crouched on the corner of an overlooking building, Tim tips his head up to stare bleakily into the night sky. "Dammit Lonnie," he mouths, and then he shakes his head. "<<Head on back home, Misfit,>>" he tells her. Then, "<<Good work tonight.>>"

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Tim gets a text back. 'Actually a new street-style French place just opened. Real food that real people eat. I was thinking we could go there instead.' Hm. Could be romantic. 'Take care of the Batling and come back to my place. I'll meet you there. ;)'
    Aside from that, he seems to have cleared the scene completely, the wily anarchist.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    <<Eh don't worry, I'll find him later.>>

    She looks around at all the damage and flings a cryo-grenade of her own onto a fire watching it pop WOOSH and put it out. That at least feels useful. Also things are fun to watch explode like that.

    <<Honestly he isn't wrong... he is just annoying.>> she rolls her eyes and steps into the drifting smoke from the petering out grenade and adds a slash of pink and purple smoke to the cloud as she vanishes.

    She is in her room moments later and tosses her belt on her bed. She has homework to do.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "<<He's not as clever as he thinks he is,>>" Tim replies. "<<But yeah. You're not wrong.>>"

    And thus, Red Robin is left to oversee--literally, because he's three storeys off the ground--the cleanup by GCPD and GCFD. And contemplate exactly how his life has gone this far off the rails.