9226/A robbery

A robbery
Date of Scene:	22 December 2021
Location:	Delmar's Deli-Grocery
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Arthur Curry, Satana Hellstrom

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Arthur Curry has posed:
    Of the people who first joined the Justice League, Arthur Curry is perhaps the one that most easily fits into the world of Man. Oh the others manage it with costume shifts, alternate changes, identity adaptations. They each change their hair, their clothes, their eye accessories. But it's only Arthur who does nothing.
    Not a thing.
    And sure he's recognized sometimes, though he doesn't grab the headlines. His most prominent image on Access Hollywood is an image of his hand as it crushes a camera. From the point of view of the camera. Yet it's the very nature of Arthur. The scruffiness, the usually sour attitude, the severity... that makes him mostly normal. And lets him pass as part of that world.
    Which does have its drawbacks.
    Like how as he enters the corner package store, hauling open the door causing the beep of the electronic sensor, the men inside don't recognize him.
    "GET FUCKING DOWN ASSHOLE!" Roared from the man in the ski mask as he holds a rough looking MAC-10 that has clearly seen better days considering how rusted part of the grip and muzzle seem to be. "OR I'LL FUCKING BLOW THIS CHICK'S HEAD OFF!"
    Which, upon a look around makes the Amazing Aquaman realize just what he's walked in on. People on the ground. Register knocked over, and three men with jackhammers had apparently been slamming them into one of the walls...
    Likely to try and get access to the pawnshop next door. Great.
    "Ah man, seriously?" Is all the tall man with the wild hair and long beard says. He looks from face to face to face of the three gun men, and then the three with hammers. Six all told. And the hostage?
    Not bad looking.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
It had been a good evening. Nicely fed, and glowing in post-coital feeding bliss, Satana went out for a night on the town dressed in leather. Black leather, with little details easy to pass over at first glance: buttons with demonic skull faces etched into them. The skeleton earrings that brush her neck. The leather wrist bands with chromed studs that are shaped ... lewdly. Just leave it at that.

Of course the reason they're so easy to overlook is the first glance is usually focused on how supremely tight the kidskin pants are. Or the fact that the leather halter top covers almost nothing and is really out of place in the December New York weather, even if there's a loose leather coat, kept open, over top.

Currently, too, there are other distractions. Like the arm wrapped around her throat as she feigns struggling with it to breathe. Or the gun pointed at her temple.

Adorable! Terrible at actual evil, but they have the right spirit! Maybe a little guidance.

Arthur's entrance provides the idea. She extends her will toward one of the hammer-armed thugs and dominates the man, planting into him the desire to smash Arthur's skull in because Arthur plainly thought the man had a small ... down there. It's always down there that motivates men into stupid actions, isn't it?

In the mean time her own voice only says...

"..."

Choked strangling noises, in short. Because it's fun watching their face once she turns tables on them.

Arthur Curry has posed:
    As for Arthur, he looks like a lot of New Yorkers do this time of year. Blue jeans, brown work boots, a grey hoodie over a black sweatshirt. And right now, that black beanie cap that covers part of his head in such a way that it's clear his hair isn't cooperating. So his features... wild.
    Those pale pale eyes too, not exactly lazy and inattentive considering that now. He's annoyed. "C'mon man." He tries reasoning at first. "This is stupid. You know it's stupid. I don't..." He gestures back and forth with one hand to himself and then the others, "I don't do this stuff. This is for... the Bat. Sometimes Diana. Me? I just..."
    Of course he doesn't get to finish his monologue as that guy had just been seeeething the whole time and clenching his hammer in his hand as he started to just /know/ that that guy... that guy right there in the hoodie. He thinks he has a small package! You can see it on his face. He's thinking it right now. That absolute /asshole!/
    Which is when with a roar of a yell he rushes forward, away from the wall, leaping /over/ one of the hostages to swing the hammer around and _smash_ it into the floor where Arthur had been standing. A nicely sized crack is seen in the tiled floor and clearly that's something insurance is going to have to pay for.
    Which is when Arthur says simply, quietly to himself. "Goddamit."
    And moving faster than the guy likely can see he just CLOCKS him good, a single punch across the jaw that served to send the man flying _into_ the wall they had been hammering on for the last ten minutes, smashing it down in a flutter of old concrete and dry wall.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
Well, that was unexpected.

For just the briefest moment Satana breaks character as Arthur not only fails to get his head concussed (and possibly broken), but on top of that sends the guy flying in ways that are not entirely natural.

For a human.

Ignoring her faux-captor for a moment she regards Arthur with curiosity before remembering she's supposed to be a victim and restarts the part.

"Please..." she gasps in her 'strangled' voice. "Don't ... make things ..." She can't seem to finish the sentence, especially given that the man in whose arms she is tightens up his hold.

"SHADDUP! Can't stand talky bitches. Gotta just fill their mouths to get some peace and quiet.

And Satana's face flushes a dangerous red as the gun at her temple is shoved into her mouth instead.

Outlook: not so good.

Arthur Curry has posed:
    "Man..." Arthur shakes his head as the guy puts the gun in the hostage's mouth. And... his expression is not unlike a man who realizes that he missed his train, he was going to have to take the bus, and that meant sitting on one of those long bench seats next to the stinky guy. All on a day when it's been raining and he wasn't even supposed to go in to work on that day.
    "You take that gun out of her mouth, you step back, and you get on the floor. And things will go a lot better for you for at least the next few days."
    He tilts his head to the side, even as the other gunmen are bracing and taking aim at the man, though they're shifting their grips, trying to get a better angle, clearly not wanting to fire since what he did to that guy who went /through/ the wall.
    "Fuck man, I told you not in the city man, not in the city! You know how many freaks live here, man!"
    And which causes another roar from the man who holds Satana 'hostage'. "Shut the fuck up!" And actually has the brain power to pull the gun and take aim at his partner, even as he twitches. Whatever he's on it's got him tweaking hard.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
While Arthur talked and the hostage-taker threatened, Satana herself was busy.

Changing.

The gun is pulled out of her mouth and pointed at the partner. The partner freezes in the reflexive fear of someone who's just had a gun pointed at them.

Then confusion crosses his face.

"Uh... Chaz? Tweak?" Nickname checks. "What the fuck is wrong with your gun?"

What is wrong is that the front of the barrel has been bitten off. Flat out bitten off. Everything forward of the main body of the submachine gun is severed and missing, with what's left of a barrel crimped and torn.

That's when Satana spits out the missing barrel, the metal tube flying into a rack of potato chips.

"NOBODY..." she fumes, eyes flashing. (Literally. Red.) "...STICKS THINGS INTO ME WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!"

Then, in a very sudden change of demeanour she winks Arthur's way.

"You ... will probably get permission."

Coquettish voice. Inviting body language. Yep.

Then back to angry devil voice, with a harpy's screech on the high end, but a simultaneous demonic growl an octave lower.

"NOW YOU PAY!"

Her captor joins Arthur's friend in the wall, doubling the damage that worthy gets. Her captor's arm stays behind for a bit of that journey until it dislocates so visibly it makes any onlooker feel sympathy pains.

Then her attention turns on Arthur again and the coquettish party girl is there once more, fingerwaving 'shyly'.

"Hello there. I'm Satana. Who are you?"

In the tone of someone trying to pick up a guy in a bar.

Arthur Curry has posed:
    The second joins the first with a crash through the wall, smashing through the remnants and joining his friend in blessed unconsciousness. Unless, of course, those head injuries are more complicated. Then, well, oh well. But for now Arthur's attention is on the red-eyed harpy-screeching demonic woman who just ate one of the firearms. Or, at least, part of it.
    "Hey." Arthur says, looking sidelong at her and pointing at her. He gives her a once over, down then up, not exactly a lascivious look amd more an incredulous one. Though it's brief in execution. Then he simply accepts it since in his life... he's seen plenty of out there things.
    "Gimme a second." He says as he then turns and steps away...
    Only for the other gunmen and the men with hammers to split up in an abrupt attempt to scurry hither and yon. Which, ultimately, doesn't do them much good. Aquaman grabs one, crunches his head against the wall then tosses him onto the pile of others. One drops his gun and says, quickly, unhappily. "I was... just gettin' a ride with these guys, man!"
    Yet he gets on the floor, then another joins him. A third tries for a swing of the hammer only for the hammer to be taken and the wooden haft to clock him upside the head. He's added to the pile of unconscious people. It's done quick, easy.
    Which has the customers peeking up and looking around, "Get up, people. Get out. Go call the cops." He catches the gal at the register as she's rising up, "Hey, call the cops?"
    She blinks rapidly and then grabs the phone to do just that, since apparently their alarm service expired a long time ago.
    It takes a few minutes, three or four. But once that's done the tall bearded man turns back and looks at Satana. "Arthur."
    He finally introduces himself.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
"Well hello there, Arthur," Satana says, smiling on teeth that at first seem ... pointed. Sharp. Like a shark's. Only not as friendly. But that, on second glance, seems to have just been an overactive imagination. Like the glowing eyes.

Satana fans herself.

"Oh, my, I don't know if I can take the excitement," she says, looking over the pile of bodies. "It would have taken me a ten to twenty minutes to do that. You're ... very impressive."

And with that the hostage has managed to slither her hips over to Arthur, one hand already testing his bicep and nodding, impressed.

"My saviour," she pronounces. "How did you come to intervene here?"

From egging on villainy to purring over the hero. Of course this hero ... seems ... twistable.

Arthur Curry has posed:
    Curiously enough she sees the man's eyes and the way he looks at her... it's not exactly as she seems to kindle in most other men. But then again he doesn't pull away from the pawing, the casual caress on his arm, the touching. He murmurs then, levelly, "Satana."
    As if that's all he really needed. But then he looks around at the fallen. "I was coming in. To get some milk." A look is given over to the storage units, then back to her. "But figure I'll stop somewhere else now."
    At that moment he looks past Satana and at the girl at the register again. He points at her, "Hey. Cops on the way?"
    She bobs her head quickly.
    "Alright, keep an eye on these guys. I'll be just outside." Which is the moment when he spares a second glance at the fallen before he heads to the door and pushes it open with one hand, hard enough to cause it to whumpf and thump against the door frame outside. Then it's back into the Winter's chill air.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
"Huh."

That is Satana's entire reaction to Arthur's brusque dismissal and departure.

"What a silly man. There's plenty of milk that wasn't damaged. Well, if you call two cartons plenty."

Satana shrugs, then, reaching past the clerk to reach for something strong and alcoholic. "Do you mind if I take that?"

The response, dreamy-voiced, "No, not at all. Would you like a bag for those tequilas?"

"Oh, why thank you!"

Then, with a bag containing two bottles of tequila, Satana herself leaves the shop, looking up and down the street in the chill NYC weather. "Now I wonder where Arthur went?..."

Arthur Curry has posed:
    To be fair, Arthur didn't go far. He's out front of that shop, standing with his arms folded over his broad chest, looking down the street one way... then down the other. Around him people are giving an eyeballing to the man, checking him out in passing, some are looking at what must have gone inside. He doesn't offer any explanation and to be fair very few people ask him for one with anything beyond a glance.
    Yet that leaves him there to glance over his shoulder when the door opens and closes behind him, letting the mysterious Satana emerge out once again into the Winter.
    He grunts and says over his shoulder, "You have something to do with that, or is this just happenstance?" And as if to make sure his point is made clear he gestures with a hand back to the door.
    Though he gives her another look and a once over. Whatever inner monologue he has regarding her appearance his eyebrows lifting slightly might at least signify that he doesn't find her unattractive. But not exactly leaping to swoon at her feet as it were.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
"I'm here for booze. Those bozos aren't anything I'd associate with. Too fragile and incompetent. Either on their own I could stomach, but both?"

Satana holds up her newly-won bottles of tequila. "I got two," she says, pulling one out of the paper bag. "I had a feeling you might be around, so ... this is yours."

She grins as she holds across the bottle, eyes filled with mischief that verges on malice.

"I got the good stuff. Well, best they had in the shop. It's OK."

She tilts her head curiously.

"But ... what are you, exactly. Fast. Strong. Violent. If you add 'high endurance' you're my kinda guy."

Arthur Curry has posed:
    "Terrible endurance, just lousy. Fall asleep soon as I sit down." Arthur says that with a casual aplomb that's clear he's not exactly the most friendly of individuals, but then again if she knew how he normally was she might be surprised at how tolerant he's being. Maybe he likes her.
    "I'm just a guy. Tequila though?" For a moment he looks at the bottle, quirking an eyebrow, then shakes his head. "Nah, I like to remember my weekends these days." Though, to be fair, it takes a fair amount of tequila for him to reach that point.
    "And you? Can ask you the same thing considering your appetite for metal and high iron oxide content in your blood stream now." A glance is given, then he meets her eyes, perhaps trying to see any of the glimmer that might still be within them.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
"Oh, me? I'm just a sorceress of sorts. I specialize in ... how should I say this? Ensorcelment." She taps the mind. "Especially of the weak-minded. But in a pinch I've been known to use a few ... enhancements."

She's not lying ... quite.

"Anyway, I spit out the gun barrel. Nothing's in my blood. It has that unpleasant tangy metallic taste." Satana shudders in a practiced whole-body shudder. "It's that kind of taste that just doesn't leave the mouth. I'm personally glad of the tequila."

The bottle is still being held out Arthur's way.

"I didn't say drink it all. The bottle is the gift. How you dispose of its contents is entirely up to you. Guzzle it all down at once. Pour it over your woman and clean it off of her orally. Leave it on your shelf as decoration. Drink a little tipple each day. Doesn't matter to me. I just thought you deserved a little something for that work you put in."

A sly grin creeps over her face as a zephyr blows a clot of almost-snowflakes over the pair.

"If it's the second one, however, I do hope you'll invite me to watch."

Arthur Curry has posed:
    She can see the reluctance, then the slight shake of his head. He looks over her shoulder, then back to her after a moment then gives a nod. "Hold onto it for me for next time." Apparently there will be a next time. He turns his head and gives a glance down the street at the first glow of red and blue lights flickering onto the buildings as the emergency vehicles make their way.
    "Not exactly a good idea for me to be holding booze here while I explain to the cops what's what." He gives a nod, "And unless you feel like telling them your angle, well. I imagine you should get moving."
    Then he exhales a small breath of air, enough to send one of those small bits of ice that caught the wind twirling in a miniature gyre. "Satana. I'll remember that." He likely will, since this might make an interesting story to relate one day.

Satana Hellstrom has posed:
"Oh, I'm sure you will."

Because now you've captured my interest. That part, of course, is not spoken aloud.

"I have a knack for being caught up in trouble. It's ... like ... a curse or something."

Or, you know, as the cause.

Satana turns into the cold wind, away from the red-and-blues and starts walking the kind of walk that invites a watch. Even past the leather overcoat the sway of her hips is attention-getting, the coat magnifying it by the way it drapes and sways in counterpoint.

"You can see me perform at the Happy Hetairai Bar & Girl in Gotham sometimes if you like," she says, stopping and looking over her shoulder. "I do a mean snake act." Her tongue flicks out of her mouth at Arthur quickly.

Her forked tongue.

Then another wink and her tongue, emphatically NOT forked, wets her lips.

"I'll have this bottle waiting."

Then it's back to the sway and the coat and the black-eating gloom swallowing her up, her red hair the last thing he sees before he has to tend to the cops.