9444/Canary and Owlman: Kasper Bridges Falling Down

Canary and Owlman: Kasper Bridges Falling Down
Date of Scene:	04 January 2022
Location:	Robbinsville - Bleake Island
Synopsis:	Canary stumbles across a murder in progress, and fights Owlman. Owlman escapes into the night his identity a secret.
Cast of Characters:	Lincoln March, Dinah Lance

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Lincoln March has posed:
     It's hard to tell what time of day it is just from looking. The snow pours down heavy in all directions blotting out the sun almost entirely. It's all so peaceful. Children play in the streets, making snow angels in the dark day. Postmen make their rounds from one building to the next delivering mail with care be it rain or sleet or snow.

     There's a general calm that's missing so often from the city of Gotham where everyone seems at peace. The windows are frosted over with a thick layer of ice from yesterdays rain, and people take their time to scrape clean their cars getting ready to leave home.

     High in his office Kasper Bridges is having a bad time. He's drunk out of his mind and stumbling at shadows in his penthouse suite. His eyes are wide with fear as he stumbles over to the fireplace looking down at a suicide note written in his own handwriting. He didn't remember writing it but he hadn't slept for four days, he couldn't sleep the owls would get him.

     He shouts at the night curses in Dutch. Screaming into his own home as he waves the bottle around in his grasp at his own hallucinations, at least he hopes they're hallucinations. Over the speakers of his apartment a children's song plays singing out to him Five Little Owls. He smashes the bottle against the fireplace broken glass hitting the floor with a clatter as he backs up further cornering himself.

Dinah Lance has posed:
"Stop... running... you're... only... making... things... worse!"

The Black Canary's voice proceeds word by word as she thunders her way up the fire escape stairs behind the mugger she caught in the act. A mugger who turns out to be more fit than most low-lives are.

The rude mugger fails to obey and, reaching the top of the building, pauses only long enough to get the lay of the land before darting to the right.

Which let the Canary get a bit closer. Half a floor down from the top she leaps onto the railing and catapults herself to the right, catching the crenellations and slithering between them to roll to her feet.

Six feet.

Her target flees around some steam pipes which she launches herself through instead.

Three feet.

Then the roof runs out ... and in a miscalculation the mugger finds himself on the wrong end of the building, the next building far too far away for him to leap for.

Stopping and windmilling at the edge, about to fall to his death below, he's pulled back to safety by the Canary.

Who then punches him in the face.

Twice.

"I TOLD YOU TO STOP!" she growls as he falls back onto his ass. "When I tell people to stop, I expect them to stop!"

The rest is a simple application of a police hold, zip ties, and an emergency blanket to keep him warm while the cops come. A hastily-scrawled note tucked behind his ear explains the crime and where to find the victim for charges to get pressed. Canary then walks to the edge of the building, catching her breath, doing the little warm-up dance in the snow (what is it with snow and her fishnets lateley!?) and looks across...

...straight into the apartment of Kasper Bridges.

"What the actual F...?"

Lincoln March has posed:
     Kasper slashes at the darkness not noticing a single oddly shaped throwing star wrapping around the door of his penthouse to the balcony, attached to a length of rope. Canary on the other hand is in perfect line of sight to see what looks like a batarang hit the window and force it open.

     Just in time for the drunken sleep deprived Kasper to stumble backwards and fall flat on his ass on the snow outside his penthouse.

     The music fills the open air singing in children's voices about the 5 Little Owls, as Kasper grasps at the sides of his head stumbling back up to a stand with a look of terror on his face. "Stay back, stay back." He calls out to the empty building backing up for safety towards the edge of his balcony. Snow rises up to his ankles as the slippery ice beneath his feet causes the drunken man to slip and slide.

     Something hits him square in the chest, again shaped oddly similarly to a batarang, injecting through a small needle a green glowing substance into his chest which causes his expression to grow more calm and sedated.

     Kasper falls over the edge of the balcony back first the batarang pulled free from his chest and reeled back into the shadows. The man in his nightgown and missing shoes begins to freefall towards the ground.

Dinah Lance has posed:
Canary knows she can't do anything about the falling man. She's not the Batman. She doesn't have grapnel guns and batarangs and lord knows what other tools in that belt. She's got killer legs. A killer voice. And a killer attitude.

All she can do is watch Kasper Bridges fall to his death.

Only...

She doesn't. She turns and runs, then turns and runs again, straight at the edge of the building. Straight up in a leap onto the crenellations. Then straight out into the air, aiming at the hanging rope of the window washing system across the street, where a lazy window washer didn't properly stow the equipment.

If she catches it right, she can swing across the path of Kasper and catch him, likely losing use of her arm in the process, assuming she can even hang on after slamming bodily into the brick and steel and glass wall right behind that rope.

Flying through the air she lets the thought cross her mind.

~This is really stupid.~

She catches her rope. That was never really in doubt, though she catches it three storeys below her starting height. And as expected, her right arm nearly gets yanked out of the socket by the force of deceleration. Just before her body slams into the wall, knocking the breath out of her, putting stars in her eyes, and turning her entire right side numb.

And Kasper falls past her, before she can even start to think of recovery.

Which brings the other reason for this. To defend, this is her pact, but when life's scorned and damage done... To avenge. This is her pact.

Her left arm catches onto the rope, and ignoring the screaming nerves down her right side, the Black Canary starts to climb. Starts to hunt the person who killed someone right in front of her.

Lincoln March has posed:
    Kasper careens down towards the ground completely unaware of his fall. His expression is peaceful and the special Court toxin keeps him from feeling a thing as he slams into the hood of a nearby taxi causing the rear end to lift high into the air. It's a quick and painless death something he's likely not even aware is happening.

     Inside of the penthouse Owlman is already getting to work. He swoops down to the ground level of the penthouse and begins by planting fingerprints from Kasper onto the pen that was used to write his suicide note leaving it beside the prewritten note.

     Next he moves over to the CD player and ejects the custom burnt CD that he had placed into the player instead popping in a CD of Kasper's own collection. Music floods the apartment once more, this time a more modern tune by none other than Dazzler.

     It's not to Lincoln's taste but it fills the air all the same as he proceeds to open a bottle of painkillers and throw them down as if in a fit of rage, though he remains calm, controlling and thoughtful.

Dinah Lance has posed:
As silently as she swiftly can, Canary climbs up the rope, shivering in the exposed wind and snow, reaching the window washing gantry. Using this she swings across and up to the roof, walking precariously along the edge until she reaches the penthouse. A quick hop down and she's in the balcony, slipping silently into the room.

Stealthily she slips over to where she can see the lower level, catching the shadowy figure staging the suicide. The anger that's been slowly building in her bursts forth...

...as song.

A song of chaos and destruction that leaps from her mouth a short fraction of a second after she takes a deep breath and sends her Cry forth to stun and disable the target, following with a leap down to finish him off.

If all goes to plan.

Which it doesn't quite. The Cry ... yes, that happens. But weakened and distorted by the jarring blow her body took when it hit the building. By no means her best work. But now the weakened cry is what precedes her headlong leap down into action.

Lincoln March has posed:
     The Batman shaped figure is thrown by the cry revealing himself to in fact be... someone Canary has never seen and likely never heard of before. Clad in silver armor with a white featureless mask his silhouette might match the dark knights but he's different. His features are far more owl-themed than bat-themed. His armor holds a musculature style design beneath the silver armored plates in pitch black with an owls eyes on his chest.

     Owlman dives down out of the way as his careful plans are thrown in every direction. There's a chaos in the moment as he slings an owlarang to the ceiling propelling himself up into the rafters with a great deal of speed. Once up there he holds onto the rafters collecting himself for a brief moment looking down towards her with silent orange glowing eyes from the darkness above.

Dinah Lance has posed:
~Shit.~

That word and a torrent of many others run through Dinah's head as her Cry botches from the bruised ribs she didn't take into account.

It's not a mistake she's going to make twice.

She's seen ranged weapons in use, so step one is a tumble forward and a leap to the left, to keep her position and motion unpredictable should the creature she's tangling with wish to take a pot shot at her. Then, crouching, she stares upward, having caught the upward motion from the corner of her eye, spotting the eyes quickly.

Thoughts of using her Cry, factoring in injury, stop as she sees the rafters. Breaking those could cause irreparable harm to evidence. She's going to have to...

*sigh*

...up to her feet she runs to the desk. Kicking off the desk she reaches out and grabs the lighting fixture. Using her momentum and redirecting it a bit, she swings up and into the rafters herself, just a bare moment before the fixture's screws would have given out under her weight.

Swinging instead between the pair, her path up to the rafters sadly not getting her closer, the lamp sends constantly changing shadows over everything as she looks closer at her enemy.

"Give it up now," she says. No bluster, or chest-thumping. Just an even, dead voice. "I'd rather not have to explain two bodies to the cops, and you jumping around like you are might find yourself down there alongside your victim."

It's worth a shot.

Lincoln March has posed:
     Cold, Wordless, Distant, the figure leaps with the training of a lifetime martial arts expert. He bounds from one rafter to the next like a blurr his super-human reactions serving to keep himself away from canary for the time being. He moves like a ghost in the night making sure not to leave a trace of himself behind.

     He dives down towards the floor before kicking off of one wall and then the next into a tucking roll into the top floor.

     As he rolls into place he plants more evidence as if he hasn't just been caught doing just that. A tear stained photograph which he smashes with his own gauntleted fist scattering out bits of debris onto the ground.

     It would quickly become clear that this figure, this man isn't fighting, he's crafting a narrative as he goes. Every single motion of his is designed to trace the footprints of the man who had fallen over the building placing more and more evidence towards his own story.

     "No one will ever believe you." He speaks up in a modulated voice which echoes in an ethereal manner as he looks back up towards her with glowing orange eyes behind that Court of Owls mask. "Do us both a favor and go." He pauses for a moment. "The city is better off without people like Mr.Bridges anyway."

Dinah Lance has posed:
Keep your mouth shut, Dinah. That's what Ted taught her while she was sassing him in the ring, only to get ploughed in the face with his giant, and quick, fist. Let them talk. You concentrate on...

The figure danced like a demon, but she wasn't so shabby at this particular dance herself. And after it became clear he wasn't trying to escape but rather to further a plan of some form, she angled her own motions to rein him in, keep him in controlled space.

But that last sentence can't go unanswered.

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's not my job to judge and execute." She feints a leap to the right that converts mid-swing into a double-barrelled kick of her muscular legs straight up and through the rafters at the masked figure's torso. The aim is cracked or broken ribs; no kid gloves in sight.

"I just bring you in to those who do."

Lincoln March has posed:
     Lincoln takes the kick to his torso and there's an audible crack of ribs. He flies backwards into a tucking roll with seemingly no care for his injuries. It's almost as if he doesn't notice his own broken ribs as he slams off the second floor and down to the first falling in just the wrong way thanks to his broken ribs that another disgusting sound of shattering echoes out the crunching of bones out of place as he lands hard on his back.

     And yet when he speaks there's not an ounce of pain in his voice as he lets out a low sigh. "You shouldn't have done that." He forces himself to set up audibly breaking more bones as he sets up on the spot. It's a sickening crunching noise that fills the air as he forcibly snaps his own neck back into place.

Dinah Lance has posed:
In for a penny, in for a ... uh ... invincible, injury-ignoring ... assassin?

Oh, shit.

Canary realizes what's happening as he falls and actually manages to beat Lincoln to the ground floor, seeing as she chose the direct route and he chose the bouncing one. Failing to catch him before his final fall snapped his back, a thrill of guilt flashes through her as she sees the broken neck, knowing that it was her kick that landed him there.

Then he starts to get up.

It's time for her to show off her own acrobatic chops as she performs several backflips away from him, including a few jinks to the left and right. Pausing in a defensive crouch, she watches in amazement as the man she'd "killed" sits up.

Fuck evidence.

This time she does it right, calculating for the extra pain in her side. The Cry lances out, striking Lincoln, but more to the point striking the floor beneath him, setting it vibrating in destructive sympathy, causing it to break and send him a further floor down if he's not quick on the uptake ... in the middle of a sonic attack (with Brian Blessed laughing maniacally somewhere off in the distance).

Lincoln March has posed:
     The floor collapses and sends Lincoln tumbling into the darkness. His regeneration just slightly too slow on the uptake to allow him to actually move once he indirectly temporarily paralyzes himself. The dangers of not being able to feel pain are serious don't you know?

     He falls and the ground falls with him collapsing atop him as he dips into the darkness falling through the next floor and the next as the weight of the first two floors collapses the third and causes a mountain of dust to kick up into the night.

     As the dust begins to clear there's... there's no sign of the silver clad figure. Either he's been buried completely by the rubble or he's managed to somehow ninja vanish as everything starts to clear.

Dinah Lance has posed:
Yeah. Only two options here and neither are good. Either the glowy-eyed guy is dead under a pile of rubble, or the glowy-eyed guy is still moving and likely gone.

Neither is a good outcome.

Canary's first instinct is to run, but ... damn that whole duty thing! Shaky-handed she reaches for her cell phone.

"Sgt. Wilkins. Black Canary here. I'm going to need you to send some people over..."

Details of location and what to expect are provided. "... Yes. You'll need some emergency workers to shore up some ceilings. ..." And then Dinah waits, pacing frantically as she herself looks over the evidence that the glow-guy was trying to plant, ready to point it out to the detectives when they finally arrived.

Shit. It was going to be a long night.