Owner Pose
Evan Cooper Nighttime. The Narrows. It's unseasonably warm tonight and people are out in droves and moodier than a cobra protecting her clutch. Wraith is out tonight. Ever since he met that fascinating Huntress he has been patrolling more and more often hoping to "accidentally" run into her. He's been alone for a very long time, and even if nothing more than a friendship evolves from the encounters it's just nice to talk to someone for a change. Tonight he is sitting on the edge of a rooftop watching people gather in Robinson Park. This place is defined by its poverty, and violence is the only common language the inhabitants of the Narrows speak.

Wraith witnessed several small fights break out. They flared up instantly and died down on their own just as fast. They were certainly nothing for him to get involved in. For a cranky night in the city, it has been remarkably sedate.

Then an unmarked box truck comes rumbling down the road. It's huge. It's old. It's rusty. It's loud. Switching to his infrared vision, Wraith studies the vehicle. Nothing unusual shows up in that light spectrum and he is about to switch to normal vision. But suddenly the trucks pulls to the side of the street adjacent to Robinson Park and something inside of it begins to quickly build a massive heat bloom that shows up on Wraith's infrared vision like sunlight.

Smoothly, he stands. "Shit. Huntress if you're on this channel, something...something not good is going down at Robinson Park."
Helena Wayne Huntress hasn't been far from Wraith on his patrols, even though he probably doesn't realize it. Helena learned surveillance from her mom and stake-outs from her dad, two of the best in the business. And she puts her skills to good use.

Tonight while Wraith is watching the crowds, Huntress is a little higher and a little farther away, watching him through a pair of expensive binoculars. Her other hand rests on the grapple-gun, just in case. She's using normal optics, but the behavior of the van isn't normal.

<I hear you, Wraith. Up and behind you, looking over your shoulder at 5 o'clock. Hold on.> A grapple clangs softly close by, and a moment later she is zipping down to him.
Evan Cooper He waits until Huntress lands next to him, then Wraith points at the truck. "There is a massive heat bloom building in that thing. I can't imagine it's some of explosive. That wouldn't be a likely way to..."

Wraith is interrupted by the sounds of multiple people screaming in terror...from *inside* the truck. Then sides and roof fall away and collapse, revealing that final piece of the mystery.

Standing on the now-exposed back of the huge box truck are two massive piloted walkers. They appear to be large robots reminiscent of mechs, each piloted by a well-protected operator. But just for extra insurance, each mech has four cages affixed to it front, back, left, and right, and in each cage is a panicking citizen. They are all women and children. The approximately ten-foot tall mechs burst into action, walking into the crowded park. "Attention law breakers, ne'er-do-wells, and ruffians. Please sit down on the ground and stand by for cleansing," one of the pilots says through a built-in megaphone. Then both mechs, which are moving quite quickly at about 6-8 miles per hour, activate chain guns on their arms and start firing indiscriminately into the crowd. People start to scatter in panic.

"Seriously?" Wraith says. He holds one arm out and from his forearm a collapsible grappling hook and monofilament line launches, sinking into a tree near the mechs. He swings into motion.
Helena Wayne Helena Wayne shakes her head at the mention of 'explosive'. "If it was an explosive, it would've gone off by now. At least a conventional one..." Her voice trails off as the mechs break out of the truck and start into the park. "You've got to be kidding." Huntress mutters under her breath. Before she can say anything to Wraith about strategy or an approach, he fires his grapple and swings away.

"Okay, kid, this is as good a time as any for your audition." she murmurs, off-mic. He swings down low and she swings up high, stepping lightly onto one of the larger boughs of the tree. Rather than launching herself into action, however, Huntress takes a moment to study the mechs and look for weak spots.
Evan Cooper The piloted vehicles are well-armored and of course the cages make it difficult to mount an offensive against them unless one is willing to risk the lives of the people captures inside of them. But Wraith seems determined to close with one anyway. He falls in behind the mechs and sprints at them. His black costume makes him difficult to see in the darkness and he moves *fast*. It's not The Flash fast, but he's moving easily as fast as a car. Then he springs into the air, easily arcing 20-30 feet high as he plummets toward one of the mechs.

Surely nothing Wraith did gave him away. Silent as a shadow, fast as the wind he approached the mech. But it must have some sort of internal sensor system because it pivots around at the waist like a gun turret and unleashes a couple dozen rounds from its chain guns, blasting Wraith back and to the ground *hard*. Both vehicles continue their bloody cleansing.

Heavy smoke from the high-caliber rounds surrounds the area where Wraith hit. As it so, so slowly dissipates, one is left to wonder if there will even be enough of his body to identify. But then there is a coughing from inside the cloud followed by "Okay now he pissed me off." Stumbling a little bit but not otherwise the worse for wear, Wraith slowly emerges from the cloud.
Helena Wayne Huntress watches from her perch, breath catching as the guns suddenly turn on Wraith. Then he stands up and walks it off. <Focus, Wraith. And don't get cocky.> Dispite the earlier gasp, her voice is cool and impassive and even-toned. Professional.

<We've got to crack the canopies and get to the drivers. That, or immobilize them. The legs and joints look to be pretty well-protected, however. I'll keep scanning. You keep them busy.> And with that, Huntress starts looking for external weak spots. She also zooms in on the attachment points of those people-cages.
Evan Cooper The cages are heavy-gauge steel welded to the body of the mechs. One might destroy the mech before tearing one of those cages free.

<I'm going to pull their attention left.> Wraith, too, is calm and professional. It's almost as if he either is utterly unafraid of dying here, or doesn't believe it's possible.

Once again, he extend out his right arm and he fires his grappling hook. It flies past the mechs and sinks into a tree. The next thing is he's whizzing to the left of the leftmost mech. On his way past, he knees the protective canopy over the pilot. I mean...his *knee* hits it, and tears it free. His internal cybernetic frame takes the punishment, but the grunt that is heard over the comms testifies that it still hurt like hell. Now one of the mech pilots is unprotected. As he continues sailing past he yells out "Nice protective canopy! Did you buy it at Walmart?" It's such a puerile remark, but it is enough. Both mechs move left, as Wraith promised, and pursue him, firing their guns.

Oh, and also, when you're sailing through the hair at high speed, getting dragged by a monofilament line toward a tree, there are few graceful dismount options. Wraith smack hard into the tree and thuds to the ground. <Why did I get out of bed today?>
Helena Wayne Huntress has a good view from her vantage point in the tree. <Nice one. We'll ice the knee later,> she offers. The canopy pops loose and then both mechs turn to take after Austin.

Huntress doesn't hesitate.

The mechs are pretty cavalier about using deadly force, which keeps a lot of options on the table. <THOCK!> A crossbow bolt hits the exposed driver in the hollow of his right shoulder, pinning him into the seat. It's a well-placed shot that causes his right arm to go numb as well.

Huntress fires another grapple line to stay ahead of the pursuit, and also to avoid any retaliation.
Evan Cooper The pilot of the still-intact mech is really focused on Wraith. He doesn't notice his partner getting shot. He just quickly advances on Wraith's position, firing so many rounds from the mech's chain guns that their barrels are glowing red from the heat. But at least he's not shooting at civilians. Wraith leaps up into the air, easily jumping over the mech. The pilot, allowing his anger to control him, keeps his guns trained on the leaping Wraith up, up, up, up and over the mech's head. Too late does the pilot realize that the maneuver was designed to tip the mech over backwards, and that's exactly what happens. Unfortunately, the pilot manages to regain control of the vehicle and spin around 180 degrees while falling to instead land with the mech's arms down on the ground. This lets it stand back up quickly. But that was all time that citizens weren't being mowed down.

The wounded pilot in the other mech can't seem to operate the right arm of his mech now, and the vehicle's right arm hangs limply in a grim imitation of the driver's injury. But he is able to maneuver the mech's left arm so it's pointing directly at the victim in the front cage of the mech -- an Hispanic woman who is panicking severely. He turns to follow Huntress' path of travel. "You want me to make her into pudding?" he calls out.
Helena Wayne Huntress hears the ultimatum over the loudspeaker, and she drops from the tree with a flutter of the dark cape. Her posture is unmistakable as she raises the crossbow. Yes, there's a cage in front of the mech but she definitely has the shot.

"Do you know what's preventing me from putting a bolt in your brainpan right now?" she calls out. "Kill the woman... kill ANYONE ELSE... and they'll be scraping your brains off the seat with a spoon."

It doesn't take an expert to see that she's not bluffing. The standoff doesn't last three more seconds when she fires first. Right into the other shoulder, causing the other arm to go numb before he can pull the trigger. Huntress runs full speed towards the mech, then, vaulting high into the air to land overlooking the open canopy.
Evan Cooper That is pretty much it for the wounded pilot. He wasn't expecting this unfold in this manner. "You're a fool! They're miscreants and criminals. Any one of them would kill you for the price of a month's rent and a decent meal. The city needs to be cleansed, it's wounds debrided so they can heal and the city can grow to its former glory!"

<You makin' friends with lunatic manifesto over there?>

The intact mech recovers its balance and aims full on toward Wraith. But like *lightning* he leaps directly at the mech so fast that the pilot has no time to react. Wraith grabs the arm as he leaps past. The air is filled with the sound of tearing metal as the arm breaks free. Dude is *strong*. He tucks and rolls on his way past and comes to his feet behind the mech.

Then through the adrenaline, Wraith's brain has time to register that the arm is really, REALLY hot from all the shooting. <OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW> he calls out, dropping the arm to the ground and shaking his hands as though attempting to cool them.
Helena Wayne <Working on my people skills.> Huntress replies into the headset. She's standing on the mech's chassis now, looking down into the open cockpit at the wounded pilot. She lets the pilot blather on some more while Wraith dismantles the other mech.

<You know these things get hot, right?> she asks. Pausing for a moment, once she sees that Wraith is alright, Huntress draws back and cold-cocks the pilot to shut him up. <I guess I'll have to repeat that anger-management class, too.> she declares. <This one is out. I'm going to see if I can figure out how to let these people go.>

And with that she starts looking over the cockpit controls.
Evan Cooper There are a series of controls for the cages. One set of switches is labeled CAGE RELEASE 0, CAGE RELEASE 1, CAGE RELEASE 2, and CAGE RELEASE 3. Then another series of switches beneath them are grimly labeled CAGE ELECTRIFY 0, CAGE ELECTRIFY 1, CAGE ELECTRIFY 2, and CAGE ELECTRIFY 3.

In response to Huntress' comment about the mechs getting hot, Wraith replies <See, now sadly that knowledge would have helped me about about ten seconds ago. Timing is everything in life.>

"Dude, c'mon," he yells. "We took down your buddy. You have one arm left. Just surrender so we can all just..."

*BUDABUDABUDABUDABUDABUDABUDABUDA* The driver unleashes the mech's arm right into Wraith, sending his flying back to the ground. There is no visible blood but he lies there unmoving.
Helena Wayne Huntress quickly flips all of the CAGE RELEASE switches, assessing her options. Hmmm. Too bad the pilot is nailed into his seat with crossbow bolts.

But maybe...

She settles onto the unconscious guy's lap, trying not to think of the implications. Facing forward as best she can, she pulls the limp hands from the controls and slips her own into place. <Testing, testing...> The arms move and she makes a couple of experimental sweeps.

Helena is a good shot, no matter what she's using. It's just that the mech is a lot bigger gun than what she's used to.

It's two guns to one, now, as Huntress opens up on the other, unsuspecting mech. She aims both guns at the closest leg, specifically the knee joint, and opens fire.
Evan Cooper The twin cannons sheer off the leg like a lightsaber. The mech collapses to the ground, landing on top of it's good arm so it can't even move it. It's a perfect takedown. But then over the loudspeaker: "You meddling bitch!" And the four prisoners in the cages start to scream horribly as the electrify functionality is activated by the pilot inside the now-disabled mech.

Slowly, very slow, Wraith starts to come to his feet. He seems dazed more than anything else. And unless that thin, form-fitting costume of his is from the future there is no way it could have stopped those bullets.

"What the..." His face is covered but one can just imagine him blinking away the confusion. The transition from standing there dazed to running forward at literal car-on-a-highway speed is instantaneous. He's on the mech in a split second. He yells out in pain as electricity courses through him as he starts tearing the cages away and pulling hostages free. Fortunately(?), the electric charges were intended to cause pain, not to kill. Once the last hostage is torn free, Wraith collapses exhausted to his knees.
Helena Wayne Helena Wayne can't make the other mech actually -walk- with the unconscious pilot in the seat, so she climbs out while Wraith pulls the cages off. <When this is all over we need to talk about your abilities, Wraith. And also about how much you rely on them.> she declares.

While he collapses in exhaustion, Huntress jogs casually over to the other, disabled mech. She climbs up casually onto the chassis, pulling out tools as she looks down through the canopy at the trapped, but healthy, pilot. "There's nothing like a good, old-fashioned glass cutter sometimes, y'know?" she asks in a chipper tone.

Huntress works casually, but quickly scribes a four-inch circle in the canopy. Using a suction cup she carefully pops the glass free... not unlike a burglar. Smiling down at the pilot inside, she pulls a cylindrical canister from her belt and holds it out for him to see.

"There's enough tear gas in here to fill up an industrial sized warehouse." she declares, with a smile. Popping the pin, she drops it down onto the floor of the cockpit. Then she replaces the glass she cut out, using tape to secure it in place.

<You look like you could use a ride, Wraith. This is the part where we usually call 911 before getting outta Dodge.>