Thread: Empire -- City of vice. (BlackOut & Claire)

As she approached the precipice which dropped off into the alleyway below the young superheroine could feel the tension in her stomach rising just a little. She had been working as a vigilante - as some law enforcement so unflatteringly termed it - since her senior year of college, and in the 2 years since she had seen more than a few midnight criminal rendezvous. Shade no longer felt the same niggling fear which had filled her earliest nights on the street fight crime, but she also no longer had her mentor and friend - The Raven - for support and backup. He had long since moved to Metropolis, and left her to fly the nest and fight crime on her own well, occasionally and very fleetingly - in tandem with a couple of the cities other supers. But in truth Shade knew that she'd exceeded all of her early expectations. She had garnered a reputation, and even something of a following. But importantly, she felt as though now the long winter nights of Empire City belonged to her! With her eyes fully adjusted to the darkness it took only a fraction of a second to focus as the black was punctuated by the lights below. The muted headlights which filled the darkness could only be those from a older model vehicle, or from bulbs which had been adjusted just for this manner of shadowy work. The van was a darker colour, and looked to be rolling to a stop rather patiently, the lights shutting off as hummed to a halt, its engine idling for a moment before dying into silence. A van like that, rolling into a deserted night-time Alleyway, it only meant one thing vice or at least something they wished to be hidden from view. Shade had patience too, and her watchful eyes scanned the darkness below, hearing the muffled Hip-Hop music rising up from the cab below. Criminals with good taste in music? the thought brought a smile to her face. But the sound of a second engine, and the lights which duly followed, brought her right back to the business at hand. The new arrival bathed the alley beneath her feet in hues of amber and red, their dark sedan reversing. The second set of lights fell dead as the vehicles converged, almost as though they thought that the darkness would shield them and protect whatever folly it was they had planned. They couldnt have been more wrong. Shade didnt recognize the man who climbed from the front of the van, perhaps it was impossible from 100ft in such darkness. He was not a name as far as she was concerned, but he was most likely to be significant, and given his transport she assumed him not to be without some serious backup perhaps at least one, no, two or perhaps three well armed enforcers. She assumed there might be 1 in the front of the car that she couldn't see from her vantage point, and maybe 2 in the back. He was tall, and dressed casually, and he just had a look that could be recognised anywhere he was pale, shaven-headed, grizzled and dangerous. He could be Irish, or Eastern European, in truth he was the kind of thug who would fit comfortably in just about any lineup. As he strode around the back of the van to greet his conspirators she found her eyes drifting towards the sedan. The man who emerged from the other vehicle, it was easy to see, was a different beast indeed. A man who was not so foreign and unknown. Oh, nice suit! She almost muttered the words outloud as her memories came flooding back. The court gallery had been mostly a dull affair, but the suited younger man with his notepad and grimace had stood out a mile away he was certainly not family, he was not a lawyer nor a reporter, so it had meant he could only be there on business. Shade, of course, made it her own business to attend the occasional trial, often not even those in which she'd participated in the bust. Her internship with a legal-aid charity and her part-time job writing summaries for a local online paper gave her all the excuse in the world to make the trip to the courthouse and no-one paid any mind. But Stephen, well, he'd certainly gotten her attention more than the court case itself so much so that she'd made it her business to find out exactly who he was. As the sleazy and smooth looking suit had collected his belongings from the court cloakroom she'd been sure to follow up and read his name right off the register... it had yielded a surprising degree of honesty. It seemed that Stephen Kilbannon had little need to hide his identity, and - after just a little digging - not a pending arrest warrant to his name. But you had to go and do drugs... I'm so disappointed Stephen... honestly, Shade muttered to herself, allowing a wry smile to cross her face. Was he a big fish? or just some middling lieutenant? Shade knew that the answers would be easy enough to come by if she found herself back in the gallery for his trial well, if that was the way things went. With all of the guns in the alley below there was every chance that things could go another way entirely! She counted all of the different actors in the alley, measuring the distance to each one of them. She watched patiently as the men in the rear of the van disembarked, followed by the driver seemingly their trade would be the vehicles themselves, to go along with whatever cargo they held. The whole thing had the strangest air of calm, and suddenly the dark-haired heroine was aware that she still had no inkling of what was really being sold. Drugs? Women? Something else? The money was in the car, of that she was certain and the merchandise in the van. So she had a dilemma. The man with the shaven head seemed the greater threat - he had 3 men with him, and they were tooled up with a veritable arsenal but the slick looking amigo with thick brown hair had the merchandise. Who to hit first Shade knew that her own moment would arrive when all beneath her thought that their troubles had ended. She knew that when she hit deals before they occurred it sowed distrust, confusion, and a hail of bullets with the criminals on edge they opened fire on anything that moved. It was bad for just about everyone, and it was the way she'd managed to get herself shot way back when she'd very first started. She still had the scars on her shoulder and her wrist to show for it. She'd learned a lesson from the bloodshed! Attacking in the middle of a deal was something she'd never cared to try, for she imagined a similar result. But, as things wound up and the money was closed up in the rear of the Sedan, well, then it seemed that everyone was so very self-satisfied and uncocked. She knew it risked losing at least one of the two parties, but, that was a small price to pay for the surety of avoiding an utter bloodbath and more enmity from the media and police. Doors were closing below, clicking into their fittings, the cars waking up and bathing the alley once again in dim light. Shade picked up the stray red brick she spotted upon her arrival, weighing it in her hand and measuring the distance to the alley below. Then, with a smile crossing her half-masked face, she tossed it into the air 20 feet or so to her left and dropped silently into the darkness below. The whir of violence which followed lasted no more than 30 seconds. Shade descended to the hard tarmac like an Owl dropping stealthily from above, she landed with all the grace and silence that her name wrought on those who knew her. Within moments she darted at the car as it reversed away down the alleyway. In the darkness it's driver didn't stand a chance, especially with his eyes firmly on the mirror. As she vanished into thin air the windshield was decimated by the brick she had so expertly and nonchalantly tossed from above. Shade reappeared milliseconds after it's crashing impact, pulling the driver forward by back of his head and slamming his face into the steering wheel, expertly deploying the air-bag, and - rather by design - stopping the car in its tracks. The driver-side henchman, the shaven-headed one, barely had time to lift the gun from his lap before shade had kicked in the shattered wind-screen and sent a second kick almost through his jaw the cracking sound leaving no uncertainty that he would not be partaking of the fight any further. Sorry guys. The party is over!Shade snapped as she felt her focus flowing through her as she vanished again, blinking - as she could only describe it - 6 feet forward into the backseat of the small mondeo. She knelt forward on the seat between the two men, and both occupants moved almost in slow motion, stunned at the intrusion and the sheer velocity of the assault. The third henchman moved to throw a punch, ultimately catching nothing but air, his hands grasping for little more than a shadow as Shade dropped inside the arc of his swinging left arm. She was simply too fast. And within seconds he too was pacified, his head slammed into the window with three brutal pumps that left cracked and stained with more than a little blood. But suddenly Shade was aware the other occupant, he was reaching to raise his shotgun. Her reactions were automatic, a reflex trained and sharped from an already razor sharp natural point. She spun her entire body on the seat, cracking her elbow into his windpipe and then reaching across in one motion with her other hand and grabbing the wrist with which he had reached for the weapon and slamming it against the door. Two further swift cracks of her elbow left him unconscious. But suddenly the alleyway was alive with noise! It's her. It's her!!! That bitch! the voices were impossible not to hear, and Shade knew they were the guys who had been straggling behind The Suit as he'd headed to his new van. She shot her gaze sideways into the darkness beyond the right-side window, then, focusing all of her energy she vanishing into it, emerging from the car without using a door or window, simply moving through the short space between as though she were a wraith. That was her power, and although it drained her, and she could only jump to places she could see, it was enough to give her the edge over criminals who simply didn't ever see her coming. She hung in the darkness for little more than a second as the two armed men ran back towards the car. Their voices filled the night air with obscenity as they raised their weapons and prepared to light up just about everything in sight. But moments later they themselves were silenced. Shade dashed through the darkness as the bullets slid around her helplessly. She extinguished the guns with efficiency, dispatched one Stephens men with the butt of his own gun - shattering his eye-socket - and the other with a brutal slam into the boot of the car and a swift kick to his head as he crumpled to the floor. 6 down... and the other 1, well, he had to realize exactly whom it was he was facing. Shade was unnaturally fast, she moved with a hunters grace, and she had the freakish, superhuman ability to move over short distances instantly disappearing and reappearing in literally the blink of an eye. She was a shadow, and her speed allowed her to finish fights almost before they began. Put the guns down and surrender! she yelled down the alleyway, crouched just behind the dumpster, mere feet from the body of the latest prone henchman. She had taken out 6 men in under 30 seconds, she knew it was almost an unfair fight given the advantage that the darkness delivered to her. You're not going to win this one! How they reacted, well, it was anyone's guess. Shade knew that it was always different, every single time! But she wanted to give them a chance... at least before she had to kick their asses. Come on. You don't really want to get beaten up by a girl, do you? her own comment actually gave her pause to smile. She had just an inkling of exactly how the police and the criminals felt about being beaten by someone of the fairer sex. Their attitudes, well, it was all the motivation she needed. There was no answer. Not a word. Was he trying to sneak up on her? Was he loading up another weapon? She slipped out and across the alley, seeing the van, its back doors wide open and half of whatever was packed inside splayed out across the floor. No no that goddamn asshole! it had been quickly pillaged, boxes strewn open. The Suit had quickly taken what he could and fled and all the while she had expected a gunfight. Hm maybe hes not so stupid. she realized, wondering how futile it might be to wander to the end of the alleyway, to try and catch him or cut him off. One of the henchmen behind her started to stir. Fucking bitch... he groaned, making to move. No. She couldnt go chasing the runner, she had other fish to fry.