2012-07-24 More Like 'Warhouse'

An hour ago, Spoiler spotted a Dayton Industries delivery truck creeping towards the East Side; its low speed compounded with its age - it's probably as old as she is, easy - compelled her to follow it for a few blocks; when the truck pulled into a gas station and its driver turned out to be a young Asian man covered in Triad tattoos, she took the opportunity jimmy its rear lock and crawl inside.
Now that the truck has made it to its final destination - a Bowery warehouse - the driver and several other similarly inked men are methodically unloading crates marked 'ORANGES' from the truck. It's slow work; there are a /lot/ of crates, and the men aren't handling more than a couple of them at a time.
Just as well; the longer it takes them to reach the crates in the rear, the better; every time one of the men turns to carry another load inside, the lid of a crate tucked away in the corner shifts just enough to allow two solid white eyes to peer out after him, or a hand with a camera to snake out and capture a quick photo or two. Once or twice, the crate's contents - a deadly melange of assorted bullets and grenades - threatens to spill out when the Spoiler shifts around in there, prompting moments of nervous stillness.
There's another person approaching the warehouse. At first glance, someone familiar with the Dynamic Duo might think it's Robin, but a closer look reveals some striking diferences. A blonde girl in a red and green costume similar to Robin's, swings her way onto the top of the warehouse, stumbling a little bit but recovring before she falls forward. The blonde girl sighs and shakes her head. "Okay, Socrates..." she whispers. "I'm here." She makes her way over to the skylight and peers in. "Looks like the tip was good. Unless it's normal for people to unload crates of oranges in an industrial warehouse." She tries a few skylights until an unlocked one is found. Robin slips inside the warehouse, using her grapling gun to lower herself down to the shadowy rafters.
Most of Spoiler's pictures are about the same: some guy's back, some crates. A dirty truck. a close up of the word 'ORANGES'; each time she pops back into hiding with new photos, she takes a few seconds to scroll through them before popping out again. It doesn't take her long to come to two simple conclusions:
1.) She could /really/ use a real camera, and2.) This is /really/ boring.
After her thirteenth round of pictures, she ducks back down and flips through them, groaning to herself. The rim of her hiding place. A warehouse full of more crates. An open skylight. A flash of green--
She blinks at her cell phone screen a few times as she flips back and forth between the last two, and once another load leaves the truck, she sticks her head up to take a look for herself. Nothing out of the ordinary; frowning, she slowly slides back out of view, just as a pair of guys approach the trailer.
There are four men in all, and while none of them are openly carrying guns, a couple have pistols tucked against their backs, and there are automatic weapons all over the place.
Robin nods as she recieves some advice over the transceiver in her ear. This would be so much easier if she just used her x-ray vision to take a peek, but that's not allowed by the rules here. She moves quickly over the rafters towards a corner where there's a pile of crates. She attaches her grapple gun t the rafter and lowers herself quietly and quickly to a spot where she can observe. A second comment from her radio companion warns her that she's not the only one there in the warehouse. "Roger," she whispers. She looks around, getting a good glimpse of the automatic weapons around the scene, transmitted to ehr cohort via a hidden camera. The triad tatoos are also visible and transmitted. "You see all this?"
Her own thumb. The barrel of an AK-47 sticking out of a crate in the warehouse. A rope coming down from the ceiling. 'ORAN'.
No more tweets go out--both because Spoiler didn't come up with anything useful this time, and because something isn't right in there. Are there /five/ of them?. Is there an inside man? An enforcer?
Stephanie grimaces beneath her mask and momentarily considers crawling out and cutting her losses; there are /so many guns/ in there, and the crates are running out; what happens when the Triads get curious about why the last one is so damn heavy? The crate lid is nudged slightly to one side as she presses her head against it, lingering in the purgatory between bravery and cowardice... and then it slides all the way off when she decides to embrace the former.
Her window is tiny: all four men are busy arranging stuff at the moment, but it won't take them long. As soon as she's out, she hunches down low heads inside, trying to strike a reasonable advantage between a quick pace and not getting shot in the head for being too loud; by the time another Triad heads inside to grab more contraband, she's 'safely' huddling behind another pile of boxes, well away from his friends--and whomever else might be lurking.
Leaning back against her cover, she presses both hands to her jackhammering heart and waits for an opening to find a new hiding place--or better yet, a vantage point from which to search out the nebulous Fifth Man.
Robin nods to the voice in her reciever. A selection of pellets is palmed into her left hand and the grapple gun rises up in her right hand. Once the line is attached, Robin swings out over the crooks, tossing down tear gas pellets over them. The bottom of her swing leads her into one of the gun-runners and she plants both feet into the man's chest, the force of her momentum knocking him back several feet into some stacked crates. She lands in a three-point stance and disengages the line. Facing the gassed crooks, she growls out. "Once chance, scumbags. Give up or get beat down."
The two remaining men inside the warehouse go for their guns and open fire as soon as the gas ensures that their shots will be for naught: bullets go zinging through skylights, richocheting off of the walls, into crates; as soon as it starts, Spoiler hits the ground and claps both hands over her mouth to silence the yelp that nearly sneaks out.
They fire until their clips are empty, but by that point, the gas has reduced them to crawling around on the ground while they cough violently and spray bullets indiscriminately into the air.
Mercifully, the last man doesn't immediately fire into the gas; instead, he drops his crate and goes charging into it, shirt pulled up over his nose and mouth to protect himself. This buys him just enough time to grab a rifle and try cracking Robin over the head with it; under normal circumstances, this would 'merely' be a desperate, poorly thought out plan.
Tonight, it's just this side of suicidal.
Robin grabs the rifle as it descends, then shifts her weight down and uses the weapon as a fulcrum. The attacker goes sailing into a crate, splintering it open. Robin runs and vaults (with her hands) over a table at the side of where the crawling crooks are, flanking them. She drops down and leg-sweeps the arms of remaining two, breaking their arms as there's just a bit 'extra' behind the attack. Robin winces at the effect, like she's sorry they've been hurt like that. "Noted," she says back to her advisor. The two crooks are drug out of the tear gas cloud and tied up. "So...you guys give up now?"
Spoiler had been watching these guys for a while, now; they were strong, vital, healthy young men, and thanks to their tattoos, it didn't take much for them to give off an aura of danger. When the madness ends - when the last bullet is fired, the thuds and cries cease, and the gas begins to dissipate - she slowly lifts her head to peer around the corner; those men and the girl dragging them from the gas are the first things she sees.
Strangely, they don't look so tough now, with tears and snot streaming down their faces, and it's all thanks to Robin, the Girl Wonder. Spoiler sits up and leans back against her crates; her breath seizes when she realizes that--/something/--is amiss. She peeks around the corner again, looks Robin up and down, down and up...
... and then she clambers up to her feet and takes off running at the imposter. She nearly trips over herself and falls as she takes her few steps, but she gets into a strong, steady pace afterwards--right until it's time to leap across the warehouse floor to try and take the imposter down with a tackle aimed at her waist.
"The jig is /up/, creep!" she squeals as she flies.
There's a moment where Robin is distracted, listening to her cohort. Then Spoiler comes running and shouting and jumping. "What?" she says as the turns around just in time for Spoiler to hit her. Robin manages to relax her body so that the other girl vigilante runs into a regular body, and not a brick wall. Both of them go tumbling to the floor, and Robin pushes Spoiler away, scrambling to get up. "What the heck do you think you're doing?"
The two vigilantes tumble around on the ground, and the violet vigilante spends all of their brief tussle struggling in vain to grab handfuls of Robin's hair.
This may be Spoiler's encounter with a female foe, but /Stephanie/ has been here before. She only wishes that she weren't wearing gloves; that's half of her girlfighting arsenal gone right there!
The Spoiler rolls a few times when she's pushed away, stopping when her back bumps up against a crate of oranges(marked 'AMMUNITION'); once everything stops spinning, she quickly shakes her head and scrambles up to her feet.
"What the heck do you think /you're/ doing?" she shoots right back, bringing her fists up protectively in front of her face. "I've /met/ Robin! What are you--" Her eyes flick down to the men for a second, widening when they return to Robin. "--you're /moving in/ on these guys, aren't you?" she concludes, hissing.
"What?" Robin asks in a disbelieving voice. Her hands are up in a defensive posture, but she's not advancing or making agressive manuvers. "If you only knew how *totally* wrong you are..." She glances to the side briefly as her accomplice says something through the reciever. "Oracle's going to spank you if you don't behave here, and Robin owes me one for Leslie's." She lowers her guard some. "Now, are you going to calm down and talk about this? Or do you want to tangle a couple more rounds first?"
"Okay, /look/, you bottle blonde bi--" Spoiler fires back before the Girl Wonder rudely interrupts her with...
... facts...
Her mouth hangs open for a sec, and then she slowly breathes out and lowers her fists.
"--like I'm afraid of Batman's computer butler /anyway/," she mumbles well beneath her breath as she dusts herself off. After crossing her arms, she adds, "Fine, whatever, Robin has boobs now," in a more normal tone. A beat passes as she glances at the downed Triads. "I was on a /stakeout/..."
"And now you're on a wrap up for the cops," Robin says as she drags the two that were tossed into the crates towards their compatriates. "And really? You're going to complain about me being a girl? What ever happend to girl power? All for one and all that." She looks over the other girl, noting the costume. "So what's your name, anyways?"
"IF you aren't a criminal, I don't really care," the hooded vigilante replies with a dismissive wave. "It's just /true/." She unhooks a coil of rope from her belt and walks over to bind the criminals arms behind their backs. "And it's Spoiler." She briefly chews her bottom lip as she works, and then quietly wonders, "What--what happened to /last/ one?" without looking up. "After the clinic, I mean."
"He's around," Robin says, rather flatly. "But right now, I'm the new Robin." And Kara makes a mental note to ask Tim about Spoiler. No, she thinks. No, she's just an associate. ONe that's concerned about him. "And right now, I need you to help me out, Spoiler. You've got a Twitter following, and I need you to send out a pic of me in action. Did you get one from the fight?"
"No, I was..."
A FEW SECONDS AGO
'don't hit me don't hit me don't hit me don't hit me...' Spoiler silently prays, face down in her hiding place and clutching her head in both hands.
NOW
"... keeping an eye out, just in case there were more of them," Spoiler mutters; her arms tighten over her chest. "/You/ were skulking around; there could've been more." After a few moments' delay, she actually fetches her phone from one of her belt compartments and holds it up on front of one eye.
"Alright, say 'cheese'..."
This may be Spoiler's encounter with a female foe, but /Stephanie/ has been here before. She only wishes that she weren't wearing gloves; that's half of her girlfighting arsenal gone right there!
The Spoiler rolls a few times when she's pushed away, stopping when her back bumps up against a crate of oranges(marked 'AMMUNITION'); once everything stops spinning, she quickly shakes her head and scrambles up to her feet.
"What the heck do you think /you're/ doing?" she shoots right back, bringing her fists up protectively in front of her face. "I've /met/ Robin! What are you--" Her eyes flick down to the men for a second, widening when they return to Robin. "--you're /moving in/ on these guys, aren't you?" she concludes, hissing.
"What?" Robin asks in a disbelieving voice. Her hands are up in a defensive posture, but she's not advancing or making agressive manuvers. "If you only knew how *totally* wrong you are..." She glances to the side briefly as her accomplice says something through the reciever. "Oracle's going to spank you if you don't behave here, and Robin owes me one for Leslie's." She lowers her guard some. "Now, are you going to calm down and talk about this? Or do you want to tangle a couple more rounds first?"
"Okay, /look/, you bottle blonde bi--" Spoiler fires back before the Girl Wonder rudely interrupts her with...
... facts...
Her mouth hangs open for a sec, and then she slowly breathes out and lowers her fists.
"--like I'm afraid of Batman's computer butler /anyway/," she mumbles well beneath her breath as she dusts herself off. After crossing her arms, she adds, "Fine, whatever, Robni has boobs now," in a more normal tone. A beat passes as she glances at the downed Triads. "I was on a /stakeout/..."
"And now you're on a wrap up for the cops," Robin says as she drags the two that were tossed into the crates towards their compatriates. "And really? You're going to complain about me being a girl? What ever happend to girl power? All for one and all that." She looks over the other girl, noting the costume. "So what's your name, anyways?"
"IF you aren't a criminal, I don't really care," the hooded vigilante replies with a dismissive wave. "It's just /true/." She unhooks a coil of rope from her belt and walks over to bind the criminals arms behind their backs. "And it's Spoiler." She briefly chews her bottom lip as she works, and then quietly wonders, "What--what happened to /last/ one?" without looking up. "After the clinic, I mean."
"He's around," Robin says, rather flatly. "But right now, I'm the new Robin." And Kara makes a mental note to ask Tim about Spoiler. No, she thinks. No, she's just an associate. ONe that's concerned about him. "And right now, I need you to help me out, Spoiler. You've got a Twitter following, and I need you to send out a pic of me in action. Did you get one from the fight?"
"No, I was..."
A FEW SECONDS AGO
'don't hit me don't hit me don't hit me don't hit me...' Spoiler silently prays, face down in her hiding place and clutching her head in both hands.
NOW
"... keeping an eye out, just in case there were more of them," Spoiler mutters; her arms tighten over her chest. "/You/ were skulking around; there could've been more." After a few moments' delay, she actually fetches her phone from one of her belt compartments and holds it up on front of one eye.
"Alright, say 'cheese'..."
Robin kneels down, securing the last of the crooks. She doesn't say cheese or even look at Spoiler, trying to make the picture look like she's unaware of being photographed. But she does make sure to turn so that the 'R' symbol and her blonde hair can be seen. After the picture is taken, she smiles slightly at Spoiler. "Thanks. This is going to help out a lot." She raises the grapling gun and shoots the line up. "Cops are on their way, so that's my cue. Stay safe out there Spoiler. Hope to run into you again." And Robin his the retact switch and rises up to the top of the warehouse. She starts swining off and asks her radio counselor, "So...gonna chew me out now or later?"
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