2015.03.14 - Shadow 'Cross the Window

Moonlight. A crescent moon, its sickle seen through the hazy fog that overlay Gotham proper. The lights of the city were pushing back against the fog, adding to the gloom that normally covered the city proper. But inside the Gotham museum, there was less gloom, and more lights. The museum room that held the jewels Fantorum, rubies and emeralds that were said to channel mystical energy for some forgotten tribe in the Himalayas, were on display. 
 
Complete with a gaudy setup around them, descriptions of the tribe and their practices, and traditional clothing, and other such rubbish that Catwoman had little interest in. But contrary to the usual thought on these things, the room was well-lit. Although Batman tended to serve as a contingency for any missing jewels, Gotham was still an insurer's nightmare, and for such a valuable display, it was necessary to have a few more guards than normal. About five guards, in various points in the room, kinda meandered in and out of the room proper, no less than two tending to be in the room at the same time. 
 
But nearby, in the dinosaur exhibit, one of the five would not wander back towards the central jewel display. Instead, he would stay tied up with a bola and a gag in his mouth, his head smashed against the floor to insure his unconciousness. At least for the next few minutes. 
 
But that was all Selina needed. Clad in her leather catsuit, she crouches on the chest of the man, drawing her goggles down from the cat shaped hood she wore, tracking the heartbeats of the other guards.
"He take a thunder from the mountain
He take a lightning from the sky
He bring a strong man to his begging knee
He make a young girl's mama cry...
Ba da da da DOON DOON DOON..."
There are multiple schools of thought where crookery is concerned. Many practitioners of the art of larceny prefer to skulk about in the shadows, and get in and out with their chosen target before anyone even knows they were there. This is probably the method that requires the most skill, and Gambit has no problem with it in principle. But this is not the method that he's employing tonight.
With a pair of earbud headphones plugged into the ears that his 'costume' leaves exposed, Gambit is currently scissorkicking two guards simultaneously in the face while extending his staff to smack a third on the top of his poor noggin'.
"You got ta HIIIIIIDEY-HIIIIDE! Ba da dum!" All three guards slump to their knees almost in unison, their expressions completely blank. "You got ta JUMP AND RUN! Doo doo da DOO DA!" To be completely honest, he seems to be paying far more attention to getting his impersonation of Fogerty just right than he is to what the guards are doing.
This, of course, is why one of the guards is getting away from him, and pulling out his walkie talkie to call for backup.
Selina Kyle was of the 'never be seen' and 'skulk around' variety of burglar. With how well guarded the main room was, however - reducing the amount of eyes by one or two pairs was... ... unnecessary, apparently. "Batman?!" she says, her eyes hidden behind her goggles. Narrowing her eyes, she cants her head as she listens. 
 
It... couldn't have been. Not only did Batman not attack guards, for one, but he was too loud. 
 
...and she expected Batman to have a better taste in music. 
 
Slinking around the display of a velociraptor, Catwoman sticks her head into the jewel room. She didn't recognize Remy. But he struck her as a fellow supervillain of some kind, if only because of the eyes alone. But the crackle of a walkie-talkie catches her attention. In an instant, her whip was in her hand, the tip lashing out around the walkie, pulling it from the guards' hand into her own waiting one. She tosses it behind herself, stepping out of her cover into the lights of the main room proper. 
 
"Now now," she says, her voice cloying. "We wouldn't want any more unexpected visitors, would we?" she chides the guard, leaping forward, spiraling around - before driving one of her heeled boots into the guard's head, flopping him end over end. He wisely decides to stay down.
He was just about to take care of that guy, honestly. Of course, the way he intended to take care of the rapidly-retreating target would probably have been less stealthy than simply letting him call for backup. He turns around swiftly to take the guard out, only to see him tumbling over several times. He quickly extinguishes the glowing playing card in his hand, palming it to obscure it from view. Still, the flash of orange and pink light had to be fairly ostentatious.
"Oh no. Nope! Jus' turn around and head back to your diabolical lair, leather fetish..." Gambit does not look even remotely pleased to see a fellow criminal here at the museum, nor does he look relieved that it isn't one of Gotham's meddling heroes.
"Swear to god, every time I come to this town somebody in an animal costume tries to horn in on my action. Find your own museum, scram!" He makes a waving gesture in her direction, the way someone might try to shoo away an unwanted cat.
The playing card's appearance, however brief. And the light that came from it - Selina was thinking less 'playing card' and more 'glowy bomb of some kind', akin to the sorts of things Freeze used upon occasion. The whip was yanked back to herself, the tip allowed to pool around her feet. Leaving Catwoman and... 
 
She quirks her brow at what he says, a long-suffering sigh leaving her. 
 
Tilting her head just so to one side, she lets her sigh turn into a smile of sorts, her eyes glancing up and down the cajun. "You must be from out of town," she says, bringing a hand up to her lips, the palm facing Gambit. The claws at the tip of each finger glitter in the light, Selina licking the back of her hand then, her green eyes flickering to him. And she crinkles her nose, her features twisting into something akin to disgust. 
 
"You should probably go back to where you came from, little bird - this city isn't so kind as kind to outsiders as..." she pauses a moment, her features sliding back to a smile. "...I might be."
It's true. Most intelligent people prefer to avoid coming to Gotham if at all possible. She'd probably be able to peg him as an outsider even if his accent didn't scream 'not local' to anyone who cared to listen. Of course, if he were a local thief he'd likely know exactly who she was and would probably be ready to cut his losses right about now.
But he's not from here.
"Damn girl... that is some seriously messed up... I mean... don't you got a wet wipe or something?" His staff is still extended, but he's far too distracted by her to concentrate on wielding it defensively. It's just kind of there, held loosely in his hand.
"This is why I never come to Gotham. It's the only place I know where you can get threatened by a dominatrix in a Halloween costume."
"Wait... are you threatening me or hitting on me?"
Likewise, for Selina, this was a fairly risky deal. Someone from out of town - if they didn't have powers, they had some manner of device that... glowed. And his confidence at coming into this place suggested that he knew what he was doing. Or he was crazy. 
 
Crazy in Gotham was a serious thing. 
 
Flicking the hand that she had licked, she tilts her head, an intensity in her green eyes as she watches him. Noting that his guard was down, she lets her smile spread across her lips. A warm, welcoming one. Stepping nearer to him, she brings up one of those clawed hands - hoping to lay it on his chest, with the other moving to his cheek, using the flat of her palm, rather than the sharpness at the end of each hand. 
 
"Why would I threaten you?" she says, her voice getting a little extra purr in it. "You're going to let me walk out of here with those jewels... right?"
If she were Poison Ivy, this would probably be a done deal already. But unfortunately Catwoman has to rely exclusively on her womanly charms. And while these are ample, it's clear from the look in Gambit's black and red eyes that he's not completely interested in buying it.
He watches her walk across the room, eyes mostly locked on her hips. He clearly appreciates the view far more than he's interested in letting on, and doesn't even protest when she gets near him, even collapsing his staff with a whoosh and a metallic click. Holding the collapsed staff off to the side as she sidles up in front of him, he places it and his hand on the side of her hip.
"You make some interesting points... but I think you're confusing me with the Horny Village Idiot. Unless you got something to trade that's worth a couple mil, I'mma have to say no. Man's gotta eat, eatin' costs money, and the only thing you seem to have on you is..."
He's not going to make the obvious pun, is he?
"... pussy."
He totally is.
Not completely interested. 
 
But then again, Selina wasn't so much about selling. She was about taking. And it wasn't so much about getting him to let her waltz out of her alone - which would have been nice, admittedly - but in getting close to him. The look in her green eyes was intense upon his face, and her hand draws further down his cheek. Even the joke that he makes only makes her smile widen a moment more. Even if he can see the danger in her green eyes. 
 
Into those handsome features, the hand upon his cheek twists her fingers in, replacing the flesh of her palm with the metal of her claws, and she scratches back. The hand upon the chest makes the same motion, digging her claws into him there, but that was only the start. She was only getting ahold of him enough to twist around, contorting almost impossibly to twist and bring her foot over herself to snap into the side of Gambit's head.
He should have seen it coming. Truth be told, he kind of DID see it coming. But he was as powerless to stop it as most men would have been in his position, his curiosity far stronger than his sense of self-preservation.
"Gah!" It's not quite a scream, but it's definitely a yelp of pain. The claws dig easily into the flesh on his face, but she'll have a much tougher time getting a grip on his chest, it's padded with some decent armor, after all. But it doesn't really matter much in the end.
As the lug-soled boots connect with his face, it sends Gambit flying while her claws are violently ripped from his cheek. The sound of his flesh rending is audible even from a few feet away, a rather sickening sound. He's only able to bring his staff up after the damage is already done, snapping it back to its full length even as he reaches for his cheek with the other (finger-less) gloved hand.
"What the shit!? Who scratches someone? It was a joke!"
Completing the kick, Catwoman was balancing perfectly upon one leg, contorted around with her other foot above her. Claws, right one having tugged into his armor briefly, and left holding a few droplets of his blood, Catwoman slowly pulls herself back up to a normal stand, bringing her booted foot down to stand tall and proud, her hip jutted out just a little bit. 
 
The staff extends to its full length, and Catwoman lets a smirk touch her lips. 
 
Lifting her chin up, she gazes at him out of the bottoms of her eyes, her left hand lifted to her lips - she licks the back of her hand again, flicking the blood off of her claws. 
 
Her hand falls down, and she says just one simple word. 
 
"Meow."
"You know what? I don't need this in my life right now..." Gambit stands up, but not to his full height. Instead, he crouches slightly in a stance that anyone who had ever practiced both bojutsu and savate would recognize, despite it being from neither discipline, strictly speaking. But whether she's a fan of fusion fighting techniques or not, she surely has to recognize that he's equally ready to parry and attack.
But as he said, he's not in the mood to do either tonight.
He begins backing away from her, keeping his staff between himself and her at all times. "How about you just take the damn thing? You seem to want 'em badder'n I do. You best hurry though, the guards do regular radio checks, and we've already been here too long."
He continues backing away toward the open skylight that he (presumably) came in through.
He crouches - she brings up her hand to her shoulder, a low purring leaving her as Catwoman pulls her whip from her shoulder, and cracks it to one side. With the sound of the whip crack, her eyes widen a bit more, her smile taking on a more devilish appearance. Catwoman was not a really strong follower of fighting techniques. She knew what she had, and that it worked, but she didn't really seek to improve past that. 
 
Most of the time, she'd rather sneak by someone anyways. 
 
Gambit makes his offer, and Selina doesn't turn towards the jewels just yet, letting her eyes watch after him. "Gooooood choice," she says, drawing out the first vowel sound in a long coo. Taking a step backwards, she slowly turns her back to him, starting towards the jewel display - perhaps putting a little extra sway to her hips as she approaches the same. 
 
"Good luck in whatever city you crawled out from, mmmmn?"
He quickly attaches the dangling rappel rope to his belt, and lets the mechanical device do all the work of pulling his weight up to the top of the skylight. It's especially handy now, as one of his hands is currently occupied putting pressure on his poor injured cheek. If it doesn't leave a mark it'll be a minor miracle.
He watches her warily as he pulls himself the last couple of feet up and over the edge of the skylight onto the roof above. He's quick to begin coiling up the rope, deciding against leaving behind evidence of his involvement. Well, aside from the blood that no doubt got left on the floor...
"We don't crawl in the great city of New Orleans, Kitty Girl. Maybe you can come look me up sometime? You'd fit right in during Mardi Gras..."
And with that, his head disappears from the roof opening and the skylight slams almost hard enough to crack the glass. Turning, he continues to rub his cheek as he starts jogging away from the roof and toward his waiting ride. But he isn't too occupied to take one last peek inside his trench coat at the metallic cylinder he stashed away in his pocket several minutes ago.
Inside the display case, the clothing, the placards, and the 'other rubbish' are all that remains. In the spot where the gems were just a few minutes ago, all that remains is a note that reads "The old man is down the road."
Category:Log