2014.02.25 - The Masque Showdown

That moment when you lock eyes with someone who actively plans your real death. Distant, wordlessly. Surprisingly rageless; just a cold, calculated knowing.
It'd been fifteen minutes since Dinah had spotted a few square inches of Madame Masque's face from the fifth floor window of a large, fortified warehouse on a deserted corner in South Gotham. (No chance of getting the drop on them, I guess.) She waited near her bike, a few blocks away, making her best effort to hide from view.
Dinah had sent messages to Tony Stark, since she figured he might have an axe to grind from his last encounter with Mafia types. She also thought about her arrow friends, and attempted to call them. Roy? No answer. Kate? No answer. Oliver? No answer. She left a brief, tense voicemail on Ollie's phone.
Tony got the call from Dinah a short while ago. She'd found the mafia snakehead she'd been looking for. Modifying the Tank armor with elements of a couple of different suits. The internal comms system blaring @440's "Can't Stop The Rock" as he flies in. He tries to maintain a modicum of stealth as he lands a short distance from Dinah. Faceplate retracting into the helm showing his face, "Canary," he says genially to Dinah. He sizes up the building, "What do we got here?" he asks.
While possible those at the warehouse knew exactly where Dinah was, but she wasn't going to assume it, and she lingered back in a semi-hidden nook. When Dinah saw Tony's flighted approach, she hung back a moment, for him to land on his own. Last time she tried to wave him down it didn't work out very well. After waiting a few moments, she flashed Tony a tense-but=friendly smile.
"They already know I'm here," she confessed. "So they're either packing up, or gunning up." She led Tony two blocks ahead, making her best effort to keep hidden behind large things--trucks, dumpsters, buildings, and pointed out the location. "She's in there. Madame Masque," Dinah said, her voice carrying a hint of weariness, "I don't think we can afford to wait for S.H.I.E.L.D... It's fortified--not sure how think the walls are. Only two entrances, both secured. Only one tiny window on the fifth floor. These guys have a penchant for cameras, so they're probably looking at us right now."
"Alright," Dinah says, looking at Tony, "Let's do this direct," she waits only a second to see if he has any knee-jerk rejection of the idea. Then continues, "Get about ten feet behind me and cover your ears." She takes a small leap forward, jumping into a martial arts stance, and at once sends out a Canary Cry at the front door. While standing behind Dinah at moments like this protects one from physical damage, the sound, even with hands-over-ears, is still an unnerving clamour. Dinah continues the echo for about twelve seconds... The front door rattles and dents from the sonic impact, and dust from the cheap stucco on the walls spraying into the air. Eventually the door bends inward with a terrible wrenching-of-metal sound, creating an opening big enough for a person to fit through.
"Hopefully that gave them something to get scared about," Dinah said, her voice sounding a little strained. Ahead was a stairwell leading up.
The faceplate extends and covers Tony's face again. Just in time too, as the Canary Cry turns the front of the building into dents, dusts, and blows the door off. He hovers about twelve feet or so in the air, repulsors aimed downward to start taking out thugs as they flush out. "Let's perform some community service." he says, the sound of a smirk coming from his digitized voice.
Dinah walks over to the door, gazing around for guns, traps, or trouble. Nothing in sight, she gives the door a healthy kick to make the opening larger. She takes a few steps upward, and hears the sound of a carriage reload. Guns. She steps back out, turns to face the others.
"They're waiting for us ahead."
Iron Man lowers himself, "Let me take point. I'm ready for everything this time." he says, flying over past Dinah and the doorway. For grins, he walks over and clanks his armored fist against the doorway, and calls out, "We're here to ask if you've accepted Jesus as your personal lord and saviour. Would you be interested in a copy of the Watchtower?" he says, and enters the doorway, fully accepting whatever numerous bullets fly at him.
At once, five gun men turn the corner and are at the top of the stairwell. They're armed with sub-machine guns, and at once begin firing onto Tony: each at full tilt. The sudden sound of gunfire is deafening, and Dinah jumps to the side, moving against the outer wall to avoid injury. The men continue to fire, endless bullets streaming off Tony's armor: not piercing, but certainly scratching its nice, shiny finish. One of the ricochet bullets bounces up and tags the forehead of one of the gunners, sending him to the ground, his blood splashing on his neighbours.
"STOOOP!" a voice shouts out. After a few seconds, the bullets ceases, and a voice calls down from deeper in the warehouse. It's a gravely, angry male voice. "You think we didn't prepare for you, Iron Man?"
Iron Man switches to IR to see the heat signatures of the men in the smoke. Moving effortlessly, he answers the shouted question with, "No. You really didn't." he said with a digitized voice. He raises repulsors, keyed to a mere one-point-five percent. He fires shots from his palms all around, save for the last. He emerges from the smoke, grabs the cocky thug by the forehead, "You didn't prepare for me at all." he says, and jabs the back of his head against the wall, knocking him unconscious. He then turns around to read for more heat signatures. "I believe the road is plowed."
Dinah, in a moment of exasperation, let out a nervous laugh with Tony's grand entrance inside. She jumps to the bottom of the stairwell and scurried up the stairs. Looking onto the scene above, seeing Tony holding a gruff looking Maggia mobster by his shirt, Dinah would've smirked, if she had the time, but there was a sudden ding.
This ding signified two events, possibly coincidence. There was a man on a raised platform, hidden behind a thick, metal wall, and he'd pressed a control panel. Six large, sharp, titanium...sphere looking 'bullets' at once launched out of the walls, darting straight at Tony's chest.
"TONY!!" Dinah shouted, trying to get his attention. That was punctuated by a laugh from Dinah's side: it was Madame Masque herself, and she'd just emerged from an elevator: the source of the 'ding' sound. She was dressed in unique body armor that bore the same design style as other weapons SHIELD had recently captured from The Maggia: The Fixer's work. Her fingertips were glowing red, and quickly erupted with a buzzing sound, followed by ten string-like, white glowing rapier-like, long 'claws' from each finger. It looked like ten light sabers. She moved towards Dinah, who looked taken off guard.
Green Arrow hasn't heard from Dinah in a while, but he wasn't going to ignore the message on his phone. It took him a bit to get to the area she said she'd be and he's already hearing gunshots. While not the stealthiest of Gothamites...he'll leave that to the Bats...he tries to do well enough as arrows are nocked. He continues cautiously up the stairs...until he hears Dinah's shout.
Sure, she's not shouting his name...and hasn't in a while, but it only quickens his footsteps into a run.
Bursting into the area, it takes only a moment for him to assess the situation and turn his aim to Madame Masque. Two arrows are fired in rapid succession, aimed at both of her arms.
Iron Man manages to dodge three of the sphere. Countermeasures take care of two more. The last one he throws up his left forearm to deflect.
Except it doesn't deflect.
In seconds, the left forearm down to the hand begins to oxidized like time-lapse footage. In seconds, the armor that was there has rusted away leaving a plain forearm and hand in its place. Tony looks down at the bare skin incredulously from within the helmet. "Son of a bitch!" he exclaims, looking back up.
"Gonna need a little help here!" he calls out.
The two arrows hit their targets, but bounced off Masque's body armor, but she flinched, not expecting the attack, and looked over to Green Arrow.
"Your heroic arrogance won't help you this time," Masque says, nearly spitting at him. Dinah had adopted a martial arts stance, but glanced over to Tony. From her position, she could see the control panel for this assault better than Tony, and said, very matter-of-factually to Ollie, "Hit the orange panel in the north corner."
Masque, trying to be combatively opportunistic, attempted to swipe at Dinah while she spoke. Dinah took a leap backwards, defensively, and shouted at Masque: "You're done, Masque. We've seized most of your weapons already."
Green Arrow winces at the corroding of Iron Man's armor but at least the arrows distracted Masque from attacking Dinah. So far. At the instruction, he nods once and nocks another arrow, aiming it at the orange panel. It's a large enough target, immobile, and with others focused on Canary and Iron Man, it should be a breeze, right?
Iron Man advances closer taking a defensive stance that keeps his left, exposed arm behind him, he raises his right and presses on continuing to keep the thugs covered with steady repulsor fire.
Masque continues her offensive, and the weapon she's wielding seems freakishly powerful: the blades were more like mini-whips than claws, each with its own unique direction of movement... like having 10 laser tentacles. She whipped her right hand at Dinah again and again, and the two began moving deeper into the large room, Dinah completely on the defense. In truth, she was assessing the weapon's capabilities before striking, and figured she could provide some distraction. It was a dangerous game, as one of Masque's swipes hit a large storage crate, it's wooden, splinters darting through the air, full of embers. "Advance!" she shouted. It was all happening so fast.
Olllie's arrow had rendered the panel broken and exposed, and the beams that were targeting Tony stopped. Some of The lights also went out, and the area got much darker, making the glowing beams of Masque's energy claws both more obvious but more menacing. From a door leading to the third floor, several men armed with sub-machine guns appeared.
"What the Hell have you gotten into?" is demanded of Canary and Iron Man as Green Arrow rapidly nocks and fires arrows at the men coming in. He never aims for a kill, but knees and shoulders are targeted...men who can't hold submachine guns can't shoot submachine guns.
Iron Man starts targetting the energy claws/whips in earnest now. "Don't ask me, Arrow!" he calls out, firing repulsors right now as that's almost all he can do, "She's the one that asked me out on the date!"
"This is the--" Dinah started, but paused to jumping back, flipping behind a large crate. "--the director of the new weapons moving into Gotham," she shouted at Ollie instructively. She took steps back, "And the--"
"--The woman who put out a hit for you?" Masque shouted, her voice full of fury. "You aren't the only one we were going to hit," she shouted indignantly. Masque had also been watching Dinah's fighting style, and had learned enough to corner her. Dinah saw a hint of a smirk from under the mouth opening of the golden masque, "You were just the first." This was the moment that Tony's blasts started hitting Masque: but almost none of them made their target... the left hand of her claw seemed to automatically defend, the tentacles whipping upward and absorbing the blast. One shot did make its way through, however, and scorched a small area on Masque's leg.
Dinah thought this a curious thing to say, and made a bluff-foot sweep to try to keep the lasered-woman at bay for a moment. Then it hit her: Masque had been the one targetting her in the first place. The photos. The drugs. Dinah's expression grew furious.
Oliver's attacks on the doorway gunners was so successful, that many of the men deeper into the area kept back, seeing that they were easy targets with the doorway bottleneck.
"I'll take you both out for dinner if you get her off me," Dinah quipped.
Date? Green Arrow looks sharply at Dinah, his bow aiming just a moment at Tony Stark's exposed arm...but that's not the issue at hand. The chick with the light sabres and guys with the guns are. With the men bottle necked, he nocks a different arrow and waits for a good shot at Masque, "I wouldn't want to be a third wheel," is offered almost flatly.
Once he has the shot, he takes it. He just hopes that the glue-arrow does something to the woman or her armor.
The glue arrow has an interesting effect, as one of the laser tentacles whips up to intercept it automatically. While the arrow instantly burns in evaporation, the massive release of glue sets the laser into a seizure-like blinking pulse, frazzling under the smothering substance, spraying glue everywhere, and rendering one of the ten tentacles broken. This gets Masque's attention, and she steps around and leaps towards Oliver, obviously pissed about losing a 10th of her weapon. 
Dinah had gotten clue sprayed onto her chest and right arm, and just stared at it. "Marking your territory?" she asked, sounding sarcastic, and then moved into pursuit of Masque.
"You can dance with me," Masque suggested, raising one her arms to swipe at Green Arrow.
Iron Man is having a rough time trying to get a lock on the whips/claws. They're constantly moving. There's no pattern, it's completely random. He finally decides to trying something. Targeting the three tentacles close together, he attempts to lock on to them.
It takes a few seconds, but he finally gets tone.
A rack of three mini-missles pops up from the right shoulder he's leading with and discharge, streaking very quickly towards the bunched weapons.
"Oh, don't worry about me then. YOU crazy kids go out and paint the town read."
The glue arrow has an interesting effect, as one of the laser tentacles whips up to intercept it automatically. While the arrow instantly burns in evaporation, the massive release of glue sets the laser into a seizure-like blinking pulse, frazzling under the smothering substance, spraying glue everywhere, and rendering one of the ten tentacles broken. This gets Masque's attention, and she steps around and leaps towards Oliver, obviously pissed about losing a 10th of her weapon.
Dinah had gotten clue sprayed onto her chest and right arm, and just stared at it. "Marking your territory?" she asked, sounding sarcastic, and then moved into pursuit of Masque.
"You can dance with me," Masque suggested, raising her right arm to swipe at Green Arrow. The left arm again goes on the defense, intercepting Tony's missiles. They weren't nearly as effective this time, and two more of her lasered claws are shut down.
"You know, I can just leave...this isn't my fight..." Green Arrow snarks back at Dinah even as Masque comes leaping at him. It's too close of a range now, so he merely swings his bow at her to try and at least smack her down some. "You're outnumbered, Octopussy...time to give it up."
"I got a better idea. Let's take care of Ursula here, and then do a guys night out. Bourbon for everyone!" he says, cheerfully. He stops shooting with his right arm, thrusts his chest out. In a second, the arc reactor in his chest glows more brightly than anytime before this fight started, and issues forth with a uni-beam burst.
One of the tentacles on Masque's claws extends quickly and leaves a fizzling singe on Oliver's bow, as she moves into a fighting stance. Dinah had caught up to the two, and was pressing forward into a wild kick. Dinah knew that she wasn't being careful, merely trying to add pressure to Masque, but at once had seriously underestimated the Maggia boss' fighting skill. Masque did a sudden spinning twirl, and her weapons reacted by flinging around her protectively. After a few turns, she'd rounded behind Dinah, and threw a kick into Dinah's back, pushing Canary forward.
Dinah lost her balance, something she'd later be teased about, and flew headlong into Oliver. She'd also not considered that her jacket, chest, and arm were still covered in glue, which almost instantly bonded to Oliver as she smacked into him.
Masque threw all 7 of her remaining claws in front of her in an attempt to intercept Tony's uni-beam. It almost worked, except for the fact that the impact sent her back several feet and burned themselves out, rendering them useless, part of the attack hitting her armor, which looked smoked and damaged. "Don't worry, Tony, I've still got more dance moves," Masque shouted up to him. The arms of her body armor began to shift, panels on them revealing little square-shaped holes. She was preparing something. "You won't get lonely."
Green Arrow oofs as Dinah gets shoved into him and when she doesn't...or can't move away, he gives a sigh. "Great. Just great. Duck," is ordered as he pulls back the string of his bow and fires two taser arrows at Masque when she's down. Maybe she'll be too distracted to be able to take care of both, but either way, they should be able to at least do something.
"That's the problem, Masque. You always assume that someone /wants/ to dance with you."
When Green Arrow tasers her, he makes a quick decision. Forgoing the tech, Tony launches himself forward. Using the suit's superior strength, he places a knee on Masque's chest to hold her in place and both exposed and armoured hands to hold her fast in place. "Some of us just want to cut through the foreplay. You wanna take me out? You'll have to do us both because I'm not getting up."
Masque's gritted teeth can be seen slightly through her mouth piece, and she shouts out. "Advance, you shits! ADVANCE!"
There's a reserved crackle of wood from behind the doorway, as some of her Maggia thugs lurk there, unsure of what to do. Two of the more daring ones run out, and quickly send out streaks of bullets towards Iron Man, the shells bouncing off him. "Ahhh, fuck--" Masque spits out defiantly--she wasn't getting injured by the gunfire, but the constant stream of dozens of shells raining down on her was quite disconcerting. One stray bullet struck Tony's exposed forearm, sending a quick lash of blood into the air.
Dinah did as Olly said, shifting her weight around Green Arrow's side, giving him a little space to use his bow. Their clothing clung together and tugged, and Dinah quickly opted not to pull too much, for fear of either disrupting Oliver's aim, or having a horrible wardrobe malfunction. "You wanted to spend time together," she quipped softly, "Here we go."
"It would have been better if the time was spent because you -wanted- to spend time with me," Oliver answers back before he nocks and fires at the incoming men. "When I get a chance, I'll take the vest off so you won't be stuck with me for too long."
Iron Man is hit. It's not even a graze. He's been shot.
The reflex is to lift his arm, but he ignores that only to pin her in place harder. "The more they shoot me, the deader weight I become. I dunno if you want a half ton of Iron Man on top of you - as much as you might've dreamt about it."
"Guys!" he calls over his shoulder, "Could we do less Dr. Phil and more, I dunno, crowd suppression? I'm hit over here!"
"Yeah, quit the sullen routine," Dinah teased, and waited for him to fire his arrows at the gun men. Perfect aim, the men were quickly grounded, their guns spilling out limply to the concrete floor below with a metallic, echoing scrape.
After they were taken out, Dinah chirped at Oliver, "This way," and she began moving towards Masque, her top and jacket clinging to Oliver's.
Masque squirmed under the weight, the weapons on her arm unable to fire for some reason.
"I'll throw everything at my disposal at you--all of you--if you don't let me up," Masque indignantly threatened Tony.
As Dinah guides him towards Masque, Green Arrow tries to wriggle out of his vest so that they can have their individual freedom against the woman. After all, he can still shoot without it on. Moving to stand over Masque, he nocks one of his sharpened arrows and holds it aimed at her forehead, "I think not, Toots. You're done. You can surrender or we can lobotomise you. Your choice."
Iron Man looks into Masque's face, "Listen up Sweet-pea, this is how it's gonna work. You're gonna surrender, or my boy Legolas here is gonna turn your cerebral cortex into a kabob, or I'm gonna alpha strike you into a pile of spent ashes. I can handle the heat it produces, but I don't think you're gonna make it. And above all else? I think you ruined the lady's jacket, and she'll want a piece of you just for that alone." he leans a little harder on Masque, but not enough to injure her, "So what's it gonna be?"
Dinah lets Ollie wriggle out of his vest, and if flops down her side, draping off her. She's standing just behind him, looking out from his side. "And you thought you'd just storm Gotham, take over the entire underground, and some super-weapons would just clear the way? What about all the reinforcements? The Justice League, S.H.I.E.L.D.... the archers you'd lost track of?"
"You won't be able to hold me, fools, this is just the beginning," Masque blurted out, as her body dropped limply at Green Arrow and Iron Man's declaration. She at least seemed to be surrendering.
"How long do you think it'll be before Fixers snagged, too?" Dinah taunts back. She didn't sound particularly reasonable; she was still shaken from the revelation that Masque was the sole source of her many troubles for the past two months.
"Legolas? Really?" Green Arrow arches a brow at Tony but he doesn't discuss it further. Yet. Instead, he just waits for the woman to decide. Even as she seems to surrender, he keeps the arrow nocked and trained on her until she's officially under protective custody. "You'd be surprised at how advanced some of these facilities are now. I'm sure they can figure out a way to hold you. It wasn't too hard for us to take you down."
Iron Man shrugs over at Arrow, saying "You'd rather Cupid?" before turning as attention back to Masque, "Oh and don't worry. I'm gonna find out how you made those little rust mites you shot at me. They won't cause me the same problem again. I'm kinda like the Borg that way."
Masque snapped back at Green Arrow, "UNDERESTIMATING YOU... will never happen again--" she said, but her speech was quickly haulted with Dinah's boot to the head, which apparently was the only retort the Bird of Prey felt necessary. Dinah turned to Oliver, and saw how focused he was.
"Tony, how long do you think it'll take S.H.I.E.L.D. to get here?" Dinah asked while stepping closer to Ollie. Then she spoke to Oliver: "Thank you. I wasn't sure you'd show up, after how things've...have been." Her voice trailed off at the end, Dinah looking somehow shamed.
Masque was silent. It seemed the war on Dinah was over, at least for now.
Green Arrow looks up at Dinah once Masque was knocked out and he inclines his head some to her. The bowstring is relaxed and he puts the arrow back into his quiver. "Just because your feelings changed about me doesn't mean that mine changed about you." 
He starts to move away but pauses by Tony. "I'm holding you to that bourbon."
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