2014.01.24 - Classic Car Chaos

It's cold. It's dark. It's really windy due to being at the waterfront. It also happens to be a very good night for taking on a new contract. The target is a cargo ship, carrying many high-end exotics and old-time classic cars for a very wealthy American collector. The problem is that these cars were not obtained through any legal means, and expensive cars often come from people that have lots of cash to back up their purchases. Thus, when a ten million dollar car up and disappears on its proper owner, shit's gonna hit the fan -real- quick.
Enter the Domino. The likelihood of getting any one of these cars back in one piece is pretty nil, so she took the first job to be offered then shopped around. Lots and lots of people getting ripped off. LOTS of money to be had. Everyone else gets insurance money for stolen and damaged property. The albino cashes in from more than a dozen wealthy baddies that feel they have been liberated.
Her new armor even keeps her nice and warm, too! Looks like they can keep Forge, after all.
It's still a bit clingy, however.
Darkness is virtually absolute, only the harsh harbor lights cutting through the heavy shadows to reveal armed security from some private military crew or another. They're setting up a perimeter while the crane operator waits for the green light. All Dom has to do is make sure that no cargo containers make it off of that ship in one piece.
That's why the crane operator is the first to go, the suppressed 7.62 NATO sailing from atop one crane all the way to the other, punching a quarter-sized hole through the glass, through the operator's temples, then exiting out the other window with a slightly bigger hole, tainted in red.
Slinging the rifle, the albino runs across the boom toward the cable. Express elevator back to ground level, too bad getting -up- the crane wasn't half as fun!
The harbor is not on Babs' usual patrol route. But DELPHI is running a facial recognition algorithm to track several of the more notorious persons of interest in Gotham. And, yes, Oracle just happened to add Neena Thurman's details to that list. More for her own sake than because Domino ranks up there with The Joker, Penguin, or Riddler. In the grand scheme of things, in Gotham, Barbara knows Domino is the lesser of many, many evils. But, principles are principles.
And besides. This is kinda personal. She gave Domino the chance, when she should have just pointed the Bat at her.
So, when DELPHI alerts her to the recognition hit, Oracle adjusts her patrol route to track the mutant mercenary. Of course, tracking becomes problematic, and somewhat unexpectedly, at that. Seems Domino has picked up some sort of new stealth technology, and it takes both DELPHI and Oracle some time to figure out a) how to anticipate it and b) how to overcome it. But, while lesser computer surveillance operatives may never determine the right algorithm to circumvent the interference, very little can stop Barbara Gordon when she puts her mind to it. Of course, she does have to actually pause on a rooftop somewhere to concentrate on the commands she needs, but it's not nearly so hard as she expects. Indeed, it's almost as if DELPHI anticipates her commands only nano-seconds after they occur to her.
The result, however, is that just as that bullet is painting the inside of the crane window red, Oracle is swinglining her way into the harbor, heading straight for the cargoship in question.
"DELPHI, scan for secure frequencies in this area and hack me in. I want to hear what's going on. And if you locate any comlink to Domino, commandeer it, too."
One of the perks of running solo operations? No need to have communications equipment. Domino has no one to report to, no one else to coordinate with. She is wholly off of the grid.
Except for the user vitals her fancy new armor happens to be passively running while she works. It can broadcast that data somewhere. Frankly, she's not aware of it to even start looking for a way to disable it. The result is a peculiar encrypted signal being out in the airwaves, difficult to pick up as Forge did design the armor to focus primarily on stealth, but to one such as the Oracle?
Sucker bet.
While rappelling down the cable she completely misses the arrival of one of the Bat family. She's got her own work to tend to. Get in, do the job, get out. She's got approximately ten minutes on the clock before ground security clears the now dead crane operator and discovers that something's wrong. That's ten minutes to get back to ground, hustle toward the right dock, and get the charges ready for planting on the ship's hull.
Why not set the charges first? Patrols in the water. And heck, it's -damned cold water.- She's counting on them finding the operator dead, that's her diversion. When they go to investigate, she makes her move.
Or, she could just wait for shit to hit the fan as it usually does then have herself a little rampage. Either way!
The instant armored boots strike the concrete pier Dom's blitzing across the harbor. There's lots of ways she could have played this job. She may have chosen a more difficult path, but that's just where instinct led her.
"There is an unidentified subwave signal near cargo ship," DELPHI informs Oracle with her usual calm. "It does not match any known data or communications net."
Oracle launches another swingline from her own armor and zips past several patrolling mobsters to land lightly atop a pile of large cargo containers and start running toward the crane environment. "Track it," she commands the AI. "Mooks don't use subwaves." But she's met the guy Domino runs with. Him? He'd use subwaves, she has no doubt. And all sorts of other fancy stuff.
"Tracking," DELPHI confirms. "Updating your HUD with realtime tracking data."
"Thank you, DELPHI."
The HUD within Oracle's faceplate display distance and trajectory information on the origin of that passive com transmission. She starts moving, swiftly and silently around the oversized off-loading equipment. A glance up to the crane shows her the holes in the windows and the splatter of blood, enhanced by the visors visual suite. "Sonuva..."
She leaps lightly, landing beside the crane and starting to sprint along the dock in the direction the little red dot on her HUD went.
What she does not do, however, is alert Domino to her presence with any sort of direct communication.
Currently, there's two ways Domino can scuttle the ship. From the inside, or from the outside. One's more risky (and, therefore, fun.) The other involves swimming in a frelling cold harbor while dodging goons in smaller boats because she'll probably be too cold to pull a trigger worth a damn.
Inside it is!
By the time she nears the cargo ship she's got the rifle slung across her back, leaning around a small patch of cover to try and get a read on the armed baddies before making her move. There's a notable difference in height between the dock and the deck, she's going to be vulnerable while transitioning between the two. Fortunately, transition time should not be significant.
-Tak!-ZZzzzzzzt!
A bracer hooked to her left forearm comes complete with a tiny rappel launcher, complete with a motor capable of zipping her up away from the concrete.
Non-Bats can have some fancy toys of their own.
For the second half of the trip Dom's running vertically along the side of the hull, right as someone patrolling the deck notices the tiny hook stuck to the side of the ship. He has just enough time to give it a puzzled glance and walk closer before a dark knee catches the side of his head, the mercenary dropping low as she relieves the man of his headset.
"Thanks a bunch, Jack."
The digital overlay of her visor turns Oracle's world into an interactive TRON-style construct. As Domino transitions to the cargo ship, the digital vigilante fires off a gadget of her own. Seconds later, she's scaling the hull -- albeit at the opposite end to Domino -- and rolling up onto deck, herself. Thermal scans alert her to the mooks patrolling the ship itself. External communications running silent, her voice is unheard beyond the confines of her helmet. "Jack me into the guards' radio frequency, DELPHI," she orders. "And monitor their chatter. I want to know what's happening from their perspective. Do we have a manifest for this ship? I want some idea what Domino might be after."
She slides around a corner and tosses out a couple of pellets with sleeping gas. Two mooks some distance from the wheelhouse go down and she skirts around them on her way to intercept the mercenary directly.
So far, so good. Domino's still got some time on the clock and she's right where she needs to be. Now all she has to do is get past the guards, get as low within the ship as she can get, plant a minimum of three shaped charges spaced roughly twenty feet apart, get back to the deck, then get back to the -dock- before the whole thing carries her down to the bottom of the bay with it.
Child's play.
The thing that she isn't counting on is coming across one of the Bats. They're always hard to spot up until they actively want to be seen. She's seeing this one over the sights of a very mean looking pistol backed by a very effective sound suppressor.
Direct interception, indeed.
Except..that it's a female Bat. One which she hasn't come across before. (-Please- tell me this one's more social than the last Batchick I ran into...) "Something tells me you aren't here because of their great shipping rates."
"Not so much," Oracle agrees, stepping into Domino's line of sight. Her androgynous, digital voice is unmistakable, if slightly harmonic coming from the suit's speakers. Her hands are loosely curled, concealing her own 'weapons', such as they are.
"I warned you about coming back to Gotham, Domino. And shedding more blood, here."
Even as she speaks, DELPHI alerts her to the ship's manifest; a manifest, it doesn't take Oracle terribly long to surmise, that doesn't quite match the actual contents. Big surprise.
"Walk away, Domino. Please."
Well now, this is even more unexpected. It's a familiar voice! "No way, -Shodan?-" Domino actually laughs, the pistol bobbing momentarily (from a respectable distance away from Oracle) as a sudden flash of amusement overcomes the ghostly skinned woman. "Finally, a face to face. Sorta."
Would Dom shoot a Bat? Oh hell yeah she would. Heck, she -has.- Would she kill a Bat? Maybe, if they got in her way. She wouldn't make a point of it, however. Mission first. She'd really rather not get into it with one of the Gotham Vigilantes, but it's kinda..looking..like that might be the case tonight.
"It's like this," she continues with a shrug behind the outstretched sidearm, "I'm not after these idiots tonight. I just want their ship. They'll have plenty of time to make a run for it." (And I've got -way- too much green riding on this to walk away with my tail between my legs.) "Ball's in your court, kiddo, but try to think fast. I'm kinda on the clock here."
"I'm hurt," Oracle says dryly, now. "You didn't think I was real." No big surprise there. She doesn't move out of Domino's way in the slightest. All she does is shift her weight to present more of a profile and less of a direct target. She knows the woman's skills, after all.
"And bull. You've already killed at least one person, tonight. I have absolutely no reason to think you won't kill all the rest. Besides, we both know you don't want the ship. You want something on it. What? 'High-end autoparts' doesn't quite imply 'million dollar Bentleys'. I know you have expensive tastes, but even you don't have room for this many cars." A beat. "Or has Cable hollowed out the entire Bowery when I wasn't looking?"
It's a shame her face is invisible through the visor plate. The narrow-eyed expression on her face would be telling. "What's the real score?"
"I'm looking right at you and I'm -still- not sure if you're real!" Domino jokes. "You sure took your time in coming to introduce yourself."
"Mmh, that, yeah," Domino mutters and glances to the side while having the nerve to look slightly embarrassed. Direct eye contact isn't lost for long. Peripheral vision is never lost. "He probably cheated on his wife, anyway."
Hmm. Here's a conundrum. Explaining the score might take some of the pressure off of this confrontation. Buuut, that would mean sharing private info with someone else. Granted, Oracle could probably either find out or figure it out before the night is through, but it's the principle of the thing. Dom has secrets. -Lots- of secrets.
Another half shrug follows, along with a slow blink. "Always room to expand. Besides, the people that own these kinds of rides all drive like assholes. I'm doing the east coast a favor. So what's it gonna be, a little professional courtesy and a mutual turning of backs, or are we gonna cut straight to the fun stuff? Storytime can happen another day."
"I'm sorry, Domino," Oracle says, the sigh not filtering through the speakers. "Everything I've seen tells me the contracts you take are rarely, if ever, from anyone on the up-and-up. I won't let you hurt anyone else -- criminal or not."
Even before she's finished speaking, her hands come up. She releases the pellets in them -- a micro flashbang her visor is prepared for and a cloud of knockout gas her suit's filters easily scrub from her ventilation ducts. She moves forward at speed, intent on striking Domino in such a way as to disarm her as quickly as possible.
A person can spend days researching everything there is to find on another person, attempting to learn their every move, every last trick up their sleeve. Information is power, though information alone can rarely prepare another for an actual, physical encounter. There are reasons why Dom's gotten to be so good at her work.
It starts with a familiar twitch in the back of her shoulders. Subconscious impulses that run the length of her spine, spurring her into motion before her own thoughts can keep up with the actions which follow. When she can see it coming, she's got the reflexes necessary to dodge bullets.
Rather than a normal duck and weave, she's not following any obvious pattern of motion or behavior. When the pellets are fired she's already leaping in a sidelong flip, the flashbang clearing the space created between a pair of legs while the gas pellet connects with the side of her trailing foot, knocking it clear across the deck where it's sent rolling. Before her feet reconnect with the surface she's managed to find the time to fire three shots back, though their aim is not to kill. She's got a job to do, darnit! Strike, distract, catch the Bat off her game, then haul ass to the nearest stairwell.
Oracle isn't quite foolish enough to stay in one spot as Domino fires off those shots. And, indeed, since she missed the strike intended to disarm the mercenary, the former Batgirl's momentum carries her past the spot where the bullets hit. She tucks into a roll, incongruently noting to herself just how much easier it is to do so without a trailing cape -- even if she does miss the extra base-jumping lift it can sometimes give, and comes back to her feet, spinning.
Of course, there's no way the mooks on patrol missed the small explosion and the triple thunk of the bullets against the bulkhead. Fortunately for both Domino and Oracle, however, the first two on the scene run right into the cloud of knockout gas from the pellet Domino's foot deflected. So, they're down for the count.
As Domino launches herself into the stairwell, Oracle grabs a pair of batarangs from her belt and tosses them at the mercenary, still looking to disarm her, even as she pelts after her.
Batarangs. Domino's encountered those before. Fool me twice... A kick off of the railing, a spin through the air, a couple more shots from her sidearm, and batarangs be -done.- ..Well, one of them's done. The first gets mashed square in the center, stopping it dead. The second one..kinda..misses because Dom's trying to do a complicated aerial spin-and-shoot within the very narrow confines of a stairwell on a cargo ship.
It misses simply because it can't follow the trajectory of her slipping and falling the rest of the way down the stairs.
When she looks up from the floor, half of her body still draped across the narrow steps, she's staring at one very baffled looking mook. A monochromed smile is quickly offered his way. "Hiya. Did you know there's a Bat on your boat?"
She's pointing back up the stairs, though she's really planning on having to gun the guy down. Thing is, she's wearing a stolen headset. She's got guns. As far as the mook is concerned, she's part of the hired muscle. Submachine gun in hand, he lunges over the sprawled out albino toward the stairs, buying her just enough time to peel herself off of the floor and get back to running.
Chances are that mook Domino looks up at is both startled and alarmed for more than one reason. First, there's the heavily armed and considerably (if clingingly) armored albino on her back, staring up at him. Then, there's the information that a Bat might be loose on the boat. Neither situation is really all that healthy for him.
And when Oracle launches herself down the stairs after Domino? Things get a whole lot more unhealthy. More pellets are thrown -- knockout gas and stun grenades. And, as she uses walls and railings, herself, to maneuver more quickly, it's fairly evident the tech-armored vigilante the mook has never seen before must be Bat-trained. A well-placed strike fells the mook before the gas has fully taken effect.
Hear that? -That- is the sound of an unconscious man clocking in at around two hundred and thirty pounds falling down a flight of narrow metal stairs. Again with the flashbang/knockout gas combo. Domino won't insult Oracle by lobbing a flashbang back her way, if she comes prepared with them in her arsenal then she's come prepared with counter-measures for those very devices.
That's why she goes straight for the frag grenades.
With another kick off of the wall she jumps up and catches the mass of pipes running the length of the narrow hallway, grenade in hand, pin already pulled. The priming lever gets flung clear of the ignition as she pops it up on top of those pipes, dropping back down with very little of her forward momentum lost.
Then she dives through an open bulkhead door, muscling it closed then wrenching the wheel to lock it tight behind herself. (Thank you, ten second fuse.)
Oracle's visor highlights the frag grenade's placement. DELPHI supplies a hasty estimate of the damage radius. Flipping over and springing back up the stairs, given the door below is locked, she spreads her small body over the core of the downed mook's. He's not dead, after all. And, as the grenade goes off, the pipes exploding everywhere and shrapnel raining down as railings and metal grate plates are ripped from the walls, her suit of kevlar and ballistic mesh protects both of them from anything lethal.
Which isn't to say the former Batgirl escapes unscathed. But, perhaps Domino's luck is rubbing off on her. A pipe falls down strategically, connecting with a railing and acting as a blast shield and prevents the worst of the shrapnel from impacting either of them.
But, as she shoves the pipe off her, Oracle is now faced with the task of figuring out the best way to get down to where the merc has fled. "DELPHI, give me a schematic overlay. Map the best, fastest way down to Domino and her likeliest ways of egress."
A green digital overlay appears in her visor, orange, red, and yellow routes marked in the minimap that apears in the upper right corner of her display. Fastest way down?
"Geronimo!" She kicks a metal grate plate out of the way and drops down beneath the rush of gas and flame to the floor below, backtracking to push her way through another bulkhead door and come at the deck Domino flees into from the right flank.
Sure enough, Domino's using the fastest route possible. She's on the clock, in a couple of ways! The explosion in the hallway behind the door just leaves her grinning as she slides down the railings to get to the next level down.
Take a right here and a left there and a -duck- and turn to shoot the mook behind her right as she would have otherwise taken a hit to the face from an awaiting Oracle.
Damn, but she's -good.- The merc's not had the most respect for the Bats as a whole before, but whatever tricks this one's using? They're working. Strategic resources, not brawn.
"You're like a bad rash, arencha?" she inquires while dropping straight into a defensive stance. Probably best not to make a habit of turning her back on this vigilante. The solution? Kick her ass.
This should be interesting.
"Alright then, let's see whatcha got." Now that she's not a voice on the radio. Man, Alison's probably going to be a bit unhappy to hear about this one later. The bulky pistol twists around in Dom's hand, the barrel and suppressor forming a makeshift nightstick in the same instant that an armored leg snaps front and center.
Bat Brawling! It'll catch on one of these days.
There isn't another Bat out there with Oracle's technical resources -- except, perhaps, the Batman himself. There are, however, a couple of Bats out there that are better at Bat Brawling than she is. It's been a while since she's gone toe-to-toe with someone who really knows what they're doing, aside from the light sparing she and Nightwing have done. And he won't push her hard. Not the way Domino doubtlessly will.
But, Oracle's style is heavily influenced by escrima. She knows stick fighting -- even if the stick is makeshift. And when Domino flips that gun around, Oracle snaps those batons off the sides of her gauntlets and snaps them into place. She twist out of the way of the kick, one stick impacting ankle, the other knee. On a less armored opponent, it'd probably be far more damaging.
"I didn't want it to come to this, Domino," she says, harmonic digivoice sounding from suit speakers as the lights flicker on and off around them, thanks to the severed lines that ran alongside those pipes and the subsequent electrical fire that set off.
She's quick, too. -And- she knows stick fighting. And she's armored! Oh, this -will- be fun. There's a solid grunt when Domino's leg is bashed twice, prompting her to pull another suppressed pistol so she's at least evenly matched in the 'number of weapons' department.
"Takes two to fight," she suggests while whipping about, the side of one pistol aiming to bash Oracle across the temple while the other comes around to strike out at her sternum.
"And stop talking like a damned robot!" (Unless she -is- a robot..? That would make a lot of sense, actually.)
Trying to follow the merc's motions is a difficult experience. While she does know various martial arts disciplines, she adheres to none of them. She's quick, and highly unpredictable. Elbow, foot, fist, knee, headbutt, most things are supposed to have a pattern to them! Apparently she didn't get that memo.
Still. This isn't another mook. This is a Gotham Legend.
It'll look great on her resume.
Yeah, a Gotham Legend never before seen on the streets. So good on the resume, that.
'I kicked Oracle's ass!'
'In what? Minecraft?'
Oracle jerks her head back, Domino's first swing missing her by inches, and is already flexing backward into a back flip when Domino's fist connects with her chest plate. Though there's a harmonic grunt with the impact, that doesn't stop the technophiliac vigilante from kicking a leg up and twisting in the air in an effort to catch Domino with her feet around her neck and shoulders and pull her down.
"What's it matter what I sound like?" she counters. "It's not like you listen, anyway."
(Well, that looks awkward.)
Before Dom gets thrown down the hallway there's a brief window for her to fire one of her pistols twice at the back of Oracle's shoulders, the broken wiring turning the battleground into an erratic rave lightshow that's missing an accompanying beat beyond the hits and blocks being dished out. She hits the ground with a yelp, one of her pistols firing wildly and ricocheting off of the floor, neatly punching one of the bolts out of a light fixture.
Guess how long that'll stay put up there.
The close proximity allows for those guns to come around in Oracle's direction, Dom twisting and rolling across the floor to get outside of striking distance. "I listen," she verbally counters. "Doesn't mean I'm always going to -obey- like some mindless lackey. Does your usual crew always follow your every word?"
1 in 415 odds, right there.
Two index fingers start to draw upon two hooked triggers, a mere three pounds and millimeters' worth of travel to take up before the sears release the hammers and send two heavy hollowpoint slugs toward Oracle's face.
That's when a wholly out of place howl sounds out from somewhere within the ship.
It's quickly followed up by automatic fire and other, lesser screams.
It's loose! Power's out, the creature is loose!
Before Dom can shoot she's given a reason to pause. "..Huh."
"When it's important, yes!" Oracle snaps, continuing to roll in the air so that she snaps back up to her feet just as those pistols come around. DELPHI, remind me to thank Tony, if I make it out of this...
She throws herself back against the wall, even as the light fixture bolt is shot out.
Then, there are screams and automatic gunfire and DELPHI is tossing extrapolations up on her visor HUD.
"Creature?" Her head snaps around to Domino. "You're after a creature? What the hell, Domino?!!"
DELPHI maps the sound and the thermals to her HUD. Oracle spins around and starts off down the corridor at speed toward the sound of gunfire, rather than away.
That's a Bat for you.
(Well, this is important to me!)
There's no time to voice the thought as it would seem the playing field has changed slightly on them both. Besides that, Dom's now being accused of the whole creature debacle.
"What!" the ghostly woman snaps back, left to stand with no one else to fight as Oracle goes running away. She's got her hands held out to her sides, complete with guns, in a 'what the hell?!' gesture. "Why's everything -my- fault!"
A second later and one of her hands darts upward, just in time to catch the broken light fixture before it can swing down and bash the back of her head. Without looking, she growls "You're late."
Why did that not hit Oracle when it had the chance..? Times like this she really wishes she knew what the hell her power is doing.
On the upside: Distraction! Now, if this happened to be someone she cares about rushing towards the trouble it might become a moral complication. But, it's a Bat. A combat-proven Bat.
She'll be fine.
For now, this pasty white bitch has some shaped charges to find new homes for.
Never make assumptions, Batgirl
How often did Batman say that to her in the early days? And yet, somehow, Babs is entirely willing to assume that a) Domino is absolutely here because of whatever creature it is that's rampaging through the cargo hold and b) Domino will ultimately end up following her toward the self-same creature.
She skids around a corner, into a stairwell, and vaults over the side to the lower deck. The creature comes crashing through bulkhead (not the door), and she's suddenly back peddling, firing a line straight up into the upper bulkhead and zipping back up over its head.
It takes her a moment to register its appearance -- 7 feet tall, 600 pounds of muscle, cybernetics, and titanium exoskeleton. Half a terminator skull and glowing red eye, crazed, confused expression.
"Ooooohhh, shhh---"
KABOOM!
Who needs shaped charges when there's a charging cyborg available?
CLANG!
(Clang? Boy, -someone- sure sounds like they're having a good time up there. And by someone I mean 'not me.')
Kaboom!
"Right. Ass in gear, Domino. She's a Bat, she's got this."
Then why does it feel like maybe..she doesn't?
There the albino stands, torn in a way which she did not expect to be. These two -had- worked together in the past. Allies, of sorts. And if there's any single way of saving a bit of face with the Oracle--
(Goddamnit.)
Not that she isn't going to leave a parting gift so long as she's down in this part of the ship. Cable can give her shit for it later but she's going all in, in that 'putting all of her eggs into one basket' sort of way. Several charges, meant to be spaced apart by a good twenty feet each. All within the same two foot square patch of ship. Either it'll work, or..y'know. It won't.
Then, she starts running. To the stairs, towards the commotion. She knows she's got the right area when a mangled mook goes flying past her down the hallway, landing with more of a 'splorch!' than a 'crack!'
"Remind me again why we came back up here?" she rhetorically asks herself, bringing a pistol forward so she can peg the back of the creature's head.
Watch this fail miserably.
Oracle lands lightly on the upper deck catwalk only to have it twist beneath her feet as the cyborg rips the stairs from its mooring to use them to batter some poor mook and send him flying backward down a hallway (past Domino) to land with a sickening squish of flesh and blood. The former Batgirl is left with one foot on the twisted upper grating and a hand wrapped tightly around her swing cable.
"DELPHI! Analyze," she commands, fixing her gaze on the cybernetic creature. Then, a half-whispered prayer, "God, please don't let it have respiratory filters or anti-dazzle." Because she has a belt full of knockout gas and stun pellets.
Ping! Spang! B-zrrrr!
"Yeah, didn't think so."
Domino's been having the worst luck lately in dealing with overly large brutes that just get annoyed when she tries to gun them down... The next roar comes her way, the creature thundering toward her like a grossly oversized linebacker.
"Bad idea."
That same cable launcher that got her on top of the boat fires once more, whisking her up out of arm's reach of Big Ugly until she's dangling from high above.
Staring at Oracle a few feet away.
"I've got -nothing- on this guy, save your breath for runnin.'"
The monster's idea for getting back at her is to use that same piece of stairway like a bat, with her being the pinata. The only reason why it happens to miss is because that first swing is taken while blinded from Oracle's flashbang. It's still pretty unnerving, though.
"Oh, Shit!" All Dom can do is twist herself upside down, feet locking around the slender cable with a precious few feet of extra clearance. (Kurt would be so proud.) The part she hadn't thought through is the rifle on her back, which is now hanging at a most awkward angle over her head. (Well, crap.) "I think you're gonna need a whole lot more of that knockout gas for this guy!" she suggests while it continues to slam into whatever's unfortunate enough to be in its way. "Don't suppose you've got a taser capable of incapping a whale on that belt of yours?"
"Capable of incapacitating a whale? No." Oracle eyes Domino, registering, somehow, that the mutant is in as much danger as unwillingly as she. It doesn't make her any happier with the situation, but, yes, for the moment, she'll set aside her beef with the albino for the sake of continued mutual survival. "I wasn't anticipating Bane Mark II," she complains. "But, electroshock I can do, though I think all it'll do is piss him off."
As he spins wildly, winding up for another blind swing, she pushes off the twisted metal her one foot has as purchase and flips over grab a pipe she can roll on top of much as Domino did before. It's barely out of reach of the crazed, stair-wielding cyberpsycho, but it is out of reach.
Inside her visor, she's flipping, via rapid eye movements and unconscious thought, through the ship's schematics. "We need to lead it into the aft hold," she calls out to the mercenary, now. "The main boiler's back there. It's reinforced and confined. In a smaller area, my gas may have more of an effect."
Then, off-com, she adds to DELPHI, "Hack into the wheelhouse systems, DELPHI. Send out a mayday and order a ship-wide evacuation. We need to get this thing away from the docks, pronto."
Point to the Bat, she didn't turn that taser on Domino first chance she got. It's the little things. Or rather, it's the big things that get in the way of the little things. Somewhere within the neighborhood of..oh, six hundred-odd pounds, perhaps.
Domino is concerning herself with an exit strategy in the meantime. She doesn't have to stop this critter, she simply has to survive long enough to turn this ship into a new artificial reef then escape it with all of her parts intact. If Oracle's lucky then maybe she can take the same exit route when she's ready to ditch this meatgrinder.
Teamwork!
Reinforced and confined... Oh, this is a terrible idea. Thinking back to one previous encounter with Batman, she suddenly asks "Do you have any thermite on ya?" Suddenly she has an idea on how to contain and neutralize the creature -and- fulfill her contract.
(I love it when a plan comes together.)
"Thermite?" Oracle blinks, peering over at Domino, even as poor mooks get trampled underfoot below, their machine guns rattling as their shots go wild and start puncturing pipes. "Whoa!" The superhacker is quickly rolling to one side and pulling herself forward with surprisingly strong sweeps of her arms. (Hey, that's something she's not out of practice on.) "No!"
The evacuation klaxon begins to sound. A male, somewhat stilted voice begins issuing instructions over the PA in Russian, only to repeat them woodenly in English, thanks to DELPHI's speech emulation algorithms, ordering all personnel to clear the ship.
"Frak it, DELPHI, patch me into her frickin' suit, will you? We can't keep shouting."
Moments later, Domino will find 'Shodan's' familiar voice emanating from a com speaker in her suit. "What have you got in mind?" She has other tricks, after all. And considerable science training. Thermite may not be her only means of accomplishing the same or similar thing.
The transition is almost as sudden to Domino as when Cable decides to go ahead and fire up the ol' telepathy, suddenly Oracle is -right there- in her ear. (Forgot she could do that...) "Thinking of ways we might be able to weld the door closed, or sink this rig," she comms back while unrolling herself to the end of the grappel line, using the momentum to reach out and latch onto an obstruction bolted into the ceiling. The rifle's returned to its rightful place in that motion, doing so with a rather sharp reminder across her back. Oracle got some hits in. It's going to take more than a soak in a hot tub to right those collections of wrongs.
Now, since they're evacuating and all... "We get him in there, we sink the ship." It's not a pleasant end, but this guy's not a pleasant individual.
Once scaling her way to cover she pops a second frag grenade and almost lazily lets it roll off of her fingertips into the hold below, sidestepping around the bulkhead as it detonates with a WHUMP! It's immediately followed by another bellowing howl, one more piece of ordnance that serves to piss the cyborg off that much further. "Tough little nut," she mutters under her breath.
"Arc welding," Oracle responds, negotiating the pipes and dropping to the floor before the door, rolling through and around the corner seconds before the frag goes off. She pops a dazzler from her belt and tosses it after the 'borg when the frag has done its work... because, unfortunately, they still need its attention. "I can use my batarangs and a power conduit from the switcher outside... Providing we can get the door locked and it holds long enough." Happy thought.
Internally, then: "DELPHI, see if that monster has a shut-off frequency." Some cyborgs do, and if this one does, it'll save 'em a whale of trouble.
As Leviathan comes charging around the corner, she's off and sprinting out of its way.
"That oughta do the trick," Dom thinks for a moment. There's a somewhat sour expression when the batarangs are mentioned, mostly because she's had a fair bit of personal experience with those annoying little things before. But, more importantly than that:
"You actually call them -batarangs.- Christ, you people need better hobbies."
Then Oracle goes sprinting out of the creature's way. Which means it's just her left standing with a rampaging beast, plus she knows where they need -it- to be. Odds of her drawing the short straw and being the bait:
"Hell."
In a flash the albino woman launches into a full-on sprint, blitzing down the hallway and lunging over pieces of debris from where the cyborg already made its mark. Maybe she can't feel the heat of its breath (if it's still warm for that matter) behind her, but she -knows- it's there. Massive shoulders come crashing through the bulkhead, widening its passage, ripping the interior of the ship asunder as it stomps on after her.
"Hope you can be ready with that science project like really damn quick, Shodan!"
Coming across a split in the walkway Dom drops and slides across the floor, slipping through the narrow opening to drop to the floor below. Big Ugly may have that forward momentum thing figured out pretty well, but to go straight down? Once again it starts punching things, hoping that sooner or later something will give.
She's got maybe twelve seconds to build up a lead.
"Hey," Oracle retorts. "The Bat named 'em, not me." Batarangs. Yeah. Talk about branding issues.
Nevertheless, Oracle drops down to the deck after the Behemoth has started charging after Domino, clearing the way for her. "Track that power snake, DELPHI," she commands, following the pipes and leaping down into the hold proper to race towards the aft. The power cable turns blue on the visor's digital display. She reaches the junction, conscious of the sound of the Big Guy ripping through the ship towards her, Domino pelting before it.
Grabbing a small tool from her belt, she loosens the junction box and pulls the snake from it. Grunting some, given her strength is hardly superhuman, she yanks at the heavy wires, pulling them from the wall and dragging them to the base of the heavy aft door. She spins the wheel on it, yanking it open and crouching hidden behind it, to shove it closed -- if Domino can get out of its way in time.
You know what really sucks? Being chased by six hundred-odd pounds of unstoppable cybernetically enhanced rage.
You know what's really cool? Being chased by six hundred-odd yadda yadda -also- has the benefit of ripping the ship's structural integrity to ribbons. All of those measures meant to keep it from sinking should there be a hull breach? Yeah, they're disappearing. Very quickly. Domino's using this creature to hollow out the inside of the freighter.
Already shipping containers are getting mashed into, and through, as the ghost of a woman dives between the narrow divides left between corrugated steel, pistols back to being holstered as she focuses on where she's going rather than trying to fight back. One, it won't work, and two, it's already giving pursuit.
That doesn't stop her from stealing the assault rifle off of the next guard she comes across, grabbing the surprised guy by a shoulder and running up the side of a container to flip around behind him, neatly kicking then nabbing the weapon out of the air without dropping her momentum.
"Thanks!"
The cyborg doesn't lose any momentum when it encounters the unarmed guard, either. She can gauge the distance between the two by the meaty *crunch* somewhere in between them.
Know what would make this a lot more dangerous? If Dom triggered the explosives early. "By the way, while you're up there doing your thing you may want to take a break to hang onto something."
-KABLAM!-
Oracle lurches, reaching out to grab both the open door and a pipe along the bulkhead to her right. "What the hell, Domino?! What did you just do?" And did it slow the beast down at all?
When the bucking and lurching stops, and the acrid scent of fire and smoke starts to fill the air, Oracle crouches down to jam the power lead into the base of the doorframe. She pulls out a zipline, and runs it around the door, sticking it down with a bit of, yes, batputty. The line has tungsten in it, among other things. She jams taser-batarangs into the doorframe at regular intervals and resumes her perch behind the door... Just in time for the mercenary freight train express to come barreling down on her.
"I'm doing what I came here to do!" Domino comms back, bouncing from side to side between the containers before she can rediscover her equilibrium in a now groaning ship. (Never get tired of hearing the sound of over-stressed metal...)
The timing is, in a word, perfect. The trap's set, Oracle's out of the way of the door, and -Dom.- "HolycrapitsrightontopofmeAAAH!"
Blending into the yell is another howl, the monochromed blur quickly accompanied by a much larger blur as the behemoth gives pursuit inside of the hold.
Much automatic gunfire quickly follows as she tries to work her way around the monster, emptying the mag and throwing the rifle aside as she returns full-tilt for the lone door. "Three seconds go go go!"
This time she leaves a flashbang in her wake, the -FOOM!- earning another anguished sound from the beastie.
Oracle's visor tracks the trajectory of the flashbang, DELPHI identifying it seconds before it explodes. Consequently, the automatic antidazzle in the vigilante's visor and the audio dampening on her helmet spare her the effects that cause the Leviathan to reel and stumble. As it lurches through the heavy aft door, Oracle lunges forward, swinging the steel portal closed and spinning its wheel. Then, she grabs a taser-batarang and flips it down to bridge the power cable and the zipline. There's a spark, a small explosion, and a white flame starts racing up the one side of the door while she flips backward out of the way, spinning toward Domino even as the Behemoth rallies itself to slam against the reinforced door.
Somehow, things just have a way of working out in the end. For Domino, that is. Generally speaking she couldn't care less about everyone else. The monster's locked away in what -should- hold long enough for the ship to tank. There's absolutely no hope of anyone recovering any of the ludicrously expensive vehicles still parked within containers onboard. There's just..one..thing..left to do.
Get away from the Oracle.
"Nice shot, kiddo," she offers while catching her breath. She can both feel and hear the effects of a mortally wounded freighter starting to lean toward the new wound, it would take a while to go under. Before then it's likely to fall onto its side. They'll want to be gone before this happens. "Unless you feel a compelling urge to start punching each other some more..." she says then cuts herself short, already sprinting for the nearest stairwell back to the deck before the thought can be finished with words.
Oracle has no intention of drowning. She's done the whole trapped-in-a-tiny-sub-with-a-hull-breach thing before now. And done it without the use of her legs. Consequently, she sprints after Domino... because it's not like there are a whole lot of egress options here.
"Sonuva... you planned all of this, didn't you?!" she growls harmonically as she follows after the mercenary toward the open, listing deck above. "Damn it, Domino!"
Internally: "DELPHI, do we have an estimate of casualties, here?"
"Best estimates suggest roughly 47% of the crew has managed to evacuate. The ship and its cargo is a total loss."
"Quite possibly!" Domino yells back, half expecting to get a Batarang (Pah!) square in the back of the shoulders as the two rush for the deck. Fortunately, BatCode (tm) seems to mean that killing isn't allowed. Dropping Dom in the stairwell would mean Oracle would have to drag her unconscious form up those stairs. It's always easier to let the target do its own heavy lifting.
Once back out in the cold night air, that's when it becomes a free-for-all.
With the ship now taking on a noticable gradient, Dom runs for the proverbial high ground. Containers all around start to groan as their center of gravity becomes tested, it won't be long before they start to lose the battle and come sliding down to the low end of the deck.
She plans to be gone by then. Leap the railing, slide down the side of the ship, then take herself one -very- cold bath. It'll suck, but she's a damned good swimmer. The new armor from Forge will keep hypothermia at bay, too.
It's just too freaking convenient all around.
Just..don't forget about Oracle back there.
Oracle pelts after Domino, up the ever growing incline of the listing deck. It's been a while since she's been in an all out chase like this. And, as hale as her new body may be, it's still more accustomed to shoving wheelchairs around rather than using the stairmaster. So, Domino pulls ahead and is leaping over the side while Oracle is still only halfway up the slant. By the time she reaches the rail, Dom is nothing more than one more splash in the dark water amidst all the chop. And while DELPHI can give Oracle a fairly accurate idea of just where the mercenary is, the albino's own tech armor has its own camouflaging tech to contend with.
Ultimately, with the ship lurching, containers groaning, and time running out, Oracle slams her hands in frustration against the railing and then vaults it to run along the outside of the hull towards the docks. A well-shot line toward that yet-dangling crane and she's swinging back to shore, to disappear in shadows of her own.
Category:Log