2013.07.29 - Three Roads Converge

Thick ominous dark grey almost black clouds hang in the sky, flashes of cloud to cloud lightning occasionally piercing the dark of the night. The temperature feels oppressive, more from the humidity versus the true heat. Many of Gothams denizens have sought refuse in rooms with air conditioners, theaters, or other places that have air conditioning. A rumble of thunder punctuates the otherwise still night, rattling windows. A heavy metallic scent hangs in the air in a rather oppressive manner.
It's a night like many others in Gotham really. Somewhere someone is breaking into a place not their own. There are muggings all over. No doubt that the protector of Gotham the Dark Knight, aka Batman is busily stopping the worst of things. There's just too much for him to be able to stop everything, even with his little birds. 
Sitting alongside of a gargoyle, Zack Evingston's here tracking someone who took something that could cause a lot of trouble if it hit the blackmarket. This has led to a van parked in the heart of downtown, the streetlights knocked out and the lights of the van off. The suspect is leaning against the van smoking a cigarette lazily, the tip burning red in the darkness of the area. 
A black car comes pulling up a few moments later and two large men, and two fit women step out followed by a rather obese man. The men are obviously armed with guns, but the women appear to be unarmed, but their movements speak volumes about the fact one probably is a bit better off with fighting the men.
"About fucking time." The guy says grimacing as the new group approaches.
Huntress is patrolling this area tonight, and after noticing the van sitting there from her own vantage point a building over from the gargoyles, she decided to stick around and maybe stop... that. That black sedan sends up all kinds of red flags in her brain. Sizing up each person, she quickly and quietly swaps out the wooden bolts in her crossbow (thank you Thor for returning it) with heavier steel quarrels. And then she takes aim on the group below.
With no real aim or purpose, Kiden Nixon is walking about the street, her steps a bit erratic and her expression just slightly detached. It seems she has choosen her own way to combat the heat, taking something magical that usually improves everything, at least temporarily. In her state of low alert, she doesn't quite notice the car, the big men, the obese man, the women, or the weapons. But she's still headed right towards them, waving her arms infront of her as she walks.
"Well did you get it?" The fat man asks as he looks at the smoking man intently, his eyes greedy. 
"Yeah." The smoking man says going to the back of the truck and opening it. "You owe me double though. Some little shit nearly killed me. I had to burn fucking rubber." THe man says as he leans in to pull whatever is in the back of the truck out. One of the men moves to be behind him and takes aim and after a nod from the fat man pulls the trigger, the gun roaring as he puts a bullet in smoking man's head.
Huntress flinches at the sudden flash of the pistol followed just a moment later by the report of the gunshot due to distance. Bad move, jerks. She lets the bolt fly then immediately reaims and fires again. The first bolt is actually aimed at the radiator in the black sedan, the second the radiator of the van. She then fires a third, this one hopefully set to knock that gun out of the shooter's hand. And if it happens to miss and hit the goon in the arm, well, she's not going to lose any sleep over it.
Kiden doesn't seem one bit concerned at the loud sound of a gunshot drawing her attention towards what just happened. She blinks a couple of times, lowers her hand from infront of her face, and walks directly towards those guys, completely ignoring everyone as she reaches for the cigarette that rolled out of the mouth of the dead smoker. Hey, waste not, want not. She does delay, however, when Huntress starts to shot her bolts, looking around in confusion as she tries to spot where the shots are coming from.
The bolts land in the car and then van, the third hits the shooter in the arm, sinking into his flesh, and causing him to yell. The fat man moves surprisingly fast to get into the van. A second later the other guntoting bag guy is pinned to the van with what looks like two halves of a rapier. "Boss... I'm stuck." The man says trying to pull off the van but not having much luck. 
One of the man moves to nab Kiden when she tries to go after the smoker's cigarette and pin her to the ground,"Where are you friends?" The woman demands angrily. None of the group look too amused. There's not too long of a wait before a blue swirling vortex appears in the air just above the ground and out comes shooting Zack who does not come out smoothly. 
"That doesn't belong to you. Leave it. It is dangerous..." Zack hovers in place hands on his hips a small thin blade appearing in his hand. A simple conjuration spell.
Huntress blinks as someone else takes potshots at those goons as well, and then stuff starts getting real. One of the women has a kid pinned to the ground, and that just won't do. Her last quarrel is fired at the woman trying to get Kiden to talk, and then she's getting her zipline ready. Time to get up close and person... holy hell where did that blue portal-thing come from? And who the heck is that that just stepped out of it?
Kiden is in no shape to be anticipating anything, and so the woman easily knocks her to the ground, and pins her down before Kiden can even try to reach for that soon to be wasted cigarette. "Ow," Kiden comments in a way she feels a very toned down version of how painful getting knocked down like this would normally feel. "Friends...? You kidding? I don't got any friends." For the record, Kiden isn't even trying to struggle with the woman who has her pinned down, if anything, she seems to be looking through her.
"Tubby, you and I /both/ can tell that you're way outclassed here. I can see the little energy you've got clearly the way you can see that artifact." Zack says in a very British way of speaking. "Just let the police take you into custody all nice like." He says as he makes a little gesture with the knife and the guns actually magnetize themselves to the outside of the van. 
That's /not/ what the woman wants to hear and she moves to twist Kiden's arm to a very unnatural angle to the body, just designed to inflict pain. Inside the van the fat man's taking blood and painting a statue that looks a bit like Kali. "Just a little more and you'll be the one begging for mercy." The fat man says, not denying he's a lot weaker mystically than the kid hovering in the air. There's a little shiver of his form as he finishes speaking.
Huntress stares at the blue portal and the... cripes that's a little boy who's down there now. Crapcrapcrapcrap. She gets her zipline and starts to fast track her way down there kinda Bat-like, hoping she can land shoes-first one top of someone. Preferrably oen of the two 'ladies', because they look like they'll be the most trouble.
"Owww! Let go you bitch!" Kiden is quick to snap out at the woman as she twists her arm to ensure Kiden gets an incentive to talk about her friends. "What do you want from me?" Kiden cries out, now starting to struggle a bit, but it's a little late as the woman has control of her arm and with just a bit of a push, can pretty much neutralize any motion Kiden tries. "I only wanted to take that cigarette before it goes to waste...seriously, just let me go and I won't call the cops on you, ok?" But when Zack does his magical act and the Huntress starts to zip into the action, Kiden points out, "maybe you should worry about the guys who are going to kick your ass in like, 10 seconds from now?"
Good thing the woman's reaction time is not quite as fast as Huntresses, because she does get the shoe first landing head on sending her sprawling but she's back on her feet a few moments later. Thankfully she seems a little bit dazed. Unfortunately the fat guy's exiting the van holding a small statue covered in blood with a symbol painted in blood on his own forehead. "See now little shit. Witness my re...." Words fail him as his body begins shivering and twisting. His eyes bulging in the process. A few seconds later he's laying face first on the ground bleeding from his eyes and nose, for all intent and purpose dead. Since their boss appears to be dead, the others there flee. There's no point in fighting heroes when they're not getting paid and it just seems to have gotten to be a bad night all around at this point. 
Landing by the man, Zack leans down and takes the statue and begins wiping it off. "I did warn him not to play with this." He says quite matter of factly as he throws it through a blue vortex. "Are either of you hurt?" He asks as if he hadn't just witness a guy die a second ago. He's more worried about Kiden since the lady did twist her arm pretty bad. The guy he stapled with his rapier is still stapled and shiver a little bit and there /might/ be a trace of urine on his pants after all this.
Huntress is back on her feet and ready to open up a can of whup-ass on the woman she just kicked clear of Kiden when the fat man ... keels over dead and all of the lackeys flee. The hell? Oh, and she says that aloud, too. "The hell?"
A bit dazed and somewhat slightly numb, Kiden takes a few moments to realize the woman is no longer pinning her down, or twisting her arm, thanks to the Huntress. "Thanks for the assist," Kiden says slowly working her way back up to her feet, cradling her hurting arm with her other one. "I'm fine, honest, thanks you guys...that was...heroy of you." Kiden gives up on the notion of grabbing that wasted cigarette, all she wants to do is get out of there and find somewhere to chill.
"He was attempting to transfigure his own form using the artifact to become well... physically powerful. The problem is that the sacrifice he used was flawed and lacked mystical energies of a sufficient nature to augment his own rather lacking abilities." Zack says as he shakes his head at the man,"I tried to warn him. This is why amateurs shouldn't try and do high level magic." He says as he places a hand on the man's forehead and the man goes limp,"He'll recover somewhat. Basically just had a stroke, least that's what the doctors will call it. Not sure if it was good that I saved him. He won't be able to move without therapy for a bit." Since Kiden appears to be fine and Huntress didn't get hurt he smiles,"Well, all's well that ends well right?"
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