2015.02.18 - Blüdbath: The Snatch

It was a normal day at Clockwork Industries, a digital security firm. CEO Barbara Gordon is working alongside her minions - erm, employees - doing all sorts of computery stuff. "Hey, pizza ordering time! Who wants what?" one of the workers shouted down the hall. A chorus of answers came back. "Okay, sausage, cheese... Derrick, no. Nobody but you likes anchovies on the pizza! Stop asking!" Derrick makes an exaggerated sad face, much to the amusement of his coworkers. "And Ms. Gordon wants a meat lovers..." He dials up the local pizza place. "Clocktower here, it's pizza day for us. Okay, so that's four cheese, two sausage, the boss's meatlovers, and a supreme. Thanks guys!" The employee gives a thumbs up. "Pizz'll be here in twenty minutes!"

"... and a Supreme. Yep. Got it. Your total is a hundred and fifty-eight dollars, we'll have it there in about twenty minutes!" The guy on the phone sounds a bit nervous, or perhaps he's just really eager to please? But he gets through the order without any hitches, making sure to act as if it's just another Wednesday.

All around him, the entire staff of Lumpy's Pizza lie strewn about the kitchen. Most of their bodies are still in one whole (if leaky) piece, while others have been cut into slices, much like a pizza.

"Good job, soldier. You've made me proud. Now I've just got one more mission for you..." Sitting on the table that used to be used for rolling dough, Slade Wilson finally finishes wiping the blood and guts off of his sword. It's taken him much longer to clean the blade than it did to kill the entire staff of a pizza restaurant. Well, the entire staff aside from the one remaining guy who just took Clocktower Industries' order. Looking at the man with his one remaining eye, Slade seems both amused by the situation and disgusted by the prospect of what he's about to do.

"I need you to get naked. Just set your clothes over there on that stool."

Nineteen and a half minutes later...

With eight pizza boxes in hand, Lumpy's newest employee walks into the lobby of Clocktower Industries. Everything is in order, but the receptionist can't help but do a double take when he strides up to her desk and says 'Delivery for Mr... Liefeld?'

It's not often that a pizza delivery guy is simultaneously tall, massive (in a good way), pushing sixty, covered in scars, and missing an eye. None of the buttons on his Lumpy's uniform have been fastened, and the shirt looks more like a vest on him than anything else. But, the uniform definitely says 'Lumpy's' so she buzzes him up.

As the elevator arrives on the floor, the employees start to crowd around the delivery man, their hunger outweighing whatever reservations they might have about the scary-looking guy. Mr. Liefeld helpfully offers to take the pizzas from Slade, only to groan when he lifts the eight boxes.

"Damn dude, these are heavy, how many toppings did you put on these things?" A coworker lifts the lid on the topmost pizza, and her face immediately goes white.

Inside the topmost box is a pair of matched Glocks, with extra ammo clips. She and Mr. Liefeld are the first two to get shot in the face.

The sounds of gunfire get everyone moving. Away from Slade. No one's trying to be brave; obviously they've been taught well by whomever's in charge of office safety protocols. The injured (dead?) coworkers are dragged to behind cubicle walls. Cubicle walls that, curiously, are bullet-proof. Then again, this *is* the bad part of town...

"The hell do you want?!" one screams. "Don't kill us, please!" cries another.

Barbara, hidden away near the back of the room, goes white. She bows her head, and starts praying. Not for herself, because she knows she's damned. She's praying for her coworkers. "Please, leave my employees alone. Is it money you're after?" she calls out, voice breaking a bit.

With a smile, Slade grabs the throat of a screaming woman and crushes her windpipe. And now the body count at Clocktower Industries sits at eight. He has picked up the pizza boxes, discarded the now-empty top one, and moves down to the next one. This one is filled with a gas mask and tear gas grenades, both of which are immediately put to use.

As the room quickly starts filling with tear gas, the employees are effectively smoked out of their cubicles. This makes it much easier for Slade to eliminate them, and keeps them from having the presence of mind to sneak past him to the exits.

"Is that you, Ms. Gordon?" Blam! "I'd be glad to leave your employees alone, but none of them have volunteered to kill themselves yet." Slice! "Maybe you can talk some sense into them?" Crunch!

The body count is now at eleven. But none of these people are the primary target.

"Or maybe you can just come out here yourself." Decapitation! "I promise to let the rest of them live...." Fatality! "... hell... you might even make it out of this alive yourself if you cooperate."

Barbara Gordon squeezes her eyes shut. She never wanted this... What had she been thinking?! 'How many more will die if he's not stopped?' the cold logical part of her mind replied. 'How many more deaths? The government isn't doing a damn thing to stop this monster. You tried to warn them. You did everything in your power. You tried everything.' Still, she is consumed by guilt. Each one of those lives was directly on her head. She made a vow, to herself.

She was going to kill Slade Wilson, somehow.

"Please stop, I beg you!" she calls out. "I'll come quietly, I swear! Just stop killing my employees!" For one, horrific moment she wonders if Slade will kill her too. She doesn't know which thought terrifies her more; that he may kill her - or that she might be relieved if he does.

Slowly, she rolls herself into view of Deathstroke, looking absolutely terrified. And sick to her stomach. "I'm Barbara Gordon..."

In between his demand and her response, Slade has grabbed another victim. But apparently she came just in time to save at least one employee. Though, if the number of corpses on the ground and the number of pizzas ordered have any correlation, this might be the very last one, at least on this floor.

Holding employee in an armlock, he quickly wraps his arm around her throat and begins to squeeze. "Shhh.... time for a nap."

As the woman hits the floor, Slade steps over her and begins walking toward Barbara. He slowly pulls off his gas mask, as the tear gas is dissipating pretty quickly. Surely this isn't your common garden variety tear gas, if it can be gone in less than a minute.

"Barbara Gordon. I've been looking forward to meeting you for... well... not very long actually." Glancing back over his shoulder, he smiles his version of a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, that one's just sleeping. The rest of them are quite dead though, and I'm sure you've got feelings about that. But I'm going to need you to ignore those for now, and focus on being the best little hostage that you can be. He crouches in front of her, getting on eye level as he puts a hand on her knee.

"I want to be crystal clear here. I don't relish the thought of hurting a cripple. But if you don't cooperate with me completely I'll remove both of your arms."

"W-who are you?!" Barbara stammers, tears welling up her eyes. She doesn't have to act scared - she's petrified. For once, she's glad that she can't feel her legs. Otherwise, Slade's touch would have resulted in her kicking him, hard. "W-what do you want from me? Are you one of my father's enemies?" She sounds panicked. "Why are you doing this?!" She doesn't dare reach for the gun secured to her chair - even discounting Slade's reflexes, she'd be dead before she killed him.

"Now now, there'll be plenty of time for us to get acquainted later. Even in this shithole, the cops will eventually show up, and I didn't bring any twenty dollar bills to pay them off. So, I'm going to carry you up to the roof like a sack of potatoes, and you're going to behave."

He snatches her hand roughly, but it's clear he's more interested in efficiency than actually causing her any pain or discomfort. "Just relax. Try to enjoy the ride." He pulls her arm, lifting her up out of her chair, then quickly ducks under her to lift her into a fireman's carry. Barbara Gordon lets out a panicked yelp as she's roughly grabbed out of her wheelchair. Her body trembles; the upper half anyway. Her legs are completely slack, proof that she is, in fact, not faking being paralyzed. She whimpers, tears rolling off her face. "Someone.. help me..." she whispers.

Now that he's got what he came for, Slade has no real reason to stick around. He looks at his watch to assure himself that he's meeting his timetable and begins jogging toward the roof access.

With his hostage slung over his back like a sack of potatoes, he keeps his arm wrapped tightly around both of her legs. Still, moving as quickly as he is, it can't be the most pleasant ride.

"I know you're getting jostled around back there, but keep in mind where my head is. If you pass gas I'm going to be very cross indeed."

Cranky old monsters probably shouldn't attempt to make light conversation, but that doesn't stop Slade from making the occasional attempt at affability. The door to the roof access is swiftly kicked down, causing more undue jostling, and he heads up the stairs. Yet another door is kicked down, and the stab of both sunlight and cold can suddenly be felt. It's never pleasant to be out in the cold, but especially not on top of a building. He stares at his watch, a frown spreading over his face.

"Damn. Forty five seconds early. I wasn't expecting your employees to die quite so easily. Aren't Gothamites supposed to be tougher?"

Off in the distance, the sound of an approaching helicopter can be heard.

She might be being hauled like a sack of potatoes, might be terrified - but Barbara Gordon was trained as a Batgirl. She's nothing if not tenacious. So while Slade is distracted, she reaches and grabs onto one of his belts. It feels like she's just trying to keep her face from smashing into his back. But she uses the movement to plant a tiny tracking beacon. It might not stay hidden forever; but it would show exactly where Slade was until he found it.

At the mention of her poor employees, she chokes back a sob. She could not, and would not, forgive herself for causing their deaths. Even if she could justify it to herself. "Bastard." she snarls.

If he notices, Slade sure doesn't act like it. But he's more fixated on the approaching helicopter. Of course, if this were in a place that wasn't a shithole, the helicopter he's using as an escape craft would probably have been shot out of the sky by now. A genuine Russian Mil Mi-24, equipped with genuine military armaments, he's clearly not even attempting to be stealthy or subtle anymore.

As the helicopter nears, a single cable is dropped down to Slade as it passes. He snatches the cable, and is immediately yanked away from the rooftop, his Lumpy's Pizza hat flying off into the wind. No big loss, it really wasn't his look anyway.

The wind factor increases quite a bit as the pair of them are dragged through the open air by the rapidly-retracting cable. But soon enough they're being pulled into the helicopter by the crew, though with the door open it's still all manner of chilly. Barbara Gordon hates the hands grapping her. "Don't touch, don't touch me!" she hisses, shivering from the cold. Of course, unless someone holds her up, she's falling to the ground. "Why are you doing this?!" she demands again.

As the door is rolled shut, Slade takes a seat and puts on a headset. He quickly tosses the delivery uniform's shirt onto the helicopter's floor, but when one of his crew members hands him an overcoat he waves it away. "Put that on our guest. We might be murderers and kidnappers, but we aren't ungentlemanly, are we?" The crew members snicker, and one of them drapes the coat over her shoulders while another straps her into her seat. It's a full-service operation, this flight.

"That's a good question. Certain philosophers might tell you that bad things simply happen, that life is a string of meaningless coincidences. I, on the other hand, have always been a firm believer in cause and effect."

"The reason that this is happening to you is because I want to hurt someone very badly, and a friend of mine thinks that kidnapping you will have the intended effect. But that brings up all sorts of interesting questions. So tell me, Barbara Gordon, why are you so important to the rodents that have done such a bang-up job of protecting Gotham?"

Barbara Gordon gives death glares to the crew members, and then fixes said gaze on Slade. "Who are you? Why do you think I'm going to help you hurt Batman?" Her voice is defiant, as she glares right into Slade's remaining eye. "He will come for you, and he will break every bone in your body."

"I never figured that someone who dresses up in a children's costume and chases down purse snatchers would be cursed with an overabundance of intelligence. But if your Batman comes for me, then he's a drooling idiot." Slade relaxes into his seat, apparently unconcerned if anyone sees him wearing a delivery boy uniform. Really should have brought backup armor.

The trip from Gotham to Blüdhaven really is only a couple of minutes, and soon the helicopter is making its descent. "And here we are. Say hello to your new home sweet home." The doors open, and a rag-tag gang of street hoodlums is waiting to bring the group inside. Apparently Slade is already rebuilding his forces, but it looks like he's having to start from scratch all over again.

"Take her inside, break one of her fingers every time she says something smart. I'm going to go set these clothes on fire, and then Ms. Gordon and I are going to get better acquainted. Perhaps over dinner, a candle, and a pair of pliers."

Barbara Gordon continues to glare at Deathstroke. "You still haven't told me your name. You have horrible manners." She's slipped on the mask, as the Batfamily would say. She could hide her fears for now. She had to be strong. Batman would come for her. And if not him, her Birds would swoop in. She could only hope this all worked out in the end...