2014.02.22 - A Fishy Shipment

It was a dark and stormy late afternoon at the harbor. Pounding rain and sleet mixed with relentless howling winds, the bitter chill of february and the clouds were so thick it may as well be dusk. Only one ship in the harbor was showing any activity. A massive cargo ship offloading crates and crates of frozen fish.

These didn't look like run of the mill dock workers however. Under poncho's and raincloaks was the occasional wet gleam of an SMG or rifle. Huddled under a cargo tarp turned into a makeshift shelter, a few dock workers complain in thuggish tones and angry grunts about why 'the boss' has them working on a horrible night like tonight.

Word had drifted down through Chinatown to one agent of shield that this was no simple offloading of goods. A shipment of drugs was scheduled to be driven in to chinatown tonight smuggled inside frozen fish! Already cranes and workers were loading up the first trucks of the evening, with a well dressed and rather boorish goon bellowing over the loudspeakers "C'mon you louts get a move on! These shipments are due tonight and the boss doesn't like delays!"

It is not a pleasent time to be outside. That enough would have some people choosing to stay inside and do enjoyable things like build self contained nuclear power sources small enough to fit in a cell phone. Pryce is two of those people, long story really, and would love to be doing just that except for one little problem. Far too close for comfort to the enterance to one of his labs there are men with guns that he is sure are most certainly not with HArbor Patrol or any legitamite security service. It is enough to make anyone with a tendency to get involved in crime fighting a little on edge.

Dressed in jeans and black leather coats with black motorcycle helmets with reflective visors two men step out of one of the privatly owned buildings that are part of the docks. Normally Pryce would stay inside and just watch whats going on but, today seems different. He has a bad feeling about things and wants to be ready in case something goes wrong. Hidden weapons of his own design prepaired for now he scans the area pulling up every bit of information he can on the HUDs built into his helmets.

It wasn't too long until SHIELD heard of the shady smuggling operation, and SHIELD decided to send in their best agent. However, since Black Widow was too busy, they sent Agent Coulson instead. Agent Coulson had long learned to accept the rain. Back when he was allowed to visit Portland, Oregon, he got rained on nearly every other day. He would have preffered to be able to take Lola, but alas, a hover car is not stealthy enough for this opearation. He was instead in a small raft. The raft had a tarp over it, and the tarp had an image of the water below projected onto it. From above, it was nearly invisible. When Coulson was sure nobody was looking, he put on his nightvision goggles, and tossed a grappling hook on the ship. He armed himself with a Night-Night assualt rifle with a scope, silencer, and a laser sight. He then carefully climbed up onto the boat, unseen.

Nico's on a mission. Well, two missions. Mission A: Find her long lost friends. Mission B: Find some damn food and shelter. Nico /was/ resting under an overhang, no luck finding her friends..and then the ships came. Fresh fish! Could have sus- wait, are those guns? Guns. Fish. Harbor. Never sounds good. Nico's grabbing a pocket knife out of her long jeans, her wearing one of those hipster dress shirts with the ties. She's flicking it open, and debating. Cut, or no cut?

"LOOK OUT!" comes a cry across the docks as one of the pairs of goons moving a heavy crate start sliding right down the loading ramp. With how wet everything was, traction was clearly a problem, and when the crate crashes to the ground, burrying one of the load handlers in frozen, gutted fish, the gruff voice again comes over the loudspeaker.

"OY! Yew have any idea what that shipments worth?! You make sure every fish gets in that crate, or you'll be gettin' intimately aquainted wif' their relatives!"

The goons gather around to laugh and jeer at the idiots who messed up, giving the perfect cover to sneak aboard the ship. Agent coulson has a good two or three minutes in fact before the foreman notices his men are slacking off to mock their companions. A good agent can do alot in that time.

Meanwhile, scanners sweep over the docks. Two.. four.. eight.. twelve... Okay there was alot of muscle here. Something was going on. Alot of heat signatures... one thing the cold weather was good for. And god knows how many are deeper on that ship! Camera sweeps of the area show a few predictable patrols wandering the darker area of the docks, obviously on the lookout for capes in the shadows. These ones aren't bothering to hide their guns, blatantly wielding AK-47's.

Oh there was food all right, but lightning flashes reveal a rather lot of scary people gathered around all those fish. Guns indeed, and there were ALOT of people there. All those fish all over the floor, one man practically drowning in them, but everything is under spotlights. It seems whoever ordered this shipment in wasn't interested in taking chances with even a single scale going missing.

Pryce hmms to himself. This is not good, not good at all. He quickly activates some communicaitons equipment and starts up a conversation that goes on only inside his heads, and in cyberspace. //Dearest JOAN, if you would be a doll and take a quick run at any Government agencies taht deal with smuggling in the area and make sure we are not about to step on any toes...without letting them know they are being hacked if you could. Oh, and possibly set up an alert for them that something is going down here in case they do not know. As much as I hate the idea of men in bad suits poking aorund hte docks so close to Lab 3, they are better than risking a goon squad like this finding it on accident.// After getting a positive reply from his helpful AI the two males in black split up going different directions.

Pryce goes left, and Vincent goes right so that they can work their way closer to the well lit area full of goons. The body designated Pryce being the slightly better coordinated one decides to make his way there through the areas with more patrols betting that he can sneak past them easier and if need be take them out fast. His weapon for the evening, a small handheld device that fires foam pellets that swell to several thousend times thier starting size and harden quickly.

Agent Coulson tries to sneak towards the engine. He has multiple mission objectives, but his primary one is to find their shipping records. Secondary goals would involve sabotaging the supply, and placing trackers on the ship. He notices a gaurd. Coulson fires his weapon at him. The Night-Night rounds cause the man to pass out, falling to the ground. Agent Coulson proceeds to sneak around the other way. His goal in that is that his comrades will find him sleeping on the job, and waste recourses attempting to wake him up. It would take quite a bit of red-bull to wake him up at this point. He proceeds to head towards the area where the shipping records would be kept. Yep, totally bad news. Nico doesn't want to draw attention to herself..but she could do something. Right now.

Sllllsh.

The knife slits through her wrist, blood being drawn, as she steps out, shouting. "When blood is shed...let the Staff of One emerge!". Yep, teenagers like shouting. A large magical staff juts itself out of her chest, flying into her hand, as a few goons are infront of her. She grins, before casting. "Chill out, losers.". The Staff of One emits a cold misty thing, freezing the goons..and the rain, creating ice that drops and shatters, making noise. "Well, crap.".

"HEY! OVER THERE!"

Well... thats convenient! As a few of the rainsoaked thugs suddenly find themselves encased in a solid sheet of thick eyes, some faces frozen in raucous laughter at the plight of their friend, others quickly turn their attention over to the sound of ice hitting the ground. For a few moments, the length of a long breath, there is utter silence. Unfortunately, the silence is broken rather hoarsely by the loud speaker. "QUIT STANDIN' AROUND YOU LOUTS AND GET 'EM!"

The thugs that were threatening to prove problematic for Pryce wheel around and suddenly both Pryce and Vincent find getting closer to the scene of the crime easier, while aboard the ship agent Coulson only has to deal with the occasional working thug. For the time being, it seems his movement through the ship will be quite easy. A guard asleep, more trying to deal with the disturbances off ship...

The manifests aren't anywhere to be found though. The ship is registered surely... perhaps in the observation booth where the foreman is angrily shouting at everyone. Maybe something is to be found there.

"That's..." Pryce says as soon as the nose has died down and the patrols suddenly go rushing after the person making him a nice distraction. While some distance away Vincent finishes, "...convenient." Of course now that someone has gone and made a distraction for the technopaths someone is probably going to need to save them. Good thing that there is two of Pryce.

The body we will keep calling Pryce heads on to the fish, might as well use the distraction to find out just what is getting shipped and maybe do something about it. The other one, Vincent heads towards the loud noises. Finding a lot of goons pointing guns at a cute Goth girl he decides that he should do something. Good thing that all the goons seem to be bunched up fairly close to gether. Staying as hidden as he can he takes a couple of small metal devices out of a pocket and tosses them underhanded so that they will roll to the center of the group between legs and....not do anything just yet. Since no one is shooting he is going to wait to activate the sonic bombs till they won't lead to Nico getting shot at on accident.

Agent COulson sees gaurds running to the front. He quickly hides behind a crate, allowing them to pass. They had ignored his intended distraction, but had seemed to be plenty distracted. He heads towards the observation booth. He charges up the stairs, quickly but relatively stealthily. A guard then sees him, but he's shot unconcious before he can react. Coulson then gets to the observation booth, and he carefully opens the door, and he peeks through it, checking to see if the Foreman has any guards.

At the guns being pointed at her, Nico is raising her hands..staff still pointing at the goons, as she speaks, calmly. "Now, come on guys..let's not lose our heads over this.". Yes, that was her brilliant idea. But, instead of decapitating them, no, buckets begin to rain from the sky above them. Yes, buckets. "Okay, I did not know what I was expecting with that, but it works!". Using her new distraction, she's running towards the shipment, trying to avoid gunfire and death. "Try..not to die.".

Pockets of guns lining the edges of the boat railing, spread throughout the work area, the only guy who isn't packing heat it seems is the driver in the truck who is looking as though they are strongly re-considering their choice of career. So tense is the atmosphere, so focused on the girl that nobody notices the sonic bombs rolling under peoples legs, behind peoples backs, set to take out a good two thirds of the gathered goons.

Behind the backs of all these fine gentlemen, Agent Coulson makes his way off the boat and to the observation deck of the nearby warehouse. The foreman was glaring out the window, flanked by three goons all with Tommy guns. Good old fashioned drum loaded machine guns.

"SHOOT! What are you waitin' fer?! We gots work to do!", yells... it looks like a gorilla in a human suit. Big, bulky, burly, this guy was HUGE for a human being. It would take a couple night-night rounds to drop a monster like that. Not to mention... a hint of balistic armor can be seen beneath his suit coat. But there on the table behind everyone was the shipping minfests! Showing where the ship in port has been, is and will be going for the next week!

Poor Nico. As the announcement comes over the loudspeaker, the bullets start to fly! A pair of sonic bombs will do well to dispatch the two large groups of minions, but there's still a long line of them up on the ship firing down! Raining buckets does wonderful things for deflecting bullets. The sounds of bullets striking metal ring through the air as they all clang to the ground... wel... its hard to hit a moving target wihtout the metal storm! Fishyfish, here comes Nico! But.. there's a strange packet of white powder inside....

As Chaos reigns supream Pryce decides...now is a good time to go. But not before he does some things to add to the chaos. From a hiding posiiton one of him opens fire on the boat, or more on the men that were shooting down from railings before things started falling out of the sky. The foam pellets should help trap a number of the hired guns, unless they can go around bending steel bars. The other one though, he heads in the direction that Nico did towards the fish. Once he gets there his intent is to drop off a few very small tracking devices, grab a fish, and possibly Nico. "Nice trick, but it would be a good idea to run before they can focus fire on us. There is a building, three rows north once your into the docks and six east. Safe if your willing to trust me, if not...forget I mentioned it." He tells Nico his voice just slightly altered electronicaly before taking off himself.

Agent Coulson notices the foreman is uh...much larger than he had expected. However, he manages to attempt to fight anyways. He walks in and shouts "SHIELD you're under arr-" and then the man turned around and went for his tommy gun. Coulson did a combat roll, and headed underneath a table. He proceeded to fire a 5-round burst into his enemy, but the foreman did not seem that affected. The Foreman was about to fire again, when Coulson tossed a chair in his direction. The chair knocked the enemy to the ground, and then Coulson fired at a hanging lamp above him. The lamp fell and hit the Foreman right in the noggin. Agent Coulson then grabs the manifest.

Nico nods suspiciously at Pryce, before replying snarkily. "I can handle myself, thanks. Maybe I'll stop by.". And then she's noticing the drugs. That explains the guns. She could allow them to let it be tracked..but what good is that? The drugs get to the people, teenagers like herself get hooked, no thank you. Nico has enough juice for one last spell right now, let's make it count.

"DRUG BUST!"

Suddenly, all of the contaminated fish in her general area are exploding, in a long stream, giving herself off but also giving a cloud to escape. All drug particles are destroyed, as she's trying to flee. "That should do it...".

Pryce says, "Never said you couldn't, just trying the helpful thing to see if it's all they say it is." The body near to Nico shrugs and goes off in another directionb ecause if there is anyone that might be following them he does not want to make it easy. That, and he has to make sure he can get his other body out of there safe too. Would suck to be caught because one of them got shot, and it knocked both of them out. When the fish start exploding there is only one thing that he can say. "Well, that beats a drone strike...probably."

Nico runs off, waving her hand to Pryce...s. Her staff is gone, having disappeared back into her chest, but she does take a non-exploded drugfish with her. Maybe she'll stop by the safehouse Pryce mentioned. Who knows? Though, those goons..probably won't be having a very fun time when they hear from their boss.