2013.09.14 - Dead Men Don't Have Nightmares...(for long)

Gotham seemed quiet tonight, though not the usual eerie silence as rumors and word spread around about the recent Expo's news about the so called super prison. Here Arkham had it's name engraved firmly in blood and fear as many of the past inmates seemed to walk the streets with little care, but now there was an odd sense with the so called super prison making its way through gotham.

One of those inmates tonight was out to prove a point that there was only one thing to fear in this city and that was him, and tonight he had his sights on series of small targets as he and three random henchmen for the lifting drove around in a black van speeding to a stop outside of a Gotham tech store.

"You have the list grab my items first.." The strange scarecrow mask seeming to stare blankly at the men before speaking again "Grab the good tech, but keep it small and easy to sell on."

Crane had already broken in these goons they were just some casual gangbangers before he got his syringe like claw into them, now they were easily manipulated into doing his dirty work as long as he didn't scare them to death like their old leader. They were of course armed two hand guns and one uzi small arms for a simple job like this helped keep them confident but they also know that Crane has a few of his own personal weapons with him and they were not eager to experience his gases again.

The Heathermobile (otherwise known as a Toyota Priuss... powder blue) was on the way towards the bridge. She was headed home to her uptown loft from where she had been doing a photo shoot. IT's a good thing she changed first, because driving around New York, in Victoria's Secret gear would be awkward... not that skintight spandex is much better. Anyhow, her mental tingling starts up as she pulls in to gas up at a local Circle-K across the street from the electronics store. She's just standing there and her eyes twitch and drift towards the store. -Something- is going on over there, and she inclines her head as her brain catches up with her training....

PREVIOUSLY...

"I can subscribe to this Internet email and it will give me savings and specials?" Meggan muses to a floating, beanlike individual. The Doop nods solemnly as Meggan laboriously enters her Hotmail address into the form.

A BIT LATER

"Forty percent off? That sounds good," Meggan says to herself. "But if it's today only..."

This is why Meggan has come to this place with unseemly haste. A shopping basket in the store livery is resting at her feet with several video games of recent vintage (one of which is even the videogame correctly requested by other students) as she stands at the headphones kiosk, a pair of fancy skullcandy headphones covering the elfin point of her ears. "I never knew dubstep could be so moving," she murmurs to herself, leaning forwards slightly, the tension of the nearby approaching gangbangers being /wholly/ misinterpreted by her empathic senses. She raises one hand to press the left earpiece closer, utterly unaware of what is coming in behind her.

Quiet though it may be, it was Saturday night. For John Carmichal, AKA The Silver Ghost AKA The Ghost, that meant one thing: Workout night. He was dressed in his mask, as he usually was nowadays while working out. The workout: Parkour. The hardboiled detective had discovered, in no uncertain terms, that one simply could not function in the 'masked and caped' set without being able to move...and so, he'd set out to learn how, and had spent the last two months training obsessively between trips to Genosha, and other business.

He leaps across alleyways, from roof to roof, lowers himself down into the darkened corridors in Gotham. This was his neighborhood now. his office was only a few blocks away in Scituate, and so...his jaunts often took him through this area.

Running several steps up a wall, he dives across the alleyway, grabbing onto a windowsill, and then pushes off in the opposite direction again, climbing inexorably toward the roof of one of the two buildings, until he finally pauses on the ledge overlooking the street below, and catching his breath. His mask lenses scan the area, in both infrared, and low-light modes, allowing him to see even into the darkest recesses.

Down there...across the street...clearly are some people who are doing stuff they probably ought not to be. That's a lot of firepower for a community watch group. He reaches inside his trench coat, pulling out his strange raygun looking weapon. He glances down at it, as he sets the dial on it to "make a gorilla pee itself" setting, begins to fade as a cloud of fog forms around him, going invisible.

Work outs? She's pretty sure that was stuff that people who gave her wedgies in high school did. Rain herself is out and about, bypassing traffic on a broomstick. She keeps to darker corners, occupying the strange zone between light and air. Then again, most people don't notice a guy in a gorilla suit dancing by, so she should be fine, really. She is in need of some small electronic or another - likely a battery in something died. She lands, just out of the sigh of most and - peeks around a corner. Uhm. That's not quite right.

Huntress is just starting on her rounds for the night, having just concealed her Ducati in an alleyway and climbed toward the rooftops. This part of Gotham with the close-set brownstones and buildings with storefronts topped by apartments is what she would consider a 'light workout' parkour-wise, but then, she spent enough time doing NOTHING in NYC on that fool's errand for the Bat that she's having to work her endurance back up where it belongs. Thus, she arrives on the same rooftop as the Silver Ghost without realizing and takes a moment to catch her breath before take two steps and stopping at the sight of the trech coat wearing man there at the far end of the roof. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me," she mutters to herself.

"A pair of handguns and an uzi?" Shmucks! "How... proletarian." Deadpool squints down at his thesaurus, then puts it away with a nod. "I said, 'proletarian!'" A five syllable word! Scrabble point! He points a finger at Goon #1. "I mean, c'mon, man, if you're gonna carry a gun, get one of THESE!" Deadpool produces an LAR Grizzle in .45 Magnum, one of the most powerful handguns in the world, as he just walks /right into/ Crane's heist in progress. "See? Ergonomic, classic lines, and yet, enough firepower to cut a man in half." He swaggers around the crime scene, holding the gun in one hand and his belt device in the other. "Man! So, like, are we stealing iPods, or something? I could /use/ a new iPod," Deadpool muses, lingering near Crane. "Hey. Sup. How y'doin'," he says, with an air of force nonchalance. "You just browsing too?"

The rag tag group of henchmen entered into the electronics shop where people were actually doing some shopping when the criminals revealed their weaponry, one of them speaking a tall white man with a set of tribal tattoo's up and down his arms, he was bald and was wearing a pair of jeans atleast two sizes too big and a black t-shirt "Ladies and gentlemen! We're here for a little five fingered discount so I want all of y'all up front and on the floor please!"

He was confident smiling as he shot a line along the ceiling with the high powered uzi he had been given, the other two spread themselves out pointing their guns trying to round up stragglers as they counted up hostages.

Then the Boss made his way in the Scarecrow made his way accross towards the gathering hostages, he was wearing a large dirty trenchcoat with straw sticking out at every odd and end, his mask the modified sack an gasmask poking out like a strange mouth. Then that high pitched strange rasping voice spoke "I know you're afraid.. I know all too well fear is driving your minds to all sorts of thoughts, but now let it wander to the place that knows if you curl up down and keep quiet it'll all be alright.. But if not..."

He began to raise that glowing syringe gauntlet to taunt the gathering people as he whispered harshly "You'll die screaming.."

Yeah, that's what she thought. This was going to turn into a hostage sitaution. So Heather was already in motion. She entered the store's doors just as things started going crazy. Her plan? To become one of the hostages where she could help from the inside. She grabbed a discarded shopping basket and made like she was just one of the customers who was trying to escape.. but in a stupid panicky way. She's hoping that she can -act- well enough to be taken prisoner.

And then when confronted with the man and the syringe, she let her eyes widen and follows the motion of the glowing stuff -with- those eyes. "Shit.." she half-whispers softly.

Meggan keeps listening to 'the wub,' until gunshots are fired - and even that takes her a moment, though a feeling of growing tension in the air makes her at least as aware as the scent of gunsmoke. She lets out a little gasp as she sees men with guns carried outright: the sight itself alien in its way, but even in America, clearly less than usual.

The fear in the air makes her face tighten. Part of her wants to join the group, to crouch down, to hide, to curl. She is already feeling her leg muscles tense up when the man in the mask - near the other masked man, the one waving around a pistol and joking around - says three little words that mean so much.

Meggan's fingers curl into tight little fists. When one of the men comes around to try and round her up by pointing the gun at her, she thinks to herself 'what would /he/ do' and pivots to face him. "'ere!" she says, brow furrowing as she leans towards that man, raising her voice and carrying on. One index finger comes up to point directly at this gentleman's chest: "Put your silly guns down and tell your friend in the filthy coat to stop making this sort of threat or I'll show you --"

Her eyes flick down to her basket. She needs an identity, she thinks, /and fast/. "-- the power of Saints Rising, and you won't like it for one single blessed second, believe me!" She jabs her finger forwards to punctuate the point.

The Ghost was JUST about to head down to the store, when Huntress arrives. He grins seeing her, and then simply can NOT help himself. He speaks: "Well, ain't this rich...the brass balled smart mouth, sharing the same roof with little old me...." he chuckles, and fades back into visibility, phasing OUT of solidity in the process.

"Didja miss me, dollface?" he asks "Ain't seen you all summer...you're looking..." he pauses "angry as ever." he says before he nods toward the store. "Seems like we might have a situation down there....you gonna try and shoot me if I intervene?" he asks.

He hadn't seen Rain arrive, which is probably good, or he wouldn't be pausing to banter with Huntress. He'd have already been down there, trying to intercept her before she could walk into the danger-zone. "I figure if we take out the lights, we can probably take the torpedos out easier. They don't look like they're sporting much in the way of night-vision, though I'm not too sure about the guy in the mask...." he says. From this vantage, he can't see Deadpool though, and hasn't encountered him before in any event. "Either way I might be able to get the civilians out before the fireworks start..." he says. "That is if you and me can get past the dick waving and work together." he concludes with a shrug.

Rain jerks, hearing the gunshot(s). She stays peeking around her corner. Needles. One of Rain's great dislikes. She's near the others, though trying to stay quiet. She quirks an eyebrow, seeing Huntress and the Ghost. She seems to remember the purple clad lady. And Rain has a talent for walking into Danger-Zones. She's Darwin's lil champion. Wonder if she can newt one... though, she watches the other heroes to make sure she's not going to get zapped first.

Huntress gives the Ghost a narrow-eyed stare for a solid three seconds after he stops talking. Then, the gunshots from inside the store make her decision for her and she says a bit snappishly, "Get the civilians out, then get me a clear shot at those mooks." Is that an 'all is forgiven'? Hell no. But at least she's willing to set that aside for the moment to help the people in that store.

Mentally dismissing Carmichal's comments, she steps to the edge of the rooftop and looks at the storefront's windows. Hm. She'd need to break them to get a clear shot THROUGH them, and that just sounds ... wasteful. Maybe if she hits ground level it'll be easier to get a shot or two in.

"Ignore me, huh?" Deadpool watches the mooks wander around, the robbery in progress. He reads all the poses- Rain lurking in the shadows, Meggan and Heather converging on his position, John and Huntress doing their weird... flirty thing...

And Deadpool draws a pair of HUGE guns from the small of his back. They look like modified howitzers. "pansy ass punk wannabe ALL RIGHT, YOU PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS! LISTEN UP!"

Deadpool casually kicks one of Crane's goons in the back, sending him flying, and levels his rifles at the crowd. "I'M DEADPOOL, AND I DON'T NORMALLY DO THIS, BUT THIS IS A ROBBERY! BECAUSE NO ONE IS PAYING ATTENTION TO ME!"

The Scarecrows rather taunting chilling moment of precise fear inducing moment had been thwarted by his mortal enemy, random comedy and idiocy part of the reason he would become quite annoyed when working with someone like the joker. He did his best to ignore the merc with a mouth much the way he'd try and ignore the Jokers antics, stopping at heather he seemed to focus on her for a few moments before that random outburt by the woman comming at them with an angry finger. "Our first volunteer... Don't worry miss.. I'm a doctor." Crane rasped out pointing those syringes, moving to mere inches before snapping angrily to Deadpool as he creates a scene "Yes this is a robbery! And we're trying to get it done smoothly!" the Punk he had on the end of his boot seeming to cry out yelping "S-stop please! You have my attention! MY UNDIVIDED ATTENTION!" The other two a bit distracted as one seems to be going around with the shopping list keeping his eyes on the Merc while trying to do a bit of shopping.

"..." Okay, Heather is usually not speechless, but Deadpool. Just... holy Mary mother of a Beach Ball. She inclines her head, her whole expression of fear and victimization fading as stupification sets in. "Seriously?" she mutters softly, almost without even meaning to. But then her brain catches up and she shakes her head, "Look, if Mommy and Daddy need to have a chat, the rest of us kids could just..." she gestures towards the doors and raises her brows. However, she -does- move so that she's in the way between Crane and the other hostages/victims. If anyone's getting stuck, it'll be Heather. This puts her right in view for those outside, her profile difficult to miss for those who know her... hell, some who know OF her, you know.. people who watch TV, buy Sports Illustrated, etc. Then she tries something, based on the way the guy was speaking earlier, she -really- wants the cold, calculating criminal mastermind here focused on -her-, not the hostages, so she says.. "And you know, I'm really not afraid of you.." to Crane. Isn't that like a slap in the face?

Meggan's lower lip pooches out as her attention flicks for a moment towards Deadpool. 'But I did,' she thinks, 'I just didn't know you were named--'

But her attention doesn't rest on him for long, and that may be the Mouthy Merc's point. More to the point is the feeling of others coming; strangely enough, this does not embolden Meggan, but instead causes her to deflate slightly, especially when the Scarecrow comes nearer, pointing those needles. She shrinks backwards, before looking up to try and meet him in the face.

Her arms fold. This may later prove to be a mistake, since they're also bare. "You're scaring all these people! Threatening them, taking electronics -- If you're a doctor, why are you doing all of this? Some doctor!" she says, tilting her head up slightly. She tenses, as if preparing to do - something, possibly headbutt him.

"Fine." The Ghost says to Huntress "But you take out the lights, if you know how. I'm going to have to find an egress that isn't covered. I'd rather the civvies not get shot just because they happen to be behind me, when those bimbos start squirting lead around." he says "I'd also rather not have to take a pill for the same reason. My girlfriend gets upset when I die." he says. Speaking of girlfriends....what the hell was Rain doing here??

"Awww dammit...." he groans, and leaps off the edge of the building. He'd never tried it from this height before, but he was pretty sure his intangible form would float...and it does! Right down to the ground, where he goes just solid enough to land, and is already running balls out toward the store, to get in there, before people got dead.

He fires off a bolt of what appears to be some kind of electricity, which expands into a sphere before splashing into the sign above the door. He's hoping that'll short out the electrics inside, and kill the lights.

Rain has 0 sense of self preservation. It is a complete and total mystery because some days, she's completely fearless and others, she's a coward. Today, curiousity overwhelms sense. Poor Silver Ghost. Though, he's never really seen her fight. Didn't she tell him about the word bimbos at some point? Oh well. Peeking around the corner, and quietly concentrating (or as best as she can with Deadpool around), she'll try to turn one of the mooks into a newt. What?

Huntress watches Ghost head for the ground level, then switches out to wooden bolts and starts targeting every streetlight that might be illuminating the outside of the electronics store. And, like a less fancy version of Dumbledore's little light-stealing device, the streetlamps go out one by one. Quickly. Then, with the help of a grappling line she throws herself toward the street to get in on the mess.

Deadpool casually wanders up to Crane with a brace of automatic weapons in his hands. "So, like, what's your deal?" he asks the mad Doctor. "Is it like a case of displaced Jungian psychoses? Or do you just get in on the whole mask and needles thing? Are you like an evil clown? Man, I /hate/ clowns. Except comedy clowns!" He frowns as the lights go out. "The lights all went out!" Obvious Deadpool is Obvious. "My common sense tells me someone is preparing to swoop on us dramatically.'

Scarecrow was about to stab Deadpool in the face by comparing him to a clown, if it had not been for the lights he might of went through with it "This is why you don't interrupt a robbery..." Backing towards Megan he'd move those Syringes to her neck "Welcome to Gotham Deadpool this will happen often, feel free to grab a hostage or two... You lackies keep your eyes peeled it could be batman.."

This seemed to make Scarecrow liven up with the possibility with dealing with the batman, but for the most part he was fairly sure taking an innocent would deter any attacks towards him while his Goons tried to do their own hostage taking.

"Hhh!" Meggan gasps as the needles are pressed to her neck. A captive, she thinks, eyes wide - and as the lights go out, she is left without any clever ideas.

She wishes fervently for Kurt to be here, but the thought is brief, and accomplishes little.

Ok the lights were out. That was phase one. Phase two, get the civilians (and Rain. Definitely Rain) out of there before people got dead. There'd already been gunshots, but The Ghost was hoping nobody had gotten killed yet. As he ran across the street, he began to sink through the pavement, until he disappeared completely into it.

Inside the store, true to his moniker, the Ghost rises up through the tile, as if rising from the grave, only up to his chest. He grabs one of the hostages by the wrist, phasing the woman and dragging her down with him, disappearing again, only to reappear in the alleyway outside, lifting her up through the ground, as they both rise up, and releasing her (which causes her to go immediately solid) "Run!" he tells her, and turns toward the blank wall of the building, walking into it once more, to go back after another hostage.

Well, hopefully that goon wasn't magic resistant because if he's not, there's now a blue firetail newt where a goon once was. Rain doesn't seem to be worried about things just yet, though her eyes widen as Deadpool rolls up and - that's a lot of automatic weapons, it is. She wishes she had a bullet stopping spell, but sadly she'd have to turn into Keanu Reeve for that and NO ONE wants that. Not even the scary doctor guy. No siree.

Huntress touches down on the tarmac and stays outside of the store waiting for someone -- anyone -- to exit the building. But they're all just staying inside. The hell? Fine. Be that way. She rushes across to the store and barges in just in time to see the blue firetail newt on the floor. "The hell?"

Scarecrow had a hostage and one goon down whispering into Meggans ear "Hush little baby... don't you die.."

He was taking control again as he watched the strange newt scurry vanish into the darkness of the shop, now he and the two other guys were looking around. Not having planned to use his gas he needed to cover an escape using his ungauntleted hand to slip into his coat pulling out a grenade like jacko'lantern pushing it down and whispering into Meggans ear again "Hold your breath unless you want things to get truly horrifying." Then tossing it forward letting the lantern bounce to the floor before a large amount of orange coloured smog to flood the area, not particularly caring now as both his goon and the other hostages who were not forewarned about the gas would be screaming now.

The goons beginning to shoot at random shapes and figures who weren't there as some tried fighting and clawing at invisible forces. It was at this point Scarecrow would drag Meggan towards a fire exit getting her out of the smog not wanting a hysteric hostage right now, needing his wits about him if he was to escape.

"Huh?" Meggan says. She breathes in.

She starts to go limp in Scarecrow's grasp, which hopefully will not stick her with needles. Her facial features turn into a sort of actress's parody of dismay and distress, although as she is dragged out she - sparkles; the yellow glitters of light are peculiar.

Something happens with how she looks, although Scarecrow is likely wholly otherwise occupied with the matter. The texture of her torso has changed significantly, though.

And just as The Ghost is phasing back in through the side of the store, he notes Huntress' less than subtle entrance, and grunts. "Rain, hit the deck!" he wasn't sure where his sweetheart was exactly, but he knew she was still in the store...and he knew whatever stealth he might have had, had just been blown by the other vigilante barging in.

And she was busting HIS balls about heroing the last time they met! Irony, thy name is Huntress.

He targets Deadpool firing off a stun bolt at the merc (and hoping "make a gorilla pee itself" setting is strong enough to drop him) and not pausing to see if he's managed it. Then the jack'o'lantern gas-bomb is lobbed, and he shouts "GAS!"

Even phased, gas could effect him. He didn't have a gas-mask built into his mask, so it was breath-holding time. Aww hell....the freaky guy was dragging the blonde toward the back. The Ghost could see him clearly through his mask's IR lenses and snaps a shot off in his direction. It was a stun bolt after all, it wouldn't kill either him, or the hostage (might make them pee themselves though).

He does a quick scan around looking for Rain. He HAD to get her out of here! Seeing her, he bolts off toward her, hoping to snatch her out of the gas before anything untoward can happen. The other hostages are already screaming, and his own lungs are burning as he holds his breath...but dammit..this was Rain....moments pass though and he can't seem to get any closer, and then there're dark shapes all around her, and they're doing...things to her...terrible, horrible things...and he can't reach her...and...and...

The Ghost stands in the midst of the gas, staring for a moment, his chest rising and falling as he breaths the gas in deeply, before he cries out "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NOT AGAIN!" and falls to his knees, reaching out toward...someone who may or may not be there....

Hit the deck? Rain can do that. She makes herself small by her corner. Gas? What's this about gas? Rain seems surprised. She spots Ghost, looking worried. She moves for him, hearing the screaming and watching things go to Hell. That pumpkin - oh, the irony. Well, maybe it's more appropriate somehow. She doesn't have time to think about it as the world around her becomes a black, inky black nothing.

A booming voice. "Good job, you idiot. You're /dead/." Finito. That's it. Goodbye Rain. Exit stage left. Ironically, the fear she ignores was the one buried most deeply. Reminded of all those awful inferiorities, how bad she was... done screwed up so badly that she /died/. Again? Why did she hear the word again. Carefully, a hand pokes out towards the darkness. Another fear. All these questions. What happened? Where is she? She's lost, just - putting her hands to the sides of her head, giving up on reaching into the darkness. Done. She's done. She's just going to quietly let herself go. So afraid she can't even scream.

Damnit. Huntress doesn't even really have time to think that much before she breathes in some of the gas. She unwittingly fires off a bolt into the store at the same time as stumbling backwards into the street. She looks around wildly, Madragora's laugh echoing at her from all sides. "NO!"

Scarecrow dragged his hostage out into the fresh air, looking her over he could tell she hadn't listened as that limpish body hung there in his lanky arms. Dragging her without much of a choice he found his curiousity peaked walking and talking with her asking "So what do you fear.." he whispered as he listened to the shout of "Noooo! Not again!" it quite loud amongs the screams of Terror and random gunshots.

Had this been an area Crane had controlled he's not be retreating so willingly he'd be researching their fears and reactions to his fear toxin, but since it was a store and he'd have to deal with more than one hero and the likely arrival of police or more heroes. He continued to take the hostage around to the van they had used to arrive in, not planning to take Meggan with him but wanting to get a little bit of a hint on what scares her.

Meggan is not the same person she was when Scarecrow grabbed her.

Her face is horrifying now, a black and cotorted thing with eyes that remain the same, blue and rather wide, and a mouth that combines the less pleasant features of the anglerfish and the vampire bat. Her torso has foreshortened, shrunk up and with the suggestion of patagia growing between her arms, which have grown spindly and long.

Her legs are a third of the size they previously were. Abruptly and without warning, she starts shrieking, a nearly inaudible but painful noise, and smashing at him with one wing!

Through the haze of hallucinations, The Ghost is vaguely aware that he's not anywhere safe. The fight or flight mechanism is in complete working order, and unlike many, The Ghost isn't always motived by "flight". This time however, he is...because what he was seeing...what he was remembering...he could not face. Seeing the love of one's life raped, mutilated, and dead...imagining how it had been done, and by whom...these where ghosts that haunted even after 62 years in the grave. Even worse because now his mind had transposed them onto the image of his current love.

He stands, grasping his head in his hands, and RUNS, smashing through a window at the front of the store, apparently having forgotten he could phase through it...and out into the street, where he is promptly run down by a bus. SPLAT!

Poor dead Ghost never gets to see Meggan going all demonic on Scarecrow's ass.....

"You screwed up. Again. In a manner far more spectacular than we could have envisioned," Voices of her very, very disappointed ancestors form a Greek chorus that'll drain your self esteem faster than youtube comments. Rain just - she never really worried about it. Death was a spectre for another day. Something that happened before her. Her eyes are wide, blank. She staggers, as if lost and dazed. Dead. That's it. No more. Not gonna see Ghost, or her friends, she had so much to do. "Why did you even awakened?" Useless, useless, useless, the chorus echoes. It's really... all just ... hopeless. And to face this long dead realization is a twisted wound, opened. She will wander, aimless - unless someone stops her.