2012-08-27 The Out-Of-Towners

Flipping up the collar on his trenchcoat, the Commmissioner glances at one of his officers who is sitting on a nearby park bench, "It's getting late, get ready. Keep your eyes open for Pauly," he reminds the man. Standing in a crowded group of trees, a couple officers eye the walkway in the middle of the green, shrubby park. "This is Gordon. Nothing happening yet. Stand-by," he murmurs to a microphone on his lapel. There is a car parked nearby that has backup for the officers against Pauly and his drug buddies, "Let's keep on our toes in case he brings his pals again," he mutters.

It is night in Gotham, and to Daredevil, it just feels even darker than New York City. The air just smells a little off and even the sound seems to carry a little different through the air. He normally would not leave New York City, but he has followed a lead here concerning a drug pipeline that is trying to funnel Gotham City drugs over to New York. He is also looking for Pauly as that is the Gotham connection with his New York City man named T-Rex. Daredevil is trying to prove a connection to the mysterious Kingpin so wants T-Rex in a condition to talk.

He is seated in a tree over looking the area. He can hear the cops from where he is. He knows they are cops since too many of them smell like bad coffee and sugar from donuts no matter how casual they try to look.

Huntress is yet another person here to crash this party, currently settled in the center of a stand of holly shrubs near where Oracle told her that this drug deal would be going down. And of course, HAL (her nickname for the mostly synthetic-sounding voice Oracle uses) insisted on reminding her that she's not supposed to shoot to kill, and that's put her in a bad mood from the start. Bolts through hands are NOT lethal. She's far enough away that she can't hear what the man says into his coat's lapel, but his very posture screams 'cop'. And the man sitting on a park bench further in is even more obvious to her eyes. But, they're her canaries. They'll clue her in on anything going sideways.

This is what Jubilee gets for trying to be nice to people. She'd promised to meet a friend of Remy's here, but he must've had something come up. So here she is in a park, in /Gotham/, in the dark. It's /so/ unfair. Granted, she probably brought it halfway on herself. She'd gotten bored waiting and turned on her Quasar DuoScreen portable for some megahot gaming action, then gotten into the game and lost track of time. For five hours. /Galaxy Invasion/ is just that good. Now, with a rumbling tummy and a faint ache in her back from sitting so long, she's following the walkway she /thinks/ she took to get in to find a street, and one of the taxi stands that sometimes go with them. Trouble is, it /isn't/ the one she took to get in, or so she's discovering now. These trees definitely weren't here earlier. But at least there are people around, even if the only ones she sees are wearing trenchcoats. Maybe she can get directions and food someplace, if they know of such a place. Something indefinable in their manner says 'cop', but at this point, she'll take anybody. So she strolls nonchalantly up to the older-looking of the two men on the bench, and gives him her best winsome smile. "'Scuse me, do you know where there's a good all-night donut shop?"

Inclining his neck around Jubilee, Jim Gordon tries to keep his eye on the target location while the silly teen distracts him with donuts or maybe it was a cop joke. He purses his lips and motions down the street, "Try Shoe-Horn's....two blocks over Miss..." he comments quietly, describing the donuts. MEANWHILE, Pauly and his two pals walk up the walkway, pausing a moment under the park lamp thing to light cigarettes and flick their ash into the bushes like badasses. Three more men join him coming the opposite direction and they all shake hands like comitted felons who know each other. Pauly smiles and mutters a short discussion. "Commish, deal's going down...I see three...no five of them and they are armed..." an officer tells Gordon. "Wait what? Dang it," he mutters, "Wait for the exchange..." he mutters.

Daredevil listens to the exchange with Jubilee and Gordon. He cannot help but smile as somethings are constant no matter what city you are in. Cops and donut jokes are just classics. He cocks his head slightly now as he hears several footsteps entering the park. Cigarettes. Axe Body Spray. Fairly young kids. That fits his profile. There...There is T-Rex. He can listen to the New Yorker's accent as the deal begins to transpire. At this Daredevil inches forward along the tree branch. He can feel that he is pushing his luck as a few interior pieces of the branch are groaning beneath him. He doesn't want to ruin the cops' bust, but he is more worried with catching T-Rex now and getting him back to New York. After a brief pause, he decides that getting T-Rex is top priority right now.

Daredevil drops from his tree branch and walks close enough so he can feel the slight warmth that the weak street light gives off so he knows his shadow, and his horned head, are creeping forward. Maybe he can take advantage of Gotham's urban legend and scare them first.

Huntress tracks the girl, wondering if she's a mule or something, but even a mule wouldn't saunter right up to a cop like that. So just a dingbat. Then the other men arrive and she dismisses the teen accosting Murtaugh over there to focus on the real reason for being here. She mentally records the faces of all five men shaking hands, and ... what the hell? She sees the looming shadow and can tell almost right away that it's NOT the Bat. His shadow she knows almost better than her own.

Normally, it would've been a cop joke. Right now, it's a plea for help, and she's got the tummy-grumbles to prove it. One right now, in fact. Jubilee blushes and puts an embarrassed hand over her middle. "Shoe-Horn's... thank you /so/ much. You're a lifesaver! I'll just get out of your hair now." With another smile, she steps away from the bench. She's only gone a a few yards when she realizes that the helpful direction-giver was trying to see around her. And she's still close enough to follow his gaze, spying the five men near the park lamp making small talk. This might not be LA, but the mannerisms are a lot louder on these guys than the cops, and these mannerisms scream 'gangster'! And then she remembers the nice man mentioning an 'exchange'. Jubilee's awful with numbers, but she can do /this/ math just fine. Hunger forgotten, she starts to walk away. But she can't take a step. This might get ugly, and even if they're cops, the guys on the bench seemed like decent sorts. She instead steps back behind another bench. Wearing a bright yellow raincoat. Well, it /is/ dark, right?

Frowning at Jubilee, Jim Gordon looks perturbed, "Okay that's enough Miss, you'll have to leave now," he tells her. Pauly gives over something to his buddy T-Rex and smiles at his genius deal, but then frowns as he spots something in the tree. He sees the shadow creeping forward and pauses for just a moment in astonishment at what he sees, but it is Gotham, so he adds, "It's BATMAN! Kill em, boys!" Pauly and the others draw their guns and fire on the tree, but perhaps Pauly should not have taken so long to do so. T-Rex takes off with the package in the other direction. "Dang it!" Jim Gordon lets out, leaping up from the bench. He draws his gun and runs for the scene, "Move in! Move in! Cover 4th Street park exit...one coming at you! Freeze! Police!" he blabbers out quickly.

Divide and seperate from the crowd. Still works. As the thugs scatter, Daredevil leaps up towards the street lamp, catches hold of the post, and swings around it to gain momentum and speed as he launches towards the direction of that T-Rex. As he lets go of the pole, his hand drops to his side and brings out the billy club to fire a grappling hook at T-Rex's legs. Right on cue, he hears Gordon's challenge but he ignores it for now. Should be enough to keep his attention. "C'mon, Rex. You are going to tell me what you know about this Kingpin fellow I've been hearing about."

Huntress curses faintly to herself as the drug dealers react to the non-Bat shadow and aims for any weapons she sees appear, sending wooden bolts zinging out of her hiding place two then three times. One man is even running straight at her. She aims a bolt to go right past the man's head to make him stop, and THEN realizes that the not-Bat person is directly behind the fleeing man. Crap.

Jubilee blinks at that admonishment. How did he... oh. Right. Bright colors. "Hey, it's a public park," she protests. But she doesn't have time to say much before suddenly there's screaming from the knot of gangsters and the sound of gunfire! So much for /might/ get ugly! "Oh, fudgesicles!" But the gangsters aren't aiming at the cops. They're aiming... up a tree?! Except for the one that seems to be fleeing, and he's going totally into a trap. They might not need her help after all. Or maybe so! One thug is shoving past a cop who hadn't had his gun all the way out, and coming right for her! She flicks down her tinted glasses and lets fly with a double-burst of fireworks right at him, detonating the plasmoids in a blinding sequence of brilliant stroboscopic flashes. "Sorry, dweeboid, this is /not/ an exit!"

The thugs widdle the tree away as Daredevil bounces in the other direction, but Pauly makes a break for it now too as the cops close in to surround the area. T-Rex fumbles and trips thanks to Daredevil's stick, falling over the walkway and into the grass, "Eat it, jackhole!" he lets out as he fumbles with his gun. He points and fires at Daredevil from the ground.

"Get outta here!" the other thugs let out and peel off in different directions. One heads straight for Huntress and eyes her dangerously, but then peels off as she fires on him like a maniac, "Screw this! Stupid chick!" The other loses his gun as he trips thanks to the fireworks, but pulls out his knife and leaps at Jubilee! Gordon kneels next to a tree and aims at one of them, "Freeze! Or I'll fire!" he lets out. The annoyed thug aims his gun at Gordon! Oh no!

"Don't do requests, T-Rex." Daredevil can hear the action in the gun being pulled back and the increased heartrate of his target. He knows T-Rex is going to fire a split second before T-Rex does. He smiles as he steps to the right just before the hand cannon goes off. Wait. What is that whistling? He loses it in the gun fire but finds it as Huntress's bolt finds his shoulder. "Aww hell." Daredevil is knocked off his feet and on to his back.

Huntress throws herself out of the shrubs she was using as cover the moment her last bolt is fired and seeing that the man the not-Bat was chasing is off his feet she leaps over him and aims a kick at the weapon in his hands as she snaps a reload into her crossbow to send another bolt after the moron who dared call her a 'stupid chick'. Again, no lethal shots, stupid HAL. She's aiming for the nicely not-lethal gluteus maximus on the guy. Butt shot!

Knife. Amateur. Jubilee spins away from the first slash, her raincoat swirling around her like a yellow bullfighter's cape. She completes her turn with sweep of her left hand, sending another bright burst of plasmoids into his face, trying to blind him. "Lemme know when you're getting tired, 'kay?" she asks cheerfully. Just then, she hears the nice man from before shouting at another thug. And that other thug is pointing a gun right at him! "Look out!" she screams, real fear coming into her voice. She'll never make it over there in time! But her plasmoids might! She snaps up her right hand at the aiming thug and throws a furious burst of screaming firework fury at him. "No you DON'T!!!"

Luckily Jubilation saves the Commish with her mutant powers and the thug stumbles back. "Frick!" he lets out and fires his gun blind anyways. He goes to the ground and covers his face, "Ahh! I can't see! I can't see, dude!" he lets out like a baby. The first thug near Jubilee is also writhing in pain thanks to her fireworks. Jim Gordon ducks behind the tree to avoid the shots, "This is Gordon, I've got one here. Where's Pauly?" he asks, "Did we get Pauly? Someone," he calls out through his microphone. Then he advances on the thug, "Don't move. Don't move!" he lets out, pushing the man over, "Stay down!" he tells him. Elsewhere, Huntress nails one other thugs with her boltsies and he goes down, "Ow! Damn chick! Screw you!" he lets out and tries to get away anyway. T-Rex seems high or stupid, one of the two, as he is kicked around by Huntress, he just gets up again to leap at her, "Screw off!" he lets out.

Daredevil gets back to his feet in time to hear T-Rex leap towards Huntress. He attacks T-Rex's flank with a flying kick towards T-Rex's chin. His left arm is kept at his side for the time being as he attacks with his feet. "T, why are you trying to muddy the waters. Leave the lady alone and come on back with me. You are coming back to the Kitchen, like it or not." He notes the scents and sounds of Huntress as he is close enough to her now. A calm heartbeat even in the middle of this. Obviously not her first fight.

Huntress looks back at T-Rex as he leaps at her, sees the red-clad not-Bat go after him, so simply sidesteps out of the way and rushes to stop the man who is STILL throwing epithets her way. She aims to flatten the man and hold him down with one knee to the small of his back and tries to make a quick headcount. Red's got that guy, there's Butt Shot man here, two down by Eyesore Girl in the yellow coat and the cop she'd distracted... Damn, one missing. Where is he?

Jubilee lets out a sigh of relief as the gun-aiming thug goes down screaming. Fortunately, his blind shots go wide of her, and the nice guy seems to have him in hand now. Her own opponent, when she turns around and sees that he's still up, gets a snappy roundhouse kick to the midsection to take the frosting off of him. Mallbabes kick @$$! Something's still going on not far away, though. She can hear voices and the sounds of blows landing, along with an odd snapping sound she can't place. She lifts her shades so she can get a better look.

Planting a foot into the thug below him, Jim Gordon keeps his eye trained on the man, "Don't move, you're under arrest," he says to him. "Nothing on 4th Street, Commish. You sure you don't have him?" the patrol asks. "Keep your eyes on that exit. He's coming right to you!" Gordon tells his men. As the Huntress plants her knee in the thug, "I give up, stupid chick! Don't kill me! Damn chick, ow!" he lets out. T-Rex flops back and shakes his head as he sits there like a dummy, "I'm never goin back dude...NEVER! Never goin...back...please...." he lets out, frumping onto the ground as he loses consciousness. PAULY appears from the shadowy nowhere and advances on Jubilee with a click from his gun, "Die you stupid teen...!" OH NO!

"Yeah, yeah. I've heard that before." Daredevil uses his foot to push T-Rex down on the chest and stands over the New Yorker. "Just sit still for a moment." He turns quickly and throws his billy club towards Pauly as he hears him advance to fire on Jubilee. He throws with his right hand as he still keeps his left against his side.

Huntress digs her knee into the man's back only a little bit more. "Shut up." And then she hears someone shout nearby and her crossbow snaps up to aim at Pauly. She takes a split second to ascertain that the man is threatening Eyesore Girl, and no, that just won't do. She sends a crossbow bolt at the man's gun the tiniest hair of a second after Daredevil throws his billy club. So, which is faster?

Eyesore Girl -ahem!- Jubilee, looking the wrong way, looks up in alarm when she's addressed. After all, she's got to be the only teen here. "Oh, fudge!" He's behind her! By the time she turns, he'll have pulled the trigger. And she's looking right down that barrel!

Pauly smiles as he cocks his gun, closing in on Jubilee to really get a good shot off. Jim Gordon whips around and aims at him, but the others have reacted much faster and he watches as Daredevil clips the gun with a well-placed shot. "Commish? You there? Nobody on 4th Street," the patrol reports. The gun goes off into the air as Daredevil hits his target. Huntress meanwhile has eyed Pauly but good and has hit him a split second after the red guy deflected the gunshot up into the air. The bolt whaps into the man's hand and goes through it, lodging there. He drops his gun, "Ahh!" he lets out, grabbing at his wound. He grabs for Jubilee, bleeding everywhere, "God damn you...!" By now, Jim Gordon is trying to hoof it back toward Jubilee.

Huntress tries the shouting thing herself this time. "FREEZE, dirtbag, or I'll put a bolt through something far more delicate than your hand!" Her aim shifts toward Pauly's torso, and then down. Yes, she's aiming at the jewels.

"Nice shot," Daredevil says to Huntress. The sound of a bolt hitting through a hand has a unique sound to it. He reaches down to T-Rex and yanks him up to his feet. He pushes him towards Pauly and Jubilee as he makes his way quickly in that direction. "Hands off of the kid, Pauly. You've lost this one. Hurting her is only going to make this worse for you."

Jubilee's blue eyes widen as /something/ smacks that gun up into the air, followed by a crossbow bolt sticking /right through/ Pauly's hand. Fortunately, she's not so astonished that her reflexes don't work, and she gives a terrified shriek and ducks away as the man grabs for her with his good hand. Whirling, she brings up her hands and looses a double-burst of noisy pyrotechnic outrage. "DON'T TOUCH ME!"

Jim Gordon rushes up to Jubilee with a frown, surprised that she has clobbered him with her...powers. He glances around for the vigilantes who have clobbered him and flopped him over onto the ground. Jim looks down at the ground where Pauly has fallen with a thud, looking quite unconscious, bleeding, and bruised. "This is Gordon. We're gonna need an ambulance," he tells his men. He eyes Jubilee disapprovingly, "Are you alright, Miss?" he asks, "Did...you kill him?" he asks, not a medic himself.

T-Rex falls uncerimoniously next to Pauly as Daredevil approaches the cop and the mallrat. "Are you alright, Miss?" the Scarlett Swashbuckler asks. He cocks his head to one side as he studies and learns these new folks. His head turns to observe Gordon. "Evening, officer."

"Damn, girl. That's some kind of light show you've got going on." Her tone is clearly impressed as she holsters her crossbow and pulls a few zip ties from her belt. It's the work of only a few seconds to truss up the guy under her knee before Huntress stands and leaves the man lying on the ground to step after the red-clad vigilante and offer the unused ones to Daredevil. The zip ties patter against each other faintly as her hand drops a bit. She's noticed that he's got a bolt sticking out of his left shoulder. She breathes out a faint curse and reaches to pull something out of her belt.

Jubilee, breathing heavily, stares down at the unconscious Pauly, fallen at her feet. When Gordon asks his question, she turns wide blue eyes on him, tearful horror staring him in the face. But when she looks down, she can see that he's breathing, even if he looks like he'll wake up in a /really/ bad mood. "I... no... he's okay," she says, relieved. And fortunately, there are two handy distractions coming up. "Ugh... dude, /please/ define 'all right'," she says. "That phrase is totally subjective." But she seems to change her mind about answering him properly, a second later. "I think I'm good. He didn't touch me. I don't think anybody did. Thanks." Nowhere that shows, anyway. Huntress, fortunately, is easier to answer, especially when she notices the crossbow. "Thanks. But you've /totally/ got better aim." It's genuine praise, despite the shaky voice. And the Commish is a nice guy after all, it seems. "Um... thank you. Um, anybody got a good place to disappear to?" she asks the two local experts. There are pretty red lights visible through the trees now, from the ambulances.

Jim Gordon looks at Daredevil and the evil Huntress, "Three superheroes in one night is just my luck," he notes, "But I can't let you take anything from the scene. Or anyone," he adds with a hand on his hip. The ambulance sirens get louder as they near the scene. "BUT you've got about 60 seconds, so if you choose to disappear or...something...I...will have been...distracted," he notes expertly.

Huntress looks toward the lights and the at the two non-Gothamites. "Follow me." She leads them back into the park proper to hide from the arriving authorities. And the trenchcoated police officer has earned a fair bit of her respect.