2014.02.03 - Horror Show in Hell's Kitchen

After the last incident, drug deals in this area became something of a priority investigation. This one however wasn't quite as impromptu. It was however pretty large, taking place in one of the larger abandoned buildings on the fifth floor. Perhaps not the best planned out, the meeting spot was easily visible from surrounding buildings and the building itself could be accessed from fire escape, surrounding rooftops. Still, there was a lot of money supposed to change hands tonight, if rumors could be trusted. Even if nothing came of it, maybe a few larger players could be hit.

And the fire escape is where a large barred owl comes to a silent landing. The only unusual thing about this particular owl is that it seems to be carrying a small photo album in its claws, which is settles down on the fire escape landing before perching on the window sill of a broken window so it can oversee the inside of the building.

Inside, about twelve thugs are assembled, all sporting green and black in obvious places. Four steel briefcases are lined up at the back of the room, with some smg wielding bruisers set around them. Another pair, in the same room, boredly pass the time with poker, while the rest seem interspersed throughout the building, on the lookout for trouble. Their weapons range from automatic pistols to AK's. All in all, a fun time!

"Tell me again why's we need so many guys for this drop? I mean, the boss' sure is puttin' alotta hardware on it." Quips a poker player while adjusting his cards.

His buddy responds while slipping an ace from his boot, "What you didn' hear? Money went missing from a deal down in Ol' Gotham earlier this week. The boss ain't takin' no chances with this exchange."

"That right? What happened?"

Off they go, back and forth about... it sounds like some kind of ghost story. Weird sounds, spooky feeling, and money just... vanishing? Apparently both sides had wound up blaming the other, and a huge gunfight erupted. That's when the sound of huge hummers parking outside drifts up to the windowsill. The party, it seems, was starting.

The barred owl looks around, spots a rat in the room he can see from his window and fixes its gaze intently on it. In a few second the owl has melted into what looks like a golden amoeba which resolves itself into a rat exactly like the one scurrying around in the room. Hopping off the window sill it goes to the picture book, uses its little rat paws to flip the paws, stops at one that has the image of a giant werebear on it and pulls it out of its little sleeve. Folding it as small as the rat can it takes it in its mouth then runs off towards the noise of the Hummers, staying close to walls edges and walking along wires, pipes, and anything else that will allow it to stay close to the ceiling whenever possible.

By the time you get down the building to the lobby, the small group was crossing through it to the old style lifts in the back. The buyers were four blue clad thugs. The one in the back, clearly an enforcer,looked like a hairless gorilla on steroids! Seriously, he was absolutely massive. He also didn't seem to bright, judging by his vacant expression. The other three are packing AK's and a briefcase each, likely full of cash.

The home team has six people, all looking on alert with an assortment of weapons, guiding the buyers to the twin lifts in back. That's when one of the buyers speaks up. "This is an awful lot of... protection. Enough to make me think you aren't tellin' me everything."

"Look..." says the green banger in the lead "Boss says the customer is king. You rather come here and see two idiots with pistols cheatin' at cards?" Upstairs, one of the poker players sneezes.

"Now le's go. The sooner this is done... the better." He says, motioning to the lifts."

One of the advantages of being a rat? Good climbing skills. Getting into the lift with the gangster sounds like a bad idea so the rat finds itself a convenient hole leading into the elevator shaft then climbs up the cables to the floor where the list stops, still carrying its folded picture.

Conveniently, you manage to make it up to the Fifth floor around the same time as the bangers. Just as you come out of a hole near the lifts, a chill breeze suddenly blows inexplicably over you. It was more than that though. It was penetrating. Like it pierced through you. It passed quickly enough, but it doesn't seem to be ONLY you that felt it. Coming out of the lifts, one of the guys with a briefcase can be heard bitching about drafts.

As they file in to the meeting room... you swear you see one of their wallets lift out of their pocket... then... then just vanish! It happened suddenly... you think...

The rat scurries after the bangers doing its best to stick to the edges of the walls and stay out of sight for the moment. His scampering stops for a moment and all its fur bristles, followed by a quick shake as a cold draft flows over it.

Once it finds a spot to hide it and watch it waits to see how things unfold, its nose and ears twitching as if trying to use its other senses to find something it can't see when the wallet disappears from the thugs pocket.

You don't see anything out of the ordinary... nothing smells off. Well.. nothing smells the way it shouldn't anyway. You could gag an elephant with the filth in here! Nothing SOUNDS out of the ordinary. With the 'clients' in the room, the real song and dance begins.

It starts innocently enough with an odd... feeling. Not anything tactile or even physical just... of something being off. Like someone was watching. The thugs seem... perhaps a little discomforted, shifting awkwardly or looking at each other tensely. As the two key players talk, the surrounding henchmen keep jerking or twitching suddenly, like a fly was bothering them. Or someone had prodded them. They suddenly turn to look only to see nothing there, or berate someone nearby under their breath for bothering them.

Even the big guy was a little uneased, always twisting and turning with an utterly confused look on his face. Suddenly he turns sharply enough that one of his lumbering arms smacks one of his buddies, and a briefcase drops loudly to the ground!

"The HELL is wrong with..." starts the one holding the briefcase, before suddenly turning sharply to his friend behind him. "WHAT?!"

His friend however was turned clearly around, and quite shocked to be suddenly yelled at. What on earth is going on?!

The rat's little head turns to and fro following the little twitches and the growing unease in the room. When the first yell happens it picks up its folded picture and scampers out of the room. Once out of sight it drops the picture, unfolds it and does its transformation bit, starting off as a rat sized blob of ectoplasm that blows up like a balloon until its about 10 feet tall and in about 5 seconds solidifies into the shape of a huge werebear.

Taking advantage of the gangster's already existing nervousness the werebear runs past the door to the room they're meeting in, letting out a loud roar, then disappears around the corner of the hallway.

By the time you are shaped up and ready, there's already a good deal of shouting in the room. You hear gunfire, then see a girl suddenly drift THROUGH the wall just as you roar. That roar got the boys in the room deadly quiet, but the girl who caught sight of you had her eyes rather wide! There wasn't much crossover, as she drifted through the other wall opposite, but she looked quite startled to see such a monster.

In the room meanwhile, there was whole scale PANIC in the room. Sharp ears pick up thugs of both gangs yelling at one another.

"Did you hear that?! See that?!!

"Calm do~"

"CALM NOTHING! What the F*$@ IS GOING ON?!"

A ripping sound comes as the big man literally tears the door off its hinges, and holding it behind him, looks into the hall outside. Quiet starts to descend, as the lumbering thuds of the small giants footsteps cause dust to fall unsettled from the roof. A soft murmur says the thugs seem to have agreed to a cease fire to check around, and more men start filing out of the room with guns, one from each party staying behind to watch the drugs and money.

The werebear stumbles for just a step as he sees what seems to basically be a ghost but then again, ghost versus guys with guns? Guys with guns are the bigger concern. So its sticks to its plan and disappears around the corner.

Until it hears the biggest banger coming down the hallway. Taking a quick look around the corner, to verify if there's a gun or not, he doesn't see one so he drops to all four (hard to run on two legs when you have to hunch over because the ceiling is two feet lower than you are tall) and rushes back out into the hallway completely intending to use his almost 1200 pounds of muscle to just simply trample over the big man.

The big man sees you, and gives a roar reminiscent of the hulk. Crouching down into a stance like that of a football player, he braces to receive you! You push him back, heels skidding along the floor, but he isn't quite as easy to bowl down as he first looked. Veins bulging in his arms, he aims to catch you by the shoulders and stop your charge cold, likely to be pushed and skidded along the ground. With the amount of huffing he does though, its rather clear that he isn't quite a match for your power.

What he does do however is make enough of a racket to get attention. Other doors burst open and a few thugs start to assemble, shouting "Over here! Oy!" and "Found a freak! This way!"

The werebear rears up, wrapping huge paws around the big banger in a, appropriately enough, a bear hug, clearly intending to also ram the big man's head up against the ceiling.

The rest of the thugs are ignored for the moment but an ear twitches backward, listening for the sounds of guns being brought to bear on his back.

With a loud CRUNCH, the monstrous thugs head breaks through the ceiling. You don't manage to break anything, and in fact, the thug angrily kicks out! Hands on the ceiling above, and a violent push free him to exact his ~creeeaaaaak~ .... oh my.

Violently shoving himself from the hole you made in the ceiling is enough it seems for the rotten floor he lands on to give way! More shattered crashing as he falls THROUGH the floor in front of you.

.. and the one below that... aaaaand the one below that, finally finding a sufficiently sturdy piece of hall to collapse in, unconscious.

Down on the second floor, you manage to catch another glimpse of that strange girl. This time, she... She was holding one of the cash cases! As the hulking bruiser crashes through the floor, she jumps back and fades from view, her eyes meeting your face just before vanishing completely.

That however would have to wait, as your little display only seems to have reaffirmed their need to draw arms against you. Six people, poking out of rooms and twists in the hall in front of you draw their guns, the clicks and sounds of stocks being readied quite clear and pressing. No sounds from behind however, luckily!

Ok, guns equal bad. The werebear locks eyes with the ghost girls for a moment but once again there are bigger concerns so without even turning around it shifts its focus to a fly crawling along the walls. The change takes all of 4 or 5 seconds running through the amoeba stage in reverse. The ectoplasm shrinks very quickly and solidifies into a fly which buzzes off to mix in with the other flies in the area and makes it way over the head of the thugs to avoid the risk of being hit by stray bullets then land up by a corner taking a moment to see what happens next.

Your rapid change in size is likely what saves you, as some of those bullets whiz past spots your body occupied literally an instant before. Behind you, a broken mirror shatters, a decorative end table almost rotten from age splinters and crumbles and wallpaper is torn up.

"What the hell is up with shit just VANISHING!" Shouts one of the thugs angrily "First some... some chick goes.. AGH!"

The complainer tenses up as though someone had just doused him in cold water, and everyone turns to see whats going on. That's when a gun in one of the other bangers pants suddenly goes off, punching a neat little hole his pocket and causing everyone to jump.

"Man.. I-I didn't sign up for this haunted house shit!" calls a cowardly green ganger, but as he turns to run, he seems to trip over his own feet!"

It was confused pandemonium as the two gangs tried to get themselves together, each one starting to claim the other was trying to set them up. Tensions were running high, when suddenly gunfire starts from the room the money and drugs were in!

The one intelligent fly in the room flies off its wall perch and back into the room where the money and the drugs are under guard. Landing on the door frame it focuses its multifaceted eyes on the gangers shooting it out in the room and starts his transformation again. As soon as he's the exact twin of one of the people in the room, down to the clothing, he spins around the door frame and back into the hallway, crouching to be as far out of the way of stray bullets as possible.

From his crouch near the floor he yells out, "Double cross! They're trying to double cross us! Shoot them, shoot them all!" Then he dashes into another empty room to stay out of what he hopes will become quite the bullet storm.

The first thing you might notice is that two of the three money cases were gone, while all the drugs hadn't been touched. The second would be two men holding each other at gun point shouting at each other. One was trying to call a double cross, the other was saying it was a set up. When the sound of the green clad thug comes sounding down the hall, even more shouting starts up.

The plan certainly works! Perhaps... a little too well. Gunfire lights up the halls, and bullets whiz in nearly every direction. More than once, bullets through the drywall a few inches from you.

There's shouting, there's firing, and there's very VERY suddenly a voice right behind you. A young, whispy girl's voice.

"Hey, Genius. You're not really one of them... are ya?" Behind you, leaning THROUGH the wall so all you would see is her hooded head and shoulders, is the ghost girl."

Ganger Gabriel would have spun around to face the sudden voice, if he hadn't just dropped flat on the floor to avoid bullets, filth be damned. So instead of spinning he does this king of surprised flop so he ends up on his back looking up at the ghost girl. After a moment to let his rain catch up with what his eyes are seeing he hisses, "No, I'm not. And I would prefer if they don't come in here, what with all the guns and such! So keep your voice down. And what are you? Real life ghost, mutant, alien?

By the time you turn to face her, she has an eyebrow up. Rolling her eyes, the gunfire outside still hasn't stopped. Just how much ammo did those guys have?! "Which is why I'm talking now, while it still sounds like world war two out there." She makes a crude gesture to the walls, just as another riff of auto fire rips across the wall, several bullets seeming to shoot her without any effect whatsoever.

"These guys can deal with each other. How about you give me a hand here?" Pulling back through the wall a moment, she heaves two briefcases into the room with what looks like an exaggerated amount of effort. They... they couldn't be that heavy, could they? "I'll give you half if you help me get these out of here."

Gabriel matches eyebrow raise for eyebrow raise. "Well, seems this isn't what I was hoping for anyway, so I guess I could do that. But you didn't answer my question." World War Three happening outside or not he's still keeping his voice down. And he's craning his head around to see if he's gotten lucky enough to end up in one of the outside rooms, since when he dove into this room he wasn't really thinking about where he was going other than 'away from the bullets'.

A glance around the room shows that it is an old utilities room in the center of the hall. No accessible windows, but there was a large hole in the wall to the right that even a person could crawl under. That leads to the hall, and from there another hotel room, this one presumably with at least a window!

The girl meanwhile rolls her eyes again and gives a sigh full of teenage attitude. "Is that really whats important right now? A bunch sadistic doctors called me a mutant. Satisfied? Now come on and help me out! I can only carry one at a time, and there's still one left!" Even when raising her voice, mercifully it was rather whispy. The sort of thing that's hard to hear past a few feet, even if it has decent volume near by. Meanwhile, she talks like someone with no time to waste.

Gabriel pokes his head out the hole in the wall and seeing an open door across the hall he takes the cases and slides them along the floor and into the other room. "Sounds like a plan to me. So I take it you're going back for the last case?" His sentences come in quick spurts of words every time he pokes his head back into the room they're in. Including the one where he states the obvious, "We need to hurry. If there's anyone standing when the shoot out is over they'll be looking for the money."

"Duh!" she replies, "That's what I was trying to say!", then pulls out of the room. Its only a moment before she is back though, as though leaning back in after-thought "Oh, you want any of the drugs? Not my thing but I could snag you a baggie or two."

Gabriel was already almost at the hole when the ghost girl comes back in. He twitches a bit in surprise since he wasn't expecting her to be back that quick but he recovers surprisingly fast, "Nope. Already saw it wasn't what I was looking for. It would be nice to destroy them but not worth getting shot over." With that he crawls out the hole and duck walks quickly into the room across the hall.

Phantasma shrugs nonchalantly and quips "Well we'll have enough after this for whatever you want." as she leans back through the wall again. At the very least she wasn't someone you were likely to have to worry about. Now all you had to worry about was... right. The gun toting maniacs.

Mostly preoccupied with each other, one of the blue clad gangers non-the-less spots you. You even manage to see him down the hall raise his hand and call out to you! Well shit... But... wait. You were still shaped like that other blue ganger.. weren't you? A quick check would confirm that... he likely thinks you are his buddy.

Ganger Gabriel waves the other ganger over as he disappears into the room he's slid the money cases into. "Over here, I saw one of them hide in her with the money!" Then he waits flattened against the wall next to the door. If the other blue-clad ganger follows, Gabriel waits until right when he steps through the door to cold-cock him with a punch to the jaw, hitting him as hard as possible.

The thuds of footfalls are pretty obvious, as he rounds the corner. "Thank god. We gotta wake up Bru~*CRACK!*~" Your fist connects with his head, and his head connects with the door frame. With a dull THUD the banger slumps to the ground, but that noise drew the others. There was a rather limited number of the blue gangers after all, and though quite a few were nursing bullet wounds, at least three of the green gangers were now starting to look through the halls. One of them calls from far down the hall '~over here! I see them!' giving you likely half a minute tops. The back window opens to the fire escape you initially used to enter the building. In fact, there's your photo album, just outside the window.

Well, Ghost Girl can go through walls. She's proved that already. So Gabriel slams the door shut and locks it, grabs the two money cases and rushes out the window. Picking up his photo album on the way out he clatters down the fire escape until he's two flights up at which point he vaults over the railing and just jumps down the rest of the way, one money case tucked under each arm.

There's a few kicks and shoulder tackles thrown at the door, but it at the very least holds enough for you to get down the fire escape. It was right around when one of the gangers starts shooting from the fifth floor window that you see her down the alley, waving at you and floating a few inches off the ground. "Hey! This way! And jump over the tarp!" With that, she turns and flies down another side alley. Halfway down the alley you see what she meant. A tarp stretched over some old subway vents, held down with rocks.

Ganger Gabriel follows instructions, moving at a surprisingly fast clip and easily vaulting the tarp. He's clearly been in chases before since he doesn't make the common mistake of looking back over his shoulder, as well as running crouched over an zig-zagging a bit to make as hard a target as possible.

The gangers are down the fire escape pretty quick and take after you, but they don't vault the tarp. A few bullets whiz past your head, but then they catch up to the tarp! A startled shriek behind you and both your pursuers fall down to the subway line. Phantasma leads you down a few alleys, always just ahead and usually taunting you. "C'mon slowpoke!" or "C'mon, aren't bangers supposed to be in shape?" with a playfully happy tone to her voice. Like she was having fun. Its quite a trek to, as she seems to be trying to lead you halfway across Gotham!

Gabriel only slows down once he's sure there are no more bangers chasing him and then only for the couple of seconds that it takes for his form to melt and reform yet again. This new form is vaguely Hispanic looking and dressed in a long leather coat a basic green sweater and jeans. And it is also capable of running much faster than the old banger form. "Hell no they are not. That body actually sucked balls." He's also breathing much better in this new form, not just is it faster it clearly is in better cardio shape too, "And where are we going? Harlem?"

Always at the next bend, she says "My place! Like I said, one's my limit. We'll split it up there. I'll even throw in a few wallets if you like." She gets much more cautious in civilized area's but soon you are strolling down Old Gotham, headed towards the derelict Monarch Theater. The strange girl waves one last time from in front of the theater, then drifts through the front doors and in.

Once inside, the lights flicker slowly on. GET OUT is painted on the first wall you see in huge, red, unsettlingly sticky letters... and around the corner comes the sound and smell of popcorn. The theater as a whole is grimy and cluttered, but the real mess is to the front. The back area around the concessions stand has been tidied, and a few of the machines look relatively new and clean. At the very least, clean enough to eat out of.

Gabriel walks on in, looking around curiously until he finds a place to set down the cases of money and maybe even sit down. Olympic level fitness or not that was still a decent run so a chair would come in handy for a bit. "Nice place. Very haunted house chic." That he calls out into the air, assuming a ghost girl can turn visible or not a will. In a lower voice he mutter to himself, "and boy am I going to feel stupid if I'm all alone right now..."

A bag floats into the air next to the popcorn machine and shakes itself open, a scoop fills it, and then it dances over to the soda machine. A cup fills with ice and soda, then swoop through the air to come to a stop on the table in front of you. Moments later, sitting on the chair across the table with a punkish smile, hand casually propping her head up, Phantasma fades into view, slowly becoming completely opaque. "Not bad. As promised, just dump half of one of the cases and the rest is yours. Here...", she continues, and pulls her freaky frankenbunny backpack into her lap. Unzipping its head, she reaches down and pulls out a pair of wallets, likely from random thugs, and tosses them next to the bag of popcorn. "Those guys were loaded. Its awesome!"

Gabriel goes for the drink set next to him before even looking at the money. Once about half the soda is gone he sets the cup down and offers his hand, "Gabriel. And that's a nice little trick you have there by the way. So what are you planning on doing with your portion?" After the introductions he takes one of the cases, stacks the money so its clear that its been split in half then dumps one half and the offered wallets into the case again.

Pushing off the table, she drifts through the air as though she were in water. Turning around, she glides back to the concessions stand and pours herself a drink next. If you've ever frequented the Metropolis megaplex theaters, you might recognize the brand of cups and bags. With her own drink in order, she walks along the ground back, but passes through everything, including the chair, on the way back, before sitting herself back down.

"I'm saving up to replace one of the projectors. Movies I can steal... but projectors are stupidly heavy.", she sulks, slurping on her drink. "Stupid heavy junkers..."

Gabriel watches the girl float and walk through things his eyes narrowing slightly as she stays intangible to one degree or another, "Your normal form isn't solid, is it?" If he realizes some might consider that a personal question it doesn't show. He asks it the way other people would ask about the weather and follows it with another question, "So, planning on reopening the place or is it for your personal pleasure?"

Phantasma frowns a little at the first question. She takes a moment just to stare at you while taking a long drink. A sort of perturbed stare, before answering "I don't like being solid when I don't have to be. World's a dangerous place that way." When you ask about reopening, she gives something of a cold laugh. "Why, so I can have people crowd around my sanctuary? Nah. This is my place now." She leans back, sticking her chest out rather proudly. Her voice is saturated with arrogance. "Just for me an' anyone I like enough not to scare off." Going back to her drink, she takes a long few moments to look you up and down, taking one long draw on her soda. In an offhand sort of way, she looks away and says in a passable attempt at generous. "You can come by some time. I guess..." while keeping her head turned away so the hood hides her face.

Gabriel grins while the girl is looking away from him, making sure to bring his features back to a neutral expression as soon as she looks back at him. As nonchalantly as she made the invitation he says, "I might, if I'm in the area. My normal haunts are Harlem and the 'hoods around it." Grabbing one of the bills he's left on the table as part of Phantasmas' part of the loot he pulls a pen out of his pocket and write down a cellphone number. "And if you need help for another big job, you can call me. From what the thugs back there were saying it sounded like this wasn't your first rodeo."

She grins sheepishly at the mention of this not being her first time. "I might have broken up a deal near my theater a few nights ago. Well.. I didn't break it up... they just weren't to happy to find the money gone out of the trunk." Sitting back with her drink, she slips the bill closer and sighs. "Man.. I have GOT to get a phone..."

Gabriel grins knowingly and makes another offer, "Well, if you need one, or just want one, that isn't tied to the big companies I can get you one on the down low." Waving one hand at the pile of money on the table he says, "It won't be cheap but you have enough right now and, bonus, it'll only be a one time charge. No monthly fee."

Phantasma opens her mouth, clearly to argue, when you mention a super expensive phone, but the mention of no monthly fee makes her pause. Closing her mouth again and crossing her arms, she asks sulkily "They... they usually have a monthly fee... and.. accounts and stuff... don't they..."

Gabriel laughs lightly and shakes his head, "Not the way I would be getting it for you." And he leaves it at that. Either she'll get what he means or she won't. Getting up he grabs the money cases that 'belong' to him and starts walking out,"Tell you what Ghost Girl, most of this is going to charity. I'll get you the phone as a finder's fee of sort. What'cha think?"

As you get up and head towards the door, she stands and walks through the table to see you out, still holding and slurping from her drink. "Phantasma. My name's Phantasma. And sure, sounds good. Not having any ID or anything makes accounts a pain. Drop it by some time and.. uh..", the friendly smile she tries to wear is perhaps a little awkward looking, and she brushes a bang out of her eyes self consciously. "Maybe... I'll have a movie I can throw on by then or something.

Gabriel says, "Sounds like a plan." He waves at the door and walks off with a last, "I'll be back soon."

Phantasma gives a little wave back, then drifts back into the theater to hide away her loot. Three friends... She should have come here years ago.