2014.07.01 - Chaos, Phones and Stuff

The Gotham Mafia's manipulations have driven Jean-Paul over the edge. He has been turned to the dark side by the protection of mobsters, manipulations to hurt and twist his friends to the dark side. Now, he has come to New York City, wanting to kill true evil. The local Triads are making deals with the Chinese government for information sold to China, that damages the human spirit and causes a communist crackdown on your average man. They seek an empire of the poor, ruled by rich men that sit about in their mansions and offices watching others toil. No more. Tonight, Azrael has accepted a hit for the Jersey Triads, the White Lotus.

Azrael has exchanged his black military fatigues for a white breastplate, no longer hiding in the night. It is a shell of cop Kevlar, which he purchased from a local arms dealer in exchange for this mission. It resembles a Roman breastplate. He has replaced the guriya, the Arab knife of honor, with an Israeli kapap knife, perfect for his Rromani hands. He is now Azrael the fallen, the true angel of death, killing for justice instead of honor. He has fallen to the dark side, because police protect the evil in the name of justice. It is not justice. It is not the way. It is not Rome.

A police detective, obese and angry looking, smelling of Jack Daniels, shuffles through the streets of the Bronx, carrying a black briefcase with a computer inside. It contains pharmacy data to be moved overseas, to give the Chinese new death drugs to pervert their workers and countrymen that dare resist. The Patrarcas do it for bribes. The detective does it because he's a greedy racist. Interpol does not approve. NSA has his back, but is watching. The Irish mob is concerned. Tonight, Azrael goes rogue. He waits in an alleyway, a strange Chinese man nearby in a newsstand, with a small unlit cigarette in his hand. It is a Marlboro. Azrael chews nicorette, the spike of peppery nicotine making him alive in the night.

Croyd is a thing scuttling in the shadows. He has a globe like body with two tiny little beady eyes and six stick like legs as he scitters from wall to wall like a demented metal trashcan on those spindle legs. He spots Azrael from the distance and amuses himself by ringing Azrael's phone. /*Ring.*/ /*Ring*/

He spots the Chinese Guy and spots the NSA trace on the phone. That's weird. He rings the phone again for good measure.

As the phone rings, the detective perks up. Azrael, standing there in the black hood with his glasses off, hears the phone, jumping in sudden startlement. The detective looks up, seeing him. The detective narrows his eyes, grinning like a shithead. Meanwhile, Azrael grits his jaw, and ignores the phone. The detective sees his face. No clean kill, knife to the liver, take down. Someone just screwed up a CIA fire mission. As NSA spots the ring and begins analyzing the data, aware that there's a spanner in the works, Azrael pounces. The unmasked man, no longer shaving and growing his Irish-French beard and mustache out, black hood over his body, charging the detective in the night, stabbing him in his burly stomach. The detective curses and swings, smashing Azrael across the jaw. Azrael falls backwards, stumbling, the detective announcing, "Chi chinois, dickhead!" Azrael glares up at him, the steroid addled freak of a cop grinning down at Azrael, before he touches his gut. He's bleeding like a stuck pig. Azrael, woozy and covered in blood, grins up at him with his own blood leaking through his lips.

Wow. This is some heavy stuff. He rings the phone again. He's considering coming out of the shadows to help the detective but really? The guys a cop. Still, how does Croyd know if he's crooked or not? Decisions. He rings all the phones in a four block radius. Let's call that clean ninja man.

'''As all the phones go off, there's a sudden amount of swerving, people tripping, car accidents, and even a powerline worker that nearly falls. Chaos. The detective is ignoring it, and so is Azrael. NSA pings hard, and local police dispatchers are called to the scene of the accidents. There are babies crying, people looking around confused, homeless staring at the rich. Croyd just unleashed a near riot.''' "You can't sell that data to the Chinese, you know," Azrael murmurs at the detective. The detective looks down at him. "Everyone needs to eat. And I like STEAK." The detective looms over Azrael, as Azrael stares up at him, knife in hand. The detective laughs at Azrael, and keeps laughing, as the strange Chinese man, a Flying Dragon, moves towards the detective. That's the data for the Chinese pharmaceutical oppression program in his hand. The Chinese people are dangerously close to getting Shanghai'd.

Croyd cares about the riot. Really. But, oh well. He'll feel guilty later. So the detective is an asshole. That makes that easier. He skittles down through the shadows and then right by the Chinese Dude...down on the ground then back onto the wall, shifting gravity so that for him 'down' is not down any more but instead a wall ten feet on the alley where Croyd was. He's not really worried about the CIA or NSA because...well...he'll be someone else in about three weeks.

The data seems to indicate that the cellphone ping in the city seems to be psychokinetic in nature, and local anti-Mutant experts are scrambled, along with the ambulances and cop cars stuck in traffic. The entire Bronx just became a snarled mess. The Chinese agent sees the skittering Mutate, blinking at him, before giving him an odd smile. He nods, and scurries towards the detective. "Mr. Vain." "Hey, buddy. Here's the stuff." They exchange briefcases, as the cop watches Azrael sitting there, bleeding. Then, there's a grunt. The detective drops to his knees, stabbing in the spine by a barb, his face twisting in agonizing pain. "Sorry, Detective Vain. Can't have you going to the hospital." Azrael stares at the Chinese man, unable to see without his glasses, and the cacophony of sounds infesting the Bronx in this near riot. Brawn is a city away, talking to the NSA contact, Chet and Brawn trying to explain the confusion and rally support. It'll take an entire battalion of beat cops, and they're getting called in. Azrael begins pushing backwards, into the alley.

Unaware of the chaos he is causing, Croyd is not gonna let some spy guy get away and tries to stab him with his own spines. He's tries to stab him.

The Chinese man is turning around, when he takes a spine to the knee. "MAO!" he screams, doubling over and dropping the briefcase. He keels over, his knee bleeding and gimped so he can't escape. He sits there, writhing, the black briefcase on the ground with that computer inside, full of pharmacy data meant for the Chinese nationals. Azrael, meanwhile, has gotten to his feet, punchdrunk and bleeding out his mouth, covered from the waist down in the detective's blood, and begins hobbling away, checking his cellphone with his bleary eyes. He can't see, but he shoves it away, and works on making it back to his black Mazda, having ditched the green Pontiac for a mob skimmer sedan, to help him blend in better with his new White Lotus allies. Before, he used them as a means to an end. Now, he needs their power, even if they control sweatshop labor. But it's better than tanks and guns invading Indochina. All angel fall for country. Azrael has fallen for God, with one foot in Hell.

Croyd hears the sirens now and decides that this is a bad place to be, and gets the hell out of dodge. He crawls into a nearby sewer grate.