2013.09.22 - BoP Intl 01-It Had To Be You

Diamant MFG Ltd. - South Gotham Plant

Diamant MFG, Ltd., is a squat, squarish building in the middle of South Gotham's industrial zone. It is roughly 350' on each side, though there are out-croppings and in-juttings here and there around the perimeter.

The public-facing areas of the plant include a reception foyer and several administrative offices, all of which are done in grey and blue laminates with white and chrome accents. Large pictures of industrial drills and other heavy machinery line the walls, the photographs done in a stylish, magazine format.

Beyond the offices, however, are the break room, the shift lockers, and the workshop floor. Above them are the development labs. Running into and out of these 'authorized personnel only' areas are large pipes and vents meant to regulate the flow of materials and air in and out of both the labs and the workshop.

The workshop, itself, takes up 70% of the building, however -- most of the back of the structure, in fact, aside from the loading docs. Rows of robotic assembly stations, chemical spray stations, and welding centers take up most of the middle of the space. Rows of storage berths, stacked with skids and slat shelves, line the perimeter. A grid of suspended girders and amber-colored halogen lights, interrupted by HVAC fans and ventilation ports, creates a cavernous overhead space that causes the room feel bigger than the large pieces of equipment would otherwise allow.

The workers at Diamant MFG, Ltd., are up in arms. Literally. It's day 17 of their illegal, wildcat strike, and hour 14 of their armed stand-off with police. Frankly, as bad as this situation has become, Oracle has been loathe to send anyone in before now. It's often better to let trained hostage negotiators handle these sorts of situations. More than that, however, the sun didn't set until about a half hour ago -- which means that sending anyone in before now would have been difficult. Certainly, they wouldn't have been able to get in easily unseen. Not in capes and cowls, at least.

But, now that the sun's gone down, even though the police have flooded the building with powerful halogen spotlights, there are much better shadows for sneaking around in... and thus for sending in an infiltrator or two (or three or four).

The fact is, even then, Oracle may not have been prone to send anyone in. After all, the police do have the place surrounded. And this is their job. The cops in Gotham might be harried and oppressed by the shear amount of work that faces them in cleaning up the streets, but, by and large, they're not the wholly corrupt bastards 98% of the Bludhaven force are. They do their best.

To that end, the superhacker had figured she might lend her father a hand. She hijacked the building's security systems, tapped into phone lines and cell services, and started seeing what sort of information she could dig up that might help Gotham's finest.

What she found instead, however, raised a few questions, and she's spent much of the time prior to sunset sorting through company information, employee files, and criminal databases. What she found, disturbs her.

"The whole thing looks like an employment dispute gone bad," she says into her com unit, now, the androgynous digivoice disguising her very human tones, but not the seriousness with which she speaks. "A group of disgruntled workers have trapped management staff in the middle of the shop floor and are holding them at gun point. They're demanding a million-and-a-half 'severance package' from Neos Enterprises, Diamant MFG's former parent company, in exchange for the executives' lives. However, they're not the only ones in the building. Non-unionized science staff were also working in the building when the line workers staged their armed revolt. Among them is one Simon Hughes, a chemical engineer capable of creating a new and easy-to-manufacture form of hydriodic acid -- a key ingredient in the creation of meth. He, and three other scientists, are being held in one of the labs on the upper level by three additional gunmen. We need to shut this down, now, before Hughes gives them his formula."

Tomorrow Knight gets the message in the back-up batcave Bruce allowed him access to. He narrows his eyes as he goes through the data-package Oracle has sent out. As the sun goes down, he gets up and walks over to the charging Batsuit. "Suit's fully charged," he says, detacting the Batsuit from the makeshift charging station. "I'm Oscar Mike." Terry dons the suit in a flash, and the Tomorrow Knight soars out of the Cave and into the night sky. For a moment, his black shape is visible against the horizon, but then disappears as his stealth systems engage.

Talk. Tell. Explain things. Words.

Yeah. When one of the operatives that is being sent in has a bit of a thing when it comes to the spoken word. But still, it doesn't take too much to explain to said 'operative' that people are in danger, the thugs are armed, and they need to be stopped.

Hence why Batgirl is here. To save lives. Even as she silently slips into the roof of the building via a swingline, the mute doesn't make even the faintest noise. not even as she glances around to see if the others showing up arrive via this same route as well.

"We're in position, Oracle," Robin says, before dropping his hand from his ear. He's doing his usual thing, which is to say, perched somewhere out of sight but with good visuals on the scene in progress.

Which is a mess. Going on strike is one thing, but- well, he's inherited his mentor's distaste for guns.

As one of the first to arrive, he has already helpfully located a few potential entrances for his allies, highlighted on their various HUDs.

The ones who have access to the Batnet, at least.

He glances to his left. "You'll have to follow me in," he tells Anarky. Who is here purely on Robin's authority- thankfully, the Birds don't have to report back to Bruce. Not that he has any illusions. Batman will find out, eventually. It's always just a matter of time.

Batgirl has the roof, so Robin goes for a side entrance- side window, actually, several levels up, grappeling over as the police's spotlight passes by and offers a few seconds of blessed shadow. "Could the strike be a cover?" he asks as he disables the alarm on the window- one less thing for Oracle to do- and shimmies it open. "Wouldn't take much to engineer one, if someone wanted that formula bad enough."

Which is where he's headed.

"This is all very intriguing," Anarky says from where he is lurking behind Robin, his cloak gathered around him, "But I didn't think you were in the business of union-busting?" That's entirely snotty on his part, of course--he knows there's something fishy going on here. He calmly takes a small screwdriver out of his pocket, and sets to work removing a window lock so that he can pry it open and slip inside. "Da da da... Down with the blackleg, workers un-ite..."

Activating his visual magnification, Darkwing's on his own right now. Yes. Batman will be finding out quite a lot about what happens tonight regarding Anarky. The details will be depend on how he handles himself. Remaining still for the time being, he's watching the movements on the HUD trying to determine the best way in that would allow him to get in as quietly,"Do we need a distraction?" He asks curiously.

"I want to keep this as quiet as possible," Oracle informs the team. "Ideally, GCPD won't know we're here until the gunmen are bagged, tagged, and strung up for them to collect." But, she knows that's just not likely to happen. Not with so many firearms in the building. Not to mention the volatile chemicals in both the labs and the workshop. "If there's any way you can disarm people without them firing, that's the ideal." So, yes. She's calling on all these bat-types to use their super-sneaky bat-ninja skills, this time. Rather than their bang-zip-pow bat-brawling skills.

"Priority rescue targets are the science team. But, since we're in here anyway, see if you can get the guns away from the guys in the plant itself, too."

She starts feeding what surveillance information she can to the various HUDs in various bat-cowls. Little blue dots show the dispersion of the police around the perimeter. Green dots show where hostages are being held. Red dots highlight the gunmen -- six around the management staff in the plant, two at each of the main entrances in and out of the plant (the loading docks and internal access doors), three in a large lab on the second floor, one patrolling the upper halways, and two in the stairwells at opposite ends of that hallway. All together? Eighteen to twenty. And, the datalist Oracle sends suggests they're armed with Glocks, Tec-9's, and light sub-machine guns. Visual evidence suggests, further, that they're wearing tac-vests, carrying reload clips, and possibly some form of smoke grenade or flashbang. All in all?

"Their ordnance is too heavy for me to believe the ransom demand is anything other than a smoke screen. There's no way, and no reason, factory workers should have access to weaponry like that."

She smiles grimly. "You're all Bats," she notes -- Anarky excepted, of course. "I think you need to be liberal with your use of pellets and batarangs."

Tomorrow Knight cuts off his rockets and glides into for a landing on the roof. "Copy that," he says into the Bat-com. "I'm moving for the hallway guards." Terry swings over the edge of the roof, using his claws to anchor himself. Carefully, slowly, the Tomorrow Knight opens a window. He waits for a patroling guard to come close enough, and then with lightning speed he reaches in and grabs the firearm with the guy attached. The enhanced strength in the suit crushes the weapon, and Terry follows it up with hauling him out the window and throwing him like a sack of potatoes up onto the roof.

As that data appears for Batgirl, she frowns slightly behind her mask, even as she does what she has to, to get the door on the roof open.

And yet as she sneaks in, the female bat actually tries to /avoid/ any armed patrols she deals with. She does not fight them. She does not try to stop them. She does not try to disarm them.

Instead, she sticks to the shadows, trying to avoid detection as Cass heads for that second floor lab.

The man patrolling the hallway is taken care of before he becomes a problem for Robin. And Boy Wonder's certainly not complaining.

He takes a moment, crouched in the darkness underenath the window he just came in through, to take in the information Oracle has put on his HUD, then glances at Anarky.

"Follow me," he says, and then starts making his way towards the lab. "The man in the west stairwell will be the first to come investigate if we can't pull this off. Darkwing, can you take him out?"

He's tracking the rest of the crew on his HUD too, of course. Batgirl and Tomorrow Knight are both close, and Tim is more than willing to admit that their capabilities are more than his own. "We need to do this quick." He pulls a shuriken from his belt.

Since there's a fight to be had of course Darkwing's more than willing to take care of it. He manages to get himself into a position relatively easily where the man cannot see him until it is too late and knocked out rather quickly, before he can radio in about it. "Down and out. He'll be sleeping for awhile." And have one HECK of a headache when he comes to with the way he got taken down, and other assorted aches and pains. "West stairwell is secure for now." He says as he secures the guard's wrists behind his back with a ziptie.

"Hmmm." Anarky says, "All of us come equipped with gas masks don't we?" He asks, as he pries open the window, and then steps inside, "I wonder if they thought of that." He slips onto his feet, and says "Really, this is just going to cause more trouble for the hard-working people of this country. You just know that all the slaves of the elite are going to start spinning this into some anti-union diatribe." He makes his way down the hall, "Well of course, June, if they were all serfs in bondage to their plutocrat overlords this kind of hostage situation could never happen!" He pauses, and then jimmies open an air-vent, before he tosses in a smoke grenade. "That's a combination of tear gas and Lidocaine, by the way. If my calculations are right, and they are, the air current running through the vent is going to blow that out into the breakroom where there are probably four to six of these guys... even scum have to eat."

The man TK flips lands with a thump on the roof, and a startled cry. The future-born caped crusader slips into the shadows of the building itself only moments before the cops, hearing the sound, swing a spotlight back over the spot he once occupied. The man has had the wind knocked out of him. But, that doesn't necessarily mean he's entirely out for the count. Indeed, the roof door is inches from closing behind Batgirl when the man finally struggles to his hands and knees.

Surprisingly enough, the route down from the roof, into the building, is clear of patrols. This is mainly because the cops are far more likely to rush the ground entrances than parachute someone in from above -- or ride ziplines or swing lines as the local vigilantes are wont to do. Consequently, Cass is able to make it into the stairwell without much difficulty. Sneaking past the guard at the door to the hallway, however, may require a more direct approach.

Which Darkwing handily supplies. So, the hallway is now empty and the western stairwell is secure. There are still at least 3 gunmen in the lab with 4 scientists, and the boys guarding the management team downstairs.

The lidocane in Anarky's smoke cylinder is only partially effective, since the gunmen downstairs are sticking pretty close together in the main, well-ventilated workshop area. At best, only one of well-armed men collapses, and he does so with a heavy cough and a sputter.

The radio on the belt of the goon at Damian's feet lets out a squawk and a burst of static, the gruff voice on it cut off in sentence as Oracle enacts jamming protocols.

Tomorrow Knight slips in with ease. His cloaking device is still operational, leaving him completely invisible. He moves with all haste toward the next target and the hostages on the second floor. He drops down the stairwell, quiet as possible. He grabs the entrance, and swings down through the door. Terry sticks out a foot to catch the gunman across the jaw and send him sprawling.

A single guy in a stairwell?

As Batgirl reaches a point near said guard, she comes to a stop for a moment or two, examining him. Then, once she's taken a moment or two, she leaps at him, trying to hit him in the back with just the right move to knock him out without killing him.

Hopefully, she can do that without cluing anyone else in, before she moves on, trying to get to that second floor lab.

"Get ready," Robin says, because he's tracking Tomorrow Knight on his HUD and he's moving fast.

He's still not used to the stealth systems in that suit. If only he could get his hands on it for a little while. Just a couple of hours, really. That's all he'd need to-

Was that the signal? An invisible force crashes through the door he's crouched by, and Robin only has a second to shoot Anarky a look that isn't quite frantic- maybe a /touch/ concerned- before he's diving in after the invisible future Batman.

The shuriken gets thrown at one of the gunman not yet disarmed, hoping to knock the gun from his hands, while Robin throws /himself/ at the other.

Anarky turns in a swirl of his cloak, and says to himself "Well I guess that this isn't the worst thing that could happen." He walks in and says, aloud, "Really, what exactly do you think you're doing here, hm? Sullying the names of the hard-working people of this company, for what? Some drug-lord's payroll?" As he approaches one of the gunmen, he swirls his cloak and catches a fold of it around his head, before he drives a heel into his knee, and gives him a solid hit with the length of his cane. "And for *Meth*. You ought to be ashamed...!"

For now Darkwing's staying out of the fight in the lab. Dragging the man's unconscious form into a nice hiding spot, the young Batfamily member, or as Robin would call him the Batbrat, moves into a shadow and tries to just blend in for the time being while he monitors the movements of the men downstairs and also those he's working with so that he can make a move. Truth is that he doesn't trust the guy with Robin at all.

The man TK slams in the jaw goes flying back into a wall. This rattles him, knocking the wind out of him. He tries to struggle to his feet, groping for a knife on his thigh, as his gun goes skittering away.

Batgirl's kick sends the man in the stairwell tumbling down half a flight where he lays still. Breathing, but still.

Robin's shuriken strikes the central gunman's weapon at an angle. It pops out of his hand and crashes onto the floor. It's a small miracle that it doesn't go off. The far gunman in the room, standing over a single scientist at a workstation, spins even as the boy wonder hurtles into him.

The central gunman goes scrambling after his gun, even as Anarky's cloak wraps about his head and pulls him off balance. Face, meet Knee. Meet little twittering birdies and flickering stars.

The footsteps can be heard coming through a doorway at the bottom of the stairwell where Damian crouches.

Tomorrow Knight doesn't stop moving when he gets through that door. He drops out of cloak, if only for a moment. The black and red shape of the Futuristic Batman is quite an intimidating sight as his claws shread his tactical vest and he holds the man off his feet. The left hand goes for the knife he knows is coming. "I don't think so," he growls, grabing the blade and letting the metal crunch and twist against the futuristic armor. "You want to pass out now." He throws the man at the wall.

As her guard falls, Batgirl pauses for the briefest of instants to double check her HUD. And yet as she notices where the others are, she moves on, to get at the secondary targets, a.k.a. the hostages that are being held for ransom.

And yet as the female bat heads down the stairs, she gets a trio of bat-shurikens ready. just in case she has to throw stealth out the window and make things fast.

There aren't any fancy moves from Robin. No knee-kicks or wall-throwing, just him and this particular gunman on the floor, who somehow managed to end up on top with his hands around Robin's throat by the end of that frankly perfectly executed tackle.

Robin flattens his boots against the floor and puts all his strength into throwing the gunman off of him, and it's only partially successful. The man gets hold of his cape and pulls Robin right back into it, glancing a fist off the boy wonder's cheek before Robin's able to free himself by the clasp at his throat.

Slamming the gunman's head into the floor once is enough to stun him. Twice knocks him out, and then the third time nearly happens before Robin just barely manages to stop himself.

He works his cape out of the unconscious man's fingers and pulls it back on.

"Did you tell them anything?" he immediately asks of the nearest hostage, the one at the workstation nearby.

Anarky turns to the two other men in front of him, and holds up his hands as if in surrender--and he's got another one of those tear gas-and-numbing lidocane grenades in his hand. "Catch!" He says, tossing it underhand at their feet before he springs backward, and it goes off with a 'Fhhhhhhhhhhhhsttttt!' Spewing a jet of that noxious stuff straight up into their faces.

"Having trouble Robin? Maybe you should go back to training." Darkwing says over the comsystem. He checks to see what the guards below are doing and when he sees people coming he gets out a couple batarangs, one in each hand. He practically smiles in anticipation, if he smiled. A good fight is EXACTLY what was on the list of things to improve his mood right now. Rather than tense up, his body begins relaxing as he prepares for the fight.

Yes. Yes, the man in TK's fist does want to pass out, now. And so he does. It's much easier on him. Safer, too, likely. As he slumps down against the wall, his head lolls to one side, revealing a tattoo on the side of his neck.

Easing down the stairs, Batgirl will find her immediate path open. At the bottom, however, two men can be seen crouching tensely, one looking up toward the mid-floor landing, the other out the wired glass window along the corridor.

The chemical engineer sitting in the chair beside him, rises to his feet. "I tried to delay," he tells the boy wonder. "But, another guy took a sample with him about an hour ago..."

Of course, Anarky's showmanship, as excellent as it is, is rather wasted... since there were only three gunmen in the room and three heroes. Given TK and Robin handily dispatch their opponents, that means the anarchist ends up spraying the faces of innocent hostages, instead...

(Oops. Well. Sometimes that happens.)

The two men coming up the stairwell toward Damian, however, are moving with a sort of expert grace. They are quite obviously not factory workers, but trained combatants, instead. So, you know, maybe the kid will find himself with something akin to challenge for once.

(Or not.)

Tomorrow Knight kneels down at the slumped over man he just knocked into Lala-Land. He pulls his head back and exposes the Tattoo. "Oracle," He growls, "You got it?" He focuses on the Tattoo for a couple of seconds, then stands and moves on. He re-engages his cloak. "Moving to support Darkwing and Batgirl." He says quietly for only his radio to pick up. He hurries downward, but there is more than enough time for Cass and Damian to get the opening strikes.

And as soon as Batgirl reaches a point where she can see those two guards, she double checks her HUD yet again.

The guy on the other side of the window is more than likely will take a moment or two to get at. But the closer one, the crouching man, is rushed towards, before she lashes out with a single, quick punch meant to knock him out (in theory anyways) so she can get through the door as fast as she can and toss her bat shurikens at that second armed thug.

But even if she doesn't succeed, with the sight of The Tomorrow Knights marker headed her way on her hud, the mute martial artist knows that he can more than likely 'pick up' whatever she 'drops' as she continues to try and push ahead.

Great. All this trouble and they're too late, anyway. By an entire /hour/, even. It makes Robin's jaw tighten, but he doesn't say anything, just takes a moment to make sure all of the gunmen are suitably de-armed and, as Oracle requested, bagged and tagged.

Then he's off downstairs, down the west stairwell even though he feels less than charitable after Darkwing's comment. Still, can't let the kid do all the fighting on his own.

Asskickings are handed out where and when appropriate, because Robin /doesn't/ need to go back to training, thank you.

Anarky, after carefully moving the hostages away from the gas, after an unfortunate moment of exposure, "Sorry, folks--I wouldn't call that stuff harmless, but you'll recover in a little bit--just follow me and I'll get you out of harm's way and up to the roof, where the police will be able to take you to safety." He looks to Robin, "You're all trained to fight together, I'll just get in the way. Go finish up." He pats him on the shoulder in a friendly (!) way, before he sets about leading the hostages out.

A batarang to the skull and then a kick to the small of the back, and the first guy drops, but not before the second swings at him and it is only through his skill that he doesn't take a hit. As Darkwing fights, he has to admit the guy is good. They go at it for a flurry of movement, before Darkwing slams his palm hard enough into the man's diaphragm to cause him to be unable to breathe before slumming the man's head into the wall of the stairwell.

"I got it," Oracle replies to TK as the tattoo scans across her screen. "Running it through rec, now."

Moving down the stairs, however, the trained mercenaries -- as one might surmise they are -- aren't pushovers. That said, who expects a 5' kid to be the one kicking you in the nuts when you're taking hostages? I mean... really? And throwing shuriken? Between Darkwing and Batgirl, the gunmen really don't know what hit them.

Moments later, Robin and TK sweep in behind the other two, while Anarky leads the scientists to some semblance of safety.

Outside, the police react when gunshots are heard, some few of the gunmen getting shots off. The officer in charge orders his men to advance, led by the Gotham City SWAT team... but by the time they sweep in, most of the gunmen are unconscious, all of them are disarmed and the hostages are looking up through the girders where the vigilantes have disappeared away out into the night.