2014.12.14 - Blüdbath: Prologue

"Three..."

"Two..."

Counting out loud isn't the stealthiest way for a would-be assassin to mark time. But those who've been on the receiving end of Deathstroke's particular brand of villainy know that he's only stealthy about half of the time. At first glance, it might look as if he's making a half-assed attempt at stealth right now. Hidden behind a dumpster, he is in full view of anyone walking up or down the street. Decked out in full Terminator armor, and holding one of his hands in a tight fist, he looks a bit like a garishly-painted action figure that's been left in a pose too long.

However, more knowledgeable denizens of Blüdhaven might realize that Our Villain is not, in fact, trying to hide from everyone. He is simply trying to remain concealed from a particular direction. While he stands behind the dumpster, visible to most, he is invisible to the noisy horde of bikers that are rumbling down the street in his direction.

The noise from their bikes also completely drowns out any vocalized counting that Deathstroke might be doing. So... maybe he actually IS being stealthy this time.

The bikers speed down the mostly-empty street in a tight group, making as much noise as they can and being as offensive as possible. One of them even throws a Molotov cocktail into the window of a parked car. Whether there was anyone inside seems to be of no importance to them.

"One!"

Deathstroke WASN'T simply holding his fist in the air in front of him. He was actually holding the end of a very fine piece of wire. The wire runs all the way across the street, attached to some masonry on the other side. He pulls it taut just before the gang's leader drives past it.

Tightly packed as they are, several of their heads are lopped off as the bikers speed past the ultra-fine wire. Nearly a quarter of the gang has been taken out before the wire finally snaps.

The headless riders are surprisingly bad at piloting their bikes, causing a multi-bike pile-up that takes out another large chunk of the gang before any of them have any idea what's happening.

Slade may have been trying his hardest to be quiet but even if he has been mostly successful it doesn't mean he has escaped notice and has, in fact, been watched for a good part of the time he had been laying a trap for the gang members. How he moves, his techniques, everything has been observed from a nearby roof, the one doing the watching a figure in black. Not quite entirely hidden, one might be able to make out the dark figure as the sky is not quite the same shade as her attire, leaving the mysterious one easy to make out from the right angles.

The roar of engines gets their head to turn in that direction only to then, with a slow pivot, moves to keep the riders in their line of sight, the end result of the gang's arrival is met with a shake of the stranger's head. Such needless violence, no?

A small device is taken into hand and aimed towards the roof of another building and a button is pushed, sending a small grappling hook towards the old brick. It gets a good hold upon the ancient facade which is fortunate as it means their weight won't cause it to crumble. A quick descent is made with and then, with a roll of their shoulder, the one formerly known as Batgirl, dressed in her old costume, heads towards the bikers and the man who seems to have a vendetta against them, not saying a word or making a sound as she approaches.

As the bikes begin crashing into each other and the bikers begin dying horribly, Deathstroke leaps from behind his vantage point and begins charging into the fray. With a heavily-modified version of H&K's UMP in either hand, he releases a spray of ammunition into the group. This weeds the biker gang out even further, but he also picks off the ones that have managed to avoid the accident and started driving away. Clearly, Deathstroke doesn't intend for there to be any survivors of this ambush.

The guns only hold so many rounds, and he's out of bullets before all of the bikers are dead. He's been too distracted by the bright muzzle flashes and the sounds of carnage to hear anyone sneaking up on him, but now that he's out of ammunition this quickly changes. As the guns are placed back in their holsters, he catches a glimpse of the sneaky girl in black.

"Figures. Just when I'm starting to have fun, one of Blüdhaven's rodents shows up."

If she were anyone else she might be offended by Slade's comment as well as be affected by the sight of the decapitated bodies but both the insult and the headless corpses barely gets a reaction from her save a kick towards a head to get it out of her way.

Once close enough she looks around before, with a look at the killer, she begins to shake her head. "Not. A. Bat."

Pause.

"Anymore." The words are, as always, easier to think than say and the response to Slade is halted, each word following the one said before it with a bit of time spent thinking on how to make her mouth move so the words can be enunciated properly.

Unfortunately, Deathstroke has had his plans ruined by people in bat and bird costumes too often to be in a mood for chatting. The broadsword on his back is swiftly pulled from its sheath, and he adopts an aggressive posture. Staring at the interloper with his remaining eye, he looks very much like a predator that's about to strike.

Unfortunately, her arrival might be all the distraction that some of the bikers need to get away from the scene of the crime. Already the gang members who were at the rear are turning their bikes around and preparing to peel out and get as far away from the sword-wielding maniac as possible.

"Don't think. Just fly back to your belfry before I pull out your pretty little wings."

The drawn sword is of interest to Cassandra who looks at the blade once it's pulled free from its scabbard, the blade of particular curiosity to her. How it was made, the quality of the metal, how well Slade has kept it sharpened. All little things that does not get lingered upon as it seems a fight is pending. Ah well. The sword will be given more thought later, once she's won.

While the men Slade tried to stop hurry off she takes a defensive posturing, hands held in loose fists that are held just at shoulder level while her body's pivoted just to the side, her hood-hidden-gaze held to his. Yup. Time for a fight. And to drive that point home, she gestures to him, inviting him to take the first swing.

Behind the Kevlar-composite mask, Slade Wilson utters a couple of whispered oaths. But the majority of the gang has been taken out in one fell swoop, and the heads of most of its leadership are now littering the streets of Blüdhaven. Someone will have a fun time cleaning all of that up in the morning. Almost instinctively, traffic around the street seems to have slowed significantly. A couple of cars look as if they were planning to turn down this street, but between the pile of bikes and the masked people preparing to fight, they quickly decide to turn around.

Say whatever else you want about Slade, he's never been one to shy away from a fight. But he's also never been one to bring a sword to a fistfight. Seeing the girl's complete lack of a sword, he spins his around and shoves the blade down into the asphalt. It remains standing in the ground as he walks past it, looking just as menacing without it as he did with it.

Heavily-Armored Roid Ninja vs Kung Fu Waif? To anyone watching, the outcome of the fight seems all but certain.

As he gets close to striking range, Deathstroke drops into a stance of his own. It's nearly the mirror image of her own stance, albeit adjusted for the size difference. He's crouched a bit lower, comparitively, than she is, placing more tension on his legs, but also putting more potential power behind them.

"It's not too late to run."

Suddenly, he swings his arm upward sending his fist directly toward her chin.

Little does he know that Cassandra is able to tell what it is he's about to do via the motion of his body, everything from the most subtle of twitches to the most blatent of positioning of his limbs helping her to deduce what he has planned for his first attack. With a grace that might be seen as impressive, the lithe fighter waits until the very last moment before darting out of the way, causing Slade's punch to miss albeit only just by a scant inch, if that. Damn, he's fast, that being something she did not anticipate.

Going on the offensive once she's safe, Cass spins, seeking to place a vicious kick to his mid-section, her own attack not stopping there as, regardless of if she misses or if she's successful, the kick is followed up with a punch to his face. Tit for tat, there.

Although he's probably fast enough to block both of her attacks, Slade doesn't really try to block either. His own punch was merely an opening jab, a way to test the waters before diving in. But he isn't used to such grace from members of the Bat Clan, and he hasn't quite regathered his focus before her blows hit.

But even though her blows connect with him, they don't seem to have done much more than stun him. The blow to his midsection sends him back a bit, and he has to be quick to regain his balance. The blow to his head sends his head snapping backward. But the kevlar plating of his helmet and armor was designed to stop bullets. So it'll likely take more than a few hits to break through to the gooey center.

Even as his head is snapping backward, he's reaching out with one of his arms to grab the girl's cape.

Why he took the blows is not something she has time to wonder about as she's having to keep moving, not daring to grow slow and lazy during this fight. Cass can tell something different about this man, after all, and she doesn't dare let him get in a good blow for, as good of a fighter as she is, she's just human and can be hurt just like just about anyone else. Makes her have to stay on her toes.

Unfortunately for her she doesn't get out of the way in time and she finds herself snared by the length of black fabric, causing her to hiss. This is not good, damnit, being trapped like this, and she lashes out, willing to play dirty if it means he might let her go. What does that entail, exactly? It entails a kick aimed right for his crotch if he doesn't let go.

Getting kicked in the crotch certainly hurts. But fortunately the most thickly-armored portion of Deathstroke's Terminator Armor is the kevlar cup he was forced to add after one too many kicks to the crotch. She's fighting a man who has already seen virtually every trick in the book, and has already made provisions for them.

With the cape in his hand, he twirls it over the girl's head, attempting to use it like a net. If more people would just listen to Edna Mode, embarrassing things like this could be avoided.

With his other arm, he attempts to encircle her waist, reaching for her bright yellow utility belt.

This man might as well be a turtle for how well protected he is, all that damn armor. But don't think for a moment that Cassandra's suit isn't as she has some kevlar added here and there as well although not as heavily as Slade's. Can't really leap and do all the fancy acrobatics she has to with ten pounds of kevlar plating, if not more. Makes for some vulnerable spots.

With her sight blocked by the cape her other senses kick in and she feels his arm draw about her, making her grunt in annoyance. Shooting up onto the balls of her feet, the assassin attempts to drive her head up and back, her intention being to slam the back of her head under his chin where maybe he isn't so protected.

Fun fact: The back of the human skull is the thickest, toughest portion.

It's enough to stagger Slade, and he loses his grip on her cape while also overshooting her utility belt. But given his past performance, he'll probably rebound really quickly.

"Stop squirming!"

The 'command' from Slade has Cassandra shaking her head but she doesn't speak, that taking a bit too much effort to do so and right now she has to focus on the fight.

Now freed from Slade's grasp she darts in again, looking to do something truly, horribly 'evil'; throwing a punch towards his midsection as a diversion, Cassandra's off hand darts to the knife at his belt which she seeks to remove from its sheath upon his belt. And, if she manages to do that, she'll try to put it into his right thigh, determined to put an end to this foolishness.

Time to put an end to this foolishness. If video leaks out of Deathstroke in a sparring match with a tiny girl in a bat costume, he's going to have to lower his rates. Which means that playtime is over.

Perhaps unexpectedly, he only makes enough of an attempt at blocking the blade to be convincing. In reality, his goal is much more sinister. Sacrificing his thigh, he allows her to plunge the blade through his protective gear and into the flesh. Sure, it hurts a lot. Sure, it's in a location that would likely cause a normal man to bleed out. But this is not even the hundredth time that Slade has been stabbed in the past few years. He'll be fine.

As the blade sinks into his thigh, he uses one hand to pretend to block it, and the other hand to grab her non-thrusting wrist. The net result is that she has two hands that are out of play, while he still has one free hand to bring down on her head. Which is what he attempts to do, drawing back the fist and launching it toward her head in a haymaker semi-circle.

She sees it coming but she can not get out of the way, not with how the merc holds her. The blow hits and rocks her head back and to the side, causing stars to dot her field of vision. Staggering, Cass struggles to keep to her feet at the same time she feels the headache begin to settle in already.

"Stop..."

The knife's released and she holds up her hand, gesturing to him to halt. Hopefully he'll comply and the match will be put to an end as her head throbs, causing her to feel like she might throw up it's so intense.

Members of the Bat Clan aren't really known for calling 'time out' in the middle of fights. Unless this is a new tactic that Batman has been teaching them... Either way, Deathstroke is surprised by the ploy. But what might be more surprising is that he actually does as he's told.

With his fist raised for another strike, he pauses just before he brings it down toward her head again. With his hand still clenched firmly on her wrist, perhaps he figures he's got her right where he wants her.

The knife is left in his leg for now, fortunately his mask conceals any pain he might be feeling.

"Stop? Aren't you going to try to arrest me or give me a sermon? That's what you bat types do..."

Did Slade not hear her? Or is he just not listening. Frowning again under her fully concealing mask, Cassandra shakes her head as well, this time more emphatically. "No. Not. Bat." Sigh. She isn't sure what she is going to do to try and convey the truth to him but soon, with a few dedt hand gestures that is ASL, she signs:

Am leader of assassins.

He might not know sign but hopefully the signs she does use, which is more pantomime than actual sing language for this, will work.

The one blue eye that peers out of Deathstroke's mask looks incredibly critical. Apparently he's not going to take her statement at face value. But then, it's an extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Rather than letting her go of his grip on her wrist, Slade uses his leverage to push her away from him while simultaneously letting go. Putting a few feet between himself and her gives him the time necessary to pull the knife out of his thigh. Blood gushes everywhere, for a few seconds, but the wound seems to seal up pretty quickly.

"The assassins? Sweetheart, I like your moves, but you're clearly crazy. Stay out of my way next time, or I'll peel your skin off while you're alive."

Friendly as ever, Slade turns on his heel and begins walking away. He pauses only slightly to pull his sword out of the pavement, wipe the blade on his arm, and replace it in its sheath.

"You. Will. See."

Cassandra is not used to having the fight taken out of her like Wilson has managed to and she's happy to let him go as she wants to do nothing but let her head stop killing her and for the chance to meditate on all of just what happened.