2013.04.07 - Welcome to the Neighborhood

Long a haven for Gotham's organized crime, Scituate is not the kind of place the heavy-hitters of the various mobs often venture. They send their underbosses, lieutenants and soldiers to do their dirty work for them. Though not as dilapidated as Old Gotham, it is not the sort of place one walks down the street without fear. The police don't often make their rounds this way, and so the scumbags can do business with abandon.

At present, outside an old butcher's shop, stands a muscular but heavyset man of about six feet wearing a cheap suit. He leans against the door frame, flipping through a beaten up motor magazine. On the other side of the storefront, dressed similarly, is a slightly taller but thinner man playing some sort of game on his smartphone. Suddenly, the smartphone rings and the second man holds it up to his head.

“Yeah. Uh-huh. Alright.”

The conversation ended, he hangs up the phone and puts it in his pocket before turning to his partner, “Look alive, Killer, he's on his way in.”

Huntress hates Scituate. She hates this part of Gotham like nothing else. But, when her research leads her to mob activity here, here she is. Standing on a rooftop about halfway down the block, she watches the two men through binoculars and makes note of the one answering his phone. Looks like they might be getting ready for something to happen. Might be best if she moved closer.

Tucking the binoculars away, she gauges the distance to the next building closer and takes just a few moments to hop over. Would have been faster if she'd not been taking pains to do so quietly.

The traffic in the area is light, so light that only one or two cars have driven by in the last hour. The quiet of the night is broken, however, when the rumble of an engine can be heard around the corner. Soon after, a black Porsche Boxster speeds into the street with the squeal of tires and skids to a halt outside the shop with the roof up. An older man, perhaps in his sixties, climbs out of the driver's side – chuckling all the while.

“Nice ride, Uncle Cos,” calls the taller of the two guards to the old man.

Uncle Cos stops chuckling, shoots a dark look at guard, “Who the hell are you supposed to be?”

“Ambrogio,” the taller guard answers, looking momentarily hurt, “Maria Moretti's kid?”

“Oh,” Uncle Cos nods vaguely before turning to the other guard, “C'mon, Killer, get this mignotta inside.”

The shorter of the guards, Killer, rushes to the passenger door and opens it. Struggling with something or someone inside.

Huntress frowns a bit at the arrival of the Porsche (something's not right with that engine, her cousins back in Sicily would have conniptions), then frowns more when it looks like they're unloading someone. This is NOT what she'd planned on finding, but kidnappees and/or hostages take immediate precedence.

Popping the pack of wooden bolts out of her crossbow, she loads a single steel quarrel and aims for one of the Boxter's rear tires. Hopefully the noise will make them think someone's firing a gun and give her time to take at least Uncle cos and Ambrogio out of the equation... wait. Is the Porsche's engine still running? Change of plans. She aims the quarrel at the brick wall behind the taller thug, firing it and not waiting to see their reaction before snapping the bolts back into place and firing at Uncle Cos and Ambrogio -- arm and leg shots to take them down but not permanently.

The first bolt strikes the wall, causing Ambrogio to turn suddenly and reach into his coat pocket to reach for his gun. He's already diving behind the car when the second bolt strikes Uncle Cos in the upper arm, causing him to curse loudly before hitting the ground behind the car. The third bolt, however, does not make it as far as the gangsters on the street. A black-gloved hand swoops down, catching the quarrel before it leaves the crossbow.

The Red Hood is swift, attempting to lock the Huntress' right arm to her side while holding the tip of the bolt a half-inch from her throat. He moves to drag her down swiftly, out of the line of sight of the mobsters on the street.

“Don't move,” the voice in her ear is heavily modulated, reverberated through a speaker built into the mask, “or we find out just how much damage this can do without a crossbow to back it up.”

Down on the street, Ambrogio is already unloading his weapon in the assumed direction of his attacker. The bullets burst noisily against the brick wall several feet to their right, though the man in the red mask doesn't move.

Okay, Huntress was NOT expecting that. Holy crap. She's immobilized before she has the time to truly react, and his comment about the bolt keeps her from starting to struggle, though if the masked person can see her eyes she is VERY angry. You know, that whole 'if looks could kill' thing. But, she can already tell that this is NOT one of the Bat's ilk or he wouldn't have threatened to slice her with her own bolt.

So, as pissed off as she is, she stays still and quiet, though her assailant can probably tell that the moment he releases her she's fully prepared to try and kick his ass into next week.

“You just blew a month of surveillance,” the Red Hood growls, tightening his grip and prodding her throat with the bolt just enough to not break the skin, “I'm not happy about that.”

It seems, for a moment, that he may indeed follow through with his threat. But then, just as swiftly as he was upon her, he has let her go. He lets the bolt clatter to the ground, diving over the edge of the building into the street. As he vaults through the air, he draws a handgun from a holster at the small of his back.

Down in the street, Uncle Cos can do little more than cradle his wounded arm and bleed on the pavement. Ambrogio takes a couple useless shots at the hooded figure but he doesn't hold still long enough to get a bead on him. Killer drags man in bloodied clothes with a canvas sack tied over his head out of the passenger side, dragging him into the building.

The Red Hood is quick, however, landing on the hood of the expensive sports car. When Ambrogio levels his gun at him, he receives a boot to his jaw for his trouble. His head jolts back with a sickening crack, the taller guard crumpling into a slumped heap against the wall. Uncle Cos is left behind, the Hood charging into the storefront after Killer and the hostage.

Huntress scrambles to her feet the moment the Hood lets her go and looks down after the man. Holy crap is an understatement. It takes her only a second to figure out that things are moving indoors and she throws herself after her attacker as he enters the building. Whoever the heck he is, she's not letting him or this whole fiasco go so easily.

She can't just fling herself at the ground and NOT go splat, so she has to use a zipline but she gets there just a few seconds after the Red Hood and races to get inside as well.

Uncle Cos lifts his gun in his left arm as the Huntress storms past, cocking the hammer audibly and clearing his throat, “Not so fast, lady.”

The old man may not be in the best condition, his skin pale from the loss of blood, but he holds the gun steadily enough that he mightn't miss from this close by. His eyes narrow at the crossbow-wielding vigilante, lip curling into a snarl.

Inside the shop, the clatter of something heavy and metal falling to the floor can be heard.

Huntress almost doesn't slow down, snapping her crossbow up and firing a bolt at the pistol's barrel in the hopes of jamming the weapon so she doesn't have to deal with Uncle Cos. 'Cause there's something going on inside.

Uncle Cos pulls the trigger as the Huntress raises her crossbow, but he's not quite as fast on the draw as he would like. The bolt enters the barrel, jamming it up and causing the weapon to explode in his hand. A blood-curdling scream fills the air as the ruined piece falls to the ground, followed by three of Uncle Cos' mutilated fingers. He's out of the equation.

Inside, the front room of the store looks as though it has been ransacked. A number of shelves have been overturned, covering the floor. The staff are nowhere to be found, most likely they'd already left for the day before this whole thing went down.

The door to the back room is still swinging, and inside Killer stands with his back pressed to the tiled wall. He has one arm wrapped around the neck of the hooded captive, the barrel of his gun pointed to the man's head. A dozen cow carcasses hang from meat hooks on the ceiling and the lights are off, plunging the room into cold darkness.

“Back off, man,” Killer calls out at nothing, “I know you're there. I'll blow this guy's fucking head off.”

Nearby, though from the way he throws his voice it is impossible to tell where, the Red Hood simply says: “So?”

Huntress sidesteps the moment she sees Killer past the swinging door with the hostage in hand. A second quick glance and she does the mental math to see if she can make a snapshot and take out that gun held to the hostage's head. Yes, she could more easily just aim for Killer's eyeball, but she's at least /trying/ to stick with the Bat's 'no killing' edict.

Even as the Huntress is making her mental calculations, the Red Hood is swinging into action. On the far side of the room, something metallic clatters to the ground. Killer immediately lifts his gun, firing wildly in that direction. The flashes from the gun's muzzle light up the room, a brief glimpse of the man in the red mask is seen before darkness swallows him up again.

In the dark, Killer lets out a sudden gasp of terror and the sound of fists landing on flesh can be heard. A dull thump and Killer hits the floor and, a moment later, a short sharp hiss as a red flare is lit. The sudden and bright light illuminates the room, revealing the Red Hood standing over the unconscious Killer with the hostage grasped tightly by one arm.

“You hesitated a second there,” the Red Hood calls to Huntress across the room, “Looking for a way to take him out without harming him. Non-lethal shots on the goons out front. You're following His rules. But I can tell just by looking at you that you haven't always, and that you don't abide by them.”

He reaches for his gun, drawing it from it's holster with incredible swiftness but simply holding it at his side, “And if you take a step towards me, you'll find I don't share that hang-up. Would you like to know who you're attacking here? What kind of men you were about to send to jail for a year or two before they ultimately ended up back out on the street?”

Huntress narrows her eyes at the Hood, not lowering her crossbow. Not yet. "I know that the Morettis have ties going back to Sicily, and that their Jersey affiliates are here. And exactly what they do for their so-called living. But if it's all the same, I'd rather not end up the Bat's shit list. Or worse, chased out of the city AGAIN. So, are you gonna kills these mooks in cold blood now that they can't fight back? 'Cause if you are, let me clean up my bolts first so you can't blame this shit on me." Yes, that's been done before.

Ivano Romano. That names rings a bell with Huntress, if her eyes narrowing at the frightened-looking man is any indication. "The Russians. SONofabitch!" She turns to start pacing, then stops herself and looks at the Red Hood again. "Whatever you're about to do, I want no part of it. I won't just have the Bat on my ass, it'll be HAL, too."

Still keeping her crossbow at the ready, Huntress scans the room to make sure she's not leaving any proof of her presence behind then turns to leave. "And so you know, I was working on six weeks of recon myself." How they managed to not cross paths during this...

“That's not news to me,” the Red Hood answers flatly, “You might not have seen me, but I've seen you. I like the look, but it isn't exactly what I'd call inconspicuous.”

Then, without so much as a word of warning, he lifts his gun to Ivano's head and fires. The man barely has a moment to open his mouth in protest before he's dead, the Red Hood holding his arm out to the side so the corpse can slump to the floor.

“He's been a fence-sitter, actually. His dad's Russian, mother's Italian. Thought he'd play the local Bratva as well as the Cosa Nostra. Drugs. Extortion. A chop shop. Uncle Cos out there found out what he was up to and they were bringing him here to work him over before they finished him off. I might've let you stood in if I hadn't found out just what he was up to. That fancy Porsche outside? Ivano's. Made the money smuggling people out of the waterfront. Kids. Human trafficking.”

Just reciting the crimes seems to make the Red Hood's blood boil. He kicks the corpse hard across it's lifeless jaw, leaving it distorted and out of place. He grits his teeth beneath his mask, crouching down and drawing a long, serrated knife from his boot.

“You go now. Tell Him what you've seen.”

He doesn't wait for a reply, lifting the dagger and plunging it into the dead Ivano's neck and starting to saw ...

Huntress flinches as the Hood executes Ivano and then explains what he's done. Human traffickers. That puts him in with the group she broke up a few weeks back. DAMN. IT. But then the Hood pulls that knife and she turns hastily to leave. She's not gone in time to avoid hearing the crunch as he stabs Ivano's corpse. Ugh. So much for having any appetite again before May. A hastily (and a bit shakily) fired grappling hook bolt kind of thing, and she's gone toward the rooftops again. If this lunatic is setting up shop in Gotham, she's going to HAVE to tell the Bat.