2014.10.04 - Tomb Riots

Saturday evening, South Gotham. The elderly brick building of the SGDC - South Gotham Detention Complex - lies in the harsh light of the Xenon lamps illuminating its outer walls and the small courtyard, but that is only the smallest part of the prison. The name Tombs came not from nowhere - it went down 20 stories under the streets into the granite of the island, into the depth. Huge ventilation shafts brought air down to the grave like structure, muffling the occasional screams from the usual prison brawls or when the guards separate the prisoners in this high security installation. But on the other hand, this isolationist setup resulted in the people ganging up and then seeking for a vent. Using toilet paper, toothbrushes and copper wire and plastic from the lamps, they had prepared shivs en masse. Some were found, but there were always more in this hostile group.

This evening, they had found a trigger to strike: New guards. Not any kind of guards, freshlings. One of them a Mexican-American, another a hulky black and three white freshmen, one of them a woman. When the five and their senior officer ordered the prisoners back to their cells for dinner, the white supremacists struck. A tiny guy with a bald head covered in racist tattoos stabbed Mike Connor, Afro-American father of 3 kids, into the kidneys before vanishing into the crowd and a hulky guy used tree plastic combs tied together with copper wire as a brass knuckle to crack the skull of Jesaia Stern, a Jew with German ancestors. Both of the guards came down to the floor within moments, even before the rest of the 6 on the prisoner level realized what had happened. Moments passed in which Alice Boyle eyed at the situation and then screamed into her microphone "REVOLT! Officer Down! Lock down the..." She didn't got the chance to finish the sentence as a huge hand closed around her mouth and shoulder, pulling her back into the crowd of prisoners while her still standing three colleges went back to back together and tried to protect the two fallen officers with their batons.

And then the Sirens sprung to life, casting orange and red shadows over the empty courtyard, the howling breaking the silence of the night.

Where are the Bat crowd when you need them? Answer, probably putting somebody back in Arkham who belongs there. But those sirens aren't from Arkham. They're from the Tombs. Criminals, not criminal nutjobs. Well, no. This is Gotham. Mend questions, sometimes, the sanity of the entire city. Which is why she prefers to operate in New York. Every so often, though, some trail or other leads her here.

A trail she forgets about when those sirens go off, a trail she can pick up later. It's less important than prison riots. How to get in? Any door that's opened is potential egress for the prisoners. The slender mutant ops for the air system. It's designed to keep people IN, so it's not that hard to use as a way INTO the prison, especially for somebody who's pretty good at getting through things like that.

Karima's presence in the prison is easily attributed to the recent intake of several henchmen of a known super villain. The villain's plan to use a chemical weapon to strike at Gotham was successfully thwarted by SHIELD agents and a couple of 'contractor' heroes. Karima was sent to just gather some routine information from the henchmen when the prison revolt starts. As an official Agent of SHIELD, she was passed through most of the prison's security without any real hassle other than turning over her issued weapons...the large Kukri blade definitely raised more than a few eyebrows among the prison guards. Not that the cybernetically augmented woman NEEDS any external weaponry to defend herself and others. Most of her real tricks lie hidden beneath her sensor-masked "skin". As the alarms go off, she reacts with startling speed and efficiency. She steps out of the small interrogation room she was using and has the door guards return the prisoner to his cell. She then has her onboard AI (named AL...brilliant!) access the prison's blueprints and she begins heading down to where the trouble is happening!

The Trouble quickly spreads from the place of origin, where the elderly senior guard does his best to direct the other two freshlings in bringing their injured buddies to safety, but they don't get very far. Surrounded by several dozens of the skinheads, they fight on a lost post, the back to the railing of the walkway. Soon the prisoners manage to block some of the accesses to their gangway, the doors barricaded with a shiv stabbed into the small gap so it would not open. They couldn't ward themselves off from being seen from the guard walkways, but as the riot spreads upwards, the guards aren’t very save on those either, forced to retreat by bags filled with excrements, while the prisoners use trays as shields against the occasional rubber buckshot fired at them by the wardens.

The Riots sirens that break the night attract also the attention of some late night birds, or rather one specific bird of prey, even if she had no avian nickname. Robyn had been stalking a drug ring close to the prison walls as the riot started, and so she dashed closer, jumping upon one of the huge ventilators that provided fresh air in the underground installation. Using her knife she disabled the machinery before forcing the rusty maintenance hatch open. The air might get warmer and foul in there soon with one of the vents off, but it would not make it unbearable by far. A long look she gives down the long way, then the black and green clad woman jumps, the collapsible compound bow in her right while she descends quickly. A loud THUMP tells of her landing on one of the outlets, a huge dent in the gutter where her feet landed.

Stepping out of one of the upper level doors above The Trouble, Karima spends a few computer cycles analyzing the scene before her systems adapt to non-lethal takedown levels. For a moment AL advises her that because of the numbers involved, she should "Thin" the herd so to speak but she negates that line of thought quickly. Most of the prisoners likely pose no real threat to her on ANY level unless some of them have powers of serious military-grade weaponry. Knowing that these prisoners will not return to their cells with just a verbal command, she generates electrical energy along her arms and legs and begins to wade into the prisoners with punches, kicks, elbow strikes, knee-strikes and the occasional non-electrified head-butt. She deliberately restrains her inhuman strength to just that of a strong normal human so that she doesn't inadvertently kill anyone. Her electrified strikes likely feel like getting hit with multiple Tasers at once and should put down most normal prisoners with little difficulty. Oddly enough, she doesn't feel sorry for any that have undiagnosed heart problems or epileptic issues. Her feeling is that those prisoners should have stayed out of this melee.

And Mend slips down through the system to crouch above the floor where the trouble is. No system-wide knockout gas system. They really should have a system-wide knockout gas system, she grumbles. Okay. Let's see here. It's...time to...she studies the group of prisoners right below her. Seeing no friendlies, she tosses a flash bang in, shields her eyes, then launches into the group after it. Yup. Going for standard tactics for right now.

[BOP]  "Robyn Hood here, responding to an alert in the Tomb Prison in lower Gotham. Might take a while..."

[BOP]  Oracle: "Any details or backup needed?"

The ground under Karima's feet shivers as she kicks and bludgeons her way through the prisoners, their shivering bodies piling on the walkway and in the entrances to the cells as she moves in and through the crowd, clearing a path. Behind her a group of four slowly begins with cleanup, cuffing who is on the ground and clubbing who is not yet surrendering. But they keep on coming, some of the prisoners even jumping from the walkway above down to try to stop the charging SHIELD agent.

Mend on the other side easily takes out a first circle of prisoners, beating them to the ground in their blinded and dazzled state, but quickly others take their place, trying to get the small mutant down.

Meanwhile Franklin Stone, the senior officer who should have watched over the freshlings got hit by a tray thrown at him, his head jerking to the left once, then he collapses top the ground between the other two freshlings who still stand in their desperate last hold against the horde of prisoners who try to come for them.

Whispering a few words into the communicator Robyn carries in her ear, she goes into her knees and jumps up to crash the grate under her out of its hinges, and indeed the heavy metal swings open slamming three prisoners into the wall and thus clearing Robyn's landing space on the very same walkway the guards are surrounded. A few more words she whispers, and then she has to dodge under the swings of a brute that has a huge tattoo of 'siegrunen' over his chest.

[BOP]  A Crashing sound from a metal grate hitting bodies can be heard. "Get medics here, they downed a few guards."

Police Brutality is likely what many of these prisoners will scream once they wake up but Karima could really care less. She isn't taking any pleasure from beating the crap out of these guys (okay, maybe a little!) but she is VERY effective at taking people down. The few that manage to actually strike her with a shiv of tray or some other detritus are in for RUDE surprises as their weapons break, bend, or just do NOTHING to her dark brown skin. Her SHIELD uniform, supplemented with a long coat leaves enough skin visible to make sure these white supremacists KNOW that they are getting arses kicked by a "darkie". A blindingly fast kick to the prisoner that threw the tray at Senior Officer Stone leaves him curled up on the ground holding his likely ruptured scrotum and crying quietly for his mommy to make the pain stop. Moving with a level of grace, speed, and power that is simply inhuman, Karima quickly clears a path to the young officers trying to render aid to S.O. Stone.

Mend doesn't have that kind of resistance. She does have training, though. Oh, and throwing knives, but she's saving those for right now. Instead, she's going for the most intimidating moves she can muster. These guys need to be back in their cells. Or unconscious. She's quite happy to go with unconscious, as an elbow to a jaw indicates.

"Ugh. I hate Gotham Nazis. Video feed leaves a lot to be desired but there's no mistaking that bald and badly inked profile, is there?" Rhetorical question. Humming a bit with the usual multi-tasking that brings up what remains of the Tomb's CCTV feed and monitoring equipment, the Oracle is about to run the standard operation; kill the lights, run the klaxons, otherwise turn a chaotic situation into a scarier one for nogoodniks. "Robyn, how's your night vision? I'm catching glimpses of security," Cameras fuzzy, food-splattered, a good ID of Karima is still in the works, "..some sort of riot not far from your position," Or that's what Meld's fracas is looking like, "..but I think that's self-contained for the time being. Got some backup en route, fifteen-thirty minutes away, from GCPD precincts uptown and ambulances. What's your situation?"

The two rookies look up as the shield agend storms in to the rescue. As the trying their best to keep Jesaia Stern with is cracked skull out of harms way and Mike connor with his stabbed kidney alife by keeping the nazis away from the man. At least on that path behind her the security forces can advance, pulling tying up those downed by the SHIELD agent. But still some people block her access to the five.

Mend's struggle might seem unfair, but the tight walkways make it much less dangerous to her, and much more dangerous to the guys who get caught by her elbows and knees, piling around her as she fights.

"Nightvision? Keep it in the lowest alight and I can pin you their eyeballs." Robyn remarks with a smirk as she kicks the SS-guy against his neck, forcing him to choke as he falls onto his behind, the voice most likely permanently damaged. As the Shield agent works into her way, Robyn makes a jump onto the railing, delivering a kick against another skinhead that tries to grab for her, hitting his ear with the tip of it. Collapsing he starts to bleed from the ear, but Robyn is already over the railing, grabbing for the one a story lower to redirect her fall into a yet to be cleared rioting walkway. The very same Junior Warden Alice Boyle had been carried to. "Let's get the Party Started, shall we, O?"

"Fine then, ya wankers. I was trying to be NICE!" Karima says to the remaining supremacists on the walkway between her and the downed guards. Her accent is definitely London proper so when her hands extend inhumanly on what appear to be metallic tendrils and quickly reconfigure into what appear to be cannons of some sort that begin to glow an electric-blue/white there is a bit of a disconnect as most would never assume the British to be quite so....cyborg-death-machine-like. Without hesitation, Karima unleashes twin blasts of ball-lightning-like energy into the remaining prisoners blocking her path. A sizzling ZAP SNAP sound echoes through the halls with an intensity that is honestly hard to not flinch from. The prisoners in her way though definitely get the worst of it. The sound is bad but the actual electricity locks up nervous systems with frightening speed and terrible pain as it literally overloads every nerve-ending in their bodies. This is pain that they will NEVER forget short of Telepathic Memory Wipe. Imagine sticking your tongue into an industrial-grade power socket. Now imagine your whole body was your tongue. Yeah...that MIGHT cover it. Maybe.

Mend is...not trying to be nice. She's trying to get towards where the hostages are being held (and thus where Karima is, tossing prisoners out of the way, applying shots to, oh, all the sensitive areas. When outnumbered, this girl fights *dirty*. She's picking up bruises and a cut or two, but nothing serious...yet.

"Roll on three, two," Vwoom. It's lost amidst most of the melee but even the emergency lights start going out in most places. Most, not all; plenty of patches of light still left to throw more shadow and leave more uncertainty once the alarms hit a fever pitch of pure decibel output in blatting waves which pair well with Karima's near-blinding for the conditions energy output. Oracle makes sure to leave some of the still-functional lights running around the defensive stand around the downed guard and S.O., "Some kids from the Rolling Bones gang are bunching up to your ten and eight, they may've found a field lieutenant for this. Up on the walkway where that fight's going on."

Meanwhile. One of the guards that're trying to put up a defense when Karima reaches them surreptitiously dials up the gain on his radio, with a thin little lead snaking up the collar to his ear. Nodding along to something mostly unheard too, that one - C.O. Garvey - takes the lead in keeping pressure around the mid torso wound of the bleeding guard with a careful, but not exactly all-encompassing, care for the supervisor. At least when there's a good amount of pressure applied and a bit less spluttering and bleeding, Officer Garvey looks over to Karima and raises his voice partly above the din, "Who're you with?!"

"...alright, now keep it there, and let me know if there's further pupil dilation." A bit of the other conversation Oracle's having reaches Robyn before she clears her throat, "I suggest a slight change of plan. Try and link up with security for now, clear up that brawl on the walkways. Don't you just love double-max containment?"

The prisoners Karima Zaps go down glowing like torches, illuminating the area as the lights turn off the same moment. Their painful screams make the base tune to the cacophony that gets created by Mend in her battle against the upcoming brawlers that start to pile around her as she fights.

After "frying" the nervous systems of the supremacists between herself and the guards that are down and/or wounded, Karima quickly steps in amongst them even as her "cannons" reconfigure into hands. "SHIELD, mate. Agent Shapandar." She pulls the small first aid kit from the small of her back along with several other pieces of gear from within her trench coat. One of them is a "Trauma" patch that one of the SHIELD nerds in R&D developed for field dressing of wounds. She quickly pulls the officer's hand away from the bleeding wound and slaps the patch on not so gently. A quickly relayed command through her onboard AI has the Trauma patch quickly dispensing painkillers and coagulants into the wound along with some tailored nanites to hopefully keep the man from dying before help arrives. It's not a miracle kit but it should extend his survival until proper medical care arrives. Even as she is doing that, though, AL, her onboard AI is informing her of Oracle's signal into the Officer's radio. Quickly hijacking the signal, she taps herself into the channel with Oracle. "Whomever you are, this is Agent Shapandar of SHIELD. Thanks for the help through Officer Garvey. Any other assistance you can offer? Tactical control would be nice right about now as I'm not sure how many other guards are fight effective against this riot."

And Mend appears out of a side corridor at this point, dropping another prisoner. "Thank goodness. Backup." Well, except maybe she constitutes the backup. "Do you know where the hostages are?" She looks just a little bit ragged, with a cut through her uniform into her upper arm, but *entirely* too cheerful about the fight.

As much as Mend and Karima, supported by the 'cleanup' following the SHIELD agent have success and luck, the female Rookie which had been dragged away faced a much more dire situation, two of the brutes trying to tie her to one of the beds with the ripped off arms of prison overalls.

The wounded officer groaned up in pain as his kidney-stabbing got field-dressed, just before he gor pulled away by two of the other Uniformed, grabbing him at the shoulders to pull him to safety, quickly joined by the other two wounded.

Robyn, two stories lower, grins and sends a pair of arrows into the direction Oracle told her, her position bringing the arrows into their knees, busting the kneecaps in a way which makes it inoperational forever. The glowing golden streak of Robyn's dead eye pulls through the area as the archer zooms towards one of the cameras positions, just into the direction JO Boyle had been dragged to. Retrieving one of the arrows with a jerk from the knee, coupled with the scream of the one who's leg just got ruined in a way preventing him bleeding out. "O, I think I saw some lonely Blue here. Third of fourth door?" Kicking up into the groin of another prison ganger, Robyn's Lips began to form words from a W.A.S.P. Song... 'Lost against the moonlight bathed in ecstasy'

"Hostages?" Karima exclaims as Mend appears from a side corridor. The Sentinel programming in her system identifies Mend as a mutant and advises immediate termination but again, Karima ignores that and asks again, this time through her radio connection to the still unknown person on the other end, "Do you have video and/or a location on any hostages taken by the prisoners? Are the takers armed and if so with what?" Even as she is asking questions, her body is undergoing a transformation. Her uniform is being subsumed into her "skin" even as her "skin" begins to become distictly more metallic and armor-like. Soon she doesn't look even human anymore and rather more like a human-sized robot-like being. Various protrusions are likely emitters for various weaponry and sensor systems.

"Some of the guards are down here somewhere. Missing. Possibly dead, but I suspect there's some people with half a brain left in this place." Mend isn't phazed by the other woman's transformation. Not at all. (She might be if she knew about the Sentinel programming).

"Fourth, two, aim center mass. Officer's being held down so they'll be out of your crossfire." A bit dispassionate it, part of it is that Robyn seems to be handling things well - kind of brutally but that's never been a Bat Problem overall, within reason - and the rest is that Oracle has to work with a few countermeasures, "When that's taken care of, there's on-site backup it looks like. Patching you in." Backtracing a signal cutting into hers, rather than the other way around, spoils an otherwise delightful prison riot and near-execution of several guards. No plan ever survives contact with the enemy, right? Mixing the two comlinks between Robyn and Karima, she continues with a bit more fluster. "And that answer is approaching 'zero' aside from your area, but GCPD is on the way with a riot squad, and the west and northern wings are isolated at the moment." There may/may not be an inmate kind of trapped and howling from having a security door slammed on them. Hard to tell, what with all the confusion~ "I'd suggest working on an evac route to the main intake vestibule." One of the overhead cameras whirrs a bit, but Gotham public services doesn't really pay for a good 'zoom' function, "Agent, any local back-up would be a good idea rather than waiting on riot cops."

In the almost complete darkness of after Oracle had cut most power, some green dots flame on, night vision goggles used by the incoming rescue teams from the upper floors. Then the muzzle flashes of a few shotguns illuminate the area, the cacophonia of noises getting filled by the bangs of the guns and the screams of prisoners getting hit by rubber pellets and retreating slowly. On the Level Karima and Mend are the battle seems won - for now.

Two levels lower. Another few words are formed by Robyn's lips, as she counts steps, replanting the arrow she salvaged upon her string 'The prey you're after, is you faster' Smiling almost the bow raises, the words silently vocalized going 'Will it make you smile'. The arrow goes loose after a half moment of aiming, pinning the hand of one of JO Boyle's molesters to the bed he was tying her to, then Robyn strikes her right hand forward, the handle of her bow connecting with the head of the other criminal without armlets. The vocalization of words had stopped a moment, then the voice of Robyn can be heard aloud suddenly, continuing the rhymes of the band "Ride with me, I'll set you free, Chains can't hold us down." As if a bad joke, she pulls her knife free from the belt, stabbing for something behind her and earning a grunting sound as she hit the side of someone who had tried to sneak up upon her, and then she cuts the orange bindings of Junior Warden Boyle, freeing her from her peril for a moment. On the way back to the door, Robyn pulled out a new arrow from the quiver, peering into the dark left and right of the cell. "Left or right? Which do you prefer, O?"

"Left, past the burning.." Wait a sec. A few key taps and the sprinklers kick on to that location, adding a nice layer of mist to go with the gloom and flickering light, "Past the smouldering mattress, that'll get you to a service corridor. Mostly clear. There's a vent leading up to the intake vestibule from there but unless you brought an air filter, I don't reccomend it."

"Agent, and whoever else is with you - didn't get your name, sorry, and ID's fuzzy with the eighties era crap they're using here - you should be clear for now as far as the main vestibule. GCPD's getting a little frisky ahead and to your right towards the level armory and bullpen, so steer clear unless you've got a very visible way to ID yourselves right now. Garvey," The officer looks up from rubbing the trauma patch in and making sure it stays in place. SHIELD tech or not, getting blood everywhere kind of chips at faith in technology, "Can maintain from there unless you want to provide escort. Right? Just a bit longer and at least this mess can be cleaned up."

The battle seems to be won, but Mend isn't sure where the hostages are. For right now, though, she checks on the injured, making sure nobody...even prisoners...needs vital or immediate medical attention she might have to call in here.

The Riots ebb off more and more as the mere presence of a miniature Sentinel breaks the last resistance. The Prison wardens tie up more and more of the rioteers, while Robyn half pulls, half pushes the rescued hostage towards the designated extraction point. As she eventually arrived at the point, Mend and Karima had cleared the level fully. With no more words, Robyn pointed to the SHIELD agent, so Miss Boyle would go there, then she juped towards the air vent she had came in through, shooting up the very single trick arrow she had, one which contained a long rope to climb up along. Only a grim smile was gave back to them, then she told her girl in the ear "Finished here, O... give me a lane to get out of here without cuffs clicking." With that, she pulled herself up the vent she came in through...