Earth-52 IC

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

The Question

Even two vehicles back from Walker, Kate can hear her shouting at Stephanie. She smirks as the Lieutenant revs her car and speeds after the Spoilercycle, and Kate follows suit. I'm not sure who I'm more worried for - Stephanie when Katherine gets ahold of her, or the poor bastard who broke into my warehouse. She'll be in a bad enough mood to put whoever did this in traction.

[industrious]

The Chase

((Roll opposed Drive checks; depending on who wins/loses, Katherine will catch up or Spoiler will pull ahead)).

Warehouse Interior

Whom God Helps enters the warehouse, eyes on alert for the culprit, the sinner. And in his angel's sight he sees that man, dressed in ill-fitting garb (It looks like a scarecrow, the lesser man observes), shards of glass still on him...

((Zarthrax, receive one hero point for GM fiat))

[Sophistemon]

Azrael

Infiltrating the warehouse was a simple matter, so much so that it hardly bears mentioning. Once inside, however, things became vastly more interesting when Azrael spotted the intruder skulking through the bowels of the building. The signs of his guilt were plain to see, in that the glass shards of forced entry still sparkled on the surface of the villain's garish, vaguely-threatening costume. 'Garish, vaguely-threatening costume'? Hey, who does that remind you of? The Other's thoughts whispered in the Angel's head, causing him to grit his teeth in frustration. Be silent, he responds, his own mind-voice reflecting the irritation that he felt. I'm just saying, at least mister If-I-Only-Had-A-Brain down there isn't wearing a long red cape. Azrael clutched his head in his hands and squeezed, hoping to crush the Other into submission. The Suit of Sorrows is a holy vestment! This cloak was dyed in the blessed blood of martyrs! There was a momentary silence, until: That's disgusting.

With a shriek of inhuman rage, Azrael flings himself from his perch and towards the Scarecrow, eager to pound and pummel.

Actions:

Spoiler

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1. Move Action: to leap down from above, landing within Striking range.
2. Standard Action: to attempt an unarmed melee attack (DC22): (1d20+10)[11] 24.

[DeafnotDumb]

Lieutenant Walker

The most irritating thing about this new escapede, Walker decides, is that Stephanie is staring to outpace her on the motorcycle. And doing it well. Normally she wouldn't have been able to catch her up.

But.

There had been an agreement.

There had been several very specific agreements, made to avoid problems about vigilantism, the doing of, and Walkers job, the responsibilities of, and how they clashed.

There had been even more agreements built around the innate contradiction between Stephanie's survival instinct, which apparently was there somewhere, and the pursement of a hobby where you got shot at.

Walker gets angry. Getting angry really shouldn't make you drive better. Walker doesn't care.

With a surge of speed, and a movement that apparently placed the laws of physics on hold, the police car catches up to the motorcycle and weaves alongside it, ready to move and block the way ahead.

Katherine's kept the window open for shouting time. "Kid, slow down! You are at minimum going to stop speeding or I will take your drivers license!" There was a pause as she remembered something. "Do you even have your driver's license?"

[Buwh]

Spoiler

"It's okay! I don't think this vehicle is street legal anyway!" Spoiler shouts back before deciding that probably wasn't helpful. She steals a glance over at the angry Lt. Walker and her face goes pale. She was really ticked off. Stephanie had faced plenty of big mean thugs in the dark but nothing was scarier right now than getting yelled at by Walker.

How did she get so good at driving anyway?

She'd wanted to avoid this conflict altogether or at least make it come much, much later, but she couldn't escape Katherine on a mission. Thousands of excuses ran through her head; I was bored, you left me alone, I was just going trick or treating- none of them sounding good enough for her guardian. The last thing she wanted was a dressing down about vigilantism because she just wasn't going to stop. That was out of the question.

The Spoilercycle slowed to a stop beside Walker's cruiser and the girl inside the helmet looked over as sheepishly as possible.

"Hi.. um, hi Lt. Walker, m'am. Nice night for a drive? I mean, I don't think there could be any sort of fun going on around here at all! Well, um, you know me, early to bed and stuff."

[DeafnotDumb]

Spoiler

"It's okay! I don't think this vehicle is street legal anyway!"

"...arrested...teenager...illegal...to die...Gordon and Allen...motorcycle... jump up and down on it..." Stephanie's statement doesn't seem to have aided eithers Walker's temper or her clarity. A good three-quarters of the words are lost through either her anger or stolen by the wind between car and spoilercycle. Luckily for the teenage girl, by the time the policewoman has slowed to a stop next to her she's no longer quite as angry, having gone to that transendant place of anger where everything is as cool as ice and very frosty and nobody is going to get murdered because that would end their suffering too soon.

Katherine fixes Stephanie with a glare. It's the 'Spoiler glare' the one she uses when the teenager has done something equally dissapointing on the level of - oh, say, putting on her costume and taking out a motorcycle for a fun little night of vigilantism. That would be about the level of crime she reserved that glare for.

"You," She says very slowly, "have made it clear that you will only get in more trouble if I tell you to go back home. Therefore you are staying close to me and Question and other people who can keep an eye on you. And there will be no. Stupid. Stuff. Have I made myself clear?" She glares and guns her engine, obviously unhappy at the compromise she's had to come up with.

[Buwh]

Spoiler

The young girl continued to stare down submissively, idly playing with her wrist control causing the motorcycle to move slightly like an RC car. She knew that look, it was the same way her face had looked that one time she was in the jail cell, and before that when she first saw her, and after that when she tagged along in costume, and every time after she'd.. well, every time she'd been disappointed in her. If only Walker could see what she could do, I mean, she'd learned a few things and only needed an opportunity to impress..

"I really get to come?!" She exclaimed, her whole body seeming to light up with electric happiness. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise I'll be good! You won't even know I'm there!" The extremely garishly dressed young girl responded and you could just tell she was smiling under that helmet. "Now let's go catch a bad guy!"

The engine of the Spoiler cycle guns to life seconds later and following another whoop of excitement you realize what a horrible mistake you've made.

[DeafnotDumb]

Lieutenant Walker

Swearing occurs. Lots of it. The police car starts and goes after the spoilercycle, handicaped by the smaller vehicle's head start. Whatever Walker's yelling at Stephanie, it gets lost in the wind.

If not, then the girl probably finds her vocabulary expanding with a few new interesting words.

[Zarthrax]

Scarecrow

His peering into the depths of the warehouse interrupted by a shriek of masculine rage, Doctor Crane whirls to confront someone in a garish costume of mostly primary colors diving at him from the rafters.

Never one to stand there and be hit, especially after his training, he merely shifts a half step to the right and provides said figure with a hand to assist him in his sudden assault of the concrete floor....

Spoiler

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OOC-
Standard Action- Trip Attempt, defended against with Azrael's Dexterity due to Improved Throw - (1d20+6)[13] vs a Dexterity check from Azrael or be prone.

Move Action- Activate Assessment feat. Sense Motive check result of 27 vs Azrael's Bluff to learn his attack and defense bonuses relative to mine.

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

The Question

Kate watches the interplay between Katherine and Stephanie. You made the right call, Katherine. If she's going to do this - and we both know she's as stubborn as you are when she wants to be - she needs to have supervision. I'll have to talk to her about my experiences with Rhetoric without mentioning that Rhetoric is Bette. I've already fought a few of the battles she'll be fighting. She revved the engine on her Harley and made her way to the scene of the crime, parking a block away and then taking to the rooftops to make her final approach.

[industrious]

Question, Walker, and Spoiler

You enter through the skylight to find two individuals locked in combat. The first, Walker and the Question recognize as the Crusader, apparently recovered from his fall four days ago. The other individual appears to be dressed in some sort of creepy scarecrow costume.

Spoiler

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Zarthrax, if you could describe your Scarecrow costume/post a picture of it in your next post, it would be appreciated.

[DeafnotDumb]

Lieutenant Walker

When did two gaudy freaks fighting one another become a normal sight for Katherine? She didn't know, but she was going to hunt down the one resposible and make them eat their own ashes. Somehow.

One was that guy from back at the ball, who really should not be out of prision considering that he had been sent to the Slammer and not the cardboard box of Arkham. The other...

...the other had really bad taste in clothes. That was all she was going to say.

"Right." Walker says, with the calmness of a volcano just before erruption. It carries across the room. "You and you are under arrest for breaking and entry." She walks slowly towards the two, hand on her swordstick. "Do either of you want to resist arrest? And, oh please, do say yes."

[Zarthrax]

Scarecrow

At the noise from behind him, Scarecrow turns his head and curses under his breath. Deciding on the exactly the right thing to say is tough in a situation like this, and a keen intellect is required so as not to make things much worse.

"Don't be stupid, of course I plan to resist."

DAMN IT! Damn in-flight Disney movie got stuck in my head! Damn Porthos!

Even as his poor decision making kicks in, Scarecrow still manages to look around, trying to identify where the first intruder went and barring that, an escape route....

Spoiler

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Auto roll of 27 on my Notice check

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

The Question

Kate emerges from the shadows, casually strolling towards the two men locked in combat. "You really should rethink that response, Oz. You're making Walker angry. And you wouldn't like what she becomes when she gets angry. Go along peacefully, and all she'll probably do is curse at you. If you've got a brain between the pair of you, you'll surrender and tell us why you've racked up B&E, trespassing and probably some C&C nightmares."

All the while, she kept her focus on the caped Crusader. He'd broken into her home already. That made it personal.

[Zarthrax]

Scarecrow

The reject from a LARP of the Wizard of Oz chuckles at that response.

"Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, The Three Stooges, Gotham cops. All of them have something in common, and it's glaringly obvious.

After all, if they weren't a joke, we all wouldn't be standing here in masks, doing what they won't."

Without taking his eyes off the threat, he offers Walker a short bow.

"No disrespect intended, Officer. My general experience with the police in this town is that they come in two flavors, incompetent and bent so far they can see their own asscracks. Of course, that might have changed in the past few years."

He then shrugs.

"Then again, this is Gotham."

Glancing at the woman with no face, he tilts his head quizzically.

"Points for the references by all means, but I was chasing someone else who broke in, and this guy..." -head jerk towards Azrael- "... comes diving at me out of the rafters screaming like I just shot Old Yeller in front of him. Apparently, he's the backup for whoever broke in here. Process of elimination, considering only our friend here is wearing anywhere close to the level of red the other one was, dictates that he's employed as a distraction. And succeeding admirably at that."

[Sophistemon]

Azrael

After taking a moment to come to grips with having been momentarily out-maneuvered, the Angel stands from his crouching position on the floor, where he'd found himself following the Scarecrow's surprisingly agile dodge. Upon being blamed for the initial break-in, Azrael thrusts a leather-gloved finger underneath the chin of his burlap-masked accuser. "Liar!," he hisses. "I entered through the skylight and saw you sneaking around, with window-glass still stuck to your clothes!" He turns, then, to the Gotham City Police officer, Walker, for whom the Warden has a great deal of respect, for whatever reason. "This man is our culprit, and if you hadn't interfered, I'd have settled this by now!" Hold on, thinks the Other. Did he say 'red'? There is a second of dawning comprehension, wherein Azrael's eyes widen behind his mask before he whirls back around to continue accosting the Scarecrow. "You did say 'red!' What do you know about the Demon? Where can I find it?" He raises his hands, fingers curled, as though to grab the Scarecrow and shake him.

[Buwh]

Spoiler

"Hey! Haven't you knuckleheads figured out your brawl is over yet?" Spoiler shouts, the last to exit the shadows, coming up to stand beside Kate. She was nice, and if Walker was still mad she wanted to give her a wide berth. Maybe she'd forget!

Stephanie took a tentative glance over at her guardian. She seemed pretty angry, and more than just because vigilantes were once again taking the law into their own hands, what were they thinking? Only trained professionals should be..

She suddenly felt a little sheepish. Walker probably wouldn't forget.

"Spoilers, you're busted!" She continued, letting a 'rang quickly pop out of her wrist and into her hand fluidly. "Stand where you are and let the proper authorities.. uh.. and me handle this..." Spoiler finished speaking, less confident than when she started.

[DeafnotDumb]

Lieutenant Walker

They all came here. Why did they all come here?

Walker resists the urge to hang her head in her hands as Stephanie verbally shoots herself in the foot. She does, however, take advantage of the new uncertainty in the girl's voice to educate her on something of a common occurance in Gotham and hopefully let it discourage her from her current suicidal path.

"Now this is what we at the MCU call a FFU, or a Freak-****-Up. It's what happens when two gaudy gimps in costumes see each other and start fighting rather than doing what they came here for." Using the same tone as Kima had done when she'd been a rookie, she points out both of the costumed intruders with her stick. "Now this scarecrow guy is a fresh. New, I mean. You can tell because of two things: one, he insulted the Gotham PD in front of me, which most people only do if they're looking for a suicide, and secondly he made the uniquely stupid mistake of breaking in to investigate a breaking-in." She lets that one stand for itself. "And this one is a Fundie, one of the fanatics, if the 'Demon' and the sword is to go by. Those never wait before jumping into a fight and muck up everything they do when they can't wait. You often see them in FFUs."

She crosses her arms and introduces the two to the standard Walker Glare, to start them off easy. "Both of you have broken the law in delightfully different ways by being here, but I will be inclined to go easy on you if you help me find who actually caused this and you sit down with a nice talk with Auntie Walker afterwards. Since you two are the current prime suspects, I suggest you help me, 'cause if you don't I will be taking the obvoius stance that You Did It."

She sends a side look at Kate after she finishes. "You would not believe how many of these I've had to do over the years." She complains. "I've got a mental checklist by now."

[industrious]

The Warehouse

It's roughly at this point that the unconscious guard in the warehouse moans and stirs briefly. Apparently, he isn't dead.

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

The Question

"You've said it before, Lieutenant," Kate said, circling towards the security guard. "Gotham is freak central."

Kate kneels down next to the fallen man, checking his injuries. "Don't try to sit up. What happened here?"

Spoiler

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Not you, Steph!

Medicine check to check the guy out. It's untrained, but hey, I'm not doing surgery here. (1d20+2)[3]

Edit: Ack! I might have killed him!

[industrious]

Security Guard

As the guard tries to get up, Kate gently pushes him back down, knowing that he'd be worse off if he rose too quickly.

*Clang*

...well, she was aiming for gently, anyway.

And now his eyes were unfocused.

"...he had a really nice ass, too! Not that I'm gay or anything. You hear me! I ain't! I ain't!"

Anyone with more than 5 ranks in Medicine:

Spoiler

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He's got a concussion. Good luck getting anything useful out of him.

[Zarthrax]

Scarecrow

Crane sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose through his mask for a long moment, counting to 10 before he responds.

Finally, he drops his hand and points at the interloping trio.

"Okay, one? Kinda busy here right now. Two? Little thing called a citizen's arrest, which gives me, you, you, and you" -pointing to Spoiler, Question, and Azrael- "flimsy but actionable excuses for being here. The rest of it is more than balanced out by that whole 'bent and incompetent' thing."

Just about then is when the security guard comments on the ass of the intruder.

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that, pal."

Jerking a thumb at the guy, he turns to the rest of the party.

"Yeeeeaaaaahhhh, he's got a concussion. And as much fun as this whole 'FFU' " -air quote fingers- "thing is, I'm gonna go get the guy who broke in here. So you responsible people sit here and make sure he doesn't fall asleep, and I'll go do YOUR job." -points at Walker- "Should be a familiar feeling, after all. Nice and cozy, like a blanket and a box of doughnuts!"

Spoiler

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OOC: Gotta love Skill Mastery on all your skills....lol

[Sophistemon]

Azrael

There had been a lot of wasteful talking - too much, if you asked him. There was still business to be settled here, before he could move on to other matters. Whether or not the ragged man was their culprit was now completely inconsequential; what did matter was that he knew about the Demon, and it was information that Azrael needed to have. That he had been so ignobly humbled during his confrontation at the ball, cast down from on high to land with a broken heap among mortals, and then so blasphemously stripped of his purpose... He needed to find the Demon. He needed to find the Demon and make it pay for what it had set into motion, for what it had caused to happen to him. Everything else could wait. The Angel turns around and puts his left hand on the Scarecrow's chest, flexing his fingers into the fabric. "You're not going anywhere," he says. "Not until you tell me what you know about the Demon in Red." His voice is laced with menace, and his eyes stare coldly white.

[Zarthrax]

Scarecrow looks over at the rest of the group, with an "is this guy ****ing kidding me" air.

"He broke in the building. There ya go, Slowbro. Nice chatting with ya."

He ducks around the guy and starts to head deeper into the warehouse....

[DeafnotDumb]

Lieutenant Walker

"I doubt a ciziten's arrest gives you leave to break the goddamn law." Walker snaps back at the scarecrow, her anger rising from its standard level to a steady simmer. Although she hadn't liked her picture being splashed over the papers whenever the GCPD decided it politically useful, it had stopped people questioning her willingness to do her job. She'd forgotten how goddamn irritating it could be.

...And now he'd gone off by himself. Had they never heard of investigating the scene? Well, now she had to move.

"Kid, keep an eye on the guard. If there's any trouble, take him and run." She turns to the other freak, the crazy angry one. And you are coming with me. You want to catch this guy or not?"

Kate could do her thing. She knew how this business worked. With one glance back to check she was okay, the policewoman went forwards to the trouble.

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

The Question

Kate makes way for Steph to help the man, thankful that her mask helped hide the flush of embarrassment on her pale skin. "Make sure his head is elevated. I'm going to scout around and check out the scarecrow's story. If someone broke in, then there should be evidence of that. If you need backup, just holler."

With that, Kate started examining the scene. The pair's story both mentioned chasing after a third party, so there had be evidence of that third party's passing. If the scarecrow entered the same way as the initial break-in, that would be where to start.

Spoiler

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Investigate: (1d20+18)[22]

[Buwh]

Spoiler

"Right! I'll guard the door in case someone comes this way.. no one is gonna get by me, m'am!" Spoiler replied cheerfully, half-turning to attend to the guard before turning back and adding in, "For a cue about when it's time to run, of course, Lt. Walker!" Stephanie Brown finished with an impish giggle.

The Spoiler watched the Scarecrow continue to walk away, and then moved her gaze to the angel. "What a weird two things to be fighting." The girl said in a slightly below conversational voice over to the Question once she too was beside the guard. "They really went all out with themes and gadgets.. whatever happened to just tossing on some armor and fighting crime?" She continued at the odd pair's expense, as the Question left her with the downed man.

She snapped in the downed guard's face to hopefully startle him awake.

The Spoiler hoped both of them would be okay, it would totally suck for one of those guys in mask to be evil.. like you'd typically expect from a guy in a mask. It really worried her. There were only a few people allowed to be around Walker in a mask and not be arrested, and they had earned that right! Sort of.

The girl gave an exaggerated sigh and lifted the guard's head. Being left behind was so not fair.

[industrious]

The Question

The glass has been shattered too much for just one person to have gone through; it seems like the Scarecrow is telling the truth.

And further investigation only confirms that. Creepily.

A few hundred feet down, at the end of one of the rows of shelves lies an empty wooden crate, broken open, with a crowbar at its foot. The black stamp on its surface reads Hamilton Rifle Company. Product Number 5252. Prototype Sniper Rifle.

Far more worrying, though was the message written in large black block letters, and nailed to the wall.

I WILL HAVE VENGEANCE.

Spoiler

Guard duty was boring, especially when guarding a guard.

But then, off in the distance, Steph thinks she can see something moving across the rooftops.

It looks like something red.

[Buwh]

Spoiler

The girl in the high-tech battle suit laughed to herself lightly while babysitting the guard. The PJs, Ponies, and Ice-cream Walker was different from 'On Duty' Walker, who was no nonsense. She was a professional. Still, it was incredibly funny to see her let her guard down. Spoiler idly wondered to herself if she could have that split. The guard distracted her with some sort of barely audible groan.

"Hey, are you faking?" Spoiler inquired, giving him a rough poke in the side, but he didn't seem to budge. With a purely scientific mindset she poked him a second time just to make sure, and definitely not out of frustration at being left behind. "Some guard.. asleep at the job." She mumbled, feeling dejected that no one was around to hear her jokes. How boring! Steph could have stayed home and had a better time than this.

Lazily, she lolled her head to the side which caused her to barely notice a red figure.. travelling by the rooftops? Only two kinds of people traveled by rooftop; her kind of people, and escaping criminals. With one glance down at the cop, and one long forlorn look after Question and Walker, she figures she had to do something..

Of course, that something could be yelling for Walker..

Feeling anxious about catching up the mysterious figure, Spoiler figures that the guard will be alright where he is. I mean, he was already unconscious.. what's the worst that could happen to him? This was her chance to prove herself. She could not mess this up.

The purple vigilante sprints out of the warehouse at top speed a moment later before clinging herself to the wall and climbing up it with a determined spirit.

[Bruendor_Cavescout]

The Question

WONDERFUL, Kate thought. Someone breaks into my warehouse, and steals a rifle. This won't end well. She grabbed the paper and tore it from the wall, folding it and slipping it into a pocket in her trenchcoat.

Things just got a lot more dangerous in the warehouse. There'd been signs of entry, but no signs of exit. The thief might still be in the warehouse - and Spoiler was by herself. Kate quickly slipped through the darkened pallets until she found herself back where the three of them had met the scarecrow and the caped Crusader. The guard was still there; Steph, however, was not.

She cursed silently, and started looking around for where the purple-clad teenager could have gone - she needed to have backup before she ran into whoever instigated the break-in, assuming they were still in the warehouse.

Spoiler

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I'm guessing Investigate would be the best way to find out which way Steph went? If not, feel free to use my d20 roll for whatever skill would be right.

(1d20)[9]