Baltimore: an abandoned warehouse, only an hour or so later
[ Continued from here!]
The spell Tony worked brought the five of them to a dilapidated three-story warehouse up against the water, in an abandoned part of town. The yard around the building had several snarling Dobermans in it past an electrified chain-link fence. Keep Out, said the sign on the fence. Property Condemned. If anyone cared to look, they'd see red lights burning through the knocked-out windows, sharp and slender. And crushed glass littered around the one garage door that seemed to be the only way in.
Raven Raven didn't waste any time clearing the way. She teleported to the other side of the fence and into the midst of the dogs before anyone could stop her. Their aggression wasn't like the gremlins; it was not born of malevolence but of hunger and mistreatment. It would be difficult to swallow, she knew, but it would not overwhelm her.
The dogs snarled and lunged for her when she reappeared on their side of the fence, but she was already reaching out with her powers, drawing their aggression and pain into herself, and replacing it with warmth and affection. "Let us be friends," she said, holding out her hand to one. It sniffed at her hand then licked at it, desire to hurt gone.
There were more dogs inside, and she began to extend her powers to those as well.
Priestly Priestly took a long look at the warehouse before taking a small step back and looking down at his phone.
"Looks like Jen's trying to hook me up to a CCTV feed. I'll hang out here as home base?"
There was an app for that. Who knew?
Tony "Good doggies," Tony said, eyeing the dogs nervously. "Okay," he said to the others. "I can do a Notice Me Not spell on anyone who wants it. It distracts anyone who tries to find you, so you can't be noticed. Thus the name." 'Thus'? Was the wizard thing getting to him or what? "It usually goes okay, but it might make it hard for us to work together."
Blossom This wasn't a patrol, looking for punk crooks to hold back until police could arrive, no. Blossom was back in her element: leading a team, about to go after a monster and save the citizen! Okay, so the monster was technically a human, and the citizen was her partner, Dinah, and her team was a group of people she'd never worked with before. But that just made this so totally episode 62 of Miracle Ace!
"Right." She looked at Tony. "How many people can you do that for and for how long will it last? We could totally use it in the fight, since she's so fast, but it might be a better defense for you guys." It was still a big worry for her.
Priestly "You can probably skip doing me," Priestly offered. He was still looking down at his phone, thankful that Jen had talked him into getting one of the mega-crazy smart phone things.
And to think, he'd said he'd never use it. . . .
"I'm getting the feed now. If I'm out here, she won't need to not notice me, right? I can probably set up a conference call between people's phones -- don't suppose you guys have ear pieces?"
Blossom Blossom shook her head, lifting her power compact from her belt to open it and show it to him. "No ear piece for me, but I can put mine on speaker?" She rattled off her number to Priestly, then, "So, you can see inside the building now? What's it look like?"
She was tempted to just do it the old-fashioned way and bust through a wall, but she worried that might mean something bad would happen to Dinah or the others. Especially since they weren't Powerpuff Girls fighters.
Priestly It took just a little bit of poking about before he managed to call Blossom's . . . round phone thing to set up the first part of the conference call.
"I've got blue prints and CCTV, thanks to Jen. Still working out how to swap back and forth between them, and the picture's not that good, but yeah, I can see inside." He tapped at the phone a bit.
"Holy fuck."
He just spotted Dinah's . . . predicament.
Roy Well, that didn't sound good. "Holy fuck, what?" Roy asked, trying to get a look at the screen. "What's the setup?" Vat of acid, whirling chainsaws, guy dressed like a clown, what?
Priestly Priestly looked up, eyes still wide, and turned the phone around to show the group. Dinah, teensy tiny on the screen, dangling in midair well above where the floor should be, with all sorts of blinky things about.
"Dude, this woman has issues."
Raven When Raven was certain the dogs were suitably calmed and would be no danger to them, she returned to the others. Peering over Priestly's shoulder at the screen and the scene inside, she offered, "I can teleport us all in. Just tell me where you wish us to go."
Blossom Blossom peered at the screen, not really sure what she was seeing, but not too surprised to see an elaborate set-up happening.
"That's Dinah hanging, right? Can we zoom in or anything? I mean, to see what's holding her up? Ah! And what are those blinking lights?" She was still looking for Shiva in the image.
Priestly "Uh." Priestly shook his head. "No. We can get to the feed, but we're stuck with whatever the cameras already inside are set up to do. No zoom, no re-aiming, just swapping between cameras."
Roy "Those are motion detectors," Roy said. "Door's probably rigged, too, so teleporting and avoiding it would be--good, it would be good." Roy studied the video, wished for a bigger screen, and said, "Okay, I can't see the beams, obviously, so this is the next thing over to pure guesswork, but that might be a blind spot, there." He pointed, still wishing for a bigger screen. He would deal with any and all "how do you know this crap?" type questions later.
Tony "I think I can make those more visible," Tony said. He pulled his laptop from the case slung over his shoulder, typed a query into the search engine and scrolled quickly through the results. Keeping his left arm around the open laptop, he snuck up to the door, held his hand against the crack underneath and whispered the spell.
He closed the laptop and snuck back to the group, unaware of the tendrils of smoke trailing from his ears. "Does that help?" he asked.
Roy Roy looked up from the display, blinked, and said, "Yeah, but if you're cooking your brain you should probably stop, 'mano. Okay. Yeah. That spot's good."
Tony "Cooking my -" Tony caught a glimpse of the smoke he was trailing. "Oh. Uh. That'll wear off in a moment. Probably." Tony went on. "I can put the Notice-Me-Not on whoever wants it. It doesn't take much power. It'll last as long as we need it, unless you start using a megaphone or something where you can't not be noticed. Actually, uh, sometimes it's hard to turn off."
Roy Roy was not, generally speaking, used to having magic used on him, and that sounded kind of ominous, what with the 'hard to turn off' and all, so, "I'll pass. I can sneak on my own." In a navy blue hoodie instead of the usual bright red and yellow kid Robin Hood get-up, it should be a cakewalk.
Blossom Blossom raised her hand, totally not worrying about the after-effects. That was for later. "Then I'll totally take it. Any advantage I can get will be great!"
Raven Raven shook her head. "I do not wish to be be-spelled," she said. "If I am needed for healing, people need to be able to find me easily."
Tony Once they'd finished discussing strategy, Tony grabbed the zipper tab on his fly. "The spell needs a metal ground," he explained. He focused his power and spoke the spell from memory. He looked at Momoko and - oh, hey Priestly's phone was doing something cool. He tried again - look, Raven had a red jewel on her face. "I think it worked," he said.
Shiva Shiva had just put the finishing touches onto the set-up: Dinah suspended 15 feet above the floor, a network of unseen lazers linked to the detonators on the walls, a gun on her hip, and a whip in hand. She stood on the loft ledge, watching the front door, and began to dial Barbara in New Gotham.
Strange... the dogs weren't barking any more.
Raven That was because immediately upon teleporting herself and the others into the warehouse, Raven had continued to use her powers as she had outside, soothing the dogs with her gifts, removing their aggression and replacing it with affection. She knew the others would do what they had to to save Dinah, but she would use her gifts to remove as much potential for harm as she could.
Blossom As soon as Raven had them inside, Blossom took off fast in the direction Priestly's phone had shown. She had her part to do and was trusting that the others could do theirs.
She was, of course, totally going to be keeping an eye out, but her primary goal was up a flight and straight ahead.
And thanks to Tony's spell, her goal was about to get an invisible punch in the stomach.
Shiva Said goal doubled over, gasping, then lashed out, fast, in the direction of the air movement, one boot going high and hard toward a target she couldn't quite bring into focus.
Blossom Whoa! Blossom had set herself in the air a short distance away after that punch so that she could get out her yo-yo (stupid stupid! She should totally have had it out all along!) and was surprised to find that boot coming so close.
She stopped hovering, dropping out of range of that kick at least, and reaching into her pocket. She started her yo-yo spinning to gain momentum. "Close, but not quite," she whispered, then threw the yo-yo at the villain's... Shiva's pivot leg, hoping to lasso it and pull her down.
Shiva Shiva was already diving away, and had drawn her gun, and then thrown a spray of ninja throwing stars; high, low, middle. And bang! toward the blur, and yes, there might be a ricochet in a metal building, but who cared; the plan was going to hell, and she'd be damned if they'd all get out of this unhurt.
Blossom Blossom had managed to dodge the throwing stars but, out of worry for her teammates below, took the time to knock them out of the air and into the walls. The bullet she couldn't stop but of course it had to ricochet off something and nick her arm before breaking through a window.
"Tsch!" She sucked air through her teeth. She wasn't going to yell and break what little advantage she had from Tony's spell. As she moved to get back to level with the platform, she tripped a motion sensor. The explosion of shrapnel at her back didn't penetrate her costume, but it did push her across the area towards Shiva faster than she'd expected.
Shiva Not to mention it gave Shiva another easy target to aim for; while Momoko was still blurry, the fire and shrapnel around her weren't. More throwing stars, meant to keep her back, while Shiva peered over the edge of the loft, mouth thinning into a line as she saw other figures below. Not Barbara and Helena.
This was not the plan.
Blossom Blossom's unexpected and forced momentum meant her reflexes were off, and by the time she'd kicked in enough speed to make her own flight plan, two of the throwing stars had gotten close enough to snag both her and her jacket.
Unhappy at having her flying messed with, Blossom tossed her yo-yo at Shiva's feet, this time aiming for the ground, hoping to drive the woman to the wall and maybe pin her there long enough for the others to get Dinah and themselves out!
Shiva Shiva had to reload, so she fell back, frantically jamming bullets into the gun.
Raven ...at which point, Raven teleported up to the loft behind her. The rage she felt from Shiva sickened her, but it was something she could deal with as opposed to the bullets. "Your sister's death is festering within you," she said quietly. "Let me take that pain away." She didn't wait for permission; she reached out with her powers, trying to take Shiva's aggression and desire for revenge from her.
Shiva Shiva whirled, mouth tightening into a rictus, and felt herself becoming calmer, more focused, as her anger left her--
and her grief rushed back in, grief and guilt, it was her fault as well as Batgirl's, her fault Patricia had been there that night, her fault she'd died in the gas explosion, Batgirl's and hers, and for one moment, she felt the urge to turn the gun on herself....
Then she realized that this little girl was doing this; manipulating her, trying to tame her.
Raven Raven pulled at that grief and guilt as well. It wasn't something she could do instantly or else it would overwhelm her entirely, so she had to do so slowly. But she wasn't about to let Shiva's grief cause her to harm herself, either. "Let me help you," she said, reaching out a hand to Shiva.
Shiva Shiva reached for her hand-- and pulled her closer, head-butting the girl hard, then following up with a backhanded slap of rage. "I can help myself!"
Raven Raven cried out and fell backwards. Unfortunately, backwards at the moment was an area where there was no floor to stop her fall, and so she fell from the loft, plummeting to the floor below.
Blossom Out of the corner of her eye, Blossom caught sight of Raven falling. She pushed a bit more speed into her flight and rushed across to catch her with a swoomp.
"Hey!" She smiled brightly at the girl in her arms. "Nice try! Now let's get you back to the ground in a safer way!"
Raven "Thank you," Raven said, catching her breath as she looked back up toward where Shiva stood. "I wish I could have done more, but her anger...it is very strong."
Blossom "That's usually the kind that I end up fighting the most, the ones that become the monsters." Blossom nodded as she flew Raven back to a relatively safer spot. "The bad stuff just gets in too deep. But any that you got out will totally make her weaker, so that's a job well done! Thanks!"
Dinah Dinah was dangling in the chair. She'd been there over an hour when the attack started, and her head was pounding with the effort of keeping herself levitated high enough not to strangle on the rope. The remnants of the gas in her lungs probably wasn't helping.
She tried to focus on what the guys were doing down below, lost her concentration when Raven went falling off the loft and nearly choked again, then got her concentration back.
But it was getting difficult. Really, really difficult.
Roy Right, the hell with this. "Catch her," Roy said. Then he trusted that someone would have heard and have the sense to listen and drew and nocked an arrow. In place of an arrowhead it had a small cylinder with a pointy end. He drew, lined up his shot, and fired in one smooth motion, and the arrow sailed through the air, stuck in the rope, and exploded.
Dinah Dinah ducked her head, choking again for a second, breath catching-- then she was falling, falling, oh god she could breathe but her TK was just about exhausted, her head was pounding, she could barely slow her descent....
Priestly "Motherf--" Priestly had been waiting by one of the doors just in case he was needed. He barely had time to consciously register the sight of Dinah falling before he was slamming straight through said door and running full tilt straight at the spot he figured she'd be landing.
Look, sandwiches aside, the one thing he was really good at? Running and catching.
Tony Tony lifted his hand and called Dinah to himself, just before realizing that she and the chair would be slamming into him. And... not stopping, even if he could, because a few bruises were well worth saving Dinah.
Priestly . . . Wait, now where was she -- oh crap.
Priestly did his best to speed up as he redirected, also at Tony. No time or breath to try and let Tony know he was there, he just had to make sure he was in the right spot to help catch her.
Dinah Dinah gulped and slammed her eyes shut as she was jerked sideways, knowing this was going to hurt. A lot.
Priestly Priestly skidded into place next to Tony, arms out. "Need a hand?"
Ha! See? He was totally clever.
Tony "Please!" Tony took a quick sidestep. If he caught one side of the Dinah-chair combo and Priestly caught the other side... well, there'd probably still be a lot of bruising, but hopefully nothing permanent.
Dinah No brakes, bad angle, no control--- Dinah's chair with Dinah in it arrowed toward both guys, knocking them back, and then tilted sideways as she opened her eyes, first one, then the other.
She gulped, then laughed a little hysterically. "Nice. Save."
Priestly Priestly raised an eyebrow from where he was now sprawled on the floor. "Yeah, but we're gonna get killed by the Russian judge."
Tony "The Russian judge can suck it," Tony said, starting to untie her. "We won a Dinah for this one."
Dinah More giggling from their 'prize', and as soon as Dinah's arms were free, although not her legs, she was trying to hug both of them at once. "Thank you thank you thank you so much-- God, she's crazy, we should stop her, but I don't know if we can right now...."
Roy Roy didn't pause to check whether anyone was actually catching Dinah or not, because those things on the walls would be fragmentation mines, and they needed to be disabled before someone got blown up. Shooting the right spot would do the trick quite nicely, so he nocked a new arrow up.
Shiva "No!" Shiva saw the rope explode, Dinah falling, and furiously started throwing stars through the warehouse to set off the mines-- then realized they were being disarmed, and changed her aim toward the archer. "You're not leaving here with her!"
Roy Roy dodged as best he could, but even with the slight wildness of trajectory due to the conditions in the warehouse, multiple incoming missiles were a problem. One grazed his cheek, and another sliced through his hoodie and the skin of his upper arm. Whatever, it was a flesh wound. He didn't respond so much with words as a flurry of arrows at his best guess at Shiva's position. His best guess as far as aim was usually pretty good, but: ninja.
Shiva With a scream of rage, Shiva threw herself to the side, firing her gun now, berserk with frustration, hoping to take down the flying girl, the archer, that stupid meta trying to help her. She aimed for the mines on the walls, hoping to catch the rescuers in a crossfire of exploding shrapnel.
Roy Roy had already redirected his attention to the mines, though, and while he couldn't beat bullets, he was the second best archer in his world, and, well, Speedy was still kind of a stupid name, but there was a reason it had been his. He was disarming those mines as quickly as he was able, and very thankful indeed that the cut was on his primary aiming arm, instead of his drawing arm.
Shiva "Who are you people?" Shiva shouted, turning back to throw stars at the archer. "Where the hell did Helena find you so quickly?"
Roy
Roy took a dive in the name of not being full of holes, rolled to his feet, and aimed an arrow in the direction the throwing stars had come from. "Hell if I know, I just met half these people, and I don't know any Helenas," he said, adjusted his aim, and fired.
Shiva "Ow!" Shiva snarled and threw another star, then reloaded her gun.
Another detonation device beeped that it was disarmed, and through the encroaching smoke, Shiva could see that enough of the detonators and motion-sensors were disarmed to have neutralized them as a threat.
"... none of you are leaving here. None of you."
Dinah Still shaky and exhausted, leaning heavily on Tony and Priestly, Dinah turned at Shiva's last threat, and saw her aiming a gun at Roy.
She screamed.
And couldn't stop.
The pounding in her head had moved into her ribcage and throat, roaring like a tsunami, high-pitched, shrill, unceasing, and LOUD.
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee---"
Raven Raven's healer instincts had her wanting to go to Roy and Dinah, but she knew she couldn't get in the way, and Roy's injury didn't seem to be hampering him. She had to cover her ears when Dinah began to scream. The dogs started to howl, so she sent them a burst of calm, then released her Soul-Self to envelop them into herself so they wouldn't be hit by Shiva's bullets.
Priestly Priestly had his hands full helping Tony with Dinah, and no way was he dropping her. But holy crap that was loud. And freaky. And since when could she do something like that?
Questions for later. For now he was mostly stuck on holy crap!
Roy Oh, she could do the Canary Cry after all. He hadn't been sure. This registered distantly, because mostly Roy was thinking, GOD that's still loud. He clapped his hands over his ears and hoped she ran out of air soon, because, yeah, he liked his eardrums intact, thanks.
Blossom Blossom had her own ears covered within seconds, utterly glad she didn't have superhearing and not at all sure what was going on. Had Dinah's screams always been that loud?
Tony Holy crap, that was loud! Tony didn't have any hands free to cover his ears, so he just winced and closed his eyes for a moment.
... because that would help with the noise, yes.
Shiva The noise which was shaking the rafters of the warehouse. Buckling the metal at the back of the building.
And throwing Shiva backward thirty feet, and through the window behind her with a sharp splintering of glass.
"No---!"
And then the ledge came down. And the rest of the building began to shake even harder, as Dinah continued to scream.
Priestly Priestly's eyes felt a bit like they'd be permanently bugged out of his head at the moment. Which was a step up from how his ears felt.
"Uh." He clapped one hand over Dinah's mouth and hoped she wouldn't, like, blow said hand off. "GUYS, I THINK IT'S TIME TO GO NOW!"
Yeah, he yelled that really loud. Not that he could really tell at the moment.
Dinah Dinah's air was cut off for a second-- and in that second, exhaustion caught up with her, and she completely passed out.
The building was still shaking ominously, with one wall listing very badly back toward the water behind it.
Raven And that would be when Raven decided they need to get out of there immediately. She swept up the others up with her Soul-Self, taking them into the interdimensional space that resided inside her. Instinct was to return to Fandom, and she did not resist, taking them all almost instantaneously from the collapsing warehouse and back to the island. Black smoke billowed about her as she reappeared in Tony's room and released those who were inside her. The smoke quickly disappeared, leaving Dinah and her rescuers...and several confused but docile Dobermen.
...? The building collapsed within ten minutes of their exit from the scene.
Bubbles rose from the water for a few minutes... then stopped.
...and maybe a dark figure surfaced very far downstream. And maybe it didn't.
[Preplayed with and great thanks to: lovemykilt, wantstodirect, exspeedydotcom, heromaniac, and trigons_child. And a round of applause for those stalked earlier in the week: bau_beefcake, thatsamilkshake, nodaintyflower, and bitten_notshy.
NFI, NFB due to distance, OOC = yay!]
The spell Tony worked brought the five of them to a dilapidated three-story warehouse up against the water, in an abandoned part of town. The yard around the building had several snarling Dobermans in it past an electrified chain-link fence. Keep Out, said the sign on the fence. Property Condemned. If anyone cared to look, they'd see red lights burning through the knocked-out windows, sharp and slender. And crushed glass littered around the one garage door that seemed to be the only way in.
Raven Raven didn't waste any time clearing the way. She teleported to the other side of the fence and into the midst of the dogs before anyone could stop her. Their aggression wasn't like the gremlins; it was not born of malevolence but of hunger and mistreatment. It would be difficult to swallow, she knew, but it would not overwhelm her.
The dogs snarled and lunged for her when she reappeared on their side of the fence, but she was already reaching out with her powers, drawing their aggression and pain into herself, and replacing it with warmth and affection. "Let us be friends," she said, holding out her hand to one. It sniffed at her hand then licked at it, desire to hurt gone.
There were more dogs inside, and she began to extend her powers to those as well.
Priestly Priestly took a long look at the warehouse before taking a small step back and looking down at his phone.
"Looks like Jen's trying to hook me up to a CCTV feed. I'll hang out here as home base?"
There was an app for that. Who knew?
Tony "Good doggies," Tony said, eyeing the dogs nervously. "Okay," he said to the others. "I can do a Notice Me Not spell on anyone who wants it. It distracts anyone who tries to find you, so you can't be noticed. Thus the name." 'Thus'? Was the wizard thing getting to him or what? "It usually goes okay, but it might make it hard for us to work together."
Blossom This wasn't a patrol, looking for punk crooks to hold back until police could arrive, no. Blossom was back in her element: leading a team, about to go after a monster and save the citizen! Okay, so the monster was technically a human, and the citizen was her partner, Dinah, and her team was a group of people she'd never worked with before. But that just made this so totally episode 62 of Miracle Ace!
"Right." She looked at Tony. "How many people can you do that for and for how long will it last? We could totally use it in the fight, since she's so fast, but it might be a better defense for you guys." It was still a big worry for her.
Priestly "You can probably skip doing me," Priestly offered. He was still looking down at his phone, thankful that Jen had talked him into getting one of the mega-crazy smart phone things.
And to think, he'd said he'd never use it. . . .
"I'm getting the feed now. If I'm out here, she won't need to not notice me, right? I can probably set up a conference call between people's phones -- don't suppose you guys have ear pieces?"
Blossom Blossom shook her head, lifting her power compact from her belt to open it and show it to him. "No ear piece for me, but I can put mine on speaker?" She rattled off her number to Priestly, then, "So, you can see inside the building now? What's it look like?"
She was tempted to just do it the old-fashioned way and bust through a wall, but she worried that might mean something bad would happen to Dinah or the others. Especially since they weren't Powerpuff Girls fighters.
Priestly It took just a little bit of poking about before he managed to call Blossom's . . . round phone thing to set up the first part of the conference call.
"I've got blue prints and CCTV, thanks to Jen. Still working out how to swap back and forth between them, and the picture's not that good, but yeah, I can see inside." He tapped at the phone a bit.
"Holy fuck."
He just spotted Dinah's . . . predicament.
Roy Well, that didn't sound good. "Holy fuck, what?" Roy asked, trying to get a look at the screen. "What's the setup?" Vat of acid, whirling chainsaws, guy dressed like a clown, what?
Priestly Priestly looked up, eyes still wide, and turned the phone around to show the group. Dinah, teensy tiny on the screen, dangling in midair well above where the floor should be, with all sorts of blinky things about.
"Dude, this woman has issues."
Raven When Raven was certain the dogs were suitably calmed and would be no danger to them, she returned to the others. Peering over Priestly's shoulder at the screen and the scene inside, she offered, "I can teleport us all in. Just tell me where you wish us to go."
Blossom Blossom peered at the screen, not really sure what she was seeing, but not too surprised to see an elaborate set-up happening.
"That's Dinah hanging, right? Can we zoom in or anything? I mean, to see what's holding her up? Ah! And what are those blinking lights?" She was still looking for Shiva in the image.
Priestly "Uh." Priestly shook his head. "No. We can get to the feed, but we're stuck with whatever the cameras already inside are set up to do. No zoom, no re-aiming, just swapping between cameras."
Roy "Those are motion detectors," Roy said. "Door's probably rigged, too, so teleporting and avoiding it would be--good, it would be good." Roy studied the video, wished for a bigger screen, and said, "Okay, I can't see the beams, obviously, so this is the next thing over to pure guesswork, but that might be a blind spot, there." He pointed, still wishing for a bigger screen. He would deal with any and all "how do you know this crap?" type questions later.
Tony "I think I can make those more visible," Tony said. He pulled his laptop from the case slung over his shoulder, typed a query into the search engine and scrolled quickly through the results. Keeping his left arm around the open laptop, he snuck up to the door, held his hand against the crack underneath and whispered the spell.
He closed the laptop and snuck back to the group, unaware of the tendrils of smoke trailing from his ears. "Does that help?" he asked.
Roy Roy looked up from the display, blinked, and said, "Yeah, but if you're cooking your brain you should probably stop, 'mano. Okay. Yeah. That spot's good."
Tony "Cooking my -" Tony caught a glimpse of the smoke he was trailing. "Oh. Uh. That'll wear off in a moment. Probably." Tony went on. "I can put the Notice-Me-Not on whoever wants it. It doesn't take much power. It'll last as long as we need it, unless you start using a megaphone or something where you can't not be noticed. Actually, uh, sometimes it's hard to turn off."
Roy Roy was not, generally speaking, used to having magic used on him, and that sounded kind of ominous, what with the 'hard to turn off' and all, so, "I'll pass. I can sneak on my own." In a navy blue hoodie instead of the usual bright red and yellow kid Robin Hood get-up, it should be a cakewalk.
Blossom Blossom raised her hand, totally not worrying about the after-effects. That was for later. "Then I'll totally take it. Any advantage I can get will be great!"
Raven Raven shook her head. "I do not wish to be be-spelled," she said. "If I am needed for healing, people need to be able to find me easily."
Tony Once they'd finished discussing strategy, Tony grabbed the zipper tab on his fly. "The spell needs a metal ground," he explained. He focused his power and spoke the spell from memory. He looked at Momoko and - oh, hey Priestly's phone was doing something cool. He tried again - look, Raven had a red jewel on her face. "I think it worked," he said.
Shiva Shiva had just put the finishing touches onto the set-up: Dinah suspended 15 feet above the floor, a network of unseen lazers linked to the detonators on the walls, a gun on her hip, and a whip in hand. She stood on the loft ledge, watching the front door, and began to dial Barbara in New Gotham.
Strange... the dogs weren't barking any more.
Raven That was because immediately upon teleporting herself and the others into the warehouse, Raven had continued to use her powers as she had outside, soothing the dogs with her gifts, removing their aggression and replacing it with affection. She knew the others would do what they had to to save Dinah, but she would use her gifts to remove as much potential for harm as she could.
Blossom As soon as Raven had them inside, Blossom took off fast in the direction Priestly's phone had shown. She had her part to do and was trusting that the others could do theirs.
She was, of course, totally going to be keeping an eye out, but her primary goal was up a flight and straight ahead.
And thanks to Tony's spell, her goal was about to get an invisible punch in the stomach.
Shiva Said goal doubled over, gasping, then lashed out, fast, in the direction of the air movement, one boot going high and hard toward a target she couldn't quite bring into focus.
Blossom Whoa! Blossom had set herself in the air a short distance away after that punch so that she could get out her yo-yo (stupid stupid! She should totally have had it out all along!) and was surprised to find that boot coming so close.
She stopped hovering, dropping out of range of that kick at least, and reaching into her pocket. She started her yo-yo spinning to gain momentum. "Close, but not quite," she whispered, then threw the yo-yo at the villain's... Shiva's pivot leg, hoping to lasso it and pull her down.
Shiva Shiva was already diving away, and had drawn her gun, and then thrown a spray of ninja throwing stars; high, low, middle. And bang! toward the blur, and yes, there might be a ricochet in a metal building, but who cared; the plan was going to hell, and she'd be damned if they'd all get out of this unhurt.
Blossom Blossom had managed to dodge the throwing stars but, out of worry for her teammates below, took the time to knock them out of the air and into the walls. The bullet she couldn't stop but of course it had to ricochet off something and nick her arm before breaking through a window.
"Tsch!" She sucked air through her teeth. She wasn't going to yell and break what little advantage she had from Tony's spell. As she moved to get back to level with the platform, she tripped a motion sensor. The explosion of shrapnel at her back didn't penetrate her costume, but it did push her across the area towards Shiva faster than she'd expected.
Shiva Not to mention it gave Shiva another easy target to aim for; while Momoko was still blurry, the fire and shrapnel around her weren't. More throwing stars, meant to keep her back, while Shiva peered over the edge of the loft, mouth thinning into a line as she saw other figures below. Not Barbara and Helena.
This was not the plan.
Blossom Blossom's unexpected and forced momentum meant her reflexes were off, and by the time she'd kicked in enough speed to make her own flight plan, two of the throwing stars had gotten close enough to snag both her and her jacket.
Unhappy at having her flying messed with, Blossom tossed her yo-yo at Shiva's feet, this time aiming for the ground, hoping to drive the woman to the wall and maybe pin her there long enough for the others to get Dinah and themselves out!
Shiva Shiva had to reload, so she fell back, frantically jamming bullets into the gun.
Raven ...at which point, Raven teleported up to the loft behind her. The rage she felt from Shiva sickened her, but it was something she could deal with as opposed to the bullets. "Your sister's death is festering within you," she said quietly. "Let me take that pain away." She didn't wait for permission; she reached out with her powers, trying to take Shiva's aggression and desire for revenge from her.
Shiva Shiva whirled, mouth tightening into a rictus, and felt herself becoming calmer, more focused, as her anger left her--
and her grief rushed back in, grief and guilt, it was her fault as well as Batgirl's, her fault Patricia had been there that night, her fault she'd died in the gas explosion, Batgirl's and hers, and for one moment, she felt the urge to turn the gun on herself....
Then she realized that this little girl was doing this; manipulating her, trying to tame her.
Raven Raven pulled at that grief and guilt as well. It wasn't something she could do instantly or else it would overwhelm her entirely, so she had to do so slowly. But she wasn't about to let Shiva's grief cause her to harm herself, either. "Let me help you," she said, reaching out a hand to Shiva.
Shiva Shiva reached for her hand-- and pulled her closer, head-butting the girl hard, then following up with a backhanded slap of rage. "I can help myself!"
Raven Raven cried out and fell backwards. Unfortunately, backwards at the moment was an area where there was no floor to stop her fall, and so she fell from the loft, plummeting to the floor below.
Blossom Out of the corner of her eye, Blossom caught sight of Raven falling. She pushed a bit more speed into her flight and rushed across to catch her with a swoomp.
"Hey!" She smiled brightly at the girl in her arms. "Nice try! Now let's get you back to the ground in a safer way!"
Raven "Thank you," Raven said, catching her breath as she looked back up toward where Shiva stood. "I wish I could have done more, but her anger...it is very strong."
Blossom "That's usually the kind that I end up fighting the most, the ones that become the monsters." Blossom nodded as she flew Raven back to a relatively safer spot. "The bad stuff just gets in too deep. But any that you got out will totally make her weaker, so that's a job well done! Thanks!"
Dinah Dinah was dangling in the chair. She'd been there over an hour when the attack started, and her head was pounding with the effort of keeping herself levitated high enough not to strangle on the rope. The remnants of the gas in her lungs probably wasn't helping.
She tried to focus on what the guys were doing down below, lost her concentration when Raven went falling off the loft and nearly choked again, then got her concentration back.
But it was getting difficult. Really, really difficult.
Roy Right, the hell with this. "Catch her," Roy said. Then he trusted that someone would have heard and have the sense to listen and drew and nocked an arrow. In place of an arrowhead it had a small cylinder with a pointy end. He drew, lined up his shot, and fired in one smooth motion, and the arrow sailed through the air, stuck in the rope, and exploded.
Dinah Dinah ducked her head, choking again for a second, breath catching-- then she was falling, falling, oh god she could breathe but her TK was just about exhausted, her head was pounding, she could barely slow her descent....
Priestly "Motherf--" Priestly had been waiting by one of the doors just in case he was needed. He barely had time to consciously register the sight of Dinah falling before he was slamming straight through said door and running full tilt straight at the spot he figured she'd be landing.
Look, sandwiches aside, the one thing he was really good at? Running and catching.
Tony Tony lifted his hand and called Dinah to himself, just before realizing that she and the chair would be slamming into him. And... not stopping, even if he could, because a few bruises were well worth saving Dinah.
Priestly . . . Wait, now where was she -- oh crap.
Priestly did his best to speed up as he redirected, also at Tony. No time or breath to try and let Tony know he was there, he just had to make sure he was in the right spot to help catch her.
Dinah Dinah gulped and slammed her eyes shut as she was jerked sideways, knowing this was going to hurt. A lot.
Priestly Priestly skidded into place next to Tony, arms out. "Need a hand?"
Ha! See? He was totally clever.
Tony "Please!" Tony took a quick sidestep. If he caught one side of the Dinah-chair combo and Priestly caught the other side... well, there'd probably still be a lot of bruising, but hopefully nothing permanent.
Dinah No brakes, bad angle, no control--- Dinah's chair with Dinah in it arrowed toward both guys, knocking them back, and then tilted sideways as she opened her eyes, first one, then the other.
She gulped, then laughed a little hysterically. "Nice. Save."
Priestly Priestly raised an eyebrow from where he was now sprawled on the floor. "Yeah, but we're gonna get killed by the Russian judge."
Tony "The Russian judge can suck it," Tony said, starting to untie her. "We won a Dinah for this one."
Dinah More giggling from their 'prize', and as soon as Dinah's arms were free, although not her legs, she was trying to hug both of them at once. "Thank you thank you thank you so much-- God, she's crazy, we should stop her, but I don't know if we can right now...."
Roy Roy didn't pause to check whether anyone was actually catching Dinah or not, because those things on the walls would be fragmentation mines, and they needed to be disabled before someone got blown up. Shooting the right spot would do the trick quite nicely, so he nocked a new arrow up.
Shiva "No!" Shiva saw the rope explode, Dinah falling, and furiously started throwing stars through the warehouse to set off the mines-- then realized they were being disarmed, and changed her aim toward the archer. "You're not leaving here with her!"
Roy Roy dodged as best he could, but even with the slight wildness of trajectory due to the conditions in the warehouse, multiple incoming missiles were a problem. One grazed his cheek, and another sliced through his hoodie and the skin of his upper arm. Whatever, it was a flesh wound. He didn't respond so much with words as a flurry of arrows at his best guess at Shiva's position. His best guess as far as aim was usually pretty good, but: ninja.
Shiva With a scream of rage, Shiva threw herself to the side, firing her gun now, berserk with frustration, hoping to take down the flying girl, the archer, that stupid meta trying to help her. She aimed for the mines on the walls, hoping to catch the rescuers in a crossfire of exploding shrapnel.
Roy Roy had already redirected his attention to the mines, though, and while he couldn't beat bullets, he was the second best archer in his world, and, well, Speedy was still kind of a stupid name, but there was a reason it had been his. He was disarming those mines as quickly as he was able, and very thankful indeed that the cut was on his primary aiming arm, instead of his drawing arm.
Shiva "Who are you people?" Shiva shouted, turning back to throw stars at the archer. "Where the hell did Helena find you so quickly?"
Roy
Roy took a dive in the name of not being full of holes, rolled to his feet, and aimed an arrow in the direction the throwing stars had come from. "Hell if I know, I just met half these people, and I don't know any Helenas," he said, adjusted his aim, and fired.
Shiva "Ow!" Shiva snarled and threw another star, then reloaded her gun.
Another detonation device beeped that it was disarmed, and through the encroaching smoke, Shiva could see that enough of the detonators and motion-sensors were disarmed to have neutralized them as a threat.
"... none of you are leaving here. None of you."
Dinah Still shaky and exhausted, leaning heavily on Tony and Priestly, Dinah turned at Shiva's last threat, and saw her aiming a gun at Roy.
She screamed.
And couldn't stop.
The pounding in her head had moved into her ribcage and throat, roaring like a tsunami, high-pitched, shrill, unceasing, and LOUD.
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee---"
Raven Raven's healer instincts had her wanting to go to Roy and Dinah, but she knew she couldn't get in the way, and Roy's injury didn't seem to be hampering him. She had to cover her ears when Dinah began to scream. The dogs started to howl, so she sent them a burst of calm, then released her Soul-Self to envelop them into herself so they wouldn't be hit by Shiva's bullets.
Priestly Priestly had his hands full helping Tony with Dinah, and no way was he dropping her. But holy crap that was loud. And freaky. And since when could she do something like that?
Questions for later. For now he was mostly stuck on holy crap!
Roy Oh, she could do the Canary Cry after all. He hadn't been sure. This registered distantly, because mostly Roy was thinking, GOD that's still loud. He clapped his hands over his ears and hoped she ran out of air soon, because, yeah, he liked his eardrums intact, thanks.
Blossom Blossom had her own ears covered within seconds, utterly glad she didn't have superhearing and not at all sure what was going on. Had Dinah's screams always been that loud?
Tony Holy crap, that was loud! Tony didn't have any hands free to cover his ears, so he just winced and closed his eyes for a moment.
... because that would help with the noise, yes.
Shiva The noise which was shaking the rafters of the warehouse. Buckling the metal at the back of the building.
And throwing Shiva backward thirty feet, and through the window behind her with a sharp splintering of glass.
"No---!"
And then the ledge came down. And the rest of the building began to shake even harder, as Dinah continued to scream.
Priestly Priestly's eyes felt a bit like they'd be permanently bugged out of his head at the moment. Which was a step up from how his ears felt.
"Uh." He clapped one hand over Dinah's mouth and hoped she wouldn't, like, blow said hand off. "GUYS, I THINK IT'S TIME TO GO NOW!"
Yeah, he yelled that really loud. Not that he could really tell at the moment.
Dinah Dinah's air was cut off for a second-- and in that second, exhaustion caught up with her, and she completely passed out.
The building was still shaking ominously, with one wall listing very badly back toward the water behind it.
Raven And that would be when Raven decided they need to get out of there immediately. She swept up the others up with her Soul-Self, taking them into the interdimensional space that resided inside her. Instinct was to return to Fandom, and she did not resist, taking them all almost instantaneously from the collapsing warehouse and back to the island. Black smoke billowed about her as she reappeared in Tony's room and released those who were inside her. The smoke quickly disappeared, leaving Dinah and her rescuers...and several confused but docile Dobermen.
...? The building collapsed within ten minutes of their exit from the scene.
Bubbles rose from the water for a few minutes... then stopped.
...and maybe a dark figure surfaced very far downstream. And maybe it didn't.
[Preplayed with and great thanks to: lovemykilt, wantstodirect, exspeedydotcom, heromaniac, and trigons_child. And a round of applause for those stalked earlier in the week: bau_beefcake, thatsamilkshake, nodaintyflower, and bitten_notshy.
NFI, NFB due to distance, OOC = yay!]