Shiruta, Kahndaq - Tuesday
There were rats in Kahndaq. Not all of them were of the rodent type.
They were hiding in Charlie's shipping container. Damn lucky 'Tot' sent it to him. Ever since they broke out of prison.
Keeping to the shadows and out of sight, Renee slipped back into the thing, a satchel at her side. They needed food and water.
Well... Charlie needed it more than her.
Charlie was sitting cross legged on the floor, naked. Not that this was really new or anything, in fact Renee was probably used to it by now. Though these days it only makes the still-fading bruises from the friendly prison "interrogations" stand out all the more.
He didn't even crack an eyelid when Renee entered.
"Charlie..." She put some of the food down next to him. "...It's me."
"Good," Charlie smiled slightly. "Cause if it were the cops I'd be in trouble."
He rolled his shoulders back and reached for his pants, "Besides, the kids and I were starting to worry." He nodded at one of the many large rats running around the container.
"The 'kids' freak me out, Charlie," Renee replied, opening a bottle of water to hand to him.
"So," Charlie asked as he pulled his pants on, "Are they still out there looking for us?"
Like he needed to ask.
"Not today," Renee said, watching the rats with an odd expression. Something was niggling in the back of her mind. "Everyone's attention is on the King and Queen."
"Oh yeah," Charlie nodded, reaching for some food, "The wedding is today, right? Black Adam and... what's her name? Isis?"
It suddenly clicked. The empty boxes of rat poison.
"Get your mask, hurry!" Renee said, grabbing her bag and running back for the entrance.
"What? Why?" Even as he asked, Charlie was already grabbing his gear and moving to follow her. There was a reason he'd wanted her as a partner, after all.
"The wedding, Charlie..." She paused just long enough for him to keep up. "Intergang is going to hit the wedding!"
Charlie pulled his coat on and applied his mask on the run. "That makes a frightening amount of sense, but what makes you think so?" He wanted reasons.
"The rat poison," Renee said, barely looking back as she dart out and toward the square. "It's an anti-coagulant. Suicide bombers use it to coat the shrapnel so the victims who aren't blown to pieces, bleed to death."
The ran on in silence. There were plenty more questions to ask, but they can wait. They heard the crowd before they saw it, the roar of ten thousand people all packed into a single square. Before they get too close to talk Charlie yelled to Renee, "How many bombers are we looking for?"
"There didn't seem like enough for more than one bomber from those empty boxes..." She stopped, looking out at the crowd. "Look at it. You'd only need one."
"One's plenty," Charlie agreed. "More than plenty." He started shoving his way through the crowd, eyes scanning back and forth for any hint that someone was carrying a bomb.
Not to mention how many would die as people tried to get away in a panic...
This wasn't working at all.
Renee looked around once more, finally just shaking her head and grabbing Charlie by his shoulders and helping herself up onto him. "Hold me still!"
Charlie stopped moving and shifted to keep his balance with Renee standing on his shoulders. "You could have asked, you know," he grumbled, mostly to keep up appearances because, hey, it was a good idea.
"Come on, come on, where are you?"
The wedding went on above them, lightening cracking through the sky as Renee spotted the most likely suspect...
"...she's just a kid..."
"Now's the time to use that fancy gun of yours," Charlie called, unable to see the bomber himself.
Renee dropped down, running to try and stop the kid.
"She's just a kid, Charlie!"
Charlie finally spotted the bomber as the girl, who couldn't have been older than sixteen, raised a hand holding a detonator. "We're not going to make it in time, Renee. Take the damn shot!"
The crowd parted around her, all trying to get away. Wasn't going to help with that much explosives.
Renee took a breath. "God help me..."
Pulled the trigger. A kill shot. She was good at what she did.
She was good at what she did so Charlie only spared her a glance to make sure she wasn't about to fly apart before continuing his sprint to the bomber. It wouldn't do for the thing to go off after Renee shot a kid to stop it.
Renee fell to her knees, a few yards from the kid and Charlie. She had the very violent need to empty the contents of her stomach right now.
"...Mary mother of god..."
It only took a few seconds for Charlie to secure the bomb and make sure it wasn't going to go off. He turned to look at Renee, "You didn't have a choice. You know that."
"Tell her that..." Renee looked away. God, she needed a drink.
[[OOC: Preplayed with the fantabulous iseewhatyoumean]]