Summary:Another symbol on the ground in Hells Kitchen. What the hell is going on? Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Hells Kitchen has grown a lot nicer than it used to be over the past number of decades. Gentrification and rising property prices have made it a haven of the upper middle class and it's sleek towers and boutique shops are among the most in demand in the city.
It's also got a fair number of people who fancy themselves lovers of nature but have no real talent for it. So, you know, there's a need for gardening services.
At any rate Hell's Kitchen is usually quite safe but this fine morning there's something really strange going on in front of a certain gym that's closed to the public. There is an absolutely ENORMOUS pile of sand, a bunch of police crime scene tape and several NYPD squad cars. Along with a truck that says 'SHIELD'.
Agent Koa Turner is drinking coffee and eating a bagel near the edge of the crime scene tape. He's doing this to disguise the disgust he would otherwise hold for what is easily mistaken for a piece of street art carved into the pavement. A moon eclipsing the a sun, surrounded by odd, spidery images and letters that look like they'd be most appropriate in the some movie about lovecraftian gods.
No. Koa is not happy about that 'street art'. And it hadn't been there yesterday. Of course, neither had all that sand.
"You might as well put me on retainer." Keiko mutters as she bends to look at the symbol carved in the street. Koa might be able to disguise his disgust, she can't. It's writ big and loud across her face and echoes in the tone of her voice.
"It's the Nightfall symbol, yes…" she gestures to the eclipse moon in the centre "… but there's a subtle difference to the one that I'm marked with. Can you see it…" It's more stylised, perhaps with a something of 'age' about it.
Before facing an entire afternoon dressed in a suit, to deal with some cases, Matt has the physical need to train, both to keep in shape and to remind himself that the suit is the costume, not the red one that he wears constantly during his night patrols. Dressed in the above mentioned red costume, he landed lightly on the rooftop of his gym, ready for a training session but stopping on his tracks at hearing what is going down on the street below. He can hear the sound of people talking, he can smell sand and, right now, can even hear one of the people downside talking about a symbol.
Stopping on the rooftop's edge, he waits to understand what is going on, senses as alert as possible, a red shape maybe barely visible from street level.
Eve, of course, had stopped by when she saw the giant 'SHIELD' truck. She had a feeling. And to be honest, she'd been keeping an eye out on the internet for reports about this very kind of thing. Given that it's none too far from her work-day, or actually even her home, she's showing up in the black minivan she usually drives.
It parks and out hops the blue-haired goth as she makes her way towards the police, trying to point at Koa and ask to be allowed past them.
Point. Point!
The police look to Koa who actually sees Eve out of the corner of his eye and waves her over. He knows her and the cops know whose scene this is. It's Koa's. So they step aside and let her over. That sigil. Well.
"There's got to be something differnet about it though, Keiko, because it was energised when I got here."
He points to the hood of the car he's standing next to. A car that has been literally sliced in two lengthwise as if by a laser and raps his knuckles on it several times. Which should be convenient for the guy on the rooftop. Not that Koa knows he's there.
"Hello Eve. We've got another one. That makes three that I am aware of." He's fiddling with his phone. Both Keiko and Eve can see that he's got a mapping program up and he's drawing on it.
"More Scarabs too. Every single time one of these damn things appears."
Keiko sways as she crouches and blinks a couple of times. "Someone on the roof, Agent Turner."
Near Matt, a blue glowing tarantula scuttles out on the roof, walking right up to him. He might be able to see it properly, but what he can see tells it's big. The legspan is 24" wide. HUGE.
It nudges his leg and walks around him in a circle.
"Pass me my staff from my bag, please?" The tattooed woman asks Koa, her pack leaning against the car where he stands. "Hello Eve."
The sound that Koa produces against the car is even a bigger help to understand the situation, and the explanations given downstairs contribute to form an image of what is happening on the street.
Matt is, however, distracted a bit when a creature definitely larger than nature should allow approaches, and even nudges his leg. Moving a half step backwards, to get a bit away from the rooftop's edge, it lets the creature circle him, while studying it to determine if it is a menace or not. And someone down to the street even knows he's here, or is there someone else on the rooftops? His right hand, however, places itself on the billy club sheathed on his left hip, just to be sure.
"Awesome," is what Eve says.
She takes a moment, then, once she's close enough to have a looksy at the graffiti. A glance at Keiko and she lets out a sigh before turning back to the Koa, "Any more like the symbol we saw before?" The one that has certain linkages to herself, more or less, is what she's asking. She looks down. Just in case she's found herself standing in something AGAIN. She's still miffed about that.
"…and what are you doing?" she asks Keiko.
Koa passes Keiko her staff. Or well, the baton that extends into a staff. He glances up but of course doesn't see anything. Rooftop dwelling vigilantes generally know how to not get spotted from the ground. It's just that they don't tend to expect remote tarantula survielance systems.
"What does it look like? He? She? It?"
"The first one lacked any kind of… elder god iconography. These last two…" Koa cuts off and frowns.
"Alright look at this. These are the three marks we know of so far. And they make this triangle. Now. If there were two more. One here… and one here…"
Koa draws a few more lines. A pentagram. A city sized Pentagram.
"And what's in the middle…?"
Why… the Asgardian Embassy.
"Bring him down, Arananet." Keiko calls out, blinking a few times. "Male. Dressed in Red. A Cape, I think you call them." Keiko gives Koa, and now Eve, what details she can. "Sorry, I have to separate out what Arananet is seeing versus what I'm seeing down here." Double vision. It's a bitch. "I just hope he doesn't hit her with that club."
Arananet circles Matt again forcing him to the fire exit. Of course, Daredevil might decide to reveal himself. He can tell he's been made by those on the ground.
With the staff in hand, she circles the mark, positioning herself so she's not touching any part of. She brings the staff down in the centre, right in the eclipse moon. Her staff starts to glow.
Matt Murdock has obviously been discovered, what with a woman that can control a spider and see through her eyes? That same giant spider that is now trying to lead him towards the fire exit but, well, why take the average way down when there's the fun and a bit less mediocre way?
Drawing his club in a fluid motion, Matt turns and swings it upwards, releasing the grappling hook that attaches to the building just to the other side of the street, then it's just a matter of jumping, letting himself swing till he's above the people studying the symbol on the ground, then flipping and letting himself fall, using the grapple to slow his fall so to land lightly on his feet next to the agents.
"Didn't mean to spy on you, I am sorry…" he speaks, the grappling hook retracting back in the club that he sheathes again on his left hip
And then a weird red guy descends on a zipline and speaks to them.
Eve just sort of stares at this for a long time. Stares and stares.
"Oh," she says. "Hi." It's that guy. The Devil himself.
Then she puts her hand to the top of her head. It's not as if she herself is completley unknown in the hero community as the super-ridiculous minor hero 'Morning Glory', the Plant Lady. She's got what plants craaaaave.
"A pentagram? /Seriously/? Could these guys be any less original?" she adds to Koa.
Koa does jerk a little in surprise when the red clad man drops in front of them. But he recovers faster possibly than the other two and puts up an arm to prevent anyone from attacking. For you see, not all Devils are things he has to exercise.
"No I'm sure you didn't. And I don't see how you would be spying. You're simply a perfectly normal citizen passing through. It'd only be natural for you to be concerned about what's going on, I think…" Because if there's one thing Koa knows about the vigilante types its that they generally respond best if they know that they're not going to be asked to do anything that puts them on the record.
"Well it might be a little derivative Eve but pentagrams are pretty well tested. I mean the Pythagoreans were using them thousands of years ago. It's a really good way to channel a lot of power and…"
The Clang of Keiko's staff when it strickes the center of the symbol reverberates and will give the Man With No Fear another good look at how things stand. It begins to spark and his and glow… sort of. It has a black aura around it that is bright in some difficult to describe way. Something black shouldn't be. The symbol lights up with the same color. Daredevil won't see that of course but he will hear the hiss of moisture in the air evaporating and scent the smell of ozone.
"Keiko… are you sure it's supposed to be doing that?"
As Daredevil exits the roof the spider seems to … wave and then scuttles off to continue it's rounds. "You have inco——" Too late. He's here.
As her staff glows and hisses, Keiko grunts in pain. Those with the senses can feel something within her resonate. Is it peoples imagination or do her tattooes seem to ripple up and down her arms.
"No Agent Turner it is not, but this symbol is charged with the power of Gossamer."
Gossamer. He's heard that before hasn't he?
It takes her moment to pull the staff back, when she does the tattooed woman is sweating.
"right, a very, concerned, citizen…" Daredevil mumbles, nodding slightly and scanning the scene with all his senses. At least it isn't long before something a bit, out of ordinary starts to happen but, considering there seem to be perfectly competent people around, his body remains perfectly still, almost stoically so.
He has no idea about who or what Gossamer is, apart from the obvious meaning of the word that, at the very least, doesn't sound good at all. For now, however, he just stands there, observing in his own way, using all his senses to try picking up anything that could be of help.
"Gossamer?" repeats Eve thereafter. She eyes Koa for a moment, as well. "Derivative," she repeats. "I mean, come /on/, but I guess whatever works, right?" She winces at the use of the staff, really, but, hey, she's still. "Just another concerned citizen," she mutters, squatting down to have a better look at the symbol herself. She has some small experience with these things, judging by her studious expression, but then she adds:
"Yeah, I got nothing."
Gossamer. Not a word that Daredevil will be familair with but there is a whiff in the air. Not metal, not city smells, not ozone. Something entirely new that seems to be coming from that staff. Maybe that's what gossamer smells like. At least, when it's charged.
Koa's phone boops and he pulls it out to check it. Then swears quietly. He looks up to Keiko and then consideringly to Daredevil and Eve. Then he glances back down to read from the message he's just gotten.
"Another two kids have gone missing. Twins. Disappeared yesterday afternoon from the Elias Howe Public School." That's right here in Hell's Kitchen.
"Police report says that the Hellcats took her." THAT would be a local gang, major rivals to the Denim Crows, both of them tied to south american cartels.
Even Eve probably knows that name if she's been working or living in this area for any length of time. They're notorious but kidnapping is NOT their usual line of work. Tends to be drug and gun running. Daredevil likely knows a lot more of them.
And Koa said all that out loud with them standing right here for a reason.
"The pentagram thing is kind of a guess but this is NOT the kind of thing I want someone pulling off in this city. We need to get to Rahm-Tek and figure out how to put a stop to this."
Rahm Tek. Eve has a business card from one of the bigwigs there, and again, this is a name Daredevil knows. Tech company. Only arrived in the city a few years ago. Not generally involved in criminal enterprises, but their goods are popular targets for theives who occasionally try to knock over their shipments.
Keiko finally has time to consider Daredevil with her own eyes, though the spider is still crawling around the rooftops. "Are you finished with Arananet, Agent Turner? The double vision is making me woozy." She asks quietly.
"Gossamer yes. I don't know what it is just that the Nightfall magi consider it sacred. It's provided by Lord Plokta to our highest practioners, they use it to forge our weapons and make our ink …" she pauses, wiping a hand across her forehead "… I mean, their. Their ink and weapons."
"Another gang?" That has Keiko turning to Koa. "The Nightfall never work with more than one in a city. Things … are bad."
Matt Murdock turns his head in the direction of the staff that, right now, has not a very pleasant smell or, at least, not one he's familiar with. "I have the feeling something could have changed in that staff" he admits, tilting his head backwards slightly to better get a panoramic of his surroundings.
He becomes definitely more attentive when the hellcats are mentioned. At keiko's words he nods "especially bad, if the hellcats turn to kidnapping. It is not their style at all." he comments, considering the informations just received.
"There were some, changes in their leadership lately however, even a couple of new members that seem to come directly from a columbian cartel."
Putting her hands to either side of her head, grabbing hold the tails of her hair, Eve just sighs heavily.
"Lovely," she manages to say. "Sooo… I guess I could try nosing a round and seeing if someone wil ltry to mess me up for looking into the gangs. That usually means you're on the right track, right?" She looks between them. Then at Daredevil. That's really more his beat than her's. "Or I can, I don't know…" She produces the Rahm-Tech card. "Should I call? Or something?"
"Maybe do both. I hear you're kinda tough." Koa says though the news isn't good. "Mmmm. Clan Del Golfo. They've come up before." That might be news to Keiko. The Clan Del Golfo is the group behind the Denim Crows. If they're also behind the Hellcats then it makes some sense.
"New York is too fragmented for one gang to do everything the Nightfall needs it to do. They'd have to work with people in various 'territories.' Like here. Hells Kitchen belongs to the Hellcats so far as crime is concerned."
Koa looks to Daredevil and Eve and gets a sly half smile. "Someone should look into them though. I'm sure the parents of the twins would very much appreciate it…" He nods to both the blue haired goth and the man with no fear. "I need to finish securing this scene though. Pardon me, citizens. Keiko, we need to talk."
And with that Koa heads back toward his truck.
Keiko murmurs something unintelligible and makes a gesture - Matt might be able to see the way she moves. From the rooftop, blue smoke seems to drift down to, to lay over her tattooes. "You might be right but I keep telling you, Agent. We never used to take this many."
"Clan Del Golfo… I haven't heard of them." She picks up her bag and trots after Koa when he speaks. "Uh nice to meet you, Mister… I'm Keiko" beat "Catch you later Eve."
"Coming Agent Turner."
Matt Murdock memorizes the new informations, then offers a nod as salutation to the leaving agents "I'll see what I can find out and let you know, should I find something…" he affirms, turning then towards Eve and giving a slight bow in her direction "I'm sure we'll meet again soon" he says with the hint of a smile, after all investigating in such a direct way was her idea.
Drawing again his billy club, he shoots the grapple to one of the nearby building, offering a last wave before taking to the rooftops and starting to run, he's going to be late if he doesn't run now.