Summary:In which the Black Canary and Spoiler leap in to save John Constantine, only for Red Robin to show up to lend a hand. Or You can save morons from thugs but you can't save thugs from morons. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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Trash cans go flying and a skinny, sallow-faced Brit goes tumbling through debris and detritus. It's a pell-mell tumble of limbs and arms that clatters and clangs through the densely humid New York night-time alleyway. He fetches up hard against a wall with a groan and *thuds* to the ground.
"Roll 'em, Bill. Goddamn Brits, fuckin' flashin' cash like he's the fuckin' king or somethin'." Coarse laughter echoes from the half-dozen bikers.
Constantine tries to push himself to his feet but staggers and rolls onto his shoulder, then his back. Blood trickles from a nasty headwound; looks like he got clipped by a beer bottle or a pool cue or something. It's got his bells rung prety good. A biker plants a boot on his stomach and then starts going through the man's duster pockets.
"Wouldn' do that," Constantine slurs.
He earns a backhand to the jaw for his efforts and falls back against the asphalt. The biker roots through a second pocket and then abruptly screams and falls back. Blood spurts from his hand, fingers near-severed as if a wild dog had given his hand a nasty chomping bite. "My hand! My hand! What the fuck!" he screeches. The scraems continue as he staggers away and tries to lash a colored kerchief around the wound to staunch the bleeding.
"Toldja," John says, laconically, and half rolls to a kneeling position. It's a pell mell to get to his feet and he ends up leaning heavily against a dumpster for balance. John spits. Blood arches across the ground and hits the asphalt.
"Buncha bleedin' tossers. C'mon, you Yankee dicks, who wants a taste next?" he demands, and curls his hands into a loose, drunken pugilist's stance.
Chains and lead-weighted pool cues appear in the biker's hands.
"Bollocks," John mumbles.
Patrol night. Spoiler was flitting roof top to roof top when the commotion from down below drew her attention. Well, that's not nice. Not at all.
"Spoiler Alert," calls out the blonde as she drops from the third floor fire escape to use one of the guys in the middle of the fray as a landing pad to break her fall. She crouches on him, one foot on his hip the other on a shoulderblade, hand braced on his ribs to check that he's still breathing. Her chin comes up to peer at the bikers.
"Picking on someone your own size, still isn't going to save you from a butt-whoopin'," finishes the batling at the thugs, seekign to draw their attention from John.
Dinah herself has quite a few skills, natural talent and hand to hand training that put her up there with some of the best in the world when it came to some good 'ol' fashioned' fisticuffs…but what she didn't have was half as many of the toys that the Bat's and their ilk favored. Her arrival? It comes from simply stepping out of the shadows near the alleyway, clearing her throat. With her unzipped jacket and leather-clad form, the blonde bombshell probably looked like a biker type herself, but despite a moment of suprise at the sudden arrival of Spoiler that she's quick to recognize as non-hostile to her? The Black Canary moves forwards.
"Six against one isn't really all that fair, is it?" she calls, advancing towards the armed men with a smirk on her lips that practically begs for the thugs to try their luck. She couldn't use her 'cry' here safely but that was fine…this would be more satisfying.
"Oh, shit, it's the damn Bats," one of the bikers says in dismay. Hushed wariness encompasses the group; they close ranks, moving shoulder to shoulder. It gives John a few seconds to get his feet under him and stop leaning so heavily on the dumpster.
"And the damn Canary," one of the other bikers growls. One of them, hiding behind the others, digs a portable walkie out of his jacket. "In the alley! The Bats is here!" he yells. The walkie squawks acknowledgement and heavy boots can be heard thundering down the narrow emergency steps towards the backdoor of the bar.
"Well, you've done cocked it up now, gels," Constantine tells the two women with a weary, resigned sort of intoxication. He turns and horks up something violently behind the dumpster, perhaps as much due to the alcohol and smell as the head trauma.
Which is just as well, as he doesn't see the first of the reinforcements battering down the door with a heavy boot and struggling to cock a semiautomatic pistol mid-stride. Behind him, a dozen more burly bikers— at least. Maybe even more on the way.
Seems the 'Breaker' gang is in house tonight.
"Aw, heck," Spoiler quips as reinforcements are called in. She tosses a glance at Canary.
"Go halfies with me?" she asks, pulling the baton from the small of her back. It extends as she flings a small flash-bang at two of the ones on the other side of her from the unprotected and upchucking civilian.
Well, John didn't look like he was in the fight, but as far as Dinah can tell? He's just an unlucky bystander. Besides, the reinforcements have Dinah shielding ehr eyes at the flashbang Steph beat her to the punch with before she nods and leaps into the fray, bringing her boot hard into the chin of one biker before she weaves past his wild swing and twists to bring her elbow crashing down on the back of his head. "Plenty to go around!" she calls back to the batling before she pulls a pair of similar batons herself from the small of her back and snaps them open.
The flashbangs buy Dinah a free attack and it connects with a furious intensity. Boot to chin, right on the sweet spot, and down the biker goes. Another screams in blind rage and whips his chin in a vicious arc at Dinah. It misses by a mile and hits his companion in the ribs, provoking a bruising counterattack. Blind, the two men lay into each other.
The one coming out the door flings a hand over his face and yells in panic at the noise and light in his eyes. He waves his gun wildly and the muzzle tracks over everyone in the alley, then he cracks off four rounds. Bikers flinch and duck out of the way; bullets *ping* into metal trashbins and caroom off into the night, but at least one shot is flung directly at Stephanie for her trouble thus far. At least he's preventing his other brethren from easily getting out of the alley, for the moiment.
The gang have all warned one another: the Bats are here. So let's make it plural, shall we?
The first warning comes as a metallic disc, thrown from above to strike the door man and knock the pistol from his hand. Next there's the 'chunk' of a grapnel hitting the wall beside him, the whirr of a retracting line—
And Red Robin zips down, leading with his feet to knock the man back into the building. "No guns." Most immediate threat dealt with, and he stays at the doorway to meet the other reinforcements as they try to come. Natural choke point, and it keeps the pressure from rising on the others.
Her attacked paused by the spray of the first few bullets, the shot flung her way strikes her in the shoulder. Her suit's designed to stop it, but it still forces her back a half step. She had a half heartbeat of warning that Double R was inbound, and then he was there, eliminating the threat of the firearm.
"I could have gotten him," Spoiler quips at the other batling even as she's turning to bash the others with bo staff and elbows and knees.
Dinah's own position right in the thick of the bikers that she's currently beating on with swift strikes of limbs and hardened metal had been quite a deliberate choice. She'd simply hoped that the guy with the gun hadn't been all that willing to risk shooting his buddies in the back while trying to hit her. Of course, it didn't hurt that he wasn't going to be hanging onto that gun for long with the arrival of another 'bat'. There's a moment for a breath, her gaze catching sight of the Robin between the wild whirling of motion that casts her hair past her eyes before she's back into the fray.
Dinah's not the most physically intimidating figure on her own, but when a soft metal 'click' announces her baton being linked into a hardened quarterstaff? Well, the vicious rain of blows that are unleashed on the poor biker who swings a pool cue overhead down at her makes up the difference. He was going to be missing a couple more teeth when he woke up!
Constantine dives for cover behind the dumpster when bullets start flying. Drunk or not he moves with surprisingly good reflexes and hangs there for a moment to get his bearings.
"You Yanks and your guns!" John yells. His beratments are aimed at the first person in his line of sight— namely, Red Robin, swooping in.
There's a muttering of some slurred eldritch language and a curling of fingers around potent purple light in John's palms. He yellos something indecipherable and flings his outstretched palm at the biker gang. They're immediately impacted by a furious spray of… flower petals? Daisies, from the look and smell of it.
"Bollocks," John mutters, and dives for cover again. With Dinah launching into the fray sincerely, she gains the ire of three bikers who converge on her with chains and lead pipes. They work smartly, covering each other and keeping her from focusing too long on one without risking an improvised weapon to the face.
"You could have," Red Robin answers Spoiler. "So could I." He takes the collapsed baton from its strapped-on position at the small of his back, and with a flick, extends it out to full length.
He takes a quick, approving glance out at the other two in the battle. Staff party, huh?
With the 'party' bit being using those staffs. He jabs one business end forwards, catching another ganger in the solar plexus. He doesn't try to push this one back, but lets him wheeze right there in the doorway, while he slips his staff in to strike at others' legs. What's the good of making a funnel if you keep clearing it all the time?
Spinning away from one attack, Spoiler tucks one end of her staff behind her opponent's knee and sweeps his legs out from under him so the back of his head cracks on the cement ground. The same sweeping motion is carried forward into the temple of a guy in front of her.
"Fine fine. How many you got in there, then?" is aimed at Robin, lips curling up in a light smirk at the trio of staff wielders here.
Smart goons? Great. Perhaps they'd done this 'en-mass' attack before against foes. Dinah's quick to pick up on what they're doing, but now she's got to deal with it. The 'backup' was currently being dealt with by the Bats, but that still left her with her own three to deal with. Then she's suddenly pelted with flower petals. Huh.
Taking a fistfull of those petals she's swift to cast them towards the face of one thug to blind him before she lashes towards one of the others who was now without his 'cover'.
Dinah's celeritous reflexes give her enoguh advantage to punch a hole in the line of defense. She drops one of the bikers with a furious flurry of blows and he hits the ground, out cold. It evens the odds, giving her two men to fight, one of them flailing at the daisies (posies?) flung at his face.
Spoiler accounts for her foes in a few sweeping hits. They drop in place like poleaxed oxen, laid out by her attacks. It gives her just one to manage; he swings a chain in a blinding, panicked arc in front of him, more to ward her off with a defensive move than try to score a good hit.
"Oye!" John shouts behind Red Robin, and uplifts a pointed finger at the thugs he's got pigeonholed in the doorway. "Duck, boyo!" He barks a short incantation and a lance of invisible force launches from his fingertip, visible only for how it warps the air like a travelling mirage, and aimed at the open doorway— hopefully, in time for Red Robin to dodge!
Red Robin trusts Spoiler to handle her share of the goons — and given how quickly she gets them down on the ground, he clearly has reason to. Dinah still looks a bit outnumbered, so he spares a moment to throw a disc at her third target. The impact behind his knee won't take him out, but it should line him up for her to knock him down. While he keeps his eyes facing forward, he still pays attention to the rest of the fight.
Including that shout from the Brit. He crouches down — taking the opportunity to bring his staff up to strike somewhere tender on an assailant — and watches the impact knock another down.
Force wielder, verbal activation but not a sonic-impact attack… magic seems most likely, but he's short on details.
As he snaps back up to his feet, he answers Spoiler. "One less — thanks" Did he just thank Constantine? Are we sure this guy's a bat? "but they're keeping up the pressure." He takes a quick glance to the side. The balance of numbers out here is getting more in their favour, so it's time to retire the choke point. He tosses another disc just as he jumps back from the door, one more parting shot before he lets the remainder join the fray.
Blind flailing guy gets swept by Spoiler's staff, and she makes sure he's soundly unconscious before turning her attention from him. Just in time for John to magic bolt through the doorway. She heard him tell Robin to duck. She blinks once before glancing at Dinah. Three left.
Red Robin helps line up a shot for her. Two left.
Spoiler collapses her staff and throws it like a knife at one of the ones on Canary, seeking to distract him enough for her to dispatch those last two. Robin's said that the guys inside are keeping up the pressure, meaning once she and Dinah have cleared the alley, he's going to be… Yup. Giving up the choke point. Spoiler Alert! We're going to have incoming soon!
Flailing man? He's left to last, but Dinah's happy to delay him longer with a swift trip of her staff before she whips it around and thrusts the point of it into the stomach of the other man and then drives her booted heel upwards and then crashing down in an impressive display of flexibility to perform the 'axe kick'. One guy left, at least for her, but there's a moment of pause and blinking at John's little display of…whatever that was. She'd wonder if he might have been able to handle this himself…if he hadn't been half-pickled.
Oh well, Constantine sure got backup and a half here!
When Spoiler's staff clocks the last man in the back and he turns to look at the source? Dinah just smirks and rushes forwards, throwing all her weight into a good, old-fashioned punch to his chin just in time for him to look back at her and the hardened-knuckle glove coming his way.
If John wasn't completely, visibly, obviously off his tits, he'd certainly be a force for reckoning. The lance of force slams into the frontmost biker and sends him flying backwards like a ball, bowling over three friends behind him. Others clamber over the bodies and surge into the alley as Red Robin opens the proverbial floodgates.
John is, of course, sent flying backwards by the exchange of forces, and lands in the pile of rubbish again. "Bugger me!" he roars. "Blimey you dumb cockerels, can't you hold a damn door?" John demands. He starts sorting through his pockets for something in particular; he comes up only with a steel flask. It's not what he wanted, of course, but he shrugs and takes a nip from it all the same.
"I can," Red Robin answers Constantine. "But not all of us at once. If we want to bring all of our force to bear, we need more space." He still keeps to a natural chokepoint, down at the foot of the stairs and swatting those who come close… but he keeps an itchy disc finger at the ready in case anyone else brings a gun to a staff fight. "Spoiler, how many batarangs you have?" Perhaps thinking about stationing her to focus on the throwing. Hey, she could always do with more projectile practice.
He takes a second to give Constantine a closer look over. Pickled, already beat up by the time he got on the scene. It's a bit of a guess, but— "What'd you do to piss them all off?"
"A half dozen," Spoiler replies to Robin as she shifts to get line of sight down that doorway.
"But I've got my slingshot with me," she adds. Because of course she does. Stupid looking y-shaped.. but she's effective with it, even if it takes both of her hands to use. It's an easy thing to do, sliding into accepting suggestions from a more veteran Bat than herself. Of course, that doesn't mean she's going to blindly follow orders. Not if she feels like she's got to do something, but for now, she'll following along with what she suspects Robin's looking for.
Hold a narrow doorway full of people? Dinah could do that. She had 'just the thing'. Grinning, she bounds over towards the others and tosses her quarterstaff aside. Whatever Red Robin was planning? She had no idea. But the Canary had one of her own as she moves up behind the pair. "Step back," she offers, inhaling a breath inpreparation. "And cover your ears."
That's about all the warning they're going to get before she clenches her fists, opens her mouth and releases the high-pitched shriek that has the very air rippling through the doorway. It cracks walls, shatters glass and hurls full-grown bikers backwards, but it wasn't intended to cause as much damage as she could. Even a 'low power' Canary cry clearly got quite dramatic if it had walls to reverberate off. Exhaling a breath at the end of the noise, she grins sidelong. "That ought to slow them down a little."
John rolls out of the garbage, clutching his ears. A steady stream of profanities leaves his mouth, the comprehensible ones lewd enough to make a sailor blush. The rest are some eldritch tongue that rakes at the very soul with the vituperation behind them.
"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS THAT, LASSIE?" Constantine asks Dinah. His hands remain clasping his ringing ears.
Red Robin is the guy whose ultimate predecessor jumped around in a bright red, green, and yellow costume involving hot pants — which allowed him full flexibility for his signature acrobatic moves. If it looks stupid, but it works, it's not stupid. So he's not going to give Spoiler any guff about carrying a slingshot.
"Up there," Red Robin says, pointing up at the opposite rooftop. "Good cover behind the ai—" But then Black Canary has her own idea. "Oh lord," he murmurs, and quickly steps back. The cowl will help protect his ears… hopefully…
Nope, he's still left wincing as he takes a couple of stumbling steps back. "…or that," he murmurs.
Spoiler's following where Robin's pointing, up to the rooftop. She reaches for her grapple gun, head nodding when Dinah warns them. She looks over then gasps on a wince as that shrill scream overloads her cowl's compensation abilities. Like Red Robin, Spoiler staggers a few steps, but unlike him, she's brought her hands to where, presumably, her ears are under the cowl.
Alright, so there was still a little backlash from her cry for the others, but ironically it was less dangerous than it would have been if she'd tried to open with it on the first lot. Giving a little concerned 'hiss' of breath at Robin and Spoiler's clutching of their ears, she does take a moment to glance over each of them before looking back at the thugs. Were any of them getting up? Were more coming? Or had that simply been the end to it. Constantine's question? It might need to wait for an answer.
"Everyone alright?"
The fierce counter attack, combined by the legendary status of the Canary and the two Batlings, seems to have broken their attacker's spirits. They retreate in total disorder; a few mumble curses but their morale is clearly quite broken.
"WHAT?" Constantine asks of Canary. He winces several times and his hands move haltingly from his head. "Alright? Did you ask if I'm all right?"
"Of course I'm not blood all right!" he bellows. "I'm half sotted, I've a bleedin' scalp wound, and I'm deaf! Cor what sort of /birdsong/ do you call that?"
John wiggles a pinky in his ear. "…maaap! Map! maaap," he squawks.
Red Robin shakes his head in an effort to clear it. Still, brave front. Can't let the Bats be seen too shaken-up. "I'm fine," he says. "That was… really something." He checks on Spoiler too, a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. The look on his face asks the question even without him saying it aloud: 'You good?'
He turns back to Constantine. "Not so deaf you can't hear her asking if you're alright. Once I tag this bunch for law enforcement, this part of the city averages seven minutes for police response time. Want help getting out of here?" He collapses and stows his staff and gets his grapple gun, ready to take people up to the rooftops.
Ears ringing, Spoiler looks up at the touch. Under his hand, Red Robin can feel her tense, reflex the Family's helped instill in her. Fight or flight honed effectively.
Spoiler can see his question, the wordless concern and reminder that she can whimper about the aches later. Right now, there was still work to do. The blonde nods once to that mute question: 'Fine.'
As Red Robin turns to Constantine, Spoiler moves to collect her fallen baton, and from there to reattach it to the holder at the small of her back. Like her her teammate, she too gets her grapple gun, looking at Dinah to see if she wants the help Red's offered.
Similarly needing to retrieve the weapon she discarded, Dinah moves towards her quarterstaff and disassembles it with a twist before inverting the battons and banging them down on the ground to close them.
Constantine's response? It gets a little noise of apology that probably wasn't heard and a little faux gesture of biting her fingertip before she looks back towards Robin and Spoiler's offer.
"Won't say no," she shrugs. "Otherwise I'm running out of here."
"Up up and away, junior birdman?" John quips at Robin. "Not bloody likely, mate. You're not my type. Unless one of the lasses can sprout wings and buzz me off to Manchester," he says, leering at the two blondes.
"Not about to let some bloody Yank pikers kick me out of a pub, though. I've a wager at the poker table to collect and there's a bottle of cheap scotch waitin' for me," John says. He straightens himself up and pulls a kerchief from his jacket to start wiping his face up, and staggers back to the bar. "Thanks for the intervention, though. I'll be sure to buy around fer th' bar in your honor." He sketches a two-fingered salute and stumbles back into the establishment.
Red Robin just kind of… stares… at Constantine. "You're going back in there." It's a statement of fact, but still spoken with a tone of pure incredulity. He shakes his head. "I don't think the 'lasses' are particularly inclined." His free hand goes to his utility belt to press a single button. A 'let the cops know people need picking up here' button, because why have that conversation manually every time? "Try to be more safe." He nods to Spoiler: she can take her fellow leer target. For his part, he just grapnels himself up to the nearest rooftop.
Spioler will not shudder at teh leering. Nope. Bats don't get creeped out. So, with Dinah agreeing, she offers the other blonde the lift that was offered.
"Where to?" she asks politely enough, pushing down the feeling that she shouldn't have stopped to try to help that wars with the sensation that yes, yes she should have.
There's simply a roll of Dinah's eyes for John's comment. You can save people from thugs, but not their own less-than-intelligent choices. A shrug, she steps up towards Spoiler and her offer of a grapnel-assisted lift. "Just get me up to the rooftops," she answers, "I can run and find my way down from there once I'm a few buildings over." Probably with a fire-escape or a staircase, but not everyone had a cape to glide with!