Summary:Black Cat and Anon foil escaping bank robbers. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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DoorDash. They just had to call the app DoorDash, didn't they? With a name like that, it'd be weird if they didn't have an on-foot speedster working for them, right? With her mutation, Celerity could make bank, clearing out all deliveries in mere moments.
But that's a terrible idea on multiple levels, not least of which would be people wondering how this ordinary teenage girl crossed Manhattan in like a minute. So instead, she calculates the amount of time it would take a normal delivery to cross the distance, and only turns into a super-mach yellow blur when the time is right. This means a lot of waiting: presently, sitting outside a pizzeria in the financial district.
Then come the alarms and sirens. A bank assaulted; money, or some other things, taken; now those responsible tear down the street in two cars. Police are in hot pursuit, but the robber in one passenger-side seat fires off shotgun-blasts of angry green energy, smashing into the road and leaving the police to swerve.
Celerity looks up, eyes wide. Hesitation reigns for all of a split-second. The customer just placed the order; she has a while before the food's even ready, let alone expected.
A few seconds later, that ordinary redhead is gone, and yellow-costumed Anon is on the street, running alongside the police.
The Black Cat loves money - big piles of money. And like any practical princess, she loves sitting atop those big piles of money. Like a pea beneath so many stories of bank below her as she sits on the roof, the piles of money vex her. Not because they're there. But because they're gone. Out the doors of the bank and into cars that speed off down the street. Then there are shotgun blasts. Big, green, and angry. She doesn't like them when they're angry.
From the rooftop, clad in her skintight catsuit, the Black Cat fires off a small titanium grapple hook from one wrist, as a thin cable shoots out behind it. The hook catches on another rooftop down the street, and within seconds, she is swinging in rapid pursuit of the cars. Somewhere behind her, the police are already in pursuit. God, she /hates/ it when they're efficient. She'll have to do this carefully.
The police are in pursuit, but they're some distance behind; even just in lunch time, New York traffic is crazy for anyone trying to be the least bit safe. Anon comes up to one window, but they just can't even really hear her… and then comes another of those blasts, and they both have to swerve away from the new hole in the pavement. That's going to give the city something to repair.
As her attention snaps forwards again, Anon sees the swinging shape, mix of black and white in the sky. Oh, so she's not the only costumed person around! That means she'll have something to prove, and so she hurries after the cars. Catching up isn't a problem, but what can she do after that? She punches the car's side a few times, sure, but she isn't that kind of strong… and it makes her a more immediate target.
Which means the getaway-ers aren't paying too much attention to the sky. That gives the Black Cat at least a brief opening.
Brevity isn't a problem. It's more opportunity than time that Cat needs to take control of this situation. She swings ahead of the two cars as they have to slow up a bit in traffic, and she throws a handful of pearls to the ground. They explode in a fantastic display of smoke, obscuring any view of traffic ahead of the vehicles. Reaching the end of her line, she drops gracefully to the ground near the sidewalk, and waits, obscured by the thick smoke. Deftly, she climbs a traffic light pole to wait.
The man with the green-energy shotgun for a hand — let's call him Greenie — has his hands full trying to blast Anon. She's keeping ahead of him for now, avoiding the blasts, but she struggles to see what she can do to him, or any of the others in the cars…
…and then those pearls burst into smoke. The Cat hears a scream, the squeal of brakes slamming on tires. One of the cars swerves, loses control, and slams into a wall. The other recovers, continuing on. Which one has the score in it, again? And if they split it, is half really enough for her?
The Black Cat hesitates only for a moment. She looks to the car smashed into the barrier, and shakes her head, instead looking after the car that continues on. If the money were in the car that smashed, there would have been a changeover, at any cost. Besides, the police will have caught it quickly enough that she'd risk being caught, as well, if she stays behind.
Retractable claws make climbing the closest building at breakneck speed a snap, and Cat fires off another grapple, and another, making fantastic time at catching up to Greenie and the gang. And that yellow blur. God, she hates speedsters. With a flip from the apex of her last flight, she lands on the hood on hands and knees and punches through the windshield, grabbing at that shotgun for a hand to divert it - and break it, if possible.
Anon keeps pace with the second car, though she looks over her shoulder, uncertain about leaving the first… but the police can handle that one, right? Better to make sure everyone gets caught. So with a sigh, she turns her focus forward again. She can't stop the car with raw force, but maybe she can get inside and deal with it from there. She slows, enough to end up behind, and starts work on opening the van's back door.
That's when the Cat drops down. With Greenie still focusing out the window, she's too fast for any more response than the driver beside him shouting, "Holy sh—!"
Greenie turns out to be a broad-shouldered man, though most of the rest is hidden under a ski mask and other clothing. But he's also stronger than he looks, wrestling evenly with her enhanced physiology. He tries to blast, plenty of green shots going wild over her shoulder or under her arm. The driver swerves roughly, the car juking back and forth, but keeps control: it's to try to shake the Cat off, not risking a crash.
The physical nature of the windshield makes it very easy to peel back, as Cat slithers through the hole and slides into Greenie's lap, sinking claws into that hand and doing her best with both hands to turn that "gun" on the driver. "C'mon, Sweetie," she purrs to the driver. "Take a turn into the next alley, and let's settle this like…adults. Shall we? I've seen what this green shit can do to pavement, and you're not made of asphalt."
But there's someone coming in that back door. Someone yellow. "God damn it…"
Though looking towards the back, there's more than just those two even before Anon gets the doors open. Not everyone has powers like Greenie, but they did just come hot off a successful robbery. The Cat has made herself a clear threat even before she got a mutant-powered hand under her control. So they raise their guns, pointing in her direction —
—and a blur later, Anon's there, smacking them so the trajectories just put more holes in the windshield. Got to say one thing for heroes: they're not as likely to let you get shot full of holes.
Cat tsks, watching the drama unfold in the back of the van, and she sighs. Grateful for the diversion, but pissed that there's going to be a rival for the money. "I'm through playing with you guys. WORST. CAT TOYS. EVER." She moves the aim of the handgun, so to speak, and fires that green crap directly into the engine block. "You can only have half, you know," she calls into the back to the yellow-clad speedster.
The back seat has turned into a melee a trois. On the outside, it looks like Anon simply dodges or parries each strike as it comes, like there's nothing to it. Internally, her mind is a running stream of 'oh god oh god that almost hit oh god oh my god why are they using guns that big in a car this small oh god oh god'. It's to her credit that she keeps it off what's visible of her face… or at least, keeps moving enough that said face isn't visible when it is panicking. "Half? Half of what?"
Someone else's mutant powers don't come with a trigger, an external button to press. She gets his hand aimed at the engine block, sure, but he's not going to go blasting at that. He even gives her a smug little smile, silently mocking her just for the suggestion.
But then the car hits a sharp object left on the side of the road. Ordinarily, the rubber could handle it, but it just so happens to hit a weak point, and the tire bursts. The car spins out; the driver grabs for the steering wheel, focused dead ahead while he works the stick — which ends up going into too high a gear. The whole car stalls out, losing speed as it careens towards an alley.
Curse their luck.
Felicia Hardy says, "WHY do you have a trigger finger if it doesn't even work?!" Cat laments angrily. I'd have better luck cleaning it, and hoping it accidentally goes off…" She practically scolds the mutant, then opens the door, trying to shove him out by wedging herself against the struggling driver and driving the heel of her boot into his side. "GET. OUT. GET OUT GETOUT GETOUT!" She fires a grapple hook simultaneously toward one of the guns and give the cable a jerk, assisted by the mechanism in the wrist of her suit that winches it back in. So maybe she DOESN'T have infinite numbers of those hooks…they simply draw back in and recycle.
"And YOU," she shouts to the one whose gun she's trying to steal. "YOU just crossed a Black Cat's path. Naughty, naughty…""
The police sirens are still audible, but they sound like they're way off in the distance; do they even know where this second car went, after they diverged? It gives this pair a bit longer to deal with the robbers on their own.
The seat belt keeps the driver in his seat, but the hard kicking leaves him slumped over, groaning; at least he can't crash them anymore. The grapnel hits the gun, and though the guy tries to keep hold of it, he just doesn't have the strength of Greenie or Felicia. He cries out with pain when the gun pulls free of his grip. Now no longer needing to deal with the gun, Anon ducks in and gives him a few rapid jabs which leave him knocked out cold.
Down to just two opponents, including Greenie.
"Half the money, Speedy." The Black Cat grabs Greenie's other hand and zip ties them together. Not that it could keep him from shooting, but it makes him a little more manageable. She pulls a flashlight off her belt, but as she turns it on, it lights up the van like Christmas. She turns the light cannon on Greenie in an attempt to blind him as she tries to kick him out the door.
"Wha— I'm not" Jeez, finish a sentence, girl. She gets the gun out of the last man's hand, too, but that's all before she sees what Cat's going for. She zips in to get the seat belt unbuckled, letting it snap off him
—and then the next moment, when the Cat kicks the door open and the man out of it in the same move, Anon's already there beside it, to catch him. She's not looking to make a pavement pancake.
Cat slams and locks the door as Speedy's catching Greenie. She piles over the seat into the back and grabs any bag that looks and feels heavy enough to be holding money, and she's out the back door, firing a grapple hook skyward. She might not be fast enough to outrun Speedy, but speedsters can't fly.
She hopes.
Greenie still lands hard enough to knock himself out, and he's still unconscious as Anon returns to the car and stuffs him into the back. There are a few bags back here — the gang grabbed more than one bag's worth of loot, it seems — but the one Felicia grabs feels promising.
Unfortunately, while Anon can't fly, she can run in some damn unfair ways. In this case: up a wall and to the height where Felicia's grappling herself. "Hey! Where are you going?"
"Upwards, mostly!" Cat replies as she inwardly curses damn unfair running practices. "You can have what's left. Give it to the cops, or whatever," the Black Cat advises, firing off a grapple in the opposite direction.
"Hey, wait, you're just going to leave?" Anon takes a breath, gets a good run-up, and launches herself across the street, to continue her chase. "I don't even know your name!" That's part of what it means to be Anon, ironically; to actually have some touch of connection with others 'like her'.
"I'm JUST going to leave," Cat replies, sounding more annoyed that she's still being pursued by someone without wings, the ability to float, or grapple devices. "But if they ask who got the biggest share of the haul, you can tell them the Black Cat struck again…"
Anon could probably continue chasing for some time… but then comes a buzzing from a pocket in her hood. It's time to get back to work, and so on the next launch, she lets the Cat get away.
She starts her way down the building's side, to get back to the pizzeria. But she looks up to the sky. "…Black Cat, huh?"