2103/Apokolips Now: Prelude to Intergang

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Apokolips Now: Prelude to Intergang
Date of Scene: 01 September 2017
Location: Gotham
Synopsis: Something is happening in the city of Gotham ... the small gangs have all disappeared. The GCPD and several heroes investigate.
Cast of Characters: Renee Montoya, Hawkeye (Bishop), Oracle, Black Canary, Robin (Wayne)
Tinyplot: Apokolips Now


Renee Montoya has posed:
    News hand trickled down. Odd rumors of curious deliveries. And, small gangs - suddenly inactive. And, some of the numbers of the other bosses had - well, dwindled. Rapidly. Shifted, strangely. The movements, and lack thereof, were strange, even for Gotham.
    Something had changed. Something had shifted. And it was no subtle thing. Not something over time. Over a week. Over a month.
    This was - overnight. As if someone had, literally, flipped a switch in Gotham and everything had changed.
    Detective Montoya had been the first of the force to notice it. Not that anything strange was going - but, the lack of anything. Afterall, one only notices their addiction when it is gone. A lack of air, for example. Gotham was like that. As if it needed the darkness, the despair to breathe. And, when one was at peace -- when the weight was lifted -- it felt wrong, like a metal head in the midst of a monestary.
    Gotham was quiet.
    Many patrol cars were enjoying the lull. The ease of workload.
    Not Renee Montoya. The detective was watching a series of buildings that had been known to belong to a newly rising gang in Gotham. Petty theft, simple crimes so far. But, they were trying to muscle in on other territory. Bit by bit. Like, a puppy, nipping at a larger dogs heels - considered unimportant for now, too little for the big dog to turn around and bark at, just yet.
    Renee didn't like the weight off her shoulders. And she was waiting for something to happen. Sitting in the dark, dimly lit street, in her beat-up vehicle, the detective's eyes were on those buildings.

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
    "Did I miss a memo?" Hawkeye wondered as she had been encoutering fewer and fewer gangers to take down. At first she just thought it was her spending more time at Stark's office, but no... the bastards seemed to have jjst pulled up stakes and gone.
    Still, there were trails to follow. New blood. New guns. Probably nothing, but still, recon is a good thing. So, Kate too is sitting on a nearby rooftop in her black suit and white shemagh, watching the same buildings though the optics in her glasses, so far unaware of the detective's presence.

Oracle has posed:
    Barbara's stretching her legs... figuratively, while she's cursing she didn't think to do it literally, as all this stealthy rooftop jumping and running is... well, a real pain in a lot of things, but right now her calves. She takes a break on a fire escape, eyebrows lifting behind her cowl as she sweeps her gaze around the area and spots a familiar beat-up car and hums softly. "Wellll.... if -I- was betting on where there were a bunch of 'laser guns' or something in the hands of a Gotham gang, I'd say a warehouse with a hard-nose detective who doesn't seem to ever -actually- end her shift might work."

    Babs sighs out, arms crossing on the railing of the fire escape... she's -totally- stalling for time. Sure, the purple and yellow costume still fits... the snaps for her cape are even still snappy, but she hasn't done -serious- vigilante work in awhile. Even her training with Cass has mostly been flopping around like a training dummy and hitting a lot of air. She starts looking a little more intently at the series of buildings, for anything out of place, mostly the sort of surveillance system Gotham gangs don't bother with. The kind that's electronic and not just some schmuck in a suit yelling 'It's the Bat!'. She glances back over her shoulder, murmuring out dryly. "So, what do you think? We just sneak up? Or do we go knock on the door and ask them politely about their business?"

Black Canary has posed:
"Told you you were slacking on the free running." says the blonde bombshell easily keeping pace with Oracle...well, setting pace, really. Black Canary slows to a stop as they reach a good point to observe, breathing a little bit faster from the run, before she puts her hands on her hips, considering as she peers down. "Hmmm....well...she's got a good nose for this..." she says of Detective Montoya, spotting her as the other woman points her out. "But no...if she's staking it out to see what happens...we don't want to scare off whatever fish she's trying to lure in.

    Canary leans back against an AC unit, her blue eyes watching the building too now. "Give it a little bit...if we don't see anything obvious...we can always try to slip over and find a skylight.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Most costumes crime fighters may take the day off after escaping the clutches of an evil organization like HIVE, and of course, Robin is not most heroes. The youngest of the Bat clan had been patrolling alone again tonight.

  Robin used his cape to glide around, making it over to West Chelsea Hill. Damian had seen Montoya's car, so he decided to at least see what the detective was up to. He didn't expect to see a certain former Batgirl here though. His swift feet land on the roof where Black Canary and Oracle had been. He drapes his cape over his shoulders, hood up and making that all too familiar Bat-stance. He doesn't really say anything at first, probably thinking his eyes may be deceiving him.

Renee Montoya has posed:
    A thin man, in a suit, rather expensive looking at that, tall, dark hair turns the corner and starts walking down the otherwise empty street. He does not see Montoya, of course. Because she is slouched low. And, the darkness obscures much. It is only one part of how people like Batman, or the Black Canary, or Oracle are effective. But it is certainly a contributor. Tonight, Renee Montoya shows she, too, can take advantage of that.
    The man, if one were to encounter him in the daylight, in downtown Gotham, might seem a perfect fit. A manager of some establishment or bank, perhaps a member of a board of one of Gotham's many companies, or, someone here on a business trip. The pinstriped suit looks both fashionable, and curious on him given the circumstances. It is also, some keen eyed detectives may note - extraordinarily expensive. Decadent. The sort of suit you buy to impress people with. The sort of suit you buy because you've got an extra $10,000 sitting in your account and you really have nothing better to buy. Or, because you want it to appear that way.
    The man moves to the door of the middle building, knocks a few times. The door opens a crack - and, an eerie blue light flashes. Once. Like someone had flicked on and off a powerful blacklight or UV light just as the door opened.
    The door closes behind the man.
    Depending on how sensitive Barbara, the Canary, or Damian are? They may feel the building shift. Just a bit. Like a small earthquake just rumbled through Gotham -- the sort that makes cars shift a bit. People question their sanity because their desk shimmied for two or three seconds but nothing really moved or shook.
    A few moments later, there is another shimmy of the building.

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
    "_That_ was weird." Kate mutters to herself, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. "Maybe I've been doing too much?" She puts her glasses back on and zooms in with magnification. "There it is again! The hell?"

    Hawkeye draws an arrow and puts it to the string but doesn't pull back yet. It's just in case. "I don't like this. I have a bad feeling."

Oracle has posed:
    Barbara lets out a soft little noise, just enough to draw attention as she gestures down to the well-dressed man, murmuring out. "C'mon, who dresses up that nice at night in Gotham? Like, it's no neon 'Mug me' sign, but..." And then that little flash through the door happens and she frowns.

    Babs gives a quick shake of her head and she murmurs out. "Well, -that's- not a usual gang thing. Retinal scanner or something? They don't usually flash, but who knows, maybe they've started taking pictures in case the scanner says 'Bill' and it's really some grumpy guy in a bat suit..." Not that she really figures Gotham gangs have -that- level of smarts. Hell, they can barely figure out not to tangle with murderous clowns.

    Babs sighs and begins to move down the fire escape, "Well, we should -probably- say hi to Renee and offer our help instead of just... busting in without a hello. I mean, vigilante justice doesn't have to be impolite, you know?"

Black Canary has posed:
    Canary slits her eyes a bit, frowning as she catches the flash...then wobbles as she looks around sharply as she feels the shaking. "...the hell?" she mutters, frowning deeply. "...no. A new gang like this, having money to spend on something like that?" She shakes her head, moving to follow Oracle down. "Something's majorly off here..." she says, on alert now. "Someone like that, here, dealing with a newbie gang like this?"

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian also feels the slight shake of the building, but it only confirms something is up here for the young hero.

  "I never thanked her for letting me use her car..." Damian offers before he follows suit, though the boy jumps off the roof rather than scaling the fire escape. Robin makes his way over slowly, keeping his black and gold cape draped around himself as he moved towards the Defective's car.

Renee Montoya has posed:
    Montoya, of course, does not see the building shake. She does not, for that matter, feel her car rumble. The experience did not translate that far.
    However, upon seeing the strange flash of blue light, Renee's seen something that has interested her. And she knows sitting in her car isn't going to get her what she needs. She pushes out of the door, and slowly moves towards the building, wearing simple street clothes. That's when she sees the group of three moving down, and one at least she knows well. The other - well, she knows, but she doesn't know she knows she knows. Yet. And, the other? Well. She's heard of the Black Canary. Who hasn't?

    Renee moves to the side of the building, not stopping, and inclines her head to them. She speaks quietly. "Nice night for a walk?" Her gun holster is resting on her hip, slung across her chest and shoulder, hidden by her leather jacket.

    Hawkeye, for her part, will see nothing strange happening further. Instead, it's like Gotham yawned - and then went back to sleep. Which is stranger, still.

    A black, unmarked, delivery vehicle begins to turn down the street, now, headlights off. It turns into a side alley against the building of interest on the far side from Renee, and the others hitting the ground.

    In the silence, the engine can be heard cutting off, and then nothing again.

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
    "Guess I'm going to have to take a closer look." Hawkeye says to herself, and fires her arrow - it anchors itself in the roof of the watched warehouse, the other end she secures on the roof she's standing on. She hooks a gadget to the line that had deployed btween the two ends and uses it to motor herself across the gap. It wouldn't be a surprise if the motion through space and her landing on the far end was noticed by sharp-eyed vigilantes on the ground.

Oracle has posed:
    Babs does her best to keep her face stern and serious, and not grin and wave to Renee like some sort of teenage vigilante who's out for fun... she hasn't been that in like -six years-. Still, she's quick to pull out a small camera, snapping pictures. At least they're not selfies, they're just broad views of the buildings, and then a series of shots of that black van. She can't help but whisper out. "Ohhhhhh.... a black delivery van driving around with no lights on. That must be like... -all- kinds of legitimate stuff." She stops and looks up at motion and then lifts her eyebrows, whispering out a little more urgently.

    "Uhhh... did anyone call anyone -else- in on this? There's someone ziplining down or something. God, these guys are just... -not- going to have a good night. But hey, the more the merrier. It'd be neat not to be outnumbered by guns for once."

Black Canary has posed:
    Black Canary shoots Renee a quick grin. "...amazing the interesting people you meet walking this neighborhood at night, isn't?" she whispers, faintly teasing, then turns more serious, making a little 'this way' motion as she quietly slinks over to the side of the building, glancing up for signs of any cameras...and if she doesn't find any nearby, trying to get to the corner so she can peek around the corner to see what the van is doing.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     "You could say that..." Robin offers, paying attention to the delivery truck that just rolled up to the building. "I didn't call any Titans on this." He offers to Barbara, looking up. "Not sure who else would know about any of this."

Renee Montoya has posed:
    By her expression, Renee's internal monologue must be -really- interesting as she regards the three that are with her, and the shadow of the fourth. "I'm going to go around the building. Look for anything suspicious." There are, for those excellent in reading body language, or with heavy intuition, to get Renee's meaning. The Detective has no reason to act. So she's looking for a reason. But -- well, vigilantees? In some ways, they are above the constrictions of the law.
    "Don't do anything stupid. I'll have to call in backup." You know. To arrest the guys that are probably breaking the law inside the building.

    She begins to walk around the dark corner. The Detective, perhaps, has some brass on her, figureatively speaking. Who knows, afterall, what's back there? Besides, that is, the delivery vehicle.

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
"Keep to the high ground, Katiemonster." Hawkeye tells herself as she looks for security measures up on the roof as well as a way into the building from up there. She switches her optics to infra and turns on a small infrared light clipped to her weapon harness. She's got another arrow to the string - one with a taser warhead. Crouching, she makes her way to that ingress.

Oracle has posed:
    Babs can't help but hide a grin, poor Renee... she really does get stuck in these situations, but it's probably better than waiting for GCPD to show up, given response times and the propensity for officers to somehow make enough money to afford beach houses out of town. Vigilantes are at least off their nut enough to not be taking bribes from the criminals they facepunch.

    But Babs puts on her serious face for real, slowly beginning to creep along the side of the building towards the door, eyes sweeping for tripwires and the like, with the occasional glance back to make sure Dinah is following... and she even gives a little nod to Damian. Look, he's out teaming up! This should be good for him. He might even get -positive reinforcement-, she idly thinks. Sure, Bruce is just looking out for them, but his management style is a little... draining, with all the focusing on mistakes and skipping over the good moves. She keeps glancing back to Dinah, figuring she'll alert her if anything's going on around the corner. That flash really has Babs' interest though. Gotham tech usually doesn't flash blue. It makes carnival music or shoots ice beams or... makes penguin noises or whatever. Sinister blue light? That sounds out of town for sure.

Black Canary has posed:
    Canary raises a brow as Renee goes around the corner, then finds herself peering after her, then back at Babs as the two promptly go in different directions...she rolls her eyes a bit and sighs. Well then. She remains where she is where she can be lookout for both of them, ready to jump in if they do stumble into something.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian follows along for now, keeping an eye out for any errant thug or someone who would need to be silenced.

  It is a bit unusual that Robin would choose to team up like this, but he's curious to see Barbara actually in the field. He's seen nearly everyone else in their 'family' except her.

Renee Montoya has posed:
    Behind the alley, where Renee disappeared, there are no sounds. No gunshots, no yells of surprise, no sounds of any truck being started again.

    As Hawkeye makes her way into the rooftop, ... well, there's no defenses on the door that leads down into the building. In fact, the stairwell, too, is empty. There's almost a severe lack of any sort of security. Probably, there hasn't been time to set any up.
    Yet, as Hawkeye makes her way down, the infared will show ... massive heat influxes. Glaring. From the position of the main floor..
    And when she gets down to the base of the building, there is ... a hole. In the floor. A rather large hole. Perfectly made. It smells, unpleasently, of molten rock. Wood. Dirt. And, cement.
    Several boxes are around, opened. Whatever was in them is gone, now. But the obvious things about those boxes, those crates? Well. They seem to have been made to house weapons.
    The men, though? The men are gone.

    And the man in the suit? Gone. But the hole in the floor? Seems to be a tunnel. Headed into the adjacent building.

    Outside, in the streets, the flash of blue light appears, breifly, in one corner where the board, in the boarded window had cracked due to rocks or other objects thrown into it. It's as brief, and as strange, as the one in the first building.

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
    "This is _weird_." Kate tells herself. No sign of anyone, nothing except the hole at the bottom level. She crouches near the pit, holding her hand out near the edge, expecting to feel radiated heat and quite a lot of it. "Who can melt holes in solid rock, and who would want to... but there aren't even any bodies! This makes no sense."

Oracle has posed:
    Babs freezes, her eyes widening as she catches that flash, letting out a sharp little whistle, just a brief one -not- quite exactly like a bird call. She waves her hand to get Dinah's attention, pointing to the other building, and shifting from the door of the first to begin moving over there. She keeps low, moving from shadow to shadow, and by the time she's nearing the window she's almost as smooth as she was when she was doing this full time. It's like riding a crazy bicycle. "Okayyy... weird blue lights in -two- buildings... yeah, I've got a good feeling about this. This is definitely not a situation about to explode in my face at all..."
She barely mumbles it, before moving in and creeping up to the window, trying to peek through the crack in the board. Why -not- go low tech? Or old school or whatever?

Black Canary has posed:
    Dinah turns, then nods and moves to follow Babs, staying close to her as she crouches down. "...are they moving something between the buildings? But why bother?" she murmurs, as she flattens against the wall, letting Oracle peer through the window. No reason for both of them to poke their heads over....besides, she knows Oracle is trained and perfectly capable of figuring things out without her literally looking over her shoulder.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian changed his mask's vision mode to what the clan had come to call 'detective mode' a blend of night vision, infrared, and HUD overlays. He mainly wanted to look for temperature variations, but the flashes had definitely been strange, even in Gotham. So he was on the lookout for anything strange around them.

  The bird call goes a little unnoticed for now, though Robin keeps low, and out of the light, just like any good stealth operative would.

Renee Montoya has posed:
    Renee comes through the opening of door - pushes it open hesitantly, carefully, as it wasn't locked. So, it's not breaking and entering. Seeing no one inside, hearing no voices, the Detective moves in. She looks over at Kate, frowning, "What the hell, ...," she asks, coming upon the hole, looking around for dead bodies, or incapacitated perps. She sees none.
    Only those boxes. She knows what they were for, and she looks back down into the hole, "Don't suppose you jumped down there, yet?" She asks Hawkeye, wryly.

    Barbara will see several men inside the building. Each of them has a gun. Coated in some kind of odd white metal? Maybe plastic? Hard to tell from this distance. They don't look like any guns Barbara has ever seen. Ever. On any internet forum. Ever. Not even something that one of the megalomaniacs like the Doctor Doom's of the world have made in one of their attempts. They look - almost science-fictiony. Like movie props. If movie props looked as real in real life as they did on-screen.

    Two more men appear, having climbed up into Barbara's line of sight, seemingly from the floor. They're all talking in low whispers, too low to be heard. And then the man in the suit gestures, and they head out of the room, towards the back of the building as one.
    Inside? From what Barbara can see, there's - well, signs of life. Unlike the bulding Kate and Renee are in. Chairs. Finished bottles. Signs of human life.

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
    Hawkeye starts to draw her sword but it's only a touch out of the scabbard set into the quiver before she decides Renee isn't a blue-light blasting rock melter. "No." she says. "I need to get some drones. This not seeing things around corners sucks. "Here, though. let's see what we can see." and the draws an arrow, stands back and shoots it into the hole. She has a hunch this is tunnel, so she's trying to aim in such a way that the flare arrow will end up on the floor of said tunnel rather than the bottom of the abyss. then she looks back to Montoya. "Heard of anything that makes holes like that?"

Oracle has posed:
    Babs works at the board once the men are headed into the back, out of sight. Once she's through, she's taking more pictures... she -really- should have gotten fully kitted up with all the gadgets, but the camera's gizmoriffic enough she'll be able to pull finger prints off the bottles and do all that tech voodoo she do. She'll have to check out the property info for these warehouses, too. Weird lights, signs of living. There's no way these guys are the usual sort of Gotham squatters that get run out of warehouses every few days. That means shell companies and papertrails, and the sort of thing she's better at than swinging from grappling hooks and kicking people. Although, she's got to admit, this sneaking around in the field stuff is... still a little fun.

Black Canary has posed:
    Dinah tilts her head. "Whatcha see?" she says finally, quietly, to Babs as she seems to be taking a lot of pictures. And hell, why not peer in at that point to see herself! She cautiously does so, then raises a brow. "...the hell...." she murmurs softly. "Where are they going?"

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     At Dinah's questioning, Damian can only follow suit. "This...is something wrong..." He knew exactly what it reminded him of, but it definitely couldn't be League, but it was something akin to their kind of operations. Near occult-like, Damian had his theories for now. But this wasn't the place to bring it up.

Renee Montoya has posed:
    There is the sound of the delivery van starting, and as immediately as it starts, it begins to drive away -- none of the men remain. They, at least for now? Are gone. All of them.

    "Not a damn thing," Montoya conceeds towards Hawkeye. The flare arrow she fires down shows the tunnel goes on, and the smokey-hot creation is cooling, but, it's tall and wide enough for men to walk through, and seems to move into the adjacent billing. She's not so impulsive, though, that she's jumping down just yet.

    Oracle may be able to see a laptop, on one of the tables. But, the room is empty that she's looking into, now.

Oracle has posed:
    Babs figures she can get away with a little... well, is it really vandalism? Either way, she's prying the boards off the window with a bit more speed than care, so she can make her way in and scoop up the laptop, after a quick look over it to make sure it's not boobytrapped. Hey, even weird fancier-than-they-should-be criminals make mistakes sometimes... boy are they going to regret it! She holds the laptop up as she makes her way towards the door the men went through, just to peek around the corner. But given that she doesn't hear talking or movement, she's betting they were just waiting in here for whatever happened with those flashes, and now they've gone slinking off into the night. "Well, at least I've got their computer... but this is... -weird-. I don't like it. Feels like one of those big... -bad- things that starts going out of control. Gang wars and the like."

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
    "Doesn't look too deep." Hawkeye says. "What's over in that direction?" Kate asks, pointing for Renee in the direction the tunnel goes. "Well, if there's anyone down there, we can find out." and she draws another arrow and fires it after the first, expecting it to go as far down the tunnel as possible. There it should explode with a bright flash and a loud bang - that's what it's for. "Leroy Jenkins?" she says, more a question than a warcry.

Black Canary has posed:
    Dinah follows Babs in as she slides inside, wiggling in to land in a crouch, then padding quietly over after her, on guard as she looks around slowly. "...missed the party.' She folds her arms, nodding slightly. "...that was..some sort of weird tech. NEver seen anything like it. Think someone's handing out advanced firearms or something?" She frowns. "But why? Something like that is sure to get attention as soon as they use them in a job..."

    She gestures towards the computer. "...well, if anyone can get something off that, it's you. Maybe it'll have a few more clues we can leak to our friendly detective out there anonymously...

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian follows suit, if only to keep looking around for any type of clue or anything he can analyze back at the cave. First there was mention of the Pits yesterday, now strange science fiction type guys. "Forensic data recovery, Oracle?" He offers, giving up on trying to recover anything after a while.

Renee Montoya has posed:
    There's a scrawl on a piece of paper, half torn, beneath the laptop which will state: Gotham First National Bank. Take everything. Welcome, to Intergang. Use what we've given you wisely.

    B.M.

    Of coruse, the connecting hole to the adjacent building that Hawkeye and Montoya are in is in the middle of the floor as well. And while Montoya isn't about to take that venture, perhaps Hawkeye does? Either way, Montoya shakes her head, "Really don't think they have a building permit for this. Might want to tell your friends. They have about ten minutes, before GCPD gets here. They'd better do what they need to do. Not everyone is as accomodating as I am. We're going to need to sweep this. Figure out what the hell is going on."

    There are other vauge clues to be found, as well. No doubt GCPD will find them, as they comb the area, once they arrive. Renee is already on her phone, calling it in.