2127/Epokhe

Epokhe
Date of Scene:	23 August 2017
Location:	A junkyard, New York City outer boroughs
Synopsis:	Several days ago, Sam Winchester received a precognitive vision, telling him where the Winter Soldier would be on this date. He and Mercy, Fred, and Dean pull together their weeks of preparation, and set and spring a trap.
Cast of Characters:	Winifred Burkle, Dean Winchester, Mercy Thompson, Winter Soldier, Sam Winchester
Tinyplot:	Tayaniye

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Winifred Burkle has posed:
The day of Sam's vision has come. The time, though? That is still for a little while yet. Through a lot of trial and error and legwork, the likely junkyard has been found and those attempting to apprehend the Winter Soldier have consolidated there.

It's a winding maze of twisted cars, car parts as well as dust and concrete. The husks of wrecked and abandoned vehicles are piled at least five high in some places, giving the impression of rusted metal walls and desolation. Around the perimeter of the space is a large chain link fence with barbed wire at the top to dissuade looters. The yard's office is dark - the owner long since gone home.

A desolate center holds the Scrap Magnet. It's old and well-used, but silent for the moment. Surrounding it in a circle are piles of surprisingly well organized car parts scattered about in varying heights. There's a pile for engines, another for bumpers, one for doors and another for hunks of twisted metal. From there, the maze spreads out, the twists and turns anyone's guess.

Winifred Burkle? She's standing nearby one of the first bends nearby a tall stack of random hunks of metal. An axe is held in one hand, a remote detonator from Mercy in the other. Her share of the bombs she and Mercy worked to build remains in a bag over her shoulder. In other words, she's in place.

Dean Winchester has posed:
Planning and preparation meant casing this place in preparation. Dean had walked its perimeter. He'd talked through the plan with his cohorts at length. They'd discussed watching and waiting--staying at each of the edges so they could wait until the target got to the centre and then throw everything they had at him.

But something niggled at Dean's thoughts. While the conversation had suggested that they could concentrate their attack--that each would watch from some corner of the scrap-pile, semi-hidden and semi-protected, the eldest Winchester had committed the most open spots to memory.

He slips out from his corner, and treads towards the centre of the junkyard... where he crouches down in the wide open. And then, like the arrogant hunter that he is, he begins to whistle the Andy Griffith theme. Dressed in several layers of armoured fabric, all from SHIELD R&D, including his light-weight tactical jacket, he's far more armoured than he looks. He turns the Colt over in his hand and checks the bullets, practice he'd done many times before even coming here. And in the open he waits. Whistling.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
A plan has been put into motion. A trap set.

Now the group must wait and waiting is one of the hardest things to do.

The majority of Mercy's time has been put into constructive efforts of booby-trapping what trails she thinks might be most used. Those spiraling and sharply angled pathways have been seeded with a variety of their homemade bombs. Taser, explosive and EMPs. It's only after the last bomb has been placed that Mercy will limp her way out of one of the myriad of paths and reappear within that center of the yard. "Okay, everything is set." The coyote says, her own bag of left-over bombs settled against her hip. "Thanks to Fred's suggestion I've a few extra things too - we were able to craft a handful of magical Molotov Cocktails; I've been calling them Hellfires." From within the bag several small metallic cylinders will be pulled forth. "Just make sure they crack open when you drop them on the ground and the area around them will go up in flames." One Hellfire will be offered to each member, if wanted, then the coyote turns her gaze towards the magnet crane. "I'm going to set up shop near the crane. Somewhere high enough that I can get something of a bird's eye view. Probably there." And Mercy will point towards a stack of compacted cars nearish to the crane that look similar to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. While the stability of her particular hunter's bluff looks to be in question the tonnage of cars trapped within keeps it firmly upright.

Lastly, a familiar shape sits strapped upon her forearm; a smart phone, and within the smart phone sits an app and within that active app is a hierarchy. The hierarchy is for each particular avenue within the junkyard that's been set with explosives. She can detonate them singularly or in one fell swipe of her finger. It just depends on the situation at hand or possibly the amount of desperation that might be felt at the time.

Her gaze will take in Fred and that axe of hers and also Dean. His whistling earns a look from the coyote - something that reads close to exasperation. Instead of voicing her thoughts, she simply states, "Please be careful. I'd rather not bury anyone else because of today."

Winter Soldier has posed:
For quite a while, it is silent. The vision was not exactly pinpoint specific about time, and so there's some waiting involved.

Presently, however, the Winter Soldier makes his appearance, on cue, walking his slow unhurried way home from a job. For given values of 'home' and 'job.' It must have been something big, because he's fully kitted and fully armored, a solid dark shape in the night moving with quiet confidence even under the weight of all his customary armaments.

He must be accustomed to cutting through desolate areas like this at night, the better to avoid prying eyes, because he slips past the fencing with ease, stalking a silent path through the twisting wreckage and piled car parts. His head is bowed, his aspect absent. He isn't thinking about what he just did, though. The Winter Soldier never thinks about much at all, when he is alone.

He seems poised to simply cut straight through the yard and its open center-- up until his sharpened hearing catches a sound in the distance. The distant strains of nonchalant whistling give him pause. He stands a moment, thinking, before he steps back into the heavy shadows thrown by the overhanging bodies of the cars, veering away from the yard's center and choosing a path that sticks to its periphery.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
From her place by the stacks, Fred sees Dean walk out nonchalantly and start to whistle. There's a tensing of her shoulders, a glare that she knows the elder Winchester cannot see. "//Dean!//" she hisses softly into their communication devices. "We're all supposed to be hiding!"

She should have known that something like this would happen. Much like Dean would plunge into a burning building? He'll stand out in the middle of a junkyard to pull fire from the rest of them.

A glance is given toward the crane and where she assumes Mercy is hiding, as if beseeching help from the woman. Perhaps from her vantage point she can see the amount of 'can you believe this boy?' that is in her expression. While she could wax and wane on Dean's recklessness at the moment, she doesn't want to say too much at the moment. If she starts she'll never stop and, well, that's not exactly good for being covert. "We'll be careful, Mercy," she assures the coyote. "Mathematically speaking, an event such as this has quite a few factors that come into play. It's difficult to calculate an actual percentage, so that means that statistically it's just as likely we'll all survive as all be killed." To Fred, that is good news.

From her viewpoint on the ground, she doesn't see the Winter Soldier approach, nor does she know that the time in the vision has reached its appropriate point. Instead, she keeps an alert, looking about her in an attempt to find where their quarry might enter.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam, like Dean, is more armored than he looks to be, with his own bulletproof plaid shirt, tactical jacket, t-shirt and even jeans. He had swiped earbuds for all and sundry and has another ICER pistol to boot.

He has taken up position in the shadows near his brother, and he grimaces to see how armed and armored the Winter Soldier is when he arrives to cut through that yard.

Dean decides to whistle and Sam gives him the flattest, most annoyed look possible. That is not how one hides from anybody or anything. The Winter Soldier cuts through the periphery. He makes a few hand-signals. If they're gonna use that magnet, they're gonna have to herd him.

Thus, he starts dart-dashing along to try to get behind the assassin, running softly on feet which have snuck up behind dozens of monsters, ICER pointed down at the ground. /As long as I get there before Barnes hears me./

Wryly, he adds to himself, /I suppose Dean is just going to leap out directly in front of him and yell his version of the Indigo Mantoya speech. He basically already has./

He doesn't earbud this because, well, they're still in sneak mode.

Kinda.

Dean Winchester has posed:
Dean manages a flicker of a smile to Mercy's voice in his ear. The whistling continues despite the commentary as does that coy little smirk that he seems to always wear. The smirk actually turns dimpled when he sees the look Sam gives him.

He nods to his brother, granting him the cutesiest smile he can manage that, by all accounts says one thing and one thing only: /I think I'm adorable/.

In this train of thought, he reaches into the jacket and tugs at the sleeve to hold the hilt of his hunter's knife in his free hand and ensures his colt is secured in the other.

Sam's hand gestures aren't missed, and has Dean's feet taking up a path to do just as Sam had thought. He runs on an intercept course towards the periphery as per Sam's silent instructions. While there's certainly focus in the movement, likely unsurprisingly to the younger Winchester, he tries to get the Soldier's attention as he attempts to get in front of him, "Too loudly, and far too brashly, he announces, "My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my Father. Prepare to die."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Mercy's enhanced physique is what gets her up into her roost. Then the coyote arranges her bag of bombs within ease of reach and settles herself down to wait.

Waiting.

It's one of the hardest things to do. It often lulls the mind into an inattentiveness. Where things can be missed, or inaction occurs. Or perhaps a better descriptor is slowed reactionary time.

Either way, Mercy Thompson has been hunting for nearly her whole life and while this particular game isn't a rabbit, deer or moose, she still knows how to keep her mind in the here and now. It also helps that the stress of this particular situation is keeping the coyote's adrenalin and anxiety at peak levels.

Also - Fred's assessment doesn't seem to help that level of anxiety within the mechanic, not with the odds their facing, because really, who likes 50/50? Mercy is more of a 80/20 or 90/10 sort of girl.

And while the Winter Soldier is a superb craftsman at the art of hide, seek and kill, Mercy's own senses alert her to the fact that he's here. Her hearing zeroes in on where the sound of nearly silent footsteps can be heard and carefully the coyote turns her head just enough to look in that direction. Reflexively her hand grips the edge of her bomb bag and while she was just about to murmur the softest of warnings to the group Sam and Dean's movements are seen and heard. That causes the coyote to pause, but not for long. Not when Dean announces his presence just so. That's enough to cause the coyote to say quietly over their particular channel. "Fred he's here. Dean and Sam are moving to intercept. Get ready."

While trepidation holds a tight hand around Mercy's heart and lungs, the mechanic still reacts. The phone upon her arm is brought close and the finger-smudged tempered glass is touched. While most phones have a brightness of three thousand tonight Mercy has brought it down to its lowest setting. It barely offers any sort of shining or reflective light, which doesn't bother her. Mercy's sensitive eyes can pick up all the icons even with the darkest setting. Quickly now the coyote begins to tap and swipe -

Winter Soldier has posed:
The Winter Soldier comes to a slow stop as Dean pops out in front of him. His masked features are unreadable, even though his eyes are not covered: the blue of them is as cool and faraway as the vault of the empty sky.

Dean proceeds to say some... stuff.

The reference goes straight over his head. In 1973, the Winter Soldier was busy wreaking a quiet sort of havoc in Sinai, invisible-handing the Arab-Israeli war. His head tilts, just a fraction, and he seems passingly irritated.

His hands move. With a decades-practiced speed and dexterity, they catch up the M4 carbine slung across his chest, snap the weapon to a ready, aim center-mass, and fire.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
At the wrong end of the maze for the initial battle, Fred is alerted to it by the yell from Mercy. Immediately, the woman moves into action. The detonator is shoved into her pocket for the moment and she pulls out an EMP bomb from her bag as she rushes forward. "On it!" she tells Mercy, a little inwardly annoyed that Dean's recklessness worked in their favor. She'll never live that down now. If they all live, of course.

Her own approach is not at all stealthy. At first it was, but then she hears the loud war cry of Dean Winchester declaring that he is Inigo Montoya and she turns her pursuit into a full out run. She has faith that Sam and Mercy are in place. This is what she can do to try and ensure this all happens properly.

She arrives just in time to see the M4 Carbine readied to fire at Dean. Immediately, there is worried panic. The bomb has a very short radius, she runs up close to try and plant it properly. First, she attempts to distract with a yelled: "//Barnes!//" As she does so, she football tosses it the Winter Soldier as she activates it, immediately backing up as she does so.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam does not yell.

Sam is in the shadows, and Sam raises the ICER to aim at the back of the Winter Soldier's neck. It works better, he has been told, if one can get it in skin to skin contact so the dendrotoxins can absorb faster, instead of on armor or something like that. He double-taps it, sending two blue shots streaking in that direction. He's pretty sure this won't actually knock the super-soldier out, given all he's seen, but...it might slow him down.

Or at least work with Fred's bomb to distract him.

From shooting. At his brother.

This reminds him, coldly, of the threat that Barnes made to him in his prison cell. The slow burn of anger starts to churn, twisting at his gut, racing through his tainted veins.

Dean Winchester has posed:
It's fortunate that Dean wore the SHIELD armour. The weapons fire that he takes has him hitting the ground hard to escape the spray of bullets. Even with layers of light bulletproof clothing, taking any kind of considerable fire is ill-advised.

A bullet catches one of those layers, causing the flesh underneath to complain with the bruising from getting so hit. The groan that follows isn't sharp, but it's certainly present to anyone really paying attention--especially through the earpieces.

While pasted to the ground, Dean army-crawls towards one of the many cars lining the area, using it as a shield before bringing himself up to a stand to draw out the colt once more. He peeks from behind the vehicle and fires towards the Soldier.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Mercy's attention is split between the channel, her phone, the Winchester brothers, Winter Soldier and also Fred. Mercy hears the other woman offer that 'on it'; knowing that means Fred is now joining the fight below.

"Sam, Dean, Fred, get ready. I'm going to blow a stack of crap near you guys. Get ready to move." Is Mercy's only warning, that warning said quietly over the channel, because she's not giving her hiding spot away. Not yet.

With those words of hers said a single fingertip jabs at one spot, a second and finally a third upon her smartphone's screen. With each touch the bombs that are hidden activate -

And while the bombs start their very short countdown Mercy's attention is dragged away from her phone and to the fight below thanks to the sharp retort of a gun being fired. "Dammit."

Mere seconds after the Winter Soldier fires the muffled sounds of three explosions is likewise heard. Seconds after the bombs detonate there's a horrendously loud creak of shorn and distressed metal. That noise is coming from a tall and heavy stack of compressed metal blocks. And with those bombs blown the stack of condensed shrapnel slams to the ground like some great tree felled; its path headed for the group below.

While the tonnage of falling metal isn't as great as the tower of cars that Mercy is sitting upon there's still enough that it would flatten and kill a normal human being.

Mercy Thompson apparently didn't hold back with how she placed her bombs. It's all about maximum destruction.

Winter Soldier has posed:
A few rounds squeeze off, but the Winter Soldier doesn't wait for a confirmed kill, especially when he hears the sound of Fred shouting, off to the left, and /especially/ when he hears those three explosions go off. Like any good predator, he can smell a trap when he's in one, and his immediate reaction?

He bolts. The flare of the EMP stumbles him briefly as his left arm shorts and drops, and so does one of the ICER rounds as it tags him in the back of the neck, but his fast-running blood purges toxins almost as quickly as they can work. And his arm? The hardened circuits will recover.

He doesn't need it to run, and his is a constitution that can hit sixty an hour in perfect condition. He's slower now from the toxin, but quick enough to clear the falling debris, quick enough to outpace the fire being aimed at him.

But he's also mad. Extremely mad. So the path he decides to take out from under the falling debris is one straight through Fred, and he doesn't need his left arm to lash out a backhand strong enough to send her spinning off her feet and -- well, ironically, probably far enough to help spare her from the falling debris.

It's certainly not intentional. He doesn't even stick around long enough to see if he hits or where she lands if he does, because he's heading straight down the periphery of the yard.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred is already backpedalling by the time Mercy give the warning that she's going to blow that part of the yard. This is part of the plan and she knows to be on her feet. She also knows exactly what the Winter Soldier is capable of doing. Despite all that, however, he is far faster than she even remembers.

The explosive cacophony of the bombs exploding is just about expected, but there is debris everywhere and then a Winter Soldier immediately in her face. He's paying little attention to her, but he or others might be able to see the surprise as she attempts to dodge him. That, unfortunately, means little when a physicist attempts to duck and weave a highly trained assassin.

While her hand is already digging out a smaller magnetized bomb, she has no time to actually toss it. Instead, the only thing in her immediate vision is the Winter Soldier. His non-metal arm easily smacks her backward and out of his way.

Fred goes careening. Quite ironically, the hit means the debris does not harm her, but she tumbles to the ground in a heap of limbs and prepared bombs. The axe slips from her hand as she falls. For a few moments, she doesn't move.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam gets the heck out of the way of the bombs when warned, booking it at his quite normal human speeds. He touches his earbud. "He's moving for the exit-- fast. If you don't have a way to shut those exits down he's going to finish this right here, and even then we might have trouble, cause he can go right over those cars."

His voice is matter-of-fact, despite the seething rage churning within. The periphery isn't going to get them to their trump card. He decides to stick to the shadows, though. He decides, too, to change it up. He pulls out his Beretta and lays down some suppression fire right in front of the soldier, hoping to give him pause...

Hoping to conceal just how many there are and who is shooting what...

And in general just hoping to buy them some time while they try to re-route the man.

Dean Winchester has posed:
"Roger, Mercy!" With the bullets having let up on him, Dean twists around the vehicle and fires his Colt several times in an effort to maintain their efforts at corralling. Simultaneously, as the bombs going off, he picks up pace as per Mercy's instructions. His aim becomes increasingly terrible and he breaks into a sprint amid the crazy falling metal surrounding the scene. "Shit!" his eyes widen at the shrapnel falling around them.

This chase after the soldier, and the need to run away from explosions everywhere, gives Dean a good view of Fred get the metal arm. "Freddy!!" The instructions into the earpiece that Dean hisses between gasps for air, just want an indication that she's going to be fine, "Get..." he gasps "...up... " gasp "... and walk..." gasp "...it off..."

As he pursues the Soldier, it becomes clear that he's effectively run out of bullets, and with the desperation of needing to slow the Soldier, or at least make him mad enough to stall him, he relies on his best defence: sass. And remembering all too well what a touchy subject Claire had been, he goes there, "Going back to kidnapped company so soon?! Can't make a gal stay--oh wait! You can! By literally making Claire stay..."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
"Dean! Fred!" Exclaims Mercy, "Are you ok!" Dean is, but Fred - still not sure and she can't stay focused on that.
Not when the Winter Soldier moves. Running.

Not good. Not unexpected, but still not good.

Mercy rises from her crouched position atop those cars. She was using the space between two of the compacted vehicles as her hiding place, but now that he's on the move, she's up.

Her keen coyote gaze can see where he's head. Kind of like a spotter. Thankfully, she doesn't need to call his movements out, not when Sam does so quite neatly. Her clipped response can be heard to Sam's words, "On it." It's an echo of what Fred said just moments before and like the coyote said, she is on it. Several more bombs are activated and from those bombs a couple of things happen. The pathway that the Winter Soldier is following gives a faint shudder and from the explosions metal explodes from both sides. Hot shards fling outward, their edges sharp, wicked, intending to bite into armor and hopefully flesh. And while those potential bits of shrapnel could possibly be lethal, it's really the next set of explosions that Mercy hopes will be the game changer.

Mercy waits for the last possible minute to blow the nearest exit that the Soldier could take. Only with this explosion she's not trying to crush him, instead she wants the tall pile of metal that now covers his retreat to be something he'll have to go around. Or rathe go /over/. Specifically climb over.

Within that pile of metallic castoffs are nearly a dozen taser bombs. The twelve bombs have been wired to specific bits of metal within. When activated the hill will become one giant taser -

Only Mercy has to wait before she triggers the electrical current to run through it. Wait for him to climb it, or stand upon it, or for the love of god, just touch a part of the interlaced and interlocked pieces of metal so she can zap him with this very large and improvised cattleprod.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The open space they desperately want him in-- the one containing one very large magnet-- is exactly the kind of location his instinct tells him to avoid as he bolts along the narrow passageways winding between piles of scrap and twisted cars. The suppressive fire does cause him to alter course, the Soldier forced along a path a little closer to the center, but he's fast enough that he can weave through some of it outright, negating the need for him to change course too much.

He can assuredly hear Dean yelling behind him, but he's sunk fully into operational mode, all sense of emotion or play gone into the cold calculus of very simple decisions: run, or stay? Escape, or kill?

He seems content to simply evacuate for now, but it rapidly becomes plain that whoever set out to ambush him tonight has no intention of letting him leave. The first triggered explosion he feels before it actually bursts, and he makes an instant leap inches ahead of the shredding shrapnel that blasts inwards from both sides, vaulting over the swung-open door of a derelict car at the top of the pile and flipping into a landing on its other side.

This places him, coincidentally, out in the open they wanted him to be in, but he's not sticking around. He's heading straight for the nearest exit. Which, of course, is trapped. All it does is collapse at first, the debris blocking the way out, and he assumes that's the trap, for there's no way around. Did they think he couldn't go over? He makes to do so with the same agility he's demonstrated everywhere else this night.

It seems with the Soldier, what it takes is overkill, because the twelve bombs put a dead stop to him the way nothing else to date has. The blast sends him crashing back into one of the larger heaps of twisted pile of metal, impacting with the kind of force that would be fatal to regular men. The kind of force that brings all those pieces of scrap sliding down, like a collapsing sand hill.

This does happen to temporarily obscure him from sight.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
The blow that incapacitates her is temporary. Fred slowly pushes herself upward after a the debris finally settles. There's quite a lot happening, a whistle in her ear along with the voices from the ear piece. "I'm--I'm alright," she gasps as a response to both Dean and Mercy, though there are sure to be bruises and pain tomorrow.

It's because of this, also, that she is clearly out of range of Mercy's second devastating round of trapped bombs to keep the Winter Soldier from departing. It's, luckily, the right amount of recovery time for the scientist to stand and pull another bomb from her bag...the one she had been reaching for before.

With the magnet bomb primed and ready, she is ready to toss it and pin him against any of the numerous piles of metal that surround him. Containment - sadly - seems to be their goal. But, without a visual on the man they are hunting, she stalks forward carefully and a bit painfully toward where the Winter Soldier disappeared.

This is clearly the point in the horror movie where someone attempts to poke a body they think to be dead, but she realizes now why they have to do it. They have to find him.

Sam Winchester has posed:
It's the chatter on the comms, rather than direct sight, that tells Sam Winchester that Fred got hurt. That anger sparks, hotter and harder than before. His upper lip begins to curl as he struggles to control the fury, to think in strategic fashion.

The Winter Soldier goes down under a crunch of debris, obscured from sight. He realizes Fred is stalking forward and he hisses in concern. "Fred, no, let me," he says, jogging to try to get there ahead of her. There are things he can live with and things he can't, and she's already gotten hurt. The image of that cold metal hand wrapping around her throat and squeezing the ever-loving tar out of her makes his blood run dark and cold; he's determined to be there first. He has his gun up-- live bullets, he's observed, impress the soldier a lot more than ICER rounds do.

He is also well aware Fred might ignore him; he adjusts his angle of approach to account for that as best he can.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
He takes the bait and for one brief second Mercy feels relief.

Relief that this might actually work.

And when he vaults to the land atop that pile of garbage Mercy Thompson touches the screen of her phone.

Then lightning strikes. In the figurative sense. And when he's tossed away and into that pile of scrap, Mercy waits. She waits for him to appear and when he doesn't she'll say quietly over the comm channel, "Do you see him?"

Winter Soldier has posed:
Minutes pass. Pieces of dislodged metal fall, periodically interrupting the silence, until the landslide of car pieces comes to an eventual and fitful stop.

The hunting party regroups in this time, and slowly and cautiously approaches the last known location of their intended prey. There's no hint of movement, no sign of life, no sound to indicate what might be going on. The group gets right up to the spot where he vanished, and still nothing. No killer leaps from the darkness to take their lives.

In fact, if they get brave enough to disturb the wreckage, it'll be to find no one there. Just the dragging marks of someone's movement-- heavy and labored at first, but soon enough lightening and vanishing as strength and constitution recovered. Not really surprising. Over the decades, he was known not only for his kills, but for how seamlessly he could disappear afterwards.

This time, of course, he hasn't gone far. The trapping of one exit caused him to assume all exits must be trapped, and if that is the case, well, there's only one thing to do...

Mercy, up in her perch on the leaning tower of cars, is alone. Up here it's quieter, the wind a little sharper. The night is still fairly calm, though, so the breeze only periodically picks up, tugging here-and-there at her hair.

There comes a time when it brushes past her, carrying the smell of metal and blood.

A few seconds later, a gunshot splits the air, and a .45 bullet travels down an exact path to blow a hole through her heart.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
The whispered concern is heard by Fred as she stalks forward toward where they last saw the Winter Soldier. There's a narrowing of her eyebrows, but she doesn't protest out loud. That would just defeat their purpose - not that they really have any amount of surprise left to them. However, the woman with the magnet bomb slows her approach to allow him to overtake her.

It's, honestly, not hard to do what with the blow she's already taken. The adrenaline accounts for something, keeping her strangely focused. Even if she wished to keep ahead of Sam, his determination to get there first would triumph over her own approach. "Be careful," she tells him, worry clear in her voice.

However, it's exactly how she feared. Behind her, in the perch where Mercy sits, she hears the gunshot. "Mercy!!" she shouts, immediately moving for the coyote.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam's head jerks up in alarm as he hears that single gunshot. From Mercy's perch, above, and in his ear, echo'd. His eyes widen in horror, and he takes off running. What he intends to do, if she's already dead, he doesn't know. He just tries to get up there to her, just as Fred does. His heart is in his throat. Another one of the leashes on his inner fury snaps, and for a moment he can't see anything but a red haze.

Then he realizes. If he's just shot her he won't even be up there anymore. Where would he go? If he were the soldier? He'd come hunting the rest of them. So he breaks off, scrambles up another pile of unrigged junk instead, and looks instead for a place to cover Fred as she runs to check on the coyote, face settling into grim, dark lines as he tries not to consider that Mercy Thompson, the woman who saved his life twice and who has only ever been kind to him, might be dead.

This entire day has been an object lesson in the whole plans, first contact with the enemy principle. He hopes it's not an object lesson in 'no war without casualties,' too.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
"Come on be down. Be down. Please be down." Is the mantra that Mercy Thompson says to herself - those words not necessarily broadcasted over the earbuds, but it's clear by the group's reactions down below that the assassin isn't there.

It nearly makes Mercy swear, but before any coarse language leaves her lips the wind stirs. It brings a familiar scent. Man and metal and death.

So much death.

But the wind is her friend, always her friend, and it gives her a second or two of warning. She may not (yet) know where the Winter Soldier is, but the fact that she caught his scent so near clearly tells her just how much trouble she's in. As such the mechanic does what she can only do milliseconds before the bark of the gun is heard, she flattens herself down. That's the only thing saves her from having a hole in the chest.

Even after the bullet has passed overhead the coyote lays there a second, heart rate high, breathing harsh. The shout of Fred's and Sam's isn't acknowledged at first, but eventually her voice comes across the line. "I'm ok! I'm ok!" And then the coyote is grabbing her bag of bombs and with a roll and a slither she's scooting off her perch and dropping to the ground. There's no way in hell she is staying up there. No way. Thank god her physique can cushion that rather steep drop; well mostly. There's going to be a grunt when she lands and a slight stagger, but she catches her balance by her second step.

"Don't get distracted we need to stick to the plan! Get him close - I can remote active /it/." It being the magnet crane, because yes, Mercy did install a remove starter upon the large and hopefully menacing - it'll only take one touch upon the screen of her smartphone to activate it.

Hearing Fred running towards her Mercy moves to meet the other woman half way.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Throughout the transaction, from the fire of the gun to the hiss of the bullet as it whiffs past, there is silence. Afterwards, there is silence.

Mercy isn't taking chances, though. She grabs her stuff and rolls clear off the edge of her perch.

She's only fallen about five feet before, in her wake, she can hear quite clearly the serpentine slither of armored plates click-clacking, the high whine of metal articulating, and the crunch of steel as something claws a hammerblow into the spot where she was two seconds previous. She no longer has line of sight from her vantage point, but she doesn't need to in order to guess who's up there.

He doesn't pursue, at least. Not directly. But it's pretty safe to say that right now, where the prey goes, the Winter Soldier will follow.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred is, again in Sam's wake. His long legs easily overtake her even when she's not allowing him to go first. Despite that, she's right behind, worried about her friend and the gunshot she just heard. There's already been so many close calls. Dean was saved by his armor, she was knocked about, Mercy was almost shot.

There's a quick and immediate intake of breath when she hears Mercy tell them that she's okay. For a moment, she slows her run, glad of that and needing a moment. Mercy's alive and alright. Of course, she can't blame Mercy from rolling, but who will work the magnet if she's not there.

The answer, of course, comes immediately and Fred should have known - Mercy rigged it. It's a relief. No longer feeling the need to run toward the crane, she starts to move toward Sam and the coyote with caution. Even after the attack on Mercy they don't quite know where he is exactly.

"Where is he?" she hisses toward her friends through the ear piece. In order for their plan to work, they need a Winter Soldier in order for that to happen. "Maybe we should spread out, cover more ground."

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam glances off in the direction where he last saw Dean, then looks at the other two. "No," he says. "He'll pick us off one by one. We've cornered him now. Come on. We move together." He glances at the other two and says, "Come on." He's going to try to be their cover for the crane, staying a little elevated, but otherwise sticking with them. At this point, splitting up strikes him as a terrible plan. Or perhaps he just feels like three close calls is three too many and he has a teenager's belief that if he can //see// the people he cares about they won't get hurt.

Either way, he figures three of them moving together can all keep each other safer, and will be a bigger draw to the soldier. He is pretty sure Dean is still stuck on the periphery, somewhat boxed in by some of the explosions but okay; which means they're essentially down a man unless they can get him there. He doesn't see the Soldier doubling back for Dean though, not when he's already come this far into the yard.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
That metallic blow from above is definitely heard by Mercy Thompson and she knows what that means. He's up high and they're down low. A perfect way to pick them off neatly and easily.

And also thankful that she had the wherewithal to jump when she did.

"Up. There." And Mercy helpfully points towards her just vacated perch, "Though he's probably moving, but he has the high ground now guys, this is bad." And while Mercy doesn't necessarily agree with staying together she will nod to Sam's plan. "Let's get moving." And like that Mercy pivots upon heel and moves. She's going to likely drift ahead, thanks to her ability to run much faster even in human form, but that doesn't stop her from trying to keep tabs upon Sam, Fred and if she can any movements from the Soldier. Even as Mercy runs she'll do two things - one, touch the screen of her smartphone to ready it for potential action and two, reach into the front pocket of her messenger style bag for the werewolf sedatives she secreted there.

Winter Soldier has posed:
An assassin with high ground is a terrible thing. It would be a perfect setup for sniping-- if there were any clear lines of sight in this maze of a junkyard. That's probably what saves them, ultimately. That and the fact he's still human enough to have emotions, and the predominant one is enough anger to want to do it with his hands. No one has anticipated and hemmed him in like this in decades. How did they know so far in advance?

He'll find that out later. For now--

The three of them pelt down the twisting paths of the junkyard, swiftly gaining on the open space in the center where their trump card rests. A last hairpin turn and they're practically there, within sight of the crane and its potent magnet, with only a short last stretch between them and escape from the rearing piles of derelict cars on either side.

They get within steps. Then something blurs down from overhead, singling out Fred, barreling into her with enough force to lift her from her feet. To knock Sam clear away, should he be in the way. The Soldier slams her back against the unforgiving face of a rusted car door, pinning her several feet above the ground, his left hand clamping shut about her throat.

"I /told/ you," he says laconically, his blue eyes holding hers in an indifferent gaze down the length of his deadly arm. It is a bored look. This is the simple part. He will finish her, and then the coyote, and then--

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Sam's insistence that they stay together is met with a nod. Fred has hunted and she's survived, but she's never actually been in a situation like this. Sticking together on their way to the crane seems a better course of action. Maybe Sam thinks they've cornered the Winter Soldier, but Fred doesn't quite believe that. Instead, he might be stalking Dean, he might be escaping somehow. Everything that she's seen of the Winter Soldier leaves her to believe that he can do impossible things.

As Mercy points to where she saw the Winter Soldier last, her eyes lift up toward that perch, hoping to use that as a triangulation point. Unfortunately, her calculations take too long. They rush their way back toward their main part of the plan and then there is a blur.

Fred has no time to react. The Winter Soldier is there, yanking her off her feet and slamming her against a rusted car. All she has time for is a surprised gasp and gurgle before her wind is simultaneously knocked out of her and also blocked. The bomb in her hand drops to the ground harmlessly as she scrambles, both hands grasping at that arm pinning her there. Legs kick outward in an attempt to dislodge the Winter Soldier from the crushing grasp he has on her.

'Don't test me' he told her before when he taunted her in the Hyperion. Despite this, her eyes narrow. There's both desperation and anger in her fight - weakened as it is.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam was, in fact, in the way. Knocked aside by the Winter Soldier, he goes tumbling down a bunch of rusted cars like Jack taking the proverbial roll down the hill. He does tuck and roll though, knowing how to take that kind of a fall. When he lands, he's a little bruised, a little cut up, and his gun is missing somewhere in all the junk, but he's unharmed. It's almost like certain parties don't want him dead.

He lifts his head, panting, and he sees the Winter Soldier with his deadly hand around the throat of one Winifred Burkle. "Don't touch her!" But it's futile of course. The Soldier isn't going to stop on his say-so. And if he doesn't do something, Fred is dead.

The last leash on his fury snaps entirely. While his sclera remain white, human white, his irises turn as pitch black as his pupils. He snaps his head at Mercy long enough to snarl, "I don't care what you do. Get that thing on //now.//"

And then?

Then, he summons the power that is flowing through his veins, coalesces all of it into one hard knot of energy deep in his body. He flings out his hand, catching up the Winter Soldier in his power. Power that could barely tug a gun out of a hand just a few short months ago easily lifts several hundred pounds of man and arm, catches him in some invisible, wholly unforgiving force, and hurls him in a throw fueled by all the power stored in injection after injection, straight up and towards that magnet. His scent, made all the stronger by his blood //snaps// into place, no longer woodsmoke warring with sulfur, no longer herbal soap and beer warring with hellfire. It's simply sulfuric woodsmoke. It's simply herbal hellfire. Beer is...well it's beer.

"You sons of bitches promised it would stop hurting," Sam seethes, his lip curling.

"Guess you were right."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
The 'wolf' cuts right through the middle of their 'pack'.

Mercy's hurried footfalls quiet as she skids to a stop and then turns back. Her gaze takes in the Winter Soldier and poor Fred and finally Sam. Mercy has enough time to say, "Don't -", but that's about it as Sam takes up the words she was about to say. Then he's growling and while Mercy turns a look towards the young man what he says isn't wrong. Her thoughts were already going there and so, the smartphone screen is touched. Two taps and the automatic starter brings the crane to life along with the magnet and with that magnet awakening a low thrum fills the air.

Even with that touch of hers Mercy is whirling back around and running towards the crane. She has no idea that Sam is about to literally toss the Soldier towards the magnet. Not at first, at least. Eventually that familiar tang of sulfur causes the coyote to look back over her shoulder, just in time to catch the demonic side of Sam asserting itself just so.

A stray thought of 'we're really going to have to help him with that ASAP' filters across Mercy's mind, but that thought is pushed off to the wayside. Later she'll ponder that thought - for now it's all about capturing the assassin and saving Fred.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The first hint the Winter Soldier gets is the sudden smell that saturates his senses, sulfuric and burning. The second hint is the slight vibration that runs through the air, the presage to--

He has time enough to drop Fred and turn before telekinetic force orders of magnitude greater than anything he's seen from Sam before hits him dead-on, slamming him a full thirty feet straight backwards and into the flat surface of the magnet with a resounding /clang/ of metal on metal. The impact visibly stuns him, dropping him to his knees afterwards at the very base of the magnet. And that's about when the magnet hums to life.

His left arm leaps up and /sticks/ to the magnetized surface, keeping him somewhat upright. He's dazed and not going anywhere. Not while that thing stays on. Probably a great time to tranquilize him.

Probably the /only/ time to tranquilize him.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred fights against the punishing grip that Barnes holds against her throat. No air is able to make it past and the metal arm at her throat. Fred's kicks and fight against the Winter Soldier are still desperate, but starting to lack cohesion or any effectiveness...if that was a possibility in the first place. Her vision starts to narrow to the glint of fluorescent on the Winter Soldier's arm. Sam and Mercy's outcries are heard dimly through the pounding of blood in her ears.

Suddenly, though, she is dropped. Fred crumples to the ground like a sack of laundry. Large gasps of air pull painfully into her lungs and she coughs a few times, a hand reaching involuntarily to her throat. Sound, smell and vision starts to return in a rush of information.

Immediately, though, she looks up to see why she was dropped. What she sees is Sam, eyes only white and black, then the Winter Soldier flung up toward the magnet. Though she is unable to yet push herself upward, she stares at Sam in disbelief. How...?

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam, sadly, isn't handing out explanations right now. As it is, his eyes shift back to hazel, though his scent stays put. He pats himself down, looking for his ICER. They won't be enough, those bullets, but he loads up the clip anyway. He'll wait till after Mercy fires her tranquilizers; they're probably a lot less wasted as reinforcements to what she brought than they are as primary tranquilizers. Still, he's got the weapon aimed, even as he walks backwards towards Fred and takes a guardian's stance in front of her. He'd rather guard her than, say, try to help her up right this second.

Until that man is down, he doesn't trust even the appearance of victory. He's still shaking with some fury as it is, and he takes a few deep breaths to steady his aim.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
He's caught! Seeing that causes the coyote to stop her mad dash to the crane. Instead with one last look at Sam (and Fred!) the mechanic turns to her bag.

Really, Mercy's messenger style bag is like a magical bag of holding - while the two tranquilizer darts are held within her hand, from the bag Mercy pulls the accompanying gun. It's something smaller and more lethal looking than what's seen upon the market today. The wolves have invested in modifying a version for themselves, for their needs.

Which only benefits the group this very night.

The first dart is loaded and with careful aim, the coyote fires -

*PFFT*

The second dart is loaded and once more -

*PFFT*

Both darts fly unerringly to Bucky's neck, their needles heavy and strong enough to pierce werewolf skin. When they hit they'll immediately dump the powerful and quick acting sedatives they hold within.

Once the second dart is sent on its way Mercy drops the gun to her side. "Thank god." She mutters to no one but herself at this point.