284/Killer Instincts

Killer Instincts
Date of Scene:	05 May 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Winter Soldier, Mercy Thompson, Loki

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Winter Soldier has posed:
Frank Castor wants out of Hydra, and he thinks he's almost made it. He's got his assets in order, he's got his wife and kids and worldly possessions packed up, and he's got a destination in mind so off the map that Hydra's many hissing heads will never find him again.

It was a decision long in coming, but watching some of his peers just vanish for a failure they couldn't control finally made up his mind. He knows he exists in that unenviable middle management position where he's high up enough to be responsible for stuff, but low enough that he's still a convenient scapegoat to shit on when things go bad, and he knows this means his turn will come someday.

He's on his way to LaGuardia Airport right now, hurrying down the streets of Harlem to make the shuttle over for his midnight flight out. His family's already gone, sent on ahead. Now it's just him.

Just him, and the eyes watching him from the top floor of a building overlooking the street.

The night is fairly calm, the cloud cover heavy, though this being New York, the streets are still semi-busy. Especially in a neighborhood like this, there's never really a quiet time of day, as people who work all hours ebb and flow through the routines of their daily lives. Nonetheless, it's the best time to make a kill, if you ask the opinion of the man even now zeroing his scope with calm machine deliberation.

Still, conditions could be even better. It's a little too quiet for his liking.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Upon that same sidewalk that Frank Castor is hurrying down, to catch his shuttle, is another person. Well, there are many others really, but this particular person is one Mercy Thompson. She's just stepping out the front door that leads to her garage, Mercy's Garage. A sign will be switched from Open to Back in Fifteen. It seems she's pulling a late shift, but right now, she needs food. Something warm and filling and good. Definitely something good tasting. Mostly though, she'll likely grab a burger and fries. Filling definitely, but not always the best tasting. The flavor of grease can only go so far.

As the keys rattle and the lock clicks, Mercy will step away and merge into the flow of pedestrian traffic. She's going in the opposite direction of Mr. Castor, but she'll pass him by him, thanks to both sharing the same sidewalk. And while normally she wouldn't pay attention to specific scents, once she's close enough to Mr. Castor she can't quite help herself. The man reeks of nerves.

That scent is enough to cause Mercy to lift her eyes from the sidewalk ahead of her to the man himself. She'll offer a friendly enough smile to him, when she's but a step or two away.

Loki has posed:
Further along the sidewalk, one intersection past, jaunts a man with a reason to be there. The reason may be unclear, other than by provenance of walking in a jaunty fashion that owns the sidewalk, but all good stories take their time to flower. His deep green trench coat and black slacks may be slightly too refined for this area of Harlem. Given the number of fashion conscious individuals putting their wardrobe ahead of their rent or insurance payments, likely not. His business is his own, but Loki Odinson? Most definitely on business, what with the set of his shoulders and the sly smile curving his thin mouth. A mobile device, slick and polished in its fourteenth iteration, reveals a scroll of comments and details on a shining blue finish. Data streams in. Figures tick over. An alarm hums discreetly in the background, affirming the wheels of bureaucracy turn in the favour of the Trickster, and the ripple effects of a few deals and posts done here will be felt halfway around the world.

Going upstream puts him squarely in the path of traffic, going with Mr. Castor and against Mercy. Having the faster stride and unconscious means to urge people to divert around him, a reflex of being the quick current, may benefit him. Loki steers around the blur of faces, choosing his route with care. One of those things you do, really, even as he extends his hand and lightly snags a pair of keys from someone's oversized red jacket. A twinkling bit of deftness, there.

His smile grows. Sensitivity to things being amiss notwithstanding, the Asgardian man is simply in a fine fettle, one might say. He looks up, and checks a certain dark head and familiar frame. "Evening."

Winter Soldier has posed:
Castor doesn't just reek of nerves. He's sweat with fear, a trickle of perspiration down the side of his face despite the night chill. He's doing his best to hide it, but he can't hide it from enhanced senses. He notices Mercy noticing him, and for a few moments he doesn't even seem to register that she's smiling at him.

Way too late, he hikes some semblance of a weak return smile onto his face, but he's clearly preoccupied and distracted as hell, and he doesn't slow down as he brushes past her. He gets a few more feet down the sidewalk, slowly pulling ahead of a certain Loki Odinson what with how fast he's walking.

That's about when the crack of a gunshot shatters the air, a bullet tearing straight towards his head. The shooter has a suppressor on his rifle, but no amount of suppression is going to make .300 Winchester Magnum sound like a whisper.

Regardless of if the kill completes or not, everyone on the street freezes-- and then freaks out, running for it. Nobody wants to stick around with hot lead flying.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
That fear is likewise scented as an undercurrent to the smell of nerves and while she does offer that friendly enough smile, it's the man's distracted reaction that causes Mercy's expression to turn curious. Still, that curiosity will have to wait as something else nags at her senses now; her magical senses.

Loki's presence is like a magical beacon in this dreary evening and as such, Mercy's gaze will flick away from the nervous man and towards the 'wizard'. His greeting is met with a friendly smile, even as Mercy says with genuine surprise, "Liam! Fancy meeting you here!"

More could have been said, really should have been said, but suddenly that crack of a gun firing breaks the peacefulness of the neighborhood. Automatically Mercy's head will jerk upward and around, as her sensitive ears search for the general location of that shot came from. Just as automatic is the fact that she drops to a half crouch, her instincts causing her to crouch low; making herself smaller, less of a target.

Loki has posed:
Stress situations bring out the true nature of someone's character, perhaps. The layers peeled back show bravery or cowardice, those who are willing to stand and protect others. Under the charming veneer of a dark-haired man about town are deeper, telling layers.

Irritation. His lip curls. The first cracking retort is not so strange or alien that he fails to recognise it. Green eyes burn the hotter, dark eyebrows sharpening. He starts to lift his arm, a mutter under his breath igniting the runes or they go off, invisibly, by themselves as a byproduct of emotional reactions rather than any force of will. The two might not be connected.

Analysis. Just how quick he can break down the situation from available variables gives the crude reasoning to act. Behind, east-south-east, throw in a few measures of angle, speed, all of that barely matters really. A computer might do better. Loki's reasoning is enough to lunge sideways into the street and rotate in the process. He is, for all his lean build, a rather tall man. A crouching woman hides pretty well behind someone whose coat flares, and as for the intended target...

Aggression. The barked "Down" means very little, except that the backswing of his raised arm competes with kinetic energy, seizing velocity and introducing all these chaotic variables. It is not, as it would happen, a particularly elegant approach but it is also one conceivably passed off as an accident, a misfire, a chance of Mr. Castor tripping on his face while trying to duck, getting to the mailbox in time to avoid being clipped, someone shoving him aside at the last moment, a miscalculation by a breeze. Chaos is not particularly organised in its approach, only answering the summons to its appeal. Or maybe it means the bullet hitting //him//, which is not Loki's idea of a fun time. But bullets meeting his skin, even that unimpressed face, don't produce explosive results worthy of a trailer for American Gods or a viking fantasy show, so there's that.

Winter Soldier has posed:
It's not hard for someone with Mercy's senses to triangulate the direction of the shot, even with the distorting effect of the high-rise buildings all around echo-chambering that crack of gunfire. It came from a tall building overlooking the street. Any real professional, however, would likely be gone the minute his shot was fired... especially since it doesn't connect.

Loki, in one smooth motion, moves both to cover Mercy and to subtly //shift// the intended target with a recalculation of the laws of physics around him. What else is sorcery but a reconfiguration of reality? Dial down air resistance around him, dial up his forward momentum, and Frank Castor promptly trips and goes sprawling. The bullet misses him by inches and buries in the pavement.

Sniping is an extremely precise art. Something as small as the wind can make a shot miss, much less a total pratfall. It's happened many times before. So the shooter isn't very surprised. Just a little peeved at what appears, from a distance, to be no more than baffling poor luck.

He puts up his weapon, breaks it down, and moves. He exits out a window on the opposite side of the building, circling around, leaving his weapon in a predetermined hide.

While he's doing this, Frank Castor is in the process of losing his shit. He struggles to his feet, notices the bullet buried in the pavement, and tries immediately to stagger off, heading in the direction of Loki and Mercy. Some people, however, more charitable than others -- and not so aware that a //bullet// was just fired -- timidly crowd him, trying to ask him if he's OK, and was that just a gas explosion?

Mercy Thompson has posed:
The bark of 'down' is heard and it's enough to cause the dark-haired woman to mutter, "Yup, already down. Small as I can be." Well, she could be smaller, but it would take more time to disrobe and become a forty-pound coyote than this situation currently has. And while she should be smart and stay down, knows she should be smart even, she doesn't. As soon as that echo of gunfire begins to fade Mercy is already straightening from that hunched down position. Cautiousness is evident in her expression and in the way she eases upward, but up she goes.

"Were you hit?" She'll ask immediately to 'Liam', her worried gaze turning to him first, before her brown eyes flick to the chaotic crowds around them. And before she forgets she also adds, "Thanks." It seems she noticed Loki shielding her, not that she needed it, but he still offered to take that bullet for her and so, she offers that thanks in return.

"Over there." She says quickly, even as she points towards the building that housed the assassin. "The shot came from there." It's good to have sensitive ears and then with a pivot upon her heel, Mercy will turn to look towards Mr. Castor. While she didn't see where the bullet landed, or buried itself, it's clear he was the intended target. "No wonder he smelled so nervous. He must know someone's after him. We should call the police." Is she babbling? She could be. Even knowing trouble as she does, high-powered gunshots will make anyone nervous. Then like any good Samaritan, Mercy will step towards Mr. Castor when he looks to be coming in their direction. "Who's after you?" She'll ask, pitching her voice somewhat louder than normal to try and catch the man's attention. "You should probably get indoors. It'll be safer."

Loki has posed:
"Obviously not //you//." Yes, he heard that. Through the crowd and the cries, the crackle of his metaphysically attuned senses, and a car blithely rolling over someone's abandoned beer can. Loki -- or Liam, as the world knows him at times -- glances at his sleeve to make sure his favourite coat has not been somehow slashed up by a bullet whizzing by. Frank Castor has plenty to answer for, but a tailoring bill is not one of them. A good thing. He might have his soul ripped out to amend the offense done, were this any of his dreadful kin. "I'm fine. Thank you for the concern."

Anyone else might get a snide retort. He actually sounds amused; exhilarated, even? No telling why. The assist of tracking where the fellow responsible for mischief and mayhem goes in full retreat is not overlooked either, and Loki casts a look after Mercy. "I expect you will be making those calls and running off?" No, he doesn't even as she goes into good Samaritan mode. It is, for a moment, rather alien and he shakes his head, turning away.

Building in question, then. Tall enough to make a difficult assault, though he hasn't any trouble looking up for signs of motion while hastening across the street. The bold, unbuffered stride he had before is slower to this trot, loping to the nearest fire escape. The alley concealing him will make it somewhat easier to spring up and use that unfair strength advantage to reach the rooftops, and then let the //real// hunt begin. But until that moment, there is a time advantage.

Now, the real question. Bring a bouquet, whistling a jaunty tune, or throw a rock at the Winter Soldier while calling, "Yoo-hoo, Mr. Shooter Man, you missed!"

Winter Soldier has posed:
Dazed from his fall, Castor is easily held up by the random good Samaritans crowded around him, a number which now includes Mercy Thompson. Recognizing her, and perhaps focusing on her because of the smile she shot him earlier, he shakes his head, looking a little frantic. He's terrified, but not terrified enough to spill to a stranger. "I gotta go. I can't... my family's waiting. I didn't--" Think they would send someone so fast. Think they would send who I think they sent.

"T-thanks," he stammers, "but I really gotta--" And he struggles past her and the rest, trying to hurry off down the sidewalk.

In the meantime, Loki is scaling the building in question. The sound of his ascent catches the attention of someone in the process of exiting a window on the other side of the floor. The Winter Soldier's head turns, listening, before he hurries his exit the hell up, vaulting from the window and taking the quick way down in a long slide down the side of the building. He leaves behind little evidence of his presence, save a window slightly cracked open at the floor from which the shot came. Just enough to fire a rifle through.

On gaining the roof, a wide vista of the streets around is visible, but there's nobody that really immediately stands out as ASSASSIN. No dark leathers, no gun-toting Rambos. Just an anthill of milling humans, confused and disturbed. Castor is visible, trying to hurry away from Mercy and the rest.

There's a man trotting down the sidewalk towards the chaos, due to intersect with the departing Castor. Some newcomer who has no idea what the hell he's walking into, probably, because he's on his phone. He's so preoccupied that he walks right into Castor, in fact, and a brief tangle ensues before this brown-haired stranger mumbles an apology and walks on.

He passes by Mercy. There is a strong, inexplicable smell of metal from him, and then he fades into the crowd.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Running off? That's enough to cause Mercy to turn a look towards Loki. "That was one time! And it was important." A Pack call, which she won't reveal, when the Pack calls a person has to answers. "Are you going to hold that against me forever?" She asks, with more humor than heat held within those words of hers. And just like that her attention shifts again back toward Mr. Castor when he makes his way over to her. His stammered words earn a frown from Mercy as she listens to what he has to say. She'll even go so far as to hold his arm, to help prop him up, or calm him down; something at the very least. It's only when he pushes at her, to get past her, that Mercy will say, "Wait - you should go indoors -" But, too late. He's already past her and walking down the street.

Then it's back to 'Liam' - but wait, where did he go? "Look away for one minute and everyone disappears on ya." Gamely huffs the dark-haired woman, even as she turns in place, gaze searching for the tall but thin figure of Loki. When she doesn't see him her expression turns towards a frown, again.

Before she can pull upon her other senses (nose and magical) to find Loki, Mercy will risk one last look towards the hurrying figure of Frank Castor. When he accidentally bumbles into the other man she'll wince, before she shakes her head. "Just not his night today, is it." She'll muse to herself, even as her gaze flicks back towards that tall building. She can already tell Loki went that way, it's the way his scent goes and with a flare of nostrils she'll inhale again -

- That inhalation will bring forth the scent of that metal, a familiar scent and it's enough to cause Mercy to snap her gaze towards the brown-haired man who just bumped into Castor. "Dang-it." She mutters, her gaze flicking to where she believes Loki is and where the other man is (already) merging with the crowd. "I should have just ordered in." She states resolutely, then with a faint grimace she's diving back into the crowd versus the building. She may not always be able see the brown-haired man, but his scent is there for her to follow and that's what she's going to do.

Follow him.

With determination.

Loki has posed:
There may be something to do from on high: stare at everyone who doesn't fit the pattern. Who sticks out based on his odd understanding of human behaviour? Not in the knots of crying people or those on their phones calling the emergency services, while huddling in buildings. Not the driver who keeps meandering down the road, like he hasn't a care, that gentleman was already oblivious. Look for the odd men out. There will always be those who walk the wrong way, and those who do not.

It's all a matter of time. He has plenty of that, and conjures up an apple to crunch on while standing up there. The apple may happen to be an odd shade, a soft green more on the chartreuse side of things, but the sweet flesh gives under his teeth. From up there, on the rooftop, he is in no rush while admiring the effect on others. There is a greater truth in this moment than meets the eye. By the time he gets another bite in, he has made it to the other side of the building, and tucked himself into a crouch while observing. It sounds unexciting. On the contrary.

Someone else is going to do his work for him, and flush out the trouble. Whether that happens to be a victim or a getaway driver, the backup plan engaged or an awry collision, good enough. And when that happens, he'll be there in the twinkling of an eye.

Count on it. And there goes the brunette.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The brown-haired man is just barely visible up ahead in the pressing crowds as Mercy plunges after him. His head turns slightly, just enough for one blue eye to look over his shoulder at her, and then he slips into a department store. It's crowded with people who had already been in there shopping, and people who have taken refuge off streets that have suddenly become very unsafe. A perfect place to lose a tail.

At about the same time, behind Mercy a ways down the sidewalk, Castor misses a step, falters, and hits the ground again. This time, however, it's not by Loki's intervention, but something else entirely. Something that sweats from his suddenly-clammy skin. Something that smells like poison. A modified fast-acting ricin, in fact.

It is a last ditch attempt to finish the job, it seems, because the Winter Soldier is rapidly exiting the situation.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Poor Castor. If Mercy realized he had been poisoned she'd probably never have followed the brown-haired man, as it is, Winter Soldier still has a tail.

A persistent one too.

She'll follow him into that department store and while a store is typically the best way to lose a tail; this one is different. She has enhanced senses, which help. A lot. However, with a enhanced senses, specifically her sensitive nose it can also get overwhelmed and for a few seconds Mercy's nose is assaulted by hundreds of various scents. It's enough to cause the woman to pause mid-step and take precious seconds to sort through them all, but eventually she'll find that one with the metallic flavor to it. Then she's moving again. She hasn't yet realized that Loki spotted her upon the streets, nor that her tail has realized he's being followed, not that it would matter much for Mercy.

"Probably should have exchanged numbers with Liam. It would have probably made this much easier." She mutters to herself as she skirts around the typical groups of shoppers.

Loki has posed:
Saving people is something habit forming, ever noticed? Start going out to help one person, and next you're helping a number of people. Holding open doors, saying please and thank you, stepping in the way of a bullet for no apparent reason. And, it happens, stepping off a building and emerging out through an opening doorway in one of those tricks of skill.

It's not that Loki enjoys this. Nor that he wants to, because Mercy heading into a department store is far more complicated to deal with casually than not. He runs his hand over his hair and emerges from the machinist's shop -- 3D printing design while you wait! -- as casually as if he were there all along. Anyone trying to track him may have a headache on this front. A flash of magic settles inwards, with only a ghost of a faint cool breeze in his wake, the resulting end of the short teleportation hop emanating the same ghostly effervescence for a moment.

Then he brushes off his hand on his jacket and turns down the sidewalk, searching for Castor as he falls on his face, or comes close enough. The fact the man has made so little progress is rather disappointing, given how much faster the coyote girl has made it.

"Do you have a good reason for having this many enemies? Or someone so determined to murder you?" He almost rolls his eyes. Almost. Bending, he grabs Castor by the shoulder and lifts him or props him up against the wall. "This is the problem. You know, I think you're going to be //much// more entertaining alive and well. Let's see where it takes you. Preferably not somewhere very dull. Never settle for being one of those suits in a chair. Follow your dreams. Goat herding, for example. Or building the finest floating barges that go and suck up trash from the ocean. You know the kind? The Dutch man made them, go invest your talents there."

The chatter isn't anything except banter, really, to cover up what the hell the mage is doing. Which really is going to be ugly, when one gets right down to it. Healing magic has never been his favourite, though certainly he had lessons from some of the best and some of the worst. "Buck up, it's not so bad, you know?"

Easy for him to say, he isn't ripping out the poison in a round cloud into his palm by conjuring it into being. "Now, remember what I said. Nice Dutch man. He should be in Rotterdam or Amsterdam or Something dam. You're alive, you figure it out. I can't do //everything// for you."

Winter Soldier has posed:
The unfortunate Frank Castor caps off his terrible, no-good, horrible day with-- unbeknownst to him-- a close encounter with the God of Lies himself. Not that he has any damned idea. He stares glassily at Loki through the Asgardian's chatter. Does he have a good reason for having someone THIS determined to kill him?

He obviously has no idea when and where he is. The poison is scrambling his brain. God knows where he thinks he is, or who he thinks is talking to him, because he slurs out, "Hail... H..." with the defensive, self-preserving air of someone trying to curry some life-saving favor. Then he slumps.

The healing magic comes in time to save him, pulling the poison from his body, but he's in pretty poor shape. He'll live, though. Probably wake up with raging headache, and a subliminal urge to go to the Netherlands.

In the meantime, the scent trail leads Mercy into the department store, where the crush of people temporarily scrambles even her senses. It's an unfortunate loss of time, time in which her quarry gets farther away, but soon enough she catches a strain of it again. It's near the back of the store, out a set of doors and into the loading area where they bring in inventory off the trucks.

This late at night, there's few people working the store. There was only one man back here, the only one authorized to be here, which was probably why he tried to stop the brown-haired man from moving through.

He's left behind for Mercy to find. A body nailed to a wall by a knife through his throat. A little love note from an assassin to her. Do you really want to follow?

The killer himself is gone. The fading of his scent suggests he had some form of conveyance stashed back here, and has driven it out.