301/The gravity of the situation.

The gravity of the situation.
Date of Scene:	06 May 2017
Location:	Gotham City
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	257, Gravitas

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Copperhead (257) has posed:
The Architecture of Gotham is perhaps one of its greatest appeals as a city. The skyline is full of tall buildings with decorative flare that makes flying through it a real joy. It's also a great place to practice since most of the buildings are made of sturdier stuff.

Gotham is a city that never sleeps and crime is almost always happening, it's a young superhero's dream, the perfect place to train because you never have to look far to find excitement.

Most of the local heroes tend to focus on what's happening on the ground, like the people of Gotham itself, they rarely ever think to look up and take in the wonders that the skyline might offer but a flying hero on patrol might notice something that they would miss: A man dangling off the side of a deluxe penthouse balcony being held up by a dark figure in a trench coat and cowboy hat. The overweight, pale, italian man wearing his pajamas like he was just asleep, struggles as he dangles off of the balcony held up by the throat. He clings to the arm holding him over the yawning abyss and tries to talk his way out of whatever situation he's in. It's hard to make out what he is saying to the dark figure at a distance but whoever this man is, he is going to need help because it looks like he might be taking the express down to the ground floor pretty soon.

Gravitas has posed:
"My name is Tori! I'm so very. Fly, oh my, it's a little bit scary! Boys wanna marry, looking at my derri- ... What is that?" Flying along with her earbuds in her ears Tori has been practicing her flight tonight, zipping between buildings on a slightly erratic but still more or less adequate flight path. She's been in town all day and so far she hasn't seen anything. Not even from the sky. Now, however, there's a figure ahead of her.

The girl has her hair down, long curls slightly straighter and hanging past her shoulders. Her face is partially covered with a bandana-like blue mask. Clothes are just a 'Man of Tomorrow' hoodie and a pleated dark blue skirt. Not much of a superhero, is she? Still, she watches the man hanging off the building with wide eyes.

"Heeey! Drop him now! I mean.... Don't drop him! Pull him back up onto the balcony!" Tori is shouting from far enough it might be hard to clearly make out what she is saying, in fact. Still, the intent is clear as she gesticulates and zags in the direction of the conflict, heart thumping in her chest.

Copperhead (257) has posed:
"It'sss a long way down." the figure in the trench coat says as he holds the portly man out over the open air. The bodies of security guards litter the inside of the apartment attached to the balcony that the man dangles from. None of them move, it's a real bloodbath in there, "Tell me where they keep them. Tell me now and I'll conssider not dropping you." the dark figure says to the man who is clearly in a panic, "I can't! I don't know!" he tries to say but it comes out a horse garbled sound barely audible.

The man in the trench coat either doesn't hear Tori over the wind or just ignores her as he flexes the arm holding the man's life, "My arm iss getting tired." he warns the victim who looks wide eyed and, eewww gross he's wetting himself, "Virginia! Bio-Gen!" the man chokes out but has to stop to catch his breath, "Research hospital!" he says also not having heard Tori over the high altitude winds and distance.

Lesson learned, sound travels away from buildings much easier than too buildings with the wind rushing around them. Your superhero tip for the day: Talk in a loud, deep voice if you want to be heard high up in the air.

Gravitas has posed:
Victoria tries again. She shouts at the top of her lungs. This time she tries to drag her voice out with the force of gravity, directing it toward the building. By the time the distorted waves get there it's a voiceless, whiny rumble, compacted into meaninglessness. That doesn't help.

Tori is finally getting close enoug hto be heard in any voice. "-aaaaaaah!" The girl rockets right at the snake holding the man, only the gravitational vortex that surrounds her person preventing her from splattering against his tougher frame. The large man is suddenly incredibly light in the figure's hands, like he's made of styrofoam... Or almost nothing at all, in fact. If he drops that'll be quite the surprise.

"Look out!" Now Tori says something that can be properly heard. Of course.

Copperhead (257) has posed:
The dark figure turns to see Tori flying at him and oh what a terrifying sight that is, the giant head of a snake turns to look at her with narrow, slit like eyes. Alight with gold and specs of copper the eyes look up at the incoming hero-rocket with a look of surprise then fascination. Faced with a choice between dropping the man who may have more information he needs or stopping the girl from crashing he does what any good monster would do, he takes a step to the side moving himself and the man out of way so she'll hopefully careen past him and into the apartment. There is a nice soft sofa in there and several dead bodies to help absorb the impact.

Gravitas has posed:
Victoria goes screaming past the trenchcoated figure, the whine of her passage surprisingly harsh on the ears. She careens into the room, amid the piled bodies and the blood. The acrid stench of blood assaults the girl's senses and she starts to retch violently. There's the thump of the sofa being struck and then shattered as Tori smashes into it and skitters across the room before rebounding to her feet.
Vomit floats out into the skewed gravitational fields of the room and forms into a globe, swirling in the air and then floating away Tori lifts an arm to wipe her mouth, groaning as she comes to her feet. She's really no worse for the wear, thankfully. She had presence for that. Her eyes widen as she turns to see the room in question. Slowly. Silence from the apartment. The diminutive teenager isn't moving right now.

Copperhead (257) has posed:
The snake man lifts the flailing guy back over the balcony and reaches into his pocket. He takes something out in his reptilian hand then jams it into the chest of the fat man. He gasps and then makes that funny swooning sound you hear in movies but think can't really be real. Aaaaeh before the snake lets go of him and he floats there above the floor of the balcony with a syringe of sedative sticking out of his chest.

The snake man's coat falls open as he walks into the apartment revealing a armor plated bare chest that matches his snake like head. He has a shoulder holster with a gun under each of his sides that is exposed as his coat floats up strangely in the disturbed gravity. He has blood splattered all over his chest and disturbingly, his lower face and neck. He doesn't say anything he's just walking towards the crashed girl silently, almost casually. It's not how the bad guys are suppose to move he's not attacking as much as studying her with his freaky, freaky snake eyes.

Gravitas has posed:
That's when the girl starts to scream. She goes pale, obvious despite her deeper brown skin. She drags in harsh gasps of breath as she stares at the snake man, trembling visibly as his trench coat billows upward around him. Her knees start to buckle just a bit and she swallows, hard. Someone is afraid of snakes.

"Y-y-you..." Tori can't really seem to manage proper speech at the moment. She licks her lips and then lifts a hand to point before slowly shaking her head. "You killed them all." It's a harsh whisper and then those blue eyes narrow. The room explodes into a tumult of tossed furniture and broken bodies as Victoria streaks at the snake again. This time she isn't flying; she leaps forward with surprising speed, throwing herself into a furious kick hard enough to smash through walls with a furious, reckless abandon.

Behind Victoria comes splinters of steel couch spring and wooden bookcase like a small wall of shrapnel caught in her wake.

Copperhead (257) has posed:
"Being a hero issn't turning out like you exxpected is it? All those fantasssiess while you were practicing gymnasticss didn't turn out quite like you thought, did it kid?" the snake man says not dodging this time. Unlike her he's got a lot of experience with super-powered conflict so he knows what to do. His tail whips up, wrapped around the leg of one of the dead men as he spins in place to slap the flying girl with the corpse of the guard. Hopefully with his dead face right in her face to knock her and her flying barrage off course.

Gravitas has posed:
Right before Tori hits Copperhead she was going to change herself to be super dense. The corpse hits her while she is, instead, almost lighter than air. The girl is struck at just the right moment to be flung head over heel across the roam, yelping sharply as she crashes heavily into a wall. Shrapnel of all sorts turns the guard's corpse into a shredded crimson ruin.

The girl slides down the wall of the building to the floor with a thump. She doesn't respond for a long moment. Deep breaths are taken. Quick, deep, ragged gasps for air as tears are streaming down Tori's face. "What fantasy?" She asks rhetorically, shaking her head. "I just want p-people like you... To leave us alone."

Then Tori takes a deep breath and slams a fist into the floor... Which promptly implodes, much of the room collapsing in an instant as a split second gravity warp causes the supports to shatter and the compact inward with a cacophonous, grinding whine, filling the air with dust and shattered wood and steel. Hopefully it takes the snake with it. Tori, for one, is going down.

Copperhead (257) has posed:
Several minutes later as the dust settles, water is spraying from a pipe in the wall, the penthouse apartment living room is now in the suite below it. The lights are out, the electricity is out, the fire alarms for the building are sounding on the floors below. The snake man wakes up and starts to pull himself out of the rubble. Everything is spinning and the taste of plaster fills his mouth. He sits up only to find piece of rebar jammed into his arm. Coughing, and confused it takes Copperhead another minute to pull himself together enough to spit out blood and plaster then yell at the woman, "Are you INSANE!?" of course she might not be able to hear him. He's not even sure where she is in all the rubble. He looks around to see if she's even still alive.

Gravitas has posed:
Tori, surprisingly... Is pretty much okay. The rubble covering her bursts outward impressively in a shower of plaster, torn rebar, and other bits of apartment. She coughs furiously for a moment and then slowly lifts herself up from the ground. The girl can still fly, certainly. There are some definite scrapes and bruises but somehow the little thing has avoided serious harm.

"Apartment below had no one in it," Tori responds sheepishly. "Y-you're... Um, you're the insane one." She isn't moving too fast, perhaps dazed from the fall. But it seems Victoria is going to float back up through the hole she made with a rather dull look in her eyes. Time to go retrieve the guy who is slowly floating upward like a balloon. He's probably made it an extra twenty feet by now.

Copperhead (257) has posed:
Taking the time to pull the rebar out of his arm the snake man lifts a section of wall with one arm freeing his leg. He works his jaw like it's sore before he leaps up after the hoodie wearing girl, "You're new at thiss." the snake man says as he climbs out of the hole, "So a word of advice for the future. " he says as he goes the opposite direction towards the door to the apartment to make his get-away, "Assk questionsss before you blow the place up. That guy hass been kidnapping people and ssselling them for illegal human exxperimentation. You just blew up all the evidencsse." he says blinking his eyes to get the dust out of them. "And for goodnesss sssakes put on ssome glovess you are leaving your finger printsss everywhere."

Gravitas has posed:
"Nope. No fingerprints. Haven't touched a thing," the girl responds slowly. She looks around and shakes her head slowly. "This many bodies... It isn't what you do. I mean. You can't just kill them all like this. B-but... Human experimentation?" Tori's mouth is dry. She is watching the snake man with wide eyes past that little mask of hers for a few seconds, hovering just above the hole. "I saw the bodies and I... Um..." It doesn't help, of course, that the man is a snake. That much is obvious by her reactions to seeing him. "You're sure?"

Copperhead (257) has posed:
The snake opens the door to the hallway and turns up his collar. His hat is lost somewhere in the rubble so he'll have to make due with this, "I was human, oncsse." he says before he slips out of the door to evacuate the building leaving her to ponder, who was the bad guy again?

Gravitas has posed:
Tori flits over to the floating man now, her blue eyes oddly intense as she comes to hover in place beside him. She is staring at him with a wide-eyed gaze for long seconds, her fiarly round features insufficient to blunt the venom in her gaze. "What else can you tell me about those experiments?" The girl asks quietly as she comes close. "I could still lety ou fall. Or... Just let you keep floating upward like a balloon until you suffocate and your skin freezes and your eyes boil..." She stares for a long second more. "I didn't let him kill you. I think I might regret that. So if you ca tell me anything useful..."

Copperhead (257) has posed:
The paralyzed man works for the worst of the worst of humanity and he knows how these things go, especially in Gotham, "You're not going to drop me. You saved me. You're one of the good guys. I ain't tellin you nothin. In fact I should thank you! You saved me from that freak and blew up my apartment. I'll get a new place, a bigger place and the city will pay for it! " he says then he chuckles at the girl, "You ain't got nothin on me, it's the freak's word against mine and he's a murderer! Who do you think the cops will believe?" Welcome to Gotham.

Gravitas has posed:
That's when the man starts to spin. "You're right, I won't drop you," Tori responds grimly. Foot over head,slowly. Then faster. And faster. Two Gs. Three. At this point he should be feeling violently ill. His chest is bursting. Or like he could be crushed into a tiny ball. It won't kill him at this acceleration... It probably won't even make him pass out for more than an instant. That would probably be preferable.

They usually stop the amusement park ride by now. The girl stares at the paralyzed criminal with her arms crossed over her chest.

Copperhead (257) has posed:
The problem with being a hero is that the world really doesn't like them being happy. Comic books don't sell if the hero is just chilling out doing laundry or painting her nails. No, the universe is a cruel and unjust place that wants heroes to suffer for the amusement of the readers. This is never more clear than when the spinning man's screams of "Stop it! Stop it! Put me down!! I'm goonna!" are interrupted by his chicken rigatoni dinner suddenly firehosing out of his face and spraying like a fountain in a circle around him as he spins. His face turning beat red and the blood vessels bulging out on his face he purges his dinner into the air on the verge of passing out.

Gravitas has posed:
Victoria turns a little pale herself. The spinning slows and the man is floating upright. She swallows hard, blue eyes tracking as the vomit floats away to not be seen again. At least not here. She is shaking her head slowly and swallowing hard again, bobbing in the air as she does. "So," Tori croaks, her voice rough. "Would you like to be a human dreidel or are you going to tell me what you know?" She steels herself to try to look like she has it in her to do it again. Because if she looks like she's about to cry he'll never say a word.

Copperhead (257) has posed:
She has to wait for the man to pull himself together. His face covered in half digested pasta sauce he finally catches his breath enough to say, "Virginia! The freak is going to Richmond virginia!" he can tell her that and not admit to any crime. Hopefully that will be enough to satisfy her and she can fly off to be someone else's problem. "Now put me down or I'm gonna tell the cops YOU attacked me and have every cop in Gotham gunning for your flying ass!" which he could do. He doesn't have to tell them about the snake man. He could just say she attacked him and blame her for the implosion, "Put me down you crazy ^$#@% or yous is done! You hear me?!"

Gravitas has posed:
"If you tell the cops about me I'll put you in orbit around the sun," Tori responds grimly. "I saved your life. Don't forget that." Then she shakes her head and lowers the man back to the ground. Slowly. He'll have an hour or so to think on his way down. As soon as the descent begins there's the sudden crack of an object accelerating to insane speed. He is buffetted by the force but she contains the worst of the resulting shockwave within her own proximity. Victoria disappears from sight in moments. Fast enough he doesn't get to see her cry.