3014/The Amulet of General Fang Guo

The Amulet of General Fang Guo
Date of Scene:	29 October 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Zhao Lin, Lara Croft

---

Zhao Lin has posed:
    Hell's Kitchen is not necessarily the best place for a martial artist and an archeologist to find themselves in the late hours of the night, but all the same Zhao Lin and Lara have found themselves in a back alley outside a rowdy bar. They were looking for clues, of course - or at least Zhao Lin was, and he had pulled Lara along for the ride. He's already had a few to drink, and his belligerant facade soon led to them being shown out the back door.

Things were going about as expected, until the door closed behind them. Out of the shadows emerged a half dozen men, all larger than either Zhao Lin or Lara. They wore all black, their faces masked by dark cloth. They all carry swords of Chinese origin, drawn and prepared to cut their way to victory.

A seventh man, wearing a white suit, also appears in the alleyway. He is clearly Chinese, with a scar across his left eye and a feathered haircut. He steps out in front of his accompanying thugs.

"Zhao Lin, you drunken beggar. We know you have the amulet. Hand it over to us, and you may live. Refuse, and you die here, tonight." He glances to Lara. "Along with your friend."

Zhao Lin is still staggeringly drunk, and he twists about unsteadily to face the man wearing the white suit. He squints his eyes at him, as though having difficulty seeing the other man's face. At the same time, he up-ends his gourd, taking a deep drink from it.

"Very well. Come and get it."

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara burst out of the bar's back exit moments after Zhao had been kicked out. "Lin!" She shouted after him, glancing back over her shoulder at the man shouting at them in a different language. She glared at them while they disappeared back inside.

Lara went to her friend to he stablize him by placing her hands onto his shoulders. "Are you all right?" She asked him, her melodic voice laced with concern for the snow leopard. "I think you hit a nerve with them.. They seemed like they knew more tha--."

Lara cut herself off when the white suite and his cronies made their appearance. She glared right back at them when they spoke.

"Amulet? What amulet?" She asked then, looking between Zhao and then the others.

"Now just cool it with the threats... sir. I'm Special Agent Lara Croft, with SHIELD..." She glanced to Zhao. "Lin here is my friend, we're causing no harm to you."

Zhao Lin has posed:
    Zhao Lin makes something of a dismissive 'don't worry about it' kind of gesture to Lara when she inquires as to -what- amulet the man is talking about.

"The amulet that he stole from the tomb of General Fang Guo, on his most recent visit to the Shanxi Province," the man in white replies, before looking more fully to Lara. "I am aware of who you are, Agent Croft. The Serpent's Skull will not be stopped by SHIELD." He takes a step back, nodding once towards Lara and Zhao Lin.

"Kill them."

The men with swords rush forwards, just as Zhao Lin was in the middle of taking another deep drink from his canteen. He seems to have been prepared for this, though, because as soon as the thugs are within sword range, he pulls the canteen away, lifts his lighter in front of his mouth and spits out the alcohol, igniting it with the spark from the lighter. A great plume of flame erupts in an arc in front of them, catching the first thug's arm on fire, and causing the others to briefly halt their advance! It isn't just a party trick after all.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara looked away from Zhao after he gave her that pointed-stare and she regarded the man in the white suit... with narrowing eyes.

Sure, people tried to kill her before in the past... but not here in Manhattan, well, not quite like this anyway. When the swordsmen rushed them both, Lara reacted quickly as well! She didn't have a neat fire trick though, she just swung her arm up and hit the release lever on the fire-escape ladder above their heads causing it to come swinging down and she grabbed it and swung it harder at the man with the sword while she'd then jump backward and reach into her jacket to draw her side-arm!

"Thats enough!" Lara shouted. "Take another step toward either of us and I'll drop any of you!" Lara's gun was aimed and her fingers gripped around its handle.

She glanced at the man who was lit up by Zhao and then looked back to the others, ready to fire if they forced her hand!

Zhao Lin has posed:
    Zhao Lin erupts in laughter at his little fire trick startling them, following it up with a giggle-snort when Lara clobbers one of the goons with the ladder from the fire escape. He stumbles backward a little as Thug No. 1 puts out the fire on his arm.

"I do not think they are interested in negotiating, Lara," the snow leopard comments off-handedly.

The thug that had his arm on fire lunges for Zhao Lin with his sword, but the felinoid martial artist appears to just luckily stumble out of the way of the swing, bending over backwards to just narrowly avoid having his throat slashed. When he comes back upright, he ends up stumbling forwards, twisting about to weave past a thrust of the blade and get in close. A sudden, powerful strike with closed fists to the thug's chest and stomach send the larger man tumbling backwards several feet. For a moment Zhao Lin is locked in position, his muscles taut, his stance planted solidly like one would expect of a kung fu master. Then, he slumps his body again, giggling and stumbling back a few paces again, pausing to take a drink from his canteen. Lara has her own troubles, of course, as three of the men with swords are bearing down on her as well!

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara saw them rush again after hearing Zhao's words, she just sighed and then aimed her gun at the man in the middle who was rushing her... BAM BAM BAM! Lara's sidearm went off, aiming to drop the man flat-out while she turned and darted for the fire-escape ladder that she LUNGED at and ascended it in quick and dedicated strides just as swords came clashing down against the metal rung sof the ladder sending sparks flying out into the darkness.

Lara got up to the first level of the metal structure afixed to the side of the brick building and she grabbed an old wooden table that was resting next to an old lawn chair. She turned and hurled it down at one of the swordsmen and then aimed her gun for another shot and pulled the trigger! BANG!

Zhao Lin has posed:
    The gunshots were enough of a distraction for Zhao Lin to capitalize upon, and did not appear to startle him. Thankfully, it's Hell's Kitchen, and not many people are going to think twice about random gunshots in an alley in the middle of the night. When the two thugs still advancing on him looked away for a moment to make sure they weren't about to be shot, Zhao Lin lunged in and swept the first one's feet out from under him, before diving through the legs of the second thug, twisting about onto his hands just in time to swing a kick up to the man's chin when he turned around!

Perhaps fortunately for Lara, these thugs aren't at all bulletproof, and her gun does a fantastic job of overpowering their swords and martial arts. Two of them lay dead at the bottom of the fire escape with the last one quickly advancing up the ladder to grab her leg!

Zhao Lin engages with the man in white, while the three thugs behind him get back to their feet. Zhao Lin is hard to hit though, ducking and weaving and falling out of the way of his opponent's blows. The two of them seem fairly matched, both of them looking for an opening in the other's defense, neither able to land a blow on the other!

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara was unfortunately unable to focus on what was happening to Zhao below, she had another problem to deal with... namely the man grabbing her leg and yanking her down to her backside on the fire escape. She grunted and landed in a mess of old furniture that was sat out here by someone years ago.

The man who pulled her down came up the ladder and rushed her while she was down, swinging his word down at her! Lara quickly grabbed a metal grill cover from the old cooker that had been left out here, she held it up and deflected the sword slash with it, a loud CLANG resounding in the alleyway.

He struck again and again and she deflected those too, while laying on her back!

A second later and BANGBANGBANG! Lara's gun fired from behind the grill cover, blasting holes in it that sent bullets right up into her Attacker's crotch and stomach and chest!

Lara pulled the grill cover aside as the man crumpled to his knees and fell back down through the ladder-hatch to the ground below.

Zhao Lin has posed:
    Zhao Lin is tangled up with the remaining three thugs and the man in the white suit. He doesn't seem to be doing too poorly for himself, and he manages to avoid the swipe of swords on his left and right before punching one of the thugs in the throat. Zhao Lin grabs the man's sword-arm and pulls it around his body to drive it into another of the thugs, before hefting the man he punched in the throat into a dumpster!

It leaves only two men remaining, both of them facing down the stumbling Zhao Lin. The leopardine man takes another slow drink from his canteen, eying the man in white. The thug attacks first, but a quick feint from Zhao Lin's fists causes him to hesitate! Lin kicks his sword hand, sending the blade flying into the air! It's followed by a series of feinted blows, none of them actually striking the thug, before Zhao Lin catches the flying sword and slams it through the thug's chest, sending him crumpling to the ground.

Zhao Lin turns to face the man in white, but he's already vanished from the alley.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara pulled herself up out of the mess of old furniture and tipped over grill, charcoal having spilled over her and old beer bottles... with rainwater and muck in them, but she ignored all of that, she'd been immersed over her head in far worse than that.

Lara rushed to the edge of the railing just in time to see her friend finish the last of the men off that were attacking him and she looked up just as he looked - only to see that the man in white had gone.

"Who was that?" Lara called down to Zhao. She turned and went to the ladder hatch, grasped its sides and slid down the ladder, spreading her feet out to land on the cold concrete without stepping on the dead men's bodies.

Lara walked toward Zhao and she put her gun back into the holster inside of her dark navy blue jacket that had SHIELD patches on the shoulder, she looked Zhao over. "Are you alright?"

Zhao Lin has posed:
    "I am fine," Zhao Lin says, as he glares down the alley. He takes another drink of his canteen before he turns to face Lara again. He pauses, noticing her covered in charcoal ash. "That is not a good look for you. Very racially insensitive," he comments, though he's clearly only teasing her. "I do not know who that was, but we can find out."

Zhao Lin walks over to the dumpster where he had deposited one of the thugs, and throws open the lid. The thug is gone, though, vanished just as the man in white had. Zhao Lin growls low in his throat, and slams the lid of the dumpster shut. He curses, several times, in Mandarin. Finally he heaves a sigh, and shakes his head. "Or we won't," he says, "But I know he will be back. They know I have the amulet."

Lara Croft has posed:
It took Lara to get his joke about the coal on her face and body and she just released a light laugh. "Funny man..." She said in an exhausted sort of way. Lara would reach down to her shirt and pull it out and up enough to lean her face down to wipe at the filth that was on her skin. It helped a little, not too much.

When the sound sof distance police sirens finally coming closer became audible though, Lara released the hem of her shirt and she turned around to look to Zhao.

"You should go, back to my place. I have to wait for them... the Police." Lara motioned to the dead men. "I have to make this an official SHIELD situation... which means I'll be here for awhile."

Zhao Lin has posed:
    Zhao Lin glances in the direction of sirens as well, and he nods his head. "I agree. I do not need to be involved with the police. If SHIELD is getting involved now, though, perhaps this will be safer with them." The martial artist takes his gourd canteen in one hand, and promptly smashes it against the wall. A cascade of clear liquid spills down the wall, and clattering to the ground among the pieces of shattered gourd is a silver chain with a bronze amulet attached to it, and set in it's center is an almost fist-sized ruby that shimmers with its own inner light.

Zhao Lin crouches down to pick it up by the chain, and holds it out to Lara. "The amulet of General Fang Guo," he tells her, "Set with one of the eight keystones. Just... say you found it on one of the thugs, perhaps." Leaving her with the amulet, Zhao Lin blows Lara a kiss, before climbing over a nearby chain-link fence to escape into another part of the alley, just as the police vehicles come into view.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara would watch him smash the canteen and she'd walk toward him when he retrieved the necklace. When he offered it to her and said those things she accpeted it and held it in her right hand, the chain gathered around her fingers and the amulet resting in her palm. She exhaled softly...

"We have a lot to talk about then." She told him, looking up at him just beofre he ran off. "When I get home." She'd nod once to him and offer him a small smile before he ran for it and leapt/disappeared right as the first squad car pulled up.

Lara had her badge out and her phone ready... she turned and started to walk toward the police with her badge held up.