3468/A Christmas Massacre

A Christmas Massacre
Date of Scene:	23 December 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Wonder Girl, Rachel Cole-Alves

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Wonder Girl has posed:
    How Rachel figured out about this little setup was anyone's guess.

    The side of a warehouse - windows high up, corrugated ceiling, padlocked big sliding doors that, once upon a time, let trucks roll up and collect packages to distribute all throughout New York had stayed shuttered for too long. Xanatos Construction had been trying to move into this part of town, but so far, the owners of the warehouse hadn't budged.

    There were reasons for that.

    Triad reasons.

    With that one door the one 'easy' way in and out, with that door opening up into a hallway, the Triad used this area as a front for most of their activities in the area, from human smuggling, to drugs, to guns - and just using it as a place to hunker down inbetween jobs.

    There might be suspicions that Xanatos himself passed the information about this place unto the Punisher - perhaps to serve his own ends.

    But the rash of kidnappings of 'pretty' Chinese-descended girls and boys from this area lead all the way down here, as well - using the relative calm of the holiday to cover this whole situation up.

Rachel Cole-Alves has posed:
    Rachel was here for the children. One of the girls, Jian-li, six-years-old. She reminded Rachel of her niece and that... Reminded her of the night everything changed.

    For some reason when Rachel recalled the wedding she could remember it was raining. That memory was crystal clear, like the smiling faces of the deceased. She couldn't really recall the moment the shooting began, howevver. Just smiling faces, then the scent of blood all around, and her vision turning red before it simply faded to black...

    Rachel stared at the warehouse through her optics, the scope providing her with vision overlaid with thermal imagin and magnified up to sixteen times. She herself was surveying the warehouse from a building well across the way. Dressed all in black, a mask pulled down over her face. You could hardly tell by the marine's build that she was, in fact, female - much less any details about her person.

    "..." Rachel was marking targets sighted along the precision milled barrel of her SR-25 sniper rifle. She studies the building for a moment, watching for anyone coming in and out while she planned her move.

    The first guard never saw a thing and never would again. His brain didn't even register he was under attack before he dropped into a red smear on the pavement. Rachel chambered another round.

Wonder Girl has posed:
    The gentle snowfall of the area might cover the optics some. Might add little ghosts to the thermal imaging that the rifle had, and muddle the situation some. But likely not enough. Certainly not enough for Huang 'Money' Liu - whose life experienced ended midsentence as he jokes with his fellow guard.

    "And that's when she came in, right? That's when she came in and said..." Poof.

    And the other guard he was speaking to, twisting tattoos going up and down the side of his neck - takes a step back, staring in disbelief at the mess that had become of his friend.

    It was the holidays. Many of the people were out and about, doing work - but that didn't mean the warehouse wasn't full of Triad. And the shipping container pushed up against one of the aforementioned doors, well. The amount of body heat signatures in there probably meant that was where the next 'shipment' was. If the thermals can penetrate that far in.

    Da Chong, the guard who was covered with the remains of Money Liu, falls backwards, his designer sneakers slipping on the suddenly wet pavement of the warehouse floor. <<"HELP!">> he cries out in Cantonese. <<"OH GOD, HELP!">> The hornet's nest was beginning to stir, heat signatures flickering throughout the warehouse.

Rachel Cole-Alves has posed:
    The snow does futz with the optics a little but thermal imaging was made for this kind of situation. Human bodies are hot compared to ambient temperatures, and they are especially hot compared to the fluffy white dusting from the sky. Those little shadows are intermingled with searing flares in the shape of bodies. Da Chong screams for help. What he gets is a certain kind of mercy. The mercy of the bereaved and the wronged. He quickly joins his friend, neck tattoos terminating in a shattered ruin of red and gray sprayed across white.

    Unfortunately, Rachel can't see far enough to make heads or tails of the shipment. She'd been watching for quite awhile but the best she could really manage is to note their movements, the frantic intensity that comes with the proposition of a big score. She kneels down and opens up the deep blue duffel bag beside her. The rifle is carefully laid inside in favour of a carbine with holographic sights. She also collects a handful of grenades and shoves them into her belt. Speaking of which...

    Rachel comes up with a detonator last. She flips open the switch cover and presses down, hard. There's a muffled explosion near the street, leading into the Triad warehouse. All the lights go out at once. With any luck the trigger happy idiots would end up shooting at eachother in the dark.

Wonder Girl has posed:
    Chaos was the reigning sovereign at this time in the dark of the warehouse. The screams of help, followed by the explosion and the dimming of the lights led to all manner of panic. And there were a lot of them in there. Those near the explosion did open fire, spraying the area with led; a couple of Triad end up getting winged by the shot, one fatally - leaving the other to scream curses at him in Cantonese.

    But perhaps the situation wasn't as chaotic as Rachel was expecting. There was an underboss, here; Charlie Yong - a beast of a man who wore a suit constantly, his style and fashion slick and correct the whole time, hair perfectly done, known to order brutal beatings of underlings that failed him, and victims alike. Rarely did he get his hands dirty.

    The rest of the Triad men - in the deep part of the warehouse with the container, gathered around him. About eight, all in all, and he barks orders, <<You two - get the lights back on, check out the fuseboxes. You two, check out that explosion. You four, with me. We're going to get bigger weaponry and hit these bastards back - they are probably after the 'shipment'.>>

    Seems he thought they were getting hit by a rival gang. How much of this Rachel knows is up in the air, of course.

Rachel Cole-Alves has posed:
    Rachel does't waste time while they reorganize herself. Men are coming outside to check out what happened ot the fuse boxes she'd blown. Someone is going to be coming to check those boxes. She places herself against a wall and waits near the transformer she'd blown up, watching the smoking ruin. A man steps into view ahead of the others.

    "Looks like they hit the power. Fan out."

    The scream that follows is cut off by a knife through the carotid arteries, with Rachel's slender arm snaking around the man's chest to keep him still before she drops him into the snow.

    A moment later there's a shout as another body hits the snow. Rachel ends up grappling with the third. A flashlight beam flickers upward, illuminating the warehouse, the bodies, and Rachel herself.

    "It's the Punisher!"

    "The Punisher's not a woman, you fool. Open fire!"

    Rachel's wrestling partner is used as an impromptu shield and then she's diving past the edge of the building, using corrugated steel for cover. The sound of bullets impacting metal is like a hail storm in gale force winds.

Wonder Girl has posed:
    Those were the four guards that Charlie had sent out to check out the explosion and the fuses. Leaving him with four.

    And he wasn't a stupid man. Drawing a gleaming golden pistol from his pocket, he licks his lips nervously, flickering his eyes towards the entryway that the men had left through. The same entryway that the sounds of gunfire had come from. But by now, his men had gotten into the armory. Shouting orders in Cantonese, they set up - a big heavy machine gun pointed at the doorway into this little area, with the Triad user laying flat on his belly atop the container for that angle. The other men - armed with submachine guns now, conceal themselves at other corners of the room.

    But something was flickering through Charlie's mind. Did they say Punisher?

    Popping open the door to the container, he fires one shot randomly into it to make the inhabitants scatter - and his hand reaches in, grabbing the first arm he can to yank the person out, locking the door afterwards.

    If this was a mob hit, he was screwed, but his insurance policy?

    A starved looking six year old girl. Of all the people in there - luck, or fate made him grab Jian-Li. Lifting her easily up with one hand, that gleaming golden gun is pressed to the temple of the girl as he steps back into one of the corners.

    Submachine guns, grenades in the care of three of the Triad goons, a heavy machine gun set up aimed at the entry way. And Charlie in the corner with Jian and the golden gun against her head.

    And outside...

    The two remaining men start firing - one of the men lifting his chin to the other, continuing to fire rounds. The second man starts taking a long way around, attempting to flank Rachel's position.

Rachel Cole-Alves has posed:
    Initially the pincer goes as planned. Rachel is pinned, crouched against the wall of the building. One man is ocming up on her left side. She whirls when herturns toward her to get a proper shot, .45 already in her hand. A series of shots are fired from the Glock, punching holes through the man's lungs. Meanwhile, his buddy takes the shot.

    Rachel lurches as a bullet punches into her vest, clipping the edge of one of hte panels and unprotected skin. A rib shatters like kindling. Snarling, the redhead turns and quickly puts a couple shots into her latest assailant before reaching down to press a hand against her newly opened wound.

    "...Guh." Deep, quick breaths follow. Sweat is pouring down Rachel's face and she's flushed a a faint pink as she stumbles forward. But none of that matters at the moment. The shooting's stopped. The owrld is silent... Except for the persistent rattling inside as people are setting up.

    Rachel looks around for a moment, then frowns faintly. Holstering her pistol, she takes up the rifle again and a grenade is pulled from her belt. Pulling the pin she rolls it past the open entry way. People start shouting as a blue mist pours out, filling the open doorway. The machine gun starts firing wildly but Rachel edges past through her makeshift cover, firing a couple quick shots that drop one of the men on the left side before quickly diving for one of the containers. If she can just make it to cover...

Wonder Girl has posed:
    Fear worked against many of the men. But what was helping them was the cool presence of Charlie - it was harder to freak out if your boss was there, shouting affirming commands. That doesn't help one of the remaining men though - sadly for the Triad, the machine gun man. Shouting wild things in Cantonese, he swings the machine gun back and forth over the entryway, causing one of the men on the right to dive for cover.

    <<"Cool it! Li! /Li!/">> Holding the girl up in front of himself as a shield, he swings that gleaming pistol up toward the machine gun guy and pulls the trigger himself, pushing the high caliber round through the man.

    Jian-li screams, and earns a cuffing for her noise, the man twisting around, his cool demeanor starting to crack at the edges. "You don't know who you're screwing with!" he says, in his impeccable, crisp and clean tone. "You're messing with the wrong group, pal - even if you get us, there's a hell of a lot more of us out there!"

    The two on the right were starting to recover, bringing their machine guns up as they start tracking their bullets towards Rachel's cover.

    "Kill him! Kill him!" Charlie says, waving that gleaming pistol towards the cover.