6825/High North: A Stolen Box of Marbles and a Plate of Pig

High North: A Stolen Box of Marbles and a Plate of Pig
Date of Scene:	09 March 2019
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Joker, Flash, Fairchild

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Joker has posed:
Joker had grown so immensely gloomy at the way the world was moving on from his humble beginnings in Gotham City. International events were heating up, hostilities in the stars had begun to reach the ears of Earthlings, and the powers of fate were threatening to rip asunder the world, Joker was sure. He had spent a day, by himself, in an abandoned mansion in the hills of Tennessee, haunted by monstrous spectres, drinking a bottle of two hundred year old whiskey he had found in the vault.

Through that bottle of whiskey, as the spirits gathered around him, he had a vision of a brighter tomorrow. Smiles and skies lit up by white hot flashes of ecstasy, the ground wash with flames and the trees screaming as they erupted backwards in shocked applause.

All at the Joker.

The key to public relations, of course, was making yourself seen.

A high pitched alarm was going off at a robbery in progress in Vancouver, a high-level antiquities brokerage for the rich of Canada being struck. Men in clown costumes, shaking from unmedicated psychotic rigors, were rampaging through the dealership, smashing vases and urns with the butts of AK-74s, one of them, a brute watching the door, pointing a 20mm cannon that they had wheeled in at the door, from a good forty feet back. The gala was cavernous and huge, with classic marble vault ceilings and beautiful statues that were being shot with pistols by the rampaging psychopaths. The owner of the gallery was on his knees, sobbing at his precious stockpiles (rare and irreplaceable) being destroyed, held by the scruff of his suit by a man in a black trenchcoat and mime paint. A gun was to the begging art dealer's head, as they made him watch his stock be plundered into oblivion.

"Keep going, boys," came the snide voice of the mime-painted trenchcoat thug. "You'll find that golden ticket to the chocolate factory that Mistah J promised you."

Flash has posed:
Canada is so beautiful. It's like dreams come true with fresh air and real trees and everyone is just so gosh darn polite! Barry sometimes wonders why there weren't more places that mirror that picturesque beauty that is their neighbors to the North. Ahh to get to visit more often? Wait a minute, Barry is the Flash, the fastest Man alive, he can be anywhere he wants whenever he wants to be there.

Nevermind that a silent alarm linked to a museum has been tripped alerting authorities to a rather odd occurance this far north of Gotham: Clowns? "Seriously guys? Stealing from Canada? These guys are just so sweet an innocent. It's almost not fair." The Scarlet Speedster appears in the street amidst a crackle of yellow/orange lightning and stares at the massive 20mm cannon being manned from the doorway.

"You know you'll put your eye out with that thing right?" Wiggle pointing, "Flash calling all available JLA. not to be funny or anything, but there are clowns stealing Canadian artifacts. Who steals from the Canadians? That's just wrong. So wrong."

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin Fairchild Was well visiting the Country to the North and well enjoying the signature tim Horton's coffee when she saw cops speeding off towards something. Like the flash, she got angry " Who would be mean enough to steal from Canadians " . Even as she stands up and starts to walk hearing a young guy speaking " holy crap eh.. She's huge ! ". Even as his buddy chimes in " but i'd climb that mountain". She ignores them leaping towards the Action.

     Of course when she lands on the top of the Building the sheer impact causes a very loud bang and a rumbling felt in the foundation.

Joker has posed:
"<This is Spearhawk four-two-five, requesting permission to enter Vancouver airspace. You read me, Tower 12?>"

"<Loud and clear, SHIELD. Thank God you showed up.>"

"<God took this day off. That's why we're here.>"

A man in full blue and white tactical operations gear pulls the microphone away from his mouth, on his domed helmet and visor-set. He clicks a magazine into his huge sniper rifle, with helium cooled repeating barrel. Slowly, his black-red lips curl into a yellow-toothed grin.

*BAM BAM BAM BAM* comes the retort of the 20mm cannon as Flash appears, the twin barrels pumping out huge tank-killer rounds, switched every other round with a huge phosphorous tracer that lights up the night. The cannon's rounds rip up the door to the antiques house within seconds, a scream of metal and shout of glass heard as the black and transparent door is send flying apart in Flash's direction, tailed mere microseconds later by the offending rounds from the 20mm cannon.

The trenchcoat wearing thug pulls the art dealer up to his feet with a rude yank, and pulls him in front of him. The gun is placed beneath the broker's jaw, pointing up and to the side, as the tall hoodlum puts his other hand, covered with a black leather glove, around the crying man's face. He coughs, briefly, a horrifying sound, indicating that he's a dead man already. A crook on his last legs, for one last legendary mission.

A Joker crime is on the bucket list of any criminal, and this one, from all indications, is legendary.

The thugs pause as they feel the building quake, looking upwards and around with their 1980s Soviet era assault rifles, and Colt semiautomatic pistols. They look between each other, the clowns as how to proceed. Besides, of course, the distracted man on the 20mm cannon, pumping rounds into the doorway.

Flash has posed:
"So much for immulating our neighbors to the North." The Flash humdrums quietly when the tank killer rounds pelt out of that weapon with a resounding, horrifying bark of ferocity. The Speedster moves in a fluid back and forth motion; a few feet in one direction, turn, a few feet in the other in a constant that creates a near solid pocket of energy between those two points like connecting a battery to a piece of wirebrush. Within it, time is a lot slower, draining off the kinetic energy from the travelling projectile so that they're less likely to hit a building and tear it to shreads.

Or a person. "Man, that would be horrible..." In a grumbling tone, "Come on! How much ammo does that thing have!" Okay, so to recap: Back and forth back and forth, now in a circle off to one side to build up energy around his out stretched hand as his fingertips brush against airpressure. A small ball of concentrated static electricity building up in one palm to hurl at the thug without much accuracy behind it.

"Stop firing man! We can talk this out! They're Canadian, they'll forgive you." That's probably not going to work, but maybe that booming landing indicates the arrival of someone who can take a bullet (even a tank killer bullet) because The Flash has a lot of stamina, but running back and forth until that gun runs out of ammunition is definitely going to take a while.

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin Fairchild Quickly spots what's going on, Well quick for her and most likely long enough for the flash to complain she's too slow about 50 times. But She is thinking like him quickly leaping down to land right in the doorway feet planted so those giant tank rounds impact on her not, screeching off to inflict murder and death on poor innocent people.. Still, the force is enough to make her take a back step before leaning forward to start to slowly move forward.

     Though at the same time she's glaring "That was a NICE TOP I JUST GOT IT! " yep caitlins issue she doesn't have a super suit on so that lovely new flower top is getting the shred treatment.

Joker has posed:
The brute manning the cannon continues to fire as Caitlin marches forward, laughing and hopping up and down behind the cannon, his knuckles white beneath his fingerless gloves as he goes into the divine elegy of inspiration common in the mentally ill.

Then, there's a *CLICK CLICK* as the cannon goes dead, the hot barrels steaming. The brute continues hopping for a few moments, until he looks down at the cannon from above, puzzled.

The mime with the bad cough yanks the art dealer forward into view of Flash and Caitlin, pistol still held to the stumbling man. The other thugs, meanwhile, some twenty in number, all have their weapons pointed at the pair, throughout the large gallery, some from behind broken exhibits and stands, others behind jewelry counters, and a few on staircases leading to paintings on the upper floor's railed inner patio.

"Here's the deal, you two. You put four hundred thousand dollars in the bank account number I give you, or I shoot this guy."

In the distant, a single Blackhawk helicopter, with SHIELD colors, approaches, a distant beat over the rooftops joining the sounds of incoming police sirens.

Flash has posed:
"Yeeaa!" Flash stops his back and forth motion in a slide, immediately leaping up into an 80s fist pump. "Took you long enough." He says to Caitlin, mostly in jest, but he is huffing a bit. Might have only been a few seconds for them, but that's forever for him and a whole lot of running. He blows out a huffing breath and waves a hand as he kneels down to catch his breath. That also doesn't take long and he crackles with energy as he runs straight at the wall, phasing into the Museum with another skidding stop amidst; "Oh, man, you guys have a lot of guns, ay?" When in Canada. "Parley..." Seriousness looms into his tone with that one word.

"What do you w- oh." The mime with the cough fills him in and he regards the betrenchcoated as if he's the one with whom negociations will proceed. "Just four hundred thousand? I mean, that's a lot of money sure, but in this economy?" Motioning around, stalling. Obviously stalling. "I tell you what, why don't you take me instead. Let the guy go, he walks out with the lady, and I'll sit down like a good boy while they write your check?" Hands still up, "Deal?"

Fairchild has posed:
A pause in the Action the gun out of ammo fantastic! She grabs the Still steaming hot ends and Squeezes just in case they try and reload for later. Then Flash is chatting talking fantastic She takes that chance to take what's left of her poor top and turn it into a Makeshift bra of sorts least it covers! She looks to him " You should Lisen to him, we can do this nice and calm".

Joker has posed:
"So, you're telling me, I give up this nice guy, in exchange for a guy that can move superfast?"

The mime turns to the side, coughing, before he returns his attention to the Flash.

"So you're fast with your mouth, too, eh? That one?" The mime grins sickly, blood leaking down his mouth from his cancerous lungs.

The unmedicated psychotic clowns in the art gallery all raise their weapons to point at the pair.

"How about we just get a police negotiater in here, while you make sure that we don't kill them?" the mime asks, tipping his head to the side, a hair behind the art dealer's head as he jams his knee into the man's thigh. There's a terrified shriek, that is muffled by the leather glove over the man's face.

As police cars line up outside, police officers begin cordoning off the street, setting up rooftop snipers, manning SWAT teams, getting the hostage negotiater's body armor set up, and conferring with the fast response division on how to proceed. A news helicopter hovers overhead, playing the story live on Canadian television, interrupting a hockey game. It's Vancouver versus Pittsburgh.

The SHIELD gunship sets down on a rooftop behind a group of snipers, the rotors heffing slowly to a halt. Three SHIELD tactical troopers hop out the side, the pilot still inside. Two of them have door-breach cannons, single-action heavy rifles with tungsten rounds in drum magazines, and one as a high powered sniper rifle with armor-piercing rounds and a helium-cooled barrel for rapid fire.

The snipers grin, before they grow slowly wary at the three approaching them.

"Hey, don't you SHIELD boys usually break that stuff out for the Hulk?"

The SHIELD with the sniper rifle's grin slides into a puckish purse of his clown lips. "Not when we can kill by the bulk, friend."

There are shouts of panic from the police gathered outside as they hear the discharge of SHIELD anti-personnel weapons meant for metahumans, a pair of snipers blown to pulp flying off the roof and crashing to the ground as splattered meat, right on an ambulance in the rear of the police situation control line.

Flash has posed:
"Just means we can get this over with quicker than normal, is all." Flash counters with his hands still held aloft, eyes shifting about the various clownlike faces with weapons pointed in his general direction. He's totally self aware and isn't so foolish as to think he can take a bullet, but he's pretty fast.. He can probably out run them. In a way that does kind of give him the upper hand in most gun-fights. "Alright, alright.. I'm just going to go confer with the police-" Eyeing the Hostage with a tightening of his expression beneath the end of his red mask. He turns a little to Caitlin, "I'll be right back." To her, because obviously he's in this for the long haul now.

It's as he's starting to step back outside that the hellish visage of tumbling meat puppets rains down upon ambulance from the buildings above. "Th- wait, those are SHIELD weapons aren't they?" Barry narrows his eyes and disappears in a crackle of lightning from the street that trails up the side of the building where he stands with his head cocked at the grusome scene of SHIELD agents over dead snipers.

"What are you doing?!" He demands, holding his hands out and motioning them around like none of it makes any sense. He's yet to see their clown faces beneath those tactical helmets.

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin Fairchild Hears the Crack of guns and the sound that wet sound that makes her spine shudder. She turns quickly eye's wide looking in utter horror at the carnage..

     The advantage of being as smart as Caitlin is she puts two and two together really fast.. especially when the guys outside seem to be wearing a mask. She wants to act she wants to move in fact her leg starts to flex only to stop.

     She turns to the hostage and her face turns flat she can't if she leaps they will kill the hostages. She can only look at flash " They are with the robbers ".

Joker has posed:
"Same thing you're doing, Flash," comes the curlingly saucy reply of the man with the SHIELD-quality sniper rifle as he pulls his helmet off slowly. "Getting an uncomfortable jumpsuit stuck in my asscrack."

He drops his helmet to the side, and there's the Joker, smiling like a cat.

There's a rapid chirp from Joker's lips, and the two companions on the roof, guns smoking hot, swing their weapons out at Flash. Each of them begin sidepedaling and backing up, firing their single shot guns at Flash, pounding barrel explosions bursting out from their single-shot cannons. Tungsten shells, compact and small, are fired at Flash, bouncing their guns back into their elbows.

The sniper waits a moment, for Flash to pick one of them to disarm, before he swings his rifle around and fires from the hip at his accomplice, the sniper rifle discharging a rail-worthy round from it at waist level. He's using timing to trick the Flash, hoping to catch him with Flash attempting a disarm. Superheroes are all too predictable, aren't they?

Caitlin finds herself surrounded on all sides, besides the ruined door, by clowns hopped up on insanity and armed with deadly guns.

The mime, doesn't look pleased, but he does look surprised.

"Kill her," is all he says, with an aside, before the entire inside of the gala lights up with AK staccato shots, and the *POP POP* of firing Colt .45s. The minions are all poor shots, each and every one, even if they had been medicated. Several of them hit each other, as the police come storming in via SWAT, gunfire in all directions as the armored Canadian police take cover fire and vantage points, rolling in through broken windows, commando style, to protect themselves and their fellow troopers after the breach is completed.

The mime, meanwhile, drags the hostage backwards, growling that the Joker has double-crossed him under his breath. He's attempting to get to the stairway, where he'll have a vantage, knowing he's trapped.

Flash has posed:
It isn't that Flash hadn't figured that, but it's a lot to take in. This is SHIELD, they're suppose to have elements in place to prevent this kind of thing, not fall victom to it. So instead of trusting his gut, he let emotions play into it, "This isn't right." In a way it makes sense though when he looks at all the details. "Joker.." Of course it is.

The Flash isn't easy to get the jump on and ney impossible to hit once he's started moving, at least for petty henchmen trying to fire on him with cannons. Pick one of them he does, angling his body as it errupts in sudden speed in that direction. He runs directly past the bullet as it errupts from the Clown-goons gun, tucks two fingers against the barrel so that it'll slam against his chest, rather than in his elbow, and turns on a twisting heel towards-

BAM!

He's a blur of motion from one to the other goons, turning the barrel with the end of his finger as it slowly rises to his own accelerated vision. It's a little adjustment of geometry against ballistics knowledge. If he's figured correctly for wind sheer, the barrel should ricochette up in the Clown-goons hands to smack him in the face with the recoil rather than absorbed in his elbow.

BAM!

Why wasn't he payin attention to the Joker? How often has Batman told him; Pay attention to the Joker. The round hits him with cripplingly well placed accuracy just below the third rib and, if not for the speed at which he's running, would have cut him in half at this distance. Instead it knocks him off the roof sending him unconsciously falling to the alleyway hitting every sign, seal, and dumpster on the way down.

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin Quickly covers herself while her skin is invulnerable her outfit isn't the only thing that she wears that is . .. well is her belt that has the S symbol on it.. But she quickly comes to terms that these guys are not the talking kind.

     In a Flash of inspiration she does a move she saw recently another hero do on tv.. She Stands her full 6ft 5 hight and brings her arms back to slam her hands together producing a Rather incredible shockwave.

     using her own mind while this will cause some trauma to the hostages at most it will knock them out along with the attackers given their addled condition should make them more susceptible to this sort of assault.

     She also Stomps one of those Long long legs of hers to cause a ground shockwave to hopefully also cause them to lose balance. Praying that the flash can run back in fast cause she needs backup not knowing he's got his own issues.

Joker has posed:
The Joker laughs in delight as he actually manages to catch the Flash with his gun, and watches him go flying off the rooftop.

"Well win one for Parker Brothers," he quips, tossing the rifle aside. He comically dusts his hands off, with a pair of goofy slaps, then looking around to his two friends, severely injured.

The Joker begins whistling, pulling out a detonator, and hops off the rooftop and onto a fire escape. He grabs the ladder, while the pilot of the helicopter looks on, confused, then sliding down the ladder as it deploys downwards.

In the alley, he slaps the detonator button, and the helicopter explodes into a huge fireball, blasting the roof to smithereens.

Joker is soon seen walking down the street on the other side of the building block, having maneuvered from the alleys, wearing his signature purple trenchcoat and green-purple suit. The theme to 'The Andy Griffith Show' on his lips, he climbs into a parked orange cab with Arabic writing and a pair of Iraqi flags above each headlight, cruising away.

The gala shakes, the marble vaults cracking above, the windows and walls shuddering, and the cops shouting, "Hold your fire, hold your fire!"

The thugs are knocked off their feet, some of them shooting into the air, others falling, and one of them even wailing his gun around in a circle as he's hit by the worst of the shockwave.

The mime ditches the single hostage, pushing him down the stairs, and begins firing at Caitlin Fairchild, pistol shot after pistol shot, in frustration, until his gun is out of ammunition.

Flash has posed:
"Owwwww..." Flash groans as consciousness returns, a voice in the back of his head urging, get up, Barry. Over onto his side against a pile of garbage bags with one hand pressing against his ribs what are almost certainly broken only to hold them up to see blood on those scarlet fingers. "That's going to leavea mark.."

Another grunt and he's up on his feet, stumbling against the dumpster with an audible bang of his weight against the thick metal container. "Stop being a wuss, it was only a high powered sniper rifle at six feet..." Vocally chiding himself in a strained, sarcastic, tone. "Okay.. I'm good. I'm good everybody.. We're good."

Lightning rushes back up the side of the building to the roof, but the Joker is gone down the Fire escape on the otherside. If it weren't for the goons laying holding cracked clavicals and broken noses he may well think he' dreamt the whole ordeal up. "Oh-kay..."

An explosion to someone moving at near light speed is kind of a scientific marvel, really. The device errupts and Barry looks in that direction with the initial pop of accelerant igniting against the explosive substance. The metal around the under carrage super heats as it expands outward, but Flash is already thrown the door open to the pilots section of the carrage and moved him to another roof by the time the explosion catches up to his speed.

Kneeling down on his knees and one palm, his right hand runs along his abdomen to hold to his side oozing blood, lungs burning like fire with each breath from the broken ribs. He'll heal, but it'll take time. "You're gonna... be.. fine.." Pain, so much pain. Barry slides down flat on the roof and closes his eyes, "Please be a real agent of SHIELD..." To the pilot he just saved. "Hurts to breath.. and talk.. ughhhh stop talking.." He can't, it's keeping him from passing out.

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin Fairchild For her Part Caitlin is playing her part some might say, She's leaping forward making sure the hostage is fine even as she ignores the bullets impacting on her flesh most of it exposed thanks to all the bullet fire.. to lunch a hard punch towards the evil Sting with more enough force to send him to lala land .

    , Of course, the Explosion makes her look up and quickly without thinking to leap out of a window and then up towards the roof

% She arrives in moments and utters words she thought she'd never say to the flash " hold on I got you .." . Her arms are soft for such a strong woman as she lifts him and the pilot up to quickly leap down. Thankfully one of those Ph.D.'s of hers is biology so she shoves a poor paramedic out of the way.

     Grabbing a few choice items she moves back to the flash " Here all of it the same time you metabolism won't let it work otherwise, should stop the bleeding " .