7239/Cracking a Safehouse

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Cracking a Safehouse
Date of Scene: 15 April 2019
Location: Unknown
Synopsis: J'onn gets a report about a potential Punisher safehouse, but the Punisher is prepared for his arrival. One down, many more to go.
Cast of Characters: Punisher, Martian Manhunter




Punisher has posed:
The Punisher is well known to have a system of safehouses and bunkers all around the world, with a good portion of them situated in Manhatten proper. With Microchip handling most of the logistics, trying to find them is hard, but not impossible... but the real difficulty is the Punisher has enough assets and material to simply move elsewhere. These safehouses are designed to be disposable... making shutting them down barely worth the effort outside of P&R and showing 'progress' on the Punisher case.

A lucky tip from one of the Gallery Houses employees placed the Punisher coming into his safehouse apartment there earlier in the day. The woman has no idea of Castle was still inside... but surveillance and other detection show no activity from the outside since.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
J'onn needs to keep up with his identities, from time to time, especially when it involves doing something dangerous because well, if he is the one doing it, then civilians won't be the ones at risk. Right now, J'onn is in the shape of detective John Jones, dressed in a police uniform complete with badge, belt with handcuffs and all other gadgets findable on a policeman. His duty, today is investigating the reported location of a possible safehouse belonging to the Punisher. Arriving on the signaled location aboard of a standard issue police car, he stops and parks just behind the sourveillance van, stepping outside of his vehicle to approach the van. Knocking twice on the driverside window, he waits for it to roll down before presenting his credentials. "Detective Jones here. I've been sent to assess the situation." he states "any updates?"
J'onn waits for the policeman to communicate that no activity has been noticed in or out of the safehouse, before getting a bulletproof vest, wearing it on top of his uniform and starting to advance towards the structure. Even if appearances must be kept, J'onn still modifies the density of his skin, making it almost invulnerable, after all you never know when someone could shoot you with a high caliber gun.

Punisher has posed:
From the outside, it looks like any other apartment. The hallway is like any other hallway. Nothing happens as J'onn advances. Apartment 209 is outwardly clear of anything suspicious.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
The main difference between J'onn and another regular police officer, is that J'onn's senses are far from the average for a human, and he actually has all his senses on high alert as he approaches the apartment. There's no need to put his hand on the gun holstered on his belt, it's not like he would use it anyways, so he calmly walks towards the door, examining it from the outside to find eventual wired traps on it.

Punisher has posed:
When J'onn approaches the door, he finds no traps on it. In fact, the door itself appears to be free of any sort of wiring. The inside of the apartment also appears to have no activity to J'onns heightened senses.

It's almost like Punisher had early warning about potential police interference.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
J'onn advances towards the door, placing his hand on it and applying enough force to open it no matter the locking mechanism, then steps inside the apartment, looking around, listening, trying to sense any motion and even expanding his telepathic senses to see if there's any living form.

Punisher has posed:
The door opens with a crack as the standard lock and the deadbolt on the inside are suddenly pushed through the wood frame.

The entire apartment is empty, with no motion, or living people within it... though from this angle, J'onn will notice the small device above the door on the inside. Some sort of latch that obviously goes over the doorway portrudes from it.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
As soon as J'onn notices the device above the door, two things are immediately done. The first is hardening his skin even more to make it more resistant, the second thing is throwing up a shield around the device, making it as strong as possible to contain it, whatever the thing is. Carefully, slowly, he tries to use his telekinesis to scan the object, trying to assess its purpose.

Punisher has posed:
It's a fairly simple device, with an obvious purpose of sending out a signal if the latch is tripped. There's a small transceiver within it that is already broadcasting a radio signal somewhere. The signal had enough time to transmit before J'onn managed to contain it. Otherwise, nothing untoward seems to be happening.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
J'onn sighs, shakes his head and releases the device, stepping forward in the apartment and, for better safety, throwing a protective mental shield around himself too. His eyes moving from left to right and from right to left, he at least pretends to scan the area, obviously though the punisher doesn't seem to be there and his colleagues won't be that pleased.

Punisher has posed:
It's around this time the phone in the living room rings; a bland, very neutral tone.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
As soon as the phone starts ringing, especially remembering how all the movies go, J'onn starts approaching it while all his nine sense sweep the surrounding area to find explosives. He tries to smell them, he tries to look into all the light spectrums to find them, tries to ear for their sounds, he even tries to follow the electromagnetic waves emitted by the ringing phone to see if they are triggering something. And if he finds anything, the instant thing would be to throw a mental shield around the explosive in order to contain it. Otherwise well, there's a phone to answer.

Punisher has posed:
No EM oddities, no smells, no light spectrum oddities... but then, C4 has no odor, and it only takes a very small amount to be effective in this small a space.

The phone itself is a landline... so the phone line EM is plain visible.

Ring Ring.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
J'onn keeps approaching the phone, and even gently places his right hand on it, following with his eyes the phone's EM, expanding his shield to close around the wole apartment. After all, if anything blows up, there are civilians all around that could get hurt.

Punisher has posed:
The phone lines EM goes right into the wall socket... and so far, nothing out of the ordinary there.

Ring Ring.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
J'onn shrugs, closes his hand around the phone and picks it up, bringing it to his ear, and preparing his reflexes because, well, he has a very bad feeling about all this.

Punisher has posed:
"You know, you people really need to learn how to be a bit more subtle." Comes the amused voice of the Punisher, "I can spot a police cruiser miles away, and your surveillance van has way too much EM in the back." He sighs, "I'm not sure how you found out about this one, but you're welcome to it. Not much there but a small armory and a bit of cash."

There's a brief pause, "You have... about a minute to find anything you like. You tripped the self destruct package when you entered."

Martian Manhunter has posed:
J'onn doesn't answer to the Punisher's words, just dropping down the phone and now really starting to focus to find all explosive charges, looking around as much as possible to find them in order to telekinetically pull them upwards and out of the apartment so that those living nearby won't get injured by the explosion.

Punisher has posed:
There are no obvious explosives in the apartment in J'onns line of sight that he can see... which means whatever Punisher put inside the apartment is hidden. Given time, he'd be able to find it fairly easily probably... but he'd need to be a lot more overt with his powers to find it within a minute.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
J'onn tried to locate explosives, but apparently without any success at least for now. That means that the only thing J'onn can do is enclosing the entire apartment in a telekinetic shield, making it as strong as possible, and then wait for the entire place to blow up, at least with the knowledge that other civilians won't get hurt. Just to keep appearances, he'd start running out of the apartment but, well, the place will probably blow up, and he would have at least to get out of a pile of rubbles.

Punisher has posed:
As well hidden as the self destruct explosives are, a glance around -even with EM vision- isn't going to be enough for J'onn to find them. Not with the time he has remaining for it.

What he can do... is contain the blast.

At exactly one minute after J'onn entered the apartment, the telltale sound of a detonator can be heard from below, in the walls, and in the ceiling by J'onns senses...

*KRA-COOM!* The explosion sears the apartment through, immediately bathing J'onn in the heat of it at it's epicenter.

It's odd... one would think that an explosion of this sheer destruction would strain his focus a bit. Instead, only some flames strain his focus a bit... and containing the shockwave that is forced outside, through the windows. It's almost like the explosion was completely focused inward, into the apartment itself.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
J'onn contains the flames and shockwave, at least the little that there is to be contained, and it is actually surprising how the explosion was set to not damage the surrounding area. The apartment, however, still explodes with J'onn inside and, while he will probably have to find an explanation for his colleagues outside, for now he must just get out from a pile of rubble he finds himself into. Pressing his hands against a steel beam that probably came down from the ceiling, he pushes upwards, effortlessly getting free of the obstacle and walking towards the exit of the apartment, appearing in the corridor still covered by small fragments of the walls and ceiling but apparently intact. Running outwards of the apartment complex, he almost immediately stops next to the now approaching surveillance van, whose driverside window rolls out only for J'onn to yell "I was out of range, the place exploded and the punisher wasn't there, I will write a detailed report!"

Punisher has posed:
From blocks away, the Punisher was watching the entire scene through binoculars. "Micro, I think we got ourselves a meta. Asshole just survived a C4 explosion despite my warning." Punisher notes to his partner on the other side of his transceiver. "I got some good pictures of him in the video. We can investigate him later."

A few moments later, and Punisher brings up his tablet, remotely activating a recon drone from the nearby Battle Van and sending it up into the air. Time to thoroughly check out the surveillance van and shotgun mic their conversation.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
J'onn waits for the surveillance van to stop asking an umbelievably high number of questions, then gestures for him to shut up and explains "I checked the place for signs of occupation by the Punisher as per instructions. I broke in after making sure the door was not rigged with explosive and after assessing that the punisher was not present in the area. As soon as I entered, a phone started ringing, our man was on the other side. Said the place would blow up within a minute from his warning, I managed to have a last look around before running away, there wasn't enough time to do anything else. The place is, well, go have a look yourselves. I will return to the station"
after the man in the van nods his assent, J'onn turns and walks towards his police car, getting inside and starting the vehicle, accelerating to start towards the police station.

Punisher has posed:
One Safehouse down. It was a pain in the ass to set them up, but he did need something in this section of Manhatten for a fallback. Punisher would need to check out the real estate in this section some more. It usually took about a week to customize each place, but nothing for that now.

As the police cruiser heads away, the recon drone takes a picture of the license plate, before Punisher sends it back to the Battle Van.

A few moments later, and Punisher has disappeared back into New York.

Martian Manhunter has posed:
J'onn drives towards the police station, where he will probably have to report and explain to at least a dozen people that won't even know what to do now. Examining the events, he takes into consideration the type of explosion, the very countained explosion that didn't even damage the structure itself, and that both shows the competence of the man and again confirms his willingness to not damage what is not necessary to damage. Nodding slightly to himself, J'onn accelerates, intent on doing his report within the hour.