8168/Bad Cop, Worse Cop

Bad Cop, Worse Cop
Date of Scene:	04 July 2019
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	A legitimate Officer of the law and a legitimate businessman meet and have a talk over a quickly settled rivalry.
Cast of Characters:	Barricade, Lex Luthor

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Barricade has posed:
     This part of the city isn't exactly what anyone would call high class. It's also not exactly the place anyone would expect a cop to hang out, but sure enough it's where the trail lead.

     It was harder then one might expect to track down that old cop car. With so many winding roads and dead end alleyways it was a rough bet, but the first part, tracking it to Gotham was the easy bit. One good look on the record could tell whoever this guy was, he was Gotham Police at some point.

     The missing persons case had gone dead back years ago, so long that most his relatives had long since moved on. The missing persons case was ruled an unsolved case, and closed the likely work of one of the gangs, or another cop as was all too common.

     Still eventually the pattern recognition program was able to wind down a location to keep an eye on a general scope brought down further and further from the dozens of sightings of that same cop car since the 60's.

     The place in question is a construction yard. Though the work stopped around the same time crime alley got it's name. There wasn't exactly much demand for high end facilities when the market value dropped almost to zero overnight.

     all the copper had been stripped already anything that could be taken off the sight had a long time back leaving behind only a large empty husk of a building that the vagrants refused to spend much time in.

     The reasons why were hard to come by some claimed ghosts, others some local gang causing a fuss. Whatever they were the place stayed empty most the time, but according to all the data that cop car was spending a lot of time here.

     Tonight the weather was clear, and things were quiet. A welcome change for this part of town but anyone who'd been here more then an hour knew it wasn't ever a silence that lasted. Something was going down inside that old forgotten job site, and it was making a good bit of noise.

Lex Luthor has posed:
LexCorp was a global business, and that came with a lot of assets. Lex had assigned Mercy to the task of tracking down a focus point for the cop car, and had given her a blank check in regards to resources to do so. You don't keep off police radar for that long without underworld connections to keep off legitimate channels... or unless you're self-sufficient enough to have a base capable of sustaining you.

The one key fact that makes the latter theory completely impossible though... the man hasn't aged since the 60s. He's either immortal, or a fake.

Both possibilities warranted investigation, and Lex wasn't going to take any chances for this one.

Having gone incognito for the day to keep out of the public eye, the warsuit assembly truck had been sent to the LexCorp office complex garage in Gotham, and from there, Lex had donned it and called up a PIP of his surveillance satellite. Keeping a low profile on the rooftops, Lex was using low grade thruster burns to keep off radar and visual detection as he went to the construction yard, all the while keeping an eye on the yard itself with the satellite feed via the cyberpathic interface.

Barricade has posed:
% After a time two things happen in short order. First a custom green Lincoln Continental comes rolling up on the yard. It's been rigged up to the gills with lovingly crafted frills and its been jacked down with a brand new engine built for speed. It looks like the sort of thing one might find from one of the higher end gangers of these parts but like so much about this place it's a bit dated, the sort of thing someone likely found and put right back together themselves the hard way.

     In the drivers seat is a man who looks built for these sort of city streets, your typical ganger, with a chain around his neck that's got an Autobot logo done up in good old silver. He's a younger looking man but still looks rough and tumble the sort of figure who isn't exactly kind to meet in a dark alleyway.

     He drives right up the ramp once used for loading heavy equipment for the building process the low rider thunking once on the front and back as it kicks the hydraulics into high gear to lift just enough to make the ledge. And right near by the doors of a shipping container are pushed open slowly, quietly.

     Right out from said container comes that familiar cop car creeping down the road and right up to the ramp. Sure enough behind the wheel is that now familiar officer of the law with a stern look on his face as eyes narrow down firm on his target.

     The car goes in, and he comes out just a moment, managing to pull a dumpster behind with a low grind just enough to block shut the one entrence and exit from the partially constructed building.

     Though the actual speaking is too quite for normal ears Lex's suit would be able to pick up on something of a conversation going on inside. It seems he's just in time for a bit of a show.

     "You've gotten a lot farther then you should have punk." Barricades low voice grumbles down with a firm load of gravel that backs every word. "Then again, I guess this is the first time you met me."

     There's a flash of light that echoes out from inside the construction yard. An clattering of heavy machinery colliding grinding falling against eachother. The sounds that ring out echo of metal on metal on concrete harsh impacts of full speed collisions going one against another.

     Most of the people here don't seem to mind. They keep to their own business, but through the wall that would have been a window a glimpse of metal can be seen, a metal fist slamming hard into a face breaking off. A spark from the impact.

     It's begun and over in but a few quick instances, only 6 seconds in all. One last loud THUD as dust is kicked out of the lower floor windows, something slamming hard into the ground like a ton of bricks.

Lex Luthor has posed:
By the time the noise is starting, Lex is nearby enough to focus his sensor suite right on the building, getting a good full spectrum readout of those inside as he hops one more rooftop over to the building... and he starts to walk over to the rooftop access, walking down casually into the main chamber proper.

"Mercy, keep watch for anyone new coming around. This feels like a covert war of some kind." Lex mentally orders to her via the LexCorp network.

By the time the noise is done, the powered armor suit can be seen among the catwalks above. Lex isn't trying to be sneaky, here.

Barricade has posed:
     The sensors pick it up alright. It's a short skirmish, the green car shifting right on sensors breaking apart and moving as more mater is seemingly created onto its form in a way that seems to disagree with the fundimental laws of physics. Yet there it is right on visual sensors as the car rapid fire expands doubling or more in size to slam hard a fist down into the roof of the cop car.

     And right on cue the cop car makes a similar transformation. A pair of arms forming out of where the doors had been to barely catch the strike. Blows are faster then the human eye, but not quite faster then those scanners allowing for a pickup of the rapid fire skirmish as it takes place. While the car fights the cop stands to one side hands down in his pocket.

     Those six seconds containing 30 blows each. A high speed close contact smash out knockdown that ends in the sports car pinned down inside of a large crater left firm inside of the midst of the concrete and steal structure.

     and overlooking it all is that cop. With his moustache and close crop hair. Taking off his hat to look down in the middle in perfect time with the bot. "Dead or alive, you're coming with me."

Lex Luthor has posed:
"If you're going to do robocop, it'd work better if you weren't a two story robot." the Synthetic voice of Lex quips from the catwalk above. The green and purple powered armor gives no indication of /who/ is in the suit... but it can't be anything but a humanoid inside of it, with it's size. It's electromagnetic aura makes it clear that the suit is complicated high-technology. Certainly leagues above what the average human uses.

Lex continues with that voice, his helmet eyes flashing yellow as Lex scans Barricade. "You're not like anything I've ever seen, except maybe the Sentinels... what are you?"

Barricade has posed:
     The Human cop next to the car looks back over. His attention shifting from behind those aviator shades as he looks back over reflecting the world in those lenses. He's silent for a long moment gloved hands moving to adjust the lenses in almost perfect time for the towering barricade to pull something out from the husk of metal on the ground holding it in the robotic hand before crushing it.

     There's a disappointed sigh from the cop standing next to the giant super fighting robot. Though he's looking right up towards the flying suit of armor for a long moment. Even while the giant robot takes away a few... certain little things like it's nothing.

     "Well hello to you too." Comes the reply as the cop on the ground moves over to one side. "If I'm honest you're not much further out yourself, for a giant flying green jellybean." A foot standing on what had been the head of the other transformer. Whatever barricade's doing it seems to be changing something, causing the corpse for lack of a better word to shift back into a mostly destroyed green convertible.

Lex Luthor has posed:
A minor thrust up has Lex floating just above the catwalk, before the back thrusters are fired and he slowly drifts forward... then begins to drift down at an angle heading for just above the robot itself. "Your technology is obviously more advanced than the usual, and my scans show some serious under the hood mechanics going on." He stops just above and in front of Barricades head. He's hovering there, floating, and he obviously knows what he's doing with how fluid the whole maneuver is.

Then, the head looks forward the 'cop', "Hologram technology?" The man in the suit muses.

From here, Barricade can see the telltale shimmering of some sort of energy field around the armor. It's subtle, but there.

Barricade has posed:
     Barricade looks Lex up and down for a long moment in dead silence right into that armor as he scans right back. But his lights up all those sensors on Lex's suit, the kind of technology melenia ahead of anything Luthor could dream of.

     There's something strange about it, the technology just doesn't make sense moving in ways that boggle even the most advanced of minds to make the existing super tech look like tinker toys and sticks.

     Whatever has gone into this thing it would take countless generations to even begin to get a grasp on it. The scanners would most likely kick back strange errors.

     Even the 'hologram' it doesn't show up as such to the scan it's beyond human by millions of years or more. And yet here it is looking him over.

     Barricade cracks a bit of a smile at the suit flying at eye level, the robotic face narrowing its eyes down. Like camera lenses they cycle down to little fine glowing points billions of moving parts working together in perfect harmony in one eye alone.

Lex Luthor has posed:
Probably some sort of extra-dimensional technology for storage, but the 'hologram' is entirely different in comparison to what humans are capable of now. Interesting.

Eventually, the sensors are finished, and Lex looks back to Barricades head, "You have excellent disguise capability, and the technology to make it work... but you obviously forgot a simple fact; humans age, unless they're one of the few immortals." Lex points out. "Using an avatar from half a century in the past is a dead giveaway for anyone paying attention."

He starts to float around the robot in a circle, "what's your purpose here? You laid an ambush, that much is obvious... but why?"

Barricade has posed:
     "Strange" Spoken with a pause as the bot flips back into a car. The transformation is rapid fire and it's only part way through that any scanning at all becomes impossible on the frame. Which to be fair could be easily something to bring worry. Unlike the robot form there's something about those cars.

     "A new day, a new fix." As the cop walks over attaching the wreck of the other bot to a toe cable for the cop-car. "The world is a scary place, and sometimes people need to get even more scary to make it safer."

     The two bots the destroyed car, and the cop car look ready to pull out. "But, right now my purpose is to make sure this planet stays just as quaint as it is." He pauses for another moment longer. "If someone breaks opsec, they need to be delt with."

Lex Luthor has posed:
"Opsec... you're keeping under the radar of human society and going after other robots meanwhile. A shadow war I stumbled over." Lex states with fair certainty. "Don't like humans that much?"

He floats down to the destroyed robot, scanning over it with his sensors now. Front chest thrusters keep him in place just above it's chest. "You're waiting on something, I assume." It's states as a fact, not a question.

Barricade has posed:
     "Only when they get too nosey." The destroyed robot, or what can be scanned of it appears to just be junk. There's none of the special moving parts the pizzaz that was there just a little prior. It's all gone, as if it had only ever been a broken down wreck of a car, and yet, there's still something to be said about that husk. It's an odd piece of work to be certain.

     That's when a cop car pulls up out front of the ruined structure along with a wrecker. Called some time earlier. It's hard to tell but they just bring the wrecker over to the entrance way and get ready to help the cop load up that destroyed beautifully expensive custom Lincoln Continental. "My little... friend's ride." Spoken from the cop driver whose face is now completely different even though there wasn't a moment when it changed. It just... HAS. A different look thrown on like some people might blink.

Lex Luthor has posed:
Lex starts to float back up to the catwalks in one fluid set of thrusts. He lands not with a thunk, but with a smooth motion as he looks back to the exit.

"We'll talk again, I'm sure." Lex says with a slightly casual air. Then, he's walking over to the rooftop access again, and is soon out of sight in the small stairwell up.