8449/Undercurrents: Striking Back

Undercurrents: Striking Back
Date of Scene:	22 July 2019
Location:	A biker gang's former stash house, Gotham
Synopsis:	Orphan takes down the Hook stash house of a Gotham biker gang. The costs of justice are not small.
Cast of Characters:	Aquaman, Batgirl (Cain)
Tinyplot:	Undercurrents

---

Aquaman has posed:
The West Side Club was not hard to track down. They have operated in the area for as long as anyone can remember. Members came and went, busts happened, people went to jail and got out. But the WSC kept on bringing extortion, drugs and prostitution to area. As can be expected, they were tight-knit, careful in selection and almost gleefully murderous.

Recently, prices for cocaine, heroin and other hard drugs had skyrocketed in the tri-state area. The whole eastern seaboard, really. And Hook started appearing at the same time, at prices that put crack cocaine to shame. It put a lot of people to shame as well. Powerful and exceedingly addictive, overdoses were a growing problem and so was drug-fuelled petty crime. Street level gangs were fighting over turf as they had to adjust to the new supply dynamics. It was uglier than usual in Gotham's streets.

Patience and observation, and good intel, led Cassandra to be watching the WSC chapter house. It was a two story wooden house with eight-foot chain-link fences topped by barbed wire. There are cameras on the building. A rottweiler wanders the fenced yard and barks savagely at anyone who walks by. If Cassandra pulled the city plans for the building, she will know it has a two storey basement. If her intel is good, she will know it is called the bunker and is where the WSC keeps its real valuables. Drugs, weapons, unlaundered cash.

Best as she can tell, it looks Grimey, the sergeant at arms for the chapter, is inside with a half-dozen full patch members. There are probably a couple of girls in there as well, but if so they are not let out in the time Cassandra is there observing. Coming up from exclusively poor and working-class roots, the gang members favoured classic weapons. Knives, bats, handguns and shotguns. Heavy weapons and explosives were a rarity for the WSC and a sign that something had gone truly wrong.

After all, nobody wanted to attract the attention of the Bat Family.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
It is at once a blessing and a curse that the particular Bat Family they had attracted was the mysterious Orphan. The small asian vigilante crouched in the shadows of a nearby buildings fire escape, watching the the WSC for hours without so much as adjusting her position or needing to relocate unless she had a suspicion that she had been seen, which was unlikely etal, but it's always best to stay aware regardless of that fact.

The dark hood of her costume is pulled up for now and she's fixed a black domino mask above the cloth worn across her mouth so that she's access to the bat-computer through the sophisticated onboard built into it. Schematics for the club, city planning, and contracts dug up by one fo the greatest Hackers in Gotham, if not the planet. She goes over the details while she waits, letting time slip past, midnight come and gone. She's no interest in fighting an entire gang, at least not alone, even as cavalier and self assured as she might well be in her ability to the task.

At just past 3 in the morning, she finally makes her move. A silent hiss of her grapple launcher brings her over the chainlink in a rolling low crouch run towards the exterior wall, cutting seemingly at random, but precisely to keep herself in the several inch wide section between cameras acting as a near unseen blind spot to anyone who is NOT a literal ninja. Waiting until the guard dog has patrolled to another section of the compound and careful to remain upwind so as not to let her distinct scent alert them to a potential intruder. The wall itself should prove no challenge, leaping to grab a ledge and kicking with her left leg while simultaniously pulling herself aloft towards an upper story window where she's less likely to immediatey engage an entire coven of bikers in the main club area.

Aquaman has posed:
The window is propped open in the heat to let the night air in. It leads in an empty, musty smelling guest bedroom. There is a lot of dust but no furniture.

Some guy is grunting and swearing in the next room. He is either watching a porno or with a girl who does her level best to sound like she is one.

Some laughs and the sound of a football game echo up the stairs. There are no signs of anyone.

Outside, the dog barks near the front of the house.

"Fucking dog, yells a man from floor. There is the muted sound of door opening. The voice yells at the dog again. The door slams shut and there is muttering. From the sounds of it there are three men downstairs.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Orphan twists her body through the window and drops down inside the room into which it opens. Listening quietly where she's crouched with her eyes closed to put together a topography of where voices are in relation to where she currently nestles. In her mind, she's formulating a plan of attack that makes the best use of what she knows about the building itself. Natural blinds, cover, and potential on hand weapons. Despite having a host of useful gadges at her disposal, two of which she removes from her belt in the palm of her hand as she stands and slips up against the door leading out to the hallway behind.

She's less concerned, for now, about the man in the next room grunting, but she's keeping him in the back of her mind. He'll almost certainly be last.

The front door opens, but her count remains the same for having heard him return to his earlier revelry. After a clipped ten count, the door is pulled ajar and she stalks out of the room, clutching a pair of smoke pellots, ready to let them loose if there's a threat beyond or as soon as she hits the first step leading downstairs.

Aquaman has posed:
Nothing changes in the patterns of sound in the home. The floors make no sound under her experienced feet. There is some muttering about the game between the men downstairs.

"What time is it?" a female voice asks groggily from among the male ones.

"Shut up, the game's on," grunts of the men. The woman does not speak again.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Orphan descends into the room amidst the bikers and scores her eyes across them like Robocop tracking targets. The pellets are let loose from her palm in a roll across the floor, moving with them, but in a different direction. Her own intent towards the shadowy recesses on the side of the stairs, while the small rolling explosives are intent for the group engaged with the football game on television.

She's mentally steeled her mind now, not that conversation was ever going to be paramount. There will now be violence. The switch flips and Cassandra Cain goes becomes a weapon.

Aquaman has posed:
The people in the room have no clue anything is wrong until the smoke pellets go off in their faces.

"What the fuck?"

"The hell is this?!"

"Is it the fucking cops!"

Wherever she is in the room, the woman with them makes no noise. The men are coughing and getting to their feet. The tallest of them gropes for the baseball bat leaning beside his chair and bumps into the television. Another, clearly ingesting his bodyweight in steroids each week, fans at the smoke with his big meatpaws. The last has pulled a handgun out of somewhere. He his coughing into his arm and and looking around. His gun is pointed at the floor.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Steroids

Orphan moves like a shadow into the thick white smoke produced from the pair of smoke pellets. Barely a breeze as she shifts into the immediate area occupied by the massive human being waving his giant paw like a fan with her center of gravity lowered upon a crouch as she comes in at him with the kind of ruthless efficiency of a bullet in the dark. Her fingers straighten out as she nears him, like a knife extension of her wrist, jutting forward through the momentum of her low run towards the inside craddle of his testicles with such vicious intent as to leave any indication that her purposefully life altering shot was meant to permanently change the pitch of his voice from that day hence.

She follows, whether the strike succeeds or not, with a full weigh elbow at the inside curve of his thick knee. Should the first blow succeed, even enough so that it shifts his weight away from that leg, she's hitting in just the kind of way that seperates a petela from the nestle against femor and tibula, if not snapping the ACL etal. POP-POP. Each strike turns her body a little, giving each successive blow a little extra umph, the final a side to side strike towards the oposite side of the knee to the first to, hopefully, complete the task of destroying the big man's knee completely.

Aquaman has posed:
Completely undefended, Orphan's first strike hits home cleanly. The man /screams/ and crumples over. Orphan has destroyed his knee before he falls all the way over sideways to the floor.

"What the fuck?!" shouts the man with the bat. He swings wildly in the smoke, which is starting to thin out.

"Fucking someone in here," growls the coughing man with the gun. He brings the gun up and scans with it as he backs out of the worst of the smoke.

"Oh my.... <cough>" says a female voice from the direction of the couch.

A female voice is yelling in protest upstairs. There is the thunk of heavy feet coming quickly down the upstairs hall toward the stairs.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Handgun

Orphan disengages from Steroids before he's even touched deck. It is entirely likely he's gotten testicular tortion from her initial strike, tactical assessment indicates he'll be ineffective in a fight, even if he attempts to reengage, with unreasonable pain in his groin and a destroyed right knee.

The small woman moves on to the next threat, likely the most dangerous to the women/other bikers, as he is to herself. She's a little more visible as the smoke begins to fade, but she moves with an uncanny alacrity, leaping steps making her a difficult target to track as she clears the couch with a hand pressed against the back cushion out of one such hop to her right. Her left foot comes around to kick at the outside portion of the hand clutching the gun being waved about haphazardly. Her toes pointed in so it can, if connecting, snap the joints of the metatarsals just above the plantar aspect of the hand.

With any luck, the gun should go flying as she twists into a forward roll out of her kick, palms down into a forward spring over the table between big couch and busted television. One of the bear bottles flipping up into her palm whistling at the side of the gunmans head like a shuriken. Right at his temple. Might not knock him out, even if it hits, but it might give him a better appreciation for astrology for all the white hot stars.

Aquaman has posed:
"Fuck!" the man with the handgun yells when Orphan's kick connects. The gun flies out of his hand and skitters across the floor. He clutches at his injured hand. It is reflex and luck that keep him from catching the bottle full in the head. He flinches slightly and it glances off the side of his head. Still he stumbles backward swearing.

"Get out of the fucking way!" yells a higher pitched man's voice from the stairs. A fairly scrawny man in his 30's is standing on the stairs in his boxers with a sawed off shotgun pointed toward the melee. He is trying to get a line on Orphan.

"Holy shit! What the fuck is happening?" the woman on the couch yells after Orphan leaps right over top of her.

It is more the noise than anything that alerts Orphan. The sucking whoosh of air of an object moving fast. The man with the bat has seen her and stepped into a full swing toward her side. He is big and his body weight is in the swing.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Basball Bat

Orphan notes the newest arrival at the top of the stairs leveling a shotgun with a quick scan, moving low behind coverage of the couch with a hand slipping beneath the same table from which she grabbed the projectile bottle. It's sent upwards with a shove of her palm to give her a cover against any shots fired, but does little to prevent the baseball bat coming in at her side.

Mid turn to send another sharp kick, she eats the blow on the right flank, but locks her elbow down against it and falls with the blow to defuse some of the kinetic impact. Twisting as she tumbles in a bent knee cartwheel to jerk the weapon in the thugs hands, hopefully disarming him, with the potential benefit of off-setting his balance.

Which she capitulates by bring her foot in and around towards the lowest portion of his knee. With the table only a temporary solution to the shotgun, and with any luck on her own part, she'll now have a human shield. Her own calf pinning his knee to the ground with her forearm wrapped tight around his throat and carotid artery like a vice, slowly starving his brain of oxygen.

Her ribs hurt, probably cracked, but she's had worse and ignores it for now. Breathing slower and shallower until the pain ebbs.

Aquaman has posed:
The roar of the shotgun is defeaning in the confines of the room. The man on the stairs sends a shotgun slug through the couch. He misses Orphan completely, but the woman on the couch gurgles blood. He dirty pink shirt quickly stains red in the chest.

The eyes of the man with the bat light up and he grins when the bat connects with Orphan. It does not fade at all when the bat goes out of his hand. Instead he charges forward, grabbing after Orphan.

"You're gonna beg for me t...." he growls but is cut off by a groan of pain when she hits his knee. He is heavy, easily over 250 lbs, and his momentum is downward after Orphan's strike. He goes down all the way to the ground under his own inertia and it is too much for Orphan to hope to stop. He lands in front of her.

The man with the shotgun racks the action, but he is not a trained shooter. Just like in the movies he points the shotgun up to rack it instead of keeping it on target. He starts bringing it back down to find his aim.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Baseball Bat

With the bat removed and the wielder falling forward towards the deck, Orphan has lost her human shield. The report of the shotgun blast draws her attention with a snap and her eyes alight with fury when she sees the gurgling blood oozing from the front of the woman's chest...

New Target: Shotgun

Bringing that shotgun up to rack the weapon was a mistake.

Orphan is on him like flies on hot garbage.

Her palm slams down towards the back of her falling targets head, intent to slam bounce his face off the hard floor, moving instantly away from him like a coiled vipor. A pair of batarangs clutched between her first and third fingers as her foot steps up into the foot of the couch, then onto the back, and sailing through the air at him with her wrist snapping out forward to let them whistle his direction.

A single batarang might have been more on target, but it's still clear she intends to disable the weapon, trying to get one of the sharp edged projectiles into the bottom chambering slot on the shotgun to keep it from racking up another cartridge, the other could just as easily go towards a forearm or shoulder.

But her foot is purposefully aimmed at the center of his chest with a stomping jump kick fully meaning to shove him back and down onto the stairs where she have nothing, but horrible intentions for him should she succeed.

Aquaman has posed:
The first batarang glances off the side of the shotgun and embeds itself in the wall. The second sticks into the back of the man's right hand. He swears, lets go of the shotgun with that hand and tries to shake the batarang off. That just makes it hurt worse. It also opens him up wide to the kick. He takes it full in the chest and is pushed back into the wall. His hands arms splay outward with the momentum and slam against the wall. The shotgun drops out of his left hand.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Shotgun

Orphan recoils from the kick into a downward roll spin charge back at the walled opponent and strikes out with the flat of her palm, pushing upwards with her free hand to keep any grasping hands away from him. Intent on doubling over, she carries her elbow up at a descending head towards bottom angle of his jaw, grip twisting to grab at the back of his head to pull it back towards her jumping upward knee strike for the bridge of his nose. Like a vicious animal out for blood.

Aquaman has posed:
The man with the shotgun is pummeled in a vicious flurry from Orphan. Whatever his role in the gang, street fighting was not it. His nose explodes in a shower of blood as he sinks to the ground against the wall. A woman screams at the top of the stairs. Orphan had no idea she was there. The woman is disgustingly thing and has sores on her body. She is wearing a black tank top with a Playboy bunny on the front and what were probably once white panties but are now just dirty and gray.

"Don't fucking move," snarls someone across the main room. Orphan can hear them now, her hearing is starting to clear from the shotgun blast. Two men, heavier and cautious by the sound of it. They stop.

"Take off the mask, bitch. Slowly." The second man, several feet away from the first.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Shotgun

Long after there's a reason to be, Orphan is pummelling the man. Fending off his attempts, feeble as they are becoming, to stop her with swatting hands followed by savage strikes. She wont kill him, but she's definitely leaving him a bloody mess on the stairs..

It really only stops when she hears the voices from behind her. Palm up ready to slap back down flat against the front of his forehead, out right ignoring the woman at the top of the stairs after a threat analysis indicates she's no more harm to her than a stick of bubblegum to a nuclear warhead. Those two men, however, are different.

The bloody gloved fist lowers and she releases the back of her mess of a targets neck from her iron grip as she stands, back to the two men. Turning a little so that she can see them just out the corner of her eye where her hood bends outwards against her shoulder. "Make me." She says matter-of-factly. Reading their body language, sizing them up, and taking them apart in her head.

They have the drop on her, but if they were hoping for fear... they picked the wrong orphan.

Aquaman has posed:
The woman at the top of the stairs keeps screaming as blood splatters against the wall from the savage beating Orphan deals to the man she was just fucking. She backs away, stumbling and screaming with her eyes fixed on the mess below her.

The two men stand there with handguns pointed in Orphan's direction. Arrogant, cocky, angry. And like so many criminals, not marksmen. It shows in their stance, the way they aim.

They oblige Orphan without argument or comment. They open fire. Semi-automatic 9mm rounds streak from their guns toward the stairs where Mercy is.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Dodging bullets isn't about being faster than bullets. It's about dodging the person holding the gun. Moving before they can react or in a manner that keeps the target hard to track, let alone hit. Orphan can read their lack of experience with weapons in their stance, she can also predict with an uncanny certainty how they will respond to every step she needs to take to close the distance between them. And she acts accordingly. Dropping another pellet at her feet as she turns sharply, the area directly around her becomes a smoke-screen.

Her burst of motion in sudden, a half hair before they begin pulling the trigger to unload thier handguns in her direction. She's not adept at firearms, but she understands how they work, and she knows that the recoil grows increasingly more complicated to control with successive shots fired. She's fast, dodging down and near a table in a roll as she comes out from the spreading cloud of thick white smoke, and comes up with a chair hurled in one of their direction to try and take him even further off target so that she can focus entirely on reading one of them at a time.

As she closes, her right palm comes in at a cross slap for the gun, left forearm snapping upwards towards the bottom of the wrist holding the weapon, trying to yank it out of his hand. Her shoulder is tucked down and back to prevent herself from being fired, never letting that barrel point in her direction, it very well may appear like she's dodging bullets... and that can be pretty damn intimidating.

Aquaman has posed:
The two men fire in Orphan's general direction one-handed until the first guy's gun goes into lockback and Orphan grabs the second's gun. The walls are decorated with bullet holes.

The man Orphan reaches is strong and does not loose his grip on the gun. He does hammer the fist of his freehand down at Orphan. The other stops shooting, closes the distance between the men and lashes out at her with a boot.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Over confidence is a weakness. Orphan will kick herself for that later, amongst other things and it will definitely net her a black eye from the massive hammer fist slamming down against the side of her face temporarily rendering her vision a blur and dislodging her tenative grip on the weapon when she brings both hands up to to protect her face. Fists clinched, one forearm up to absorb any further blows directed at her face while the other cranks up and back slightly to protect the more vulnerable portion at the base of her skull. A little armored cave for her hooded head between the gauntlet she's wearing while her senses have a chance to comp.

It's not a slow turn over.

The kick comes at her and she punches for the center of the shin, just below the knee of the offending assailant. It likely wouldn't break it even if it did connect, but those fists have metal barbs on the knuckles by way of her gauntlets and applied directly at the nerves below the petela, it could be an agonizing recoup period and make him think twice about trying it again.

Rope them.

Let them tire themselves out with big lobed punches while she either eats them on her armored forearms or out right moves to let them pass by close, but harmlessly, over shoulder and the side of the face.

Aquaman has posed:
"Jesus Christ, you fucking bitch!" the man kicking shouts when Orphan's barbs cut into skin. He lashes out in pure rage but the pain in his leg flares when he puts it down and stumbles toward Orphan instead.

"You're gonna love what I got for you," the man who punched Orphan says with a leer. He leans forward and tries to get his arms around Orphan, trying to pick her up and crush her to him.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Orphan lets herself be grabbed, dropping her arms down to her sides when those arms begin to loop around her, and immediately slams the curved part of her forhead - literally the hardest bone in the body - forward towards a relatively unprotected face. Simultaniously, her foot cranks back and comes forward with the toes pointed straight in the vague direction of her assailants groin.

Aquaman has posed:
Orphan explodes forward into the nose of the man grabbing at her.

"Fucking /bitch/!" he shouts. His hands shoot to his nose and he reels backwards.

As Orphan goes to kick him, the stumbling man todders into her and before catching himself on the edge of the couch. The bump sends her aim a bit wide and she kicks nosebleed in the thigh instead. He swears more.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Orphan finds herself back under her own control and sans, at least temporarily, one of the pair of men to concern with. The other draws full attention and she rushes at him, dropping her shoulder slightly to bullrush at his solar plexus with the curve of her arm. Fists up to protect her face in this less than advantageous positioning. It's been a longer than usual fight and while she's plenty of gas left in the tank, she's definitely starting to sweat and breath a little harder for it.

Time to end this.

Just wait for the right opening.

Aquaman has posed:
Nosebleed takes the hit in his ample gut and continues to stumble backward. He swipes blindly through watery eyes at Orphan with a bloody hand.

Knee tries to stand and finds he cannot. He falls on his good knee and tries to aim through the pain with one hand while holding himself up against the couch with another. But Nosebleed is directly on the other side of Orphan so he does not shoot.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Orphan continues to press the attack, circling around nosebleed to keep him between herself and knees with his pistol. A foot plants on the arm of the couch as a pivot point in a snap around kick aimed for a the broad side of Nosebleeds face out of an elevation hike into an aerial kick over side flip that ends in her ducking down behind the same couch. A hand presses temporarily against her heaving left flank for a second, groaning quietly at the pain of her breath coming in a little ragged against obviously broken ribs.

Aquaman has posed:
Nosebleed staggers under the assault. The kick to the head spins him to the right and he stumbles to his hands and knees. Blood drips from his face to the floor. He snarls, looks over toward Orphan and starts to get up. His vision is clearer now and his look is pure fury.

Knee gives up waiting and fires three rounds in Orphan's direction once Nosebleed goes down to his hands and knees.

"Fucking die already!" he yells at Orphan.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Typically this would be a compromised position.

Orphan is anything if typical.

The small black clad figure circles off her seated position and wraps around the arm of the couch in a low crouch run that gets her out of direct line of fire of the handgun and Nosebleeds direct line of sight. A black clad hand grips her gapplegun with her fingers laced over the triggering assembly and she comes over the back of the couch at Nosebleed from th otherside with it swinging out in his direction to fire the high powered air-launch hook directly towards the center of his chest.

She finishes out her leap by wrapping the high tensil strength cord around her right upper arm in a twisting whirl. Pivots on her back leg to wrap more around her waist, steps in to grab another hoop around her left thigh, and ducks her head to scoop up a little more. The hook is left dangling about three or four feet out from her thumb in a cutting side to side turn that crosses it over her body with the whole length bundled up around her like a coiled spring.

Aquaman has posed:
Nosebleed takes the grapple full in the chest and lands on his back as his feet are suddenly moving forward faster than his top half. He lands heavily and gasps for air like a fish out of water.

Knee hobble turns and points his gun Orphan's direction.

"Who the fuck /are/ you?! The hell do you want?" he asks. He tries to look tough, but the quiver gives it away. He is in pain and has fired most of a clip at this woman and nothing stuck. For all he knows, everyone else is dead.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Orphan is a black smear against the dark flicker of lights in the club house, twirling that hook back and forth in a methodical motion that crosses over her chest. She takes a single step towards knee, but advances no further than that, nor does she say a single word. Quiet, no visible face beneath her hood because of domino mask and cloth wrapped over her mouth, she could just as easily be the vengeful spirit of the clubs victoms as a real woman.

Certainly she's the violent tendencies and quickness to suggest it.

She also understands fear.

Fear is a weakness.

She does not have that weakness.

"Drop. Gun." She tells the lone remaining conscious biker. Prepared to release that grapple at him like a snapping cobra strike if his finger twitches towards the trigger.

She's completely done screwing around. She hurts. She's having trouble breathing. She feels a deep guilt for the woman laying dead on the couch. But she's focused.. ready to make good on the unspoken promise of violence despite all of that.

Aquaman has posed:
Orphan sees the fear cross the man's face, the near compliance. And then the anger. The bitter rage at being bested. Knee's finger starts to clench on the trigger.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
The hook is flung forward, Orphan's body straightening to release all of the coiled cord out along the length of her body like a spring. Immediately yanked back enough to grab a length, plenty to swing it around like a hook bat in a lobbing side swing just incase the first missed.

Aquaman has posed:
The first does not miss. It strikes true.

The only sound left is Nosebleed still gasping for air. The football announcers calling plays on a television with a broken screen. A woman whimpering and fighting back mewling cries upstairs.

Batgirl (Cain) has posed:
Orphan presses the retraction button on her grapplegun and fixes it back to her utility belt as she stands in the flickering darkness of a concophanous sounds assailing her. She hears it all, drinks it in, and lets it soak her down to her bones. With a suddenness like she's going to immediately spring back into action, she moves to try and collect as much information as she can, a sample of this new drug Hook, but once she has.. she sits down on the couch with the corpse of that young woman, lifts her head, and lays it in her lap.

Tears build up behind her brown eyes, but never really fall, and slowly... silently... she weeps.