Owner	Pose
Dick Grayson	Night in Gotham always conjures images of a moon high in the dark sky, low hanging clouds that float between the skyscrapers, and the ages old architecture that stands dominant against the skyline with gothic curves and turns and statues. The odd gargoyle is often seen, and if one is near enough to the water there is often the clang of a buoy that sounds off in the distance. Tonight does nothing to dissuade one from that opinion, though it is perhaps a touch worse as a small trickle of rain causes faint ripples in the myriad of puddles along the streets.     During this late an hour the traffic has let up, though there are still the few errant lights of cars travelling along the roads. The bridges linking the city to the shoreline stand tall off in the distance. To most it would seem as if it were a perfect peaceful night.     Yet in the course of his career, Dick Grayson has found that those are the nights one should be the most worried. Something is always going on. Either you know about it, or you don't. So he hit the contacts, no shrieking dangling pushers nor leaned on mob enforcers, Nightwing tends to gather what he can at times with a bit of persuasion and perhaps a smidge of implication regarding violence. But that's often enough.     The word he'd gained was that at the docks Roland Polotkos, a renowned importer/exporter had spent a pretty coin to secure three berths for the night. The why? Not known at this time, so Nightwing intends to take a look, even as he flips through the air, grapple line firing out to snare the lip of the tall crane over those docks, pulling him up and giving him a perfect place to spy from.     But the name Roland Polotkos didn't trigger any warnings to him beyond his shady background. To someone like Faiza Hussain, however, it was that same name that came up only a few days ago in connection with the loss of The Red Tome. And that being in anyone's hands is a big bad deal.
Excalibur	Faiza really isn't into all of that flipping about and leaping from one rooftop to another. Sure, she's a member of MI-13, and someone cleared for field work at that, but she's a medical doctor at heart and a bit more of a diplomatic liason than a highly trained operative. Still, some things bear investigation, and since she could come up with other good reasons to be in Gotham that night it was hard not to satisfy her curiosity and poke her nose in at least a little bit.     That's how she came to be in the area, at street level instead of up on the rooftops looking down, and it just so happens that the dark alley she's leaning against the wall in is in line of sight of Nightwing's perch.     The chain mail armor she wears is coated with a matte material that keeps it from gleaming and muffles any noise it might make, but the pommel of the sword strapped to her back... well, it would be a desecration of sorts to put strangely advanced modern materials on Excalibur, wouldn't it? So as she shifts to get a better view of the target of her surveillance, light glints off the exposed metal pommel of the Sword that Heals.
Dick Grayson	From her point of observation she can see that chain link fence that surrounds the dock area. It's not the kind of fencing that's intended to really keep anyone out who wants to get in, it's more the kind of fencing as a suggestion to please not wander in there and pick through their stuff. There's no razor wire at the top, it's large enough links as to make good hand holds, and it even as the metal bar at the top for ease of vaulting.     However, she will receive a different message from what looks like an armed guard slowly making his rounds about the perimeter. Normally this would be of little remark, except that he carries an assault rifle openly as he walks, keeping an eye on his surroundings. Occasionally a small crimson ember is seen floating in front of his mouth, most likely a cigarette or the like that he draws on as he moves.     But what might catch her attention all the more is that as she gets closer, a steady sound seems to be coming from the large red warehouse in the middle of the three dock areas. And the sound seems to be that of ominous chanting.     From his perch, Nightwing takes a gander of the locale. A hand lifting to his brow to touch a fingertip to beside his domino mask, tiny lenses falling into place and giving him passable night vision. He looks about slowly, marking those patrolling individuals... noting that the other buildings seem to be unoccupied. It's just that one central warehouse with the light son.     But then from afar he sees another silhouette. He zooms in and does not recognize the woman in chain mail, nor the sword. But her body language definitely speaks of subterfuge.
Excalibur	Faiza, tucked into the shadows of an alley's mouth, lifts one hand to bring her wrist near her mouth and says something in a voice too quiet to carry even a few feet, let alone to anyone eavesdropping without a sensitive parabolic microphone or super hearing. It's a gesture that's probably familiar to anyone who has spent much time around trained government operatives or the kinds of bodyguards that mean serious business. The sorts of people who tend to work in black suits with ties, not suits of mail with tabards.     After a moment, when the armed guard has gone past, she moves toward the fence, moving both quickly and surprisingly quietly, but stops when she reaches a recessed doorway where she slides into the shadows again to watch and wait for the next patrol to pass. Evidently she's the patient sort, willing to take a little longer to have a better chance of avoiding notice rather than rushing and hoping that she makes it.     It's from there that she does something that most humans who haven't specifically trained the habit into themselves don't tend to do: when she looks around, she looks up. Her eyes slide past the place where Nightwing is crouched to watch at first, then jerk back like she's wondering if she did see something or not. After a moment she turns back toward the fence to watch the next patrolling guard go by.
Dick Grayson	Once she's negotiated to that new position she's past the patrolling guards. There can't be that many of them, perhaps four for the entire area? Not exactly Fort Knox though it does grant some measure of security. But she is able to get a clean line of sight to that warehouse, and she will now hear the chanting all the louder. It's a steady deep baritone rumble of voices building to a crescendo every third repetition. The only word that she might be able to make out would be something like, 'Radmance? Radamantus?' Something along those lines.     It would only take another subtle dash across the darkness for her to get to a good place she might be able to ascend a few crates and get an angle from one of those high windows. If she's able she'll see inside what looks like perhaps a dozen meb? No fourteen men, standing in the middle of a crimson circle all chanting together and holding hands. Inside the pentragram that they stand around is a man who is stripped to his skivvies and bound to the ground, his limbs filling out each point of the star. He's gagged, but clearly under great duress.
Excalibur	From that position by a window, Faiza spends a few moments observing before she speaks quietly into her wrist microphone again. She's not in communication with anybody directly, just making audio logs for posterity. In case she doesn't survive this spot of trouble and get back to report directly, most likely.     Then she ducks down away from the window, looks around again, and puts a hand on her head like someone trying to work out the right thing to do in the situation. She's certainly not the mightiest of super heroes, and 14 people is a lot for her to intend to take on alone, after all. But someone's life may very well depend on it.
Dick Grayson	It's perhaps while she's reflecting that she'll have a moment to consider what to do. There is no clear point of entry better than another. There's no hint as to the identities of the men in the red robes on the inside. The only thing she might be able to get an angle on is the poor sacrificed man as he somehow is able to spit the gag rag out of his mouth and he begins to plead with his captors.     "Please let me go!" He sobs, "I swear, I'm not a virgin!"     "C'mon guys! Stop playing around."     "Bill, please. I know I owe you fifty bucks but c'mon!"     Yet his only answer is for the tallest of the cultists at the southern portion of the pentagram to draw a jagged dagger from inside his robes.     But as the pleading words become more and more desperate she'll hear the pleading and the chanting interrupted by a /CRASH/ of shattering glass from above, the skylight bursting apart as a figure drops down, small spheres hurled to the ground that almost instantly burst into rough billows of smoke all around them.
Excalibur	Faiza looks through the window again when the voice starts, and is just about to hop down to make for an entrace other than just noisily going through the window when the skylight burst and someone drops into attack.     Now, one thing about Faiza is that she's a bit of a fangirl when it comes to heroes. She might not have got enough of a look to see who did it, but she can make some guesses about who might be in there and what their intentions might be. And, ultimately, she does have ways to help.     With one armored elbow she smashes in the window, then she slides through (careful of the sword on the back!) to drop into the warehouse, coming down in a crouch.     As she stands she extends her hand, and from about six inches in front of her fingertips back to her elbow becomes awash in a corona of dancing blue energy. Half the chanters in the room, alternating every other one around the circle, suddenly freeze in place, utterly still. "I would suggest those of you who are able to move get on your knees and put your hands on top of your heads!" she calls out in an English accent. "Or if I don't miss my mark, you're likely to regret it in a few moments."     With the hand that's not outstretched and glowing blue she reaches over her shoulder and draws her sword from is sheath with a rasping metallic ring.
Dick Grayson	The smoke catches the light of that blue enchantment eerily, lending an almost stormcloud like haze to everything even as visibility is obscured. From her place Faiza will be able to catch a glimpse of what is going down. Her six enchanted cultists hold their position, but the others move as one, brandishing their weapons and yet /somehow/ still chanting 'Radamantus' in steady repetition now, no other words. Just 'Radamantus. Radamantus Radamantus.'     She'll see a flicker of movement, as something small and half-circular blurs through the air and knocks one of those wicked daggers from an upraised hand.     Then there's a flash of a boot swirling out of the smoke to catch a cultist under the shin.     One suddenly seems to upend himself and hits the ground face first. While another abruptly rockets into the air and sliiiiiides across the ground... smearing the pentagram.     Whomever that is, he seems to be doing well. But Faiza... she can /feel/ in the air that now that the pentagram has been fouled power is building up nastily.
Excalibur	Rushing into the midst of the smokey haze and starting to swing with her sword, that's just not the way that she does things. There's too much chance of causing harm she doesn't intend in that route. Things like whoever the hidden ally might be, for instance.     What's more her style is going for the rescue, which is why it is that she dashes straight toward the center of the circle and the man that was bound in the middle of it. "I'm going to have to let them go!" she calls, giving a few seconds of warning before she does and the blue light around her hand and arm gutters out, releasing the cultists that had been held in place as she reaches the hapless victim.     "This is going to get weird, but I promise it won't hurt you and it will get you out of your bonds," she says as all the warning she offers before she reaches out again, the blue light returns, and the man comes apart at all the points where he's been bound to the bound. It isn't that he dissolves, or his arms and ankles fall off, or anything like that, though. It's more like something out of an anatomy textbook, like all the pieces that makes up his limbs were taken apart one by one and slide apart to hover in the air, all separeate bones and muscle, skin and veins.     And then she leans down, rolls him away from where he'd been with one hand, and releases her power. He instantly reassembles, just as he'd been, perfectly in tact with not even a trace of blood. Not even abrasians from where bonds chaffed against struggling limbs.
Dick Grayson	By the time she gets to the center of the circular pentagram, the fight has moved off a bit. She'll be able to see flashes of black and perhaps some blue accented to the skintight uniform that her partner in this caper wears, but other than that it's difficult to make out too much details.     All for the better, considering her attention is now on the bound man in the center of the ritual. But she'll hear a masculine voice call out, "Got it, ready when you are."     And then she begins to free the bound man and those six other cultists surge to life.     The smoke is still heavy in the room, but it's not as pervasive as could be hoped. Silhouettes now. She can at least make that out when she has a chance. One man, perhaps an inch over six foot, moving with such precision and acrobatic facility that he seems to ever be just a step beyond the nearest opponent. There are flashes of a turning spinning dervish of a man lashing out with fist, and elbow, knee, and foot as one of the cultists charges and is knocked aside. Another tries to bring his dagger in and stab upwards only to have his hand grasped, twisted, and then he's thrown down without the dagger and a fist steals his consciousness from him.     "The hell was that!" Says the former captive as he sits up, then he shrieks at Faiza, "Look out!" Just as one of those daggers slashes down at her.
Excalibur	"Oh, don't you mind--" Faiza is starting to say in her Londoner accent when the man shrieks for her to look out. She whirls and brings her sword up, and when it connects with the descending dagger there's a sharp, sparking clang of steel on steal. Her wrist twists, Excalibur's angle changes, and then there's a deft motion that sends the dagger flying from the man's hand. It's as neatly as if she was Invincible Sword Princess from some Hong Kong action flick, and not a muslim Brit dressed up like a crusader.     "No more of that, mate," she says as her hand flickers blue and the man goes still. "Just you hold still. I think this is all safer for you that way." Then she turns back to the ex-captive. "I think we'd best get you out of this circle. Something's gone a bit pear shaped with the energy of that ritual." She extends her blue-glowing hand out to him to help him up. The other one has a sword on it.
Dick Grayson	She can feel the steady pulse of whatever was powering that ritual starting to grow stronger, though now with the chanting weaker with half of the cultists currently unconscious and unable to lend their voices to anything... it's as if that power had nowhere to go and was seeking the easiest outlet.     The runes around the pentagram begin to surge and glow red even as... that young man in the black leather and kevlar? She can see him now, handsome profile, domino mask, light skin. And the way he moves as if the laws of physics and gravity bound other people but not him... Nightwing might be the name she comes up with if she's aware of those in Gotham.     But he's too busy working on the last few cultists. The way he fights is a rapid series of strikes to each one, enough to get them staggering and for him to move on to the next. It's almost balletic in its precision and control. And it only takes him thirty four more seconds to put those last six down, leaving him standing there still breathing steadily without labour, his fists held to his sides as he surveys the situation.
Excalibur	Those thirty four seconds are spent by Faiza in getting the would-have-been victim out of the circle, and then returning to push the paralyzed victim of her powers -- the only ritualist not pummeled into incapacitation at that point -- back out of the cirle as well.     When Nightwing stops to survey the scene, Faiza is just taking a piece of chalk from a pouch on her belt and is saying, "well, Pete, let's see if that seminar on ritual magic you sent me to pays off." She bites her lower lip for a moment, and then crouches down to start rapidly trying to repair the damaged circle.     As she works the quality of the power starts to shift, ebbing and flowing but growing less pronounced. There's far, far less precision on her work, both because she's hurrying and because she only just barely knows what she's trying to do, and the result is a magical feedback that makes it feel like everyone's brain is trying to implode, and makes the nerves in every tooth hurt -- like nails on a chalkboard in a feedback loop -- but it does seem to be working, more or less. "Sorry about the pain," she says through gritted teeth. "I don't know what they were trying to accomplish, but I don't think we want whatever energy they were raising to surge out uncontrolled."
Dick Grayson	There's a faint scuff of boots and then he's kneeling beside her. "Is there anything I can do to help?" The vigilante looks around her and the smoke is settling now, leaving them there amongst the fallen who are outside of the pentagram. The circle continues to glow but it seems to ebb and shift in strength due to her efforts. She can feel the tumult lessening, becoming more under her control, easier to route and shift it to dissipating.     Nightwing grimaces and touches a hand to his brow, as if an ice cream headache was threatening to knock him down. He shakes his head, "Good thing you were here. I'll get the others clear in case things don't work out." A nice way of putting it. But he's moving at a run, slinging one of the unconscious men over his shoulder and then dragging the other. It's hard work but he seems able to do it quickly, starting to get the men clear and bound with plastic cuffs outside the warehouse and away from what could be the aftershock of the ritual.
Excalibur	"Try not to break the circle with any of their faces," Faiza answers to the question of how he can help. "And get them clear, good idea." She keeps working, wearing the piece of chalk down to nubs drawing lines and sigils and pulling out another while he's hauling people outside. The scant bit she knows about this subject doesn't work in the same way as the original, hence the unpleasant feedback.     As she's finishing things up and he's coming in for the last of the unconscious men she says, "Nightwing, isn't it? I'd be way more excited about meeting you if, well..." she gestures at what she's doing. "More pressing matters."     And with a few more strokes of her chalk she seals the energy in, though there's still an unpleasant, soundless hum causing pressure against the temples of anyone who gets close to it. She pushes back from the edge, puts her hand on the hilt of her sword where she'd set it on the ground in her haste, then stands up as she starts to slide it away as she turns toward Nightwing. "Let's go outside, why don't we?"
Dick Grayson	"Police are on the way," Is the first thing he says to her as he jogs back to her side. He turns his head and looks over the runes, frowning. "This looks like some serious bad mojo." He steps back and then nods at her suggestion. It's through that side door and outside that she'll see the cultists all nicely set around several lamp poles with their arms cuffed around them, most of them are unconscious though the few who are not look listless and dismayed.     The older man who was to be sacrificed is sitting on the steps of another storage building across the way, a heavy blanket over his shoulders as he holds it close to himself. With that fellow, the cultists, and the magical energy eased... it looks and feels like things are under control.     Nightwing turns towards her and extends his hand, "Thanks, appreciate the help. Wasn't sure what was going on in there, but saw the knives and... well you were there." His smile is open, honest, and transforms his amiable face into a handsome one as he meets her eyes, though his are hidden behind the mask. "Who are you?"
Excalibur	"Best to let them handle the rest of the clean up then," Faiza says as they head outside, and she nods in agreement with that plan. "I'm more than a little bit out of my jurisdiction here as it is. I didn't plan on tonight being about action, just recon, but, well--" she gestures towad the man they rescued. "I didn't want to just recon whatever was about to happen."     When he extends his hand she reaches out to take it. "I'm Excalibur," she says. "Well, the sword is Excalibur, but you can call me the same. I wasn't entirely sure if that was you when I went in to help. I'm glad I didn't make a serious mistake in guessing that it was." She flashes a big smile. "It really is good to meet you. I've read a number of our reports on your activities, Nightwing. Well, the ones MI-13 knows about, anyway. I didn't expect to actually meet you."
Dick Grayson	"That's Excalibur?" He points after the handshake. His wasn't aggressive, just a firm double shake and then he let go. "That's... pretty interesting." He looks back up at her and smiles, then takes a step back as he turns his head to the side, letting his eyes focus on the distant red and blue flashes of light far off. He looks back to her, "The MI-13 watches us in Gotham?" That causes him to look a little taken aback, but then he shrugs.     "Well should I call you Excalibur or is there something else you'd prefer?" He starts to walk across the asphalt, moving towards one of the other buildings. He has no problems with the police usually, but tends not to like to speak with them too often. But his path is taking him towards the poor fellow who was about to be executed.
Excalibur	"Sure is," Faiza says, giving an easy handshake. "And MI-13 reads newspapers," she responds with a wider grin. "You know you can actually get most of them online these days, in fact."     Since she's there to be a liason between MI-13 and other agencies, groups, or interest parties in general, Faiza's not inclined to run off before the police arrive. It only raises the potential of even more awkward questions later. Going to check on the victim, though, seems quite suitable, and she joins Nightwing on the trek over.     "Excalibur's best. I could tell you my real name, but there's a good change the spells in place to protect my identity would just make you forget. Or it might weaken the magic."     When they reach the man they rescued she gives him a patient smile and speaks in a different tone of voice, one professional and reassuring. "Are you okay?" she asks him. "I am a physician, so let me know if anything's hurt, Mr...?"
Dick Grayson	"Alright then, Excalibur." Nightwing gives her a nod and pats her on the shoulder. "That was good work. Do you have this in hand? I need to finish my patrol and then get a report in." He looks down at the rescued sacrifice and waits for the man to answer her.     "Raymond, Mr. Samuel Raymond. Thank you, both of you, I... I don't want to imagine what would have happened." He holds up his hands reaching out to them, but Faiza is closer and, well, also a beautiful woman. "Thank you."     "It's alright, Mr. Raymond. Excalibur will be here until the police arrive in the next few minutes. Just keep warm, they'll have a professional you can speak with to help you deal with what has happened."     That having been said he steps to the side to her and nods, "Good to work with you, Ex. If you're around the city for a bit maybe I'll see you later."
Excalibur	"I can wrap things up here," Faiza responds with a nod. "Thank you for your help. I hope that the rest of your night is much more peaceful than this portion of it."     She takes Mr. Raymond's hands as she turns back to him. "You're welcome. All of us have to look out for each other in this world, don't we? You'll be safe now. Is there anyone you'd like me to call for you, to come be here while the EMTs check you out and the police ask questions?" Her expression turns sympathetic. "I know it has been a long, weird, terrifying night already, but I'm afraid it's likely to be longer still. If I can help, just let me know."     She turns back to Nightwing, gives him a nod, and says, "I'm sure I'll see you around."     And then she waits around to explain to the police what happened. Hopefully with a minimum of trouble resulting in the fact that something nasty went down, and she's a muslim with a sword and chain mail in the middle of it all.