2018-09-12-Triad Sniper
| Roleplay Log | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Triad Sniper | Date | September 12, 2018 |
| Location | Hell's Kitchen, NYC | ||
Bless the weather gods, a cold front has served to cool down the Big Apple at least in a marginal sense. The morning commute has settled, leaving Hell's Kitchen in a relative state of calm. The temperature hasn't yet broken 70F, but the sky is filled with grey clouds suggesting precipitation to be inevitable, sometime, somewhere.
Two dark skinned men are standing not far from the corner of 11th and 49th. Each of them is holding carboard cups, likely filled with a warm, caffeinated beverage of some sort. They are conversing in a foreign language native to Africa, but to the trained ear it is Dangme, a south-eastern African dialect spoken commonly in Ghana.
Subtitles: Man #1: On that subject, I do have news. Man #2: Tell. Of the Triads (this word in English)? Man #1: Yes.
Man #2, Kwabena Odame, is wearing sunglasses and a black beanie to warm his bald head. He reaches into his black leather jacket to produce a pack of cigarettes, during which he seems to be staring at the other African with a sour look. His jawline tenses, suggesting a momentary gnashing of teeth, before he visibly relaxes into an eerie calm. The pack is lifted, a cigarette clasped between unearthly white teeth, and pulled free.
Subtitles: Kwabena: Are you at risk for telling me? Man #2: Yes.
Kwabena reaches out with a hand, placing it upon the other one's shoulder. "Do not worry, my friend," he speaks in English, with a warm smile. "I will have de eyes of de hawk upon you, yah home, yah family." His expression suddenly cools. "If day seek for de retribution," he whispers, "Then dere blood will fill dere own cups."
Speaking of the eyes of a hawk, Angela Davis, mild-mannered angel of vengeance (semi-retired) and aspiring artist (not-so-retired) is walking out of the nearby coffee shop, holding a rather strong mocha in her hands. While coffee isn't the best invention of humanity, most angels would consider it somewhere in the top ten lists... depending on the angel in question. The redhaired woman glances back and forth, sunglasses covering her eyes as she wears a fairly casual outfit. Noticing the pair of men talking near the corner, she doesn't seem to give any notice if she hears them or not. Let alone understands them.
The second man smiles thankfully toward his friend, but when Kwabena's expression chills, his follow suit. "//Please, Kwabena,//" he speaks in his native dialect again. "//No more bloodshed.//"
"//Bloodshed is the only language the Triads understand," Kwabena answers. Once again, the word 'Triads' is in English, for there is no translation of such a word into the native Dangme. "//Now.//" He pulls his hand away and produces a zippo. The item is flicked to life, a flame set to the end of his cigarette. "//What did you learn?//"
On the opposing corner, there is an abandoned mid-rise, some sort of industrial-commercial combination building that has yet to be touched by the gentrification of Hell's Kitchen. Upon its rooftop, a Chinese man has just finished building a sniper rifle. He sets it upon a tripod, and begins moving it toward the two men conversing below. Unbeknownst to Kwabena and his compatriot, the Chinese man finds them in his sights, and begins dialing in for a shot. However, Angela's emergence from the coffee shop gives her the perfect angle, given her exceptional vision, to glimpse the sniper eight floors up, taking aim.
Angela blinks, then narrows her gaze at the sniper, following where he's aiming... and breaks into a sprint towards Kwabena. She looks to tackle either Kwabena or his companion, or both... while shouting, "//Get Down!//" in their native Dangme. With a perfect accent, no less, which might be the strangest thing about the situation.
If he is surprised by the female voice sounding alarm in his native language, Kwabena doesn't show it. His companion, however, is frozen like a deer in headlamps. Response time varies among individuals; those who haven't had much experience dealing with life-threatening situations will freeze, or be slow to respond. Those who are trained, such as law enforcement or rookie soldiers, will have a much faster, well trained response time, but they still delay due to lack of experience.
Kwabena is neither of these things. There might be enough time for a person to blink, in the span between Angela's alert and his action. He spins, and bodily shoves his companion roughly. The other man cries out and is evenly thrown into the shadow provided by a nearby loading dock.
In another blink, a shot rings out from above. A hole is ripped through Kwabena's leather jacket, a similar hole pierced through the grey shirt upon his torso, and a bullet slams into the cement wall behind him. However, there is no blood, no sign of injury; it almost seems as if the bullet passed right through him.
Above, the sniper grimaces, and swivels his aim toward Angela.
Angela looks up towards the sniper, and even at this distance... well, to say that it's unnerving to have a glare at this distance would be an understatement. Especially since she can see him, and she immediately starts running towards a nearby alley as... well, no need to spread her wings where /everyone/ can see her. That and she's mostly bulletproof even when in her mortal seeming...
"Son of a bitch." Kwabena's shaded eyes dart toward Angela just long enough to see her disappearing into an alley. He then turns toward the rooftop in question when another shot rings out, and a bullet smashes into the pavement inches behind Angela's heels, before she's safely out of sight.
There aren't many people on the street at this hour, but those who are cry out in various manner of surprise, many of them scattering for safety.
Not so with Kwabena. He throws his cigarette to the ground, then rips his shades free to reveal catlike eyes with silver irises. The shades are shoved into his jacket, then he leaps into the air. His body disappears, clothing falling to the ground in a haphazard heap, and a black cloud of smoke takes flight in his place, headed into the air and toward the incriminating rooftop.
Angela mutters to herself, "Been a few years since I dodged snipers..." as she makes it to a relatively out-of-sight spot, a celestial note suddenly ringing in the air as her clothing is replaced with silver armor, black wings sprouting from her back as she manifests her True Shape. The angel then leaps into the air, soaring rapidly up towards the sniper's roost and giving him a glare that is less 'woeful sinner' and more 'seriously?!?' as she says in a melodic voice, "Well, what have we here?" Considering that she's now wearing armor and appears to be glowing with the light of the Celestial, it's not that easy to recognize her as the woman from the coffee shop anyway. Though it isn't impossible either.
The sniper isn't fast enough to let loose another bullet before Kwabena takes to the air, resulting in a hissed curse coming forth under his breath. He immediately begins packing up his sniper rifle, but there isn't much time to be had before Angela is upon him. He turns the weapon on her, but the armor and the sheer visage of it brings him pause. "I have no quarrel with you," he speaks with a heavy Chinese accent. "Triad business. You, stay away." He trains his rifle upon her, eyes hardening. "This is warning!"
Meanwhile, a cloud of tendril-ridden black smoke emerges over the threshold behind the sniper, creeping upon him in utter silence.
Ahadiel hovers there, looking... rather bemused as she speaks in his native tongue, "/You think to threaten one of the Host with your mortal weapon?/" Her eyes glow with a brilliant white light as she says, "/You have one chance to confess your sins, else you will feel Judgment be passed down upon you./" She has her sword still in its scabbard, looking down at the sniper... and not giving an indication if she notices the smoke creeping up on the man.
The sniper's eyes widen at this display of otherworldly power, not to mention the woman's words suddenly coming at him in Mandarin. His hand trembles a bit, a vibration in the rifle that brings him pause.
Suddenly, the smoke piles forward and enshrouds the man's face. Inky tendrils force their way into his nostrils and mouth, and in a matter of seconds, the man is gagging, choking, and struggling to breathe.
Ahadiel flies forward at that, slapping the rifle away from the sniper if he still holds it, and speaks sternly, "Enough! Killing him will not resolve anything." She places a hand on the sniper's neck, not choking as /that/ seems to be covered, but almost holding him up as he gags.
There is no response from the cloud of smoke; it simply maintains its choking hold until the sniper's eyes roll back, and he loses consciousness. Almost at once, the tendrils slip out from nose and lung, and the cloud takes the general shape of a man. The sound of air being displaced, almost a sucking sound of sorts, comes when the tendrils find solidity and transform into bone, flesh, blood, skin, and a form fitting suit of unstable molecules, colored a gunmetal grey. Kwabena is sheathed from head to toe in the material, though his mask and hood remain lowered, hung down between his shoulders.
"He is now breathing," Kwabena speaks in a hushed tone while crouching down. He places gloved fingers upon the sniper's neck, feeling for a pulse. "And his heart is still beating."
Ahadiel nods slightly, "That's good. He might actually seek out repentance for this actions." She glances over at Kwabena, "I take it you know why he was doing this?" Her eyes no longer glow, looking like a pair of emeralds set into the alabaster of her face. Stupid thing to keep connected.
"Doubtful," Kwabena argues blandly. He rises, eyeing the snoozing sniper with a dubious expression, before finally turning to rest his clearly inhuman eyes upon the armored woman. There come a few moments of silence, during which he is clearly sizing her up for whatever reason. "He is Triad," he speaks in accented English. "Do you know who day ah? What it is dat dey do?" Arms fold over his lean but muscular chest, and he studies the woman critically.
Ahadiel arches a brow, "For all humanity's talk of progression, in some things they seem to be stuck in the same old cycles." She looks down at Kwabena, "I am quite aware of what the Chinese Triads are, and the role they fill in society's shadows." Her voice is perfect, no trace of an accent, the pitch such that it almost sounds like she might be singing instead of speaking.
A scoff is visible, and Kwabena audibly snorts. "Progression?" he echoes. "Biggest lie." Typically a shell of imperious demeanor, the woman's demeanor and actions actually cause a certain sort of confusion, perhaps an unsettled nature, to pierce the dark skinned mutant's otherwise flawless poker face. He knows it, and he doesn't like it, but there's something in the air that just won't let him fight it off. Maybe it's the hovering, or maybe it's the musical nature of her voice. Either way, it prompts him to finally turn away and begin circling the sleeping sniper.
"Dis one was involved in something terrible," he explains. "Human trafficking. Sex slaves, to be precise." He finishes circling and reaches down to collect the Triad's sniper rifle with a rueful and knowing smirk. "Funny thing. Boat day were going to use? Boat exploded befah dey could load up dere abducted prisonahs."
Kwabena begins disassembling the sniper rifle, first removing its clip then detaching the scope. The clip is stuffed into a nearly invisible pouch upon his costume, the scope into another, leaving the rifle barren to its factory state. "Dis one, I am to guess, was told to keep eyes on me."
Ahadiel nods slightly, "I see." With that, she actually stops hovering, wings folding in behind her as she lands lightly on the roof, her boots barely making a noise as she regards Kwabena, "A terrible mishap that was, I'm sure." Her voice doesn't hint that it was more than a coincidence, but there's a definite tone of approval at the destruction of the trafficker's boat. Her eyes scan across the nearby rooftops, looking for other possible minders as she says, "If he was keeping an eye on you, seems a little odd that he waited until now to try and assassinate you."
A glint of conspiratorial approval flashes through Kwabena's eyes, and he looks toward Ahadiel at that. Yes, a terrible mishap indeed. "Is because I was to learn some few things he didn't want me to know," Kwabena surmises. "From a friend." He shakes his head, now frowning. "His bullet was not meant for you, or for me."
Kwabena hefts the rifle over his shoulder by its strap, then moves behind the sniper and grabs him under the arms. With a grunt, he bodily drags the asian toward an air conditioning unit, and leans him up against it. Then, he unslings the rifle and looks at it for a few moments. A strange sound comes from his arms, a sound that resembles so many cracks, pops, and hissing.
"Why did you intervene?" He asks, lifting his gaze to the woman once more.
Ahadiel glances over at Kwabena, "Because it was the right thing to do. While I am far from omniscient, if I see something happening I can't stand by and do nothing." She smiles faintly, as if it really does end up being that simple. But then for her, perhaps it is.
"Because you have special ability," Kwabena quietly, and perhaps rudely, stands to correct her. "You, like me, are not like my friend, or de people on de street; running, screaming, hiding." The sound coming from his arms ceases, and then the sniper rifle is bent with ease, as if he possesses some sort of superhuman strength. He bends the rifle around the sniper's wrists and the support pole of that air conditioning unit alike, creating a makeshift form of binding. Hey, when handcuffs or zip ties are missing, you use what the Good Lord gives you.
"I would not considah you a coward for running," Kwabena states while coming to his feet again and closing the distance between Ahadiel. "But, you and I, we don't run. We don't have to." He squints his eyes a bit. "Thank you for de intahvention."
Ahadiel chuckles softly, "I've ran towards far worse in my time on this world... and besides, one lone sniper? The Odinson would never let me hear the end of it if I ran from the likes of /him/." She glances down a bit towards Kwabena, considering her height, and gives him a warm smile, "And you are welcome."
"Yeah," Kwabena echoes, a rueful smirk forming his his face. "Same here." Granted, he has no concept of just how far Ahadiel may have gone in her travels, but such a thing isn't always needed. "Kinda... helps to be bullet proof," he adds. His smile, however, is short lived and finds itself cut off when the sound of police sirens begins echoing in the distance. "Dis one we will leave for de pigs," he says, with a dismissive gesture toward the sniper. "But me? I do not like cops, so, I will be making for oddah pasture. You got a name, or do I just call you 'Aerosmith'?"
Ahadiel tilts her head, "Much as I like the works of Steven Tyler... Ahadiel will do." She smiles, "And yes, being bulletproof does make things easier, doesn't it? I'm certain I will see you around." With that, she rises into the air, wings flapping strongly as she waves down towards Kwabena, soaring off into the sky.
"Just call me Shift," Kwabena answers, a smirk forming when she recognizes the reference. Points, granted. He watches the departure for a moment, before turning and running for the edge of the rooftop. A suicide leap becomes less than lethal when he transforms again into a cloud of inky black, and makes for the discarded clothes and his frightened friend.
