Difference between revisions of "2018-08-11-Abandon Ship"
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Latest revision as of 00:52, 25 September 2018
| Roleplay Log | |||
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| Name | Abandon Ship | Date | August 11, 2018 |
| Location | Red Hook, Brooklyn, NYC | ||
Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York 1:26 AM
The harbors may see activity around the clock, but the surrounding neighborhood eventually quiets down. It's a quiet part of town in the city that never sleeps, but that silence is suddenly disturbed when a large shipping boat docked in the Erie Basin goes up in flames. The camera cuts to a shot from inside the IKEA store, where a deep rumble in the earth disturbs glassware and shakes tabletop accessories. The ship is engulfed in flame through the window, sending a pillar of smoke skyward.
Moments later, a 2016 year Harley Sportster, in gunmetal grey, comes ripping up Columbia Street at full throttle. It's rider, helmetless, is clad in black leather, a bald head of very dark African skin reflecting the sickly yellow street lamps with every pass. An AK-103 with an underslung GP-30 grenade launcher is strapped to his back, and he's hunched low to improve aerodynamics.
As the bike rips into the main drag of Columbia, a trio of imports come along behind in pursuit, followed by a pair of black HUMMER's.
A young woman with electric-blue hair had been driving home in her brand new, very shiney Porsche 911 Turbo, when the explosion had been heard, and then seen as a bright ring of fire and smoke in the dark distance. Then, the motorcycle had passed her, and then the trio of imports, and finally, the duo of black HUMMER's.
Yana looked back across the port, and then to the vehicles quickly gaining ground, and decided to kick her car into gear, and follow. The tires squeeled and squelched in protest for a few seconds as she gunned the car from a lazy 35mph to roaring speeds to not only keep pace, but to catch up to the 'crowd' of persuit. She also tapped the monitor in the car, and the phone rang.
"Going to be late," she tells whoever answers on the end of the phone. "Watch the News, you'll see why." The phone hangs up, then, and Yana's car ends up making it just behind the Hummer's. "One of you is a very, very bad boy."
The rider in front unslings his weapon and turns about, guiding the Sportster one handed. A barrage of fire blasts out from the AK-103, tearing the first pursuing import to shreds and sending its helmeted rider tumbling at 60 mph into a dumpster. The two behind pull out their guns, smaller automatics, and open fire in return. They, however, weren't aiming for tires. The rider's leather jacket is ripped apart by bullets, but he seems unphased.
"Modda fuckah!" Shift glares, silver irises glinting in the night, and shreds the second biker's tires with another barrage of semi-automatic mayhem. The rider cries out when some of the rounds rip through his legs, and ends up putting the bike down on its side for a nice skid toward the sidewalk.
Meanwhile, the tailing HUMMER seems to have taken notice of the Porsche that's joined the pursuit. They're Chinese, and the driver barks out something in Mandarin to the thug riding shotgun. Down goes an armored glass window, and out leans a gangster, aiming his machine gun at Yana's very expensive vehicle.
"Not today," says Yana, and she grins wildly, then guns the car. It's almost as if she'd hit a can of nitro in it -- and maybe she did? But there's no accompanying sound. And it's truly an -interesting- sight to see, transfixing, confusing, wonderous, and disasterous all at the same time as the German luxury sportscar moves behind the HUMMER about to take aim on it and then crashes into it.
Except crash isn't the right word. Not -really-. Because while the HUMMER is indeed crashing - the Porsche isn't. In fact, it's more like the Porsche is like a hot butter knife and the HUMMER a lovely square of fresh butter on the plate that it's slicing through, up through the empty backseats, and then she yanks the wheel hard to the left pulling away before the driver and passenger get squished. Of course, this leaves the HUMMER utterly wrecked, and careening to and fro until it smashes into a storefront. "Hope you had your seatbelts on," she says to herself while the window goes down on her own side. With one hand on the wheel, she fishes out a steel ball bearing from her pocket.
Shift is about to take care of that third biker when he bears witness to something that should be impossible. Of course... he's got a lot of experience with impossible. It still stalls him just long enough for Biker #3 to unleash about forty rounds through his chest and head. Little swirls of black smoke expel where the bullets go through him, then get sucked right back in to a body that appears unharmed. One of them, however, damaged his throttle, and the Harley's engine behind winding down.
"Dammit." Pulling hard on the handlebars, the Sportster pops a wheelie and begins banking right. The driver vaults himself into the air, but before his leap reaches its zenith, he transforms into a cloud of black smoke. The riding leathers, the weapons, the boots, all fall to the street and are promptly run over by the remaining HUMMER.
Moments later, the cloud drops on the third biker and surrounds him. He begins hacking and coughing, choking on the swirling black gas until he's out. Then, Kwabena rematerializes out of the smoke cloud itself, and very roughly throws the rider from his perch.
"Hate imports," he quips, and turns the Yamaha into the parking lot of a large warehouse, marked //Caulktite Corporation//.
The intact HUMMER follows, and skids to a halt in the parking lot while Kwabena upon his commandeered import drives right into an open garage door and into the working factory.
The phone rings again as Yana slows the vehicle as it comes into the parking lot, slamming onto the breaks outside of the garage. She steps out of the vehicle, looks pointedly at the men in the second, surviving HUMMER, and she wags a finger at them as if in warning.
She then turns, and begins to walk into the garage that the mysterious rider rode into without a second glance back at the Very Armed Men as if she believed, or trusted they'd heed her warning after what happened to her friend.
The one thing that Yana -does- have going for her is her fair complexion which is very much Not Asian, and her Very Goth Look, which is also not typical of a Triad member.
Kwabena's clothing may have dropped off, but he is very much not naked. The man is now clad in what might be mistaken as your usual superhero costume, considering the whole skin tight, can see musculature thing, but it is the same gunmetal grey as the Harley he ditched out on Columbia. The one, Yana may have noticed, that didn't have a license plate.
"Everybody out!" Kwabena announces in a strong, booming, yet somehow hoarse voice. The accent is heavy, from Ghana to the trained ear. "De building is in dangah! Get out, and get out now!"
Some of the third shifters are slower to move than the others. Kwabena glowers at them. "Get de fuck out or you gonna die!"
Well, that worked.
The African pulls a hood up and over his face, concealing silver eyes from the world. He turns around, expecting to find four to five armed Chinese thugs. Instead, he comes face to face with Yana. He stares at her for a moment, unmoving. "Just who de hell ah you?"
Yana smiles, confidentally. She tilts her head, and comments casually, "Call me an interested party. It's not often that someone picks a fight with the Triad, afterall." Still, she doesn't look behind herself. Not even when the gunfire from the two men behind her that she'd left in the HUMMER begins to rain down on them.
Except suddenly it's almost like the bullets hit an invisible wall just 10 feet behind the woman with the electric blue hair. All velocity is suddenly just killed, and they drop uselessly to the ground in a series of pings and tinks.
"You can call me Kinetic, if you need a name, though." She is most defintely not in a superhero costume. "You blew up their cargo ship, I take it? And, this building is their's. You're going to make some real enemies." She doesn't sound like she's scolding, though. Or even warning. Just, more, stating the obvious simply because it amuses her.
Outside, the fire trucks start ripping down the road, headed for the docks and that blazing boat. The factory workers continue scrambling to their exits. It's that calm moment in a lethal game that is likely far from over. Kwabena looks past Yana when two of the four or five come in, but he doesn't intervene. However, when the rounds stop and fall, a grin curls his lips, pearly whites just peeking out. He steps toward her but doesn't pass; he stops at her side with his body and head facing the flabbergasted shooters. "Oh, is it?" he asks, but there is a tone of sarcasm suggesting this may have been planned. Or, at the very least, a last minute intentional decision.
Kwabena doesn't know much Chinese, but he does know some key words. "<<Run away, cowards.>>"
The Triads look at each other, then turn back to Kwabena and Yana. "Dey had it coming," he tells her in English, and keeps watching while the other three join their buddies at the entrance. "Got a smoke?" he asks.
"Nasty habit," Yana says in reply, crinkling her nose to suggest she doesn't find the habit altogether pleasant. She half-turns, now, picking up one of the fallen bullets off the floor, and rolls it between her fingers.
"You just tried to shoot me," she says to the Triad members, frowns. And, she throws the bullet at them with a side-armed pitch, almost casual in the way she does it. "Here, have it back."
It's too fast for the human eye to see. That, perhaps, is no surprise. What -may- be a surprise is the fact that what follows is a -crack- sound, and one of the Triad's toppling over, backwards as the bullet connects with his skull. Luckily for him, Yana isn't using lethal force. But, he's going to have a -really- nasty concussion. "Any particular reason you've decided to put yourself on a wanted list?" A half a beat later, she adds, "Curiousity, you understand."
Kwabena's face sours. His pack is obviously out there amongst his discarded clothing. "No smoke, no name," he answers. Hard to tell if he's joking or not. He does look on when she displays her enhanced abilities again, and the sourness fades.
"About sixty sex slaves ah ten minutes ETA to dat boat," he answers Yana. "Looks like dere trip is delayed."
The Triads are chattering with each other. Decidedly, they throw their guns to the ground and begin advancing. They form a half circle as they advance, during which Kwabena finally turns to look directly at Yana. "You... should considah distancing yahself from me, Kinetic." He turns back toward them, frowning. "Dey ah going to learn why I am called Shift."
It might be a trick if the eye, but the cement underneath his feet is starting to blacken, and it's... starting to feel surprisingly hot in his vicinity.
At that revelation, Yana's features sour. Oh, she knows her father goes into the 'work off your immigration' trade, it's all part of being part of the Bratva - but his means are not so cruel as sex-slave (or slave period) trade/labor. She nods her understanding, perhaps even her approval.
"Right." Yana actions thus far, Shift may begin to realize are merely going so far as to protect herself, and neither to aid or hinder him; save, perhaps, by circumstance. She moves with a half-speed walk over to a far wall, crosses her arms over her chest and leans back against it. Her facial expression seems to say, 'Go ahead. Show me what you got. I'm watching.'
"I hope one of you Yin-Yang's speak English," Kwabena says. He's not above doing using a racial slur to further instigate them. "You have three choices." Up comes a gloved hand, looking on as they begin to encircle him. "One, tell me where de women ah." Second finger. "Two, run away like coward. Three, stay here."
He looks down and draws a deep breath. The cement under his feet starts melting. In the blink of an eye, he transforms into that cloud of roiling, tendril-filled black smoke, but the smoke quickly ignites. Superheated gas becomes plasma, and suddenly, the warehouse is filled with blinding light.
The Triads shield their eyes and back away, shouting at each other. Kwabena's voice changes, adopting a somewhat electric, buzzing nature. The air itself seems to vibrate with certain heavy vowels. "I will find them, and I will free them. Show me where they are, or shit's gonna start melting." Two tendrils of blinding white energy begin slowly crawling toward the Triads, directed toward their arms.
The five of them turn and run, likely headed back to their HUMMER.
"That looks handy," Yana observes, her tone sounding approving and more than a little interested. She is, afterall, an X-Man among other things and has seen her share of interesting abilities in her time. This? This one's fairly new. "Though it looks like you overdid it." Her tone is amused, clearly, but she pushes herself off the wall, "I'll help you look," she volunteers.
She looks back, briefly to the fleeing Triad's and sighs, "Idiots."
Kwabena reverts to his normal self with a gasp, and quickly leaps backward to avoid landing on melted cement. "Dey aren't de talking type," he points out between panting breaths. "And I //really// didn't want to stoop to torture." He stops for a moment, waving away some of the steam/smoke that rises from his costume. "Nevah works, anyway."
He turns toward Yana, clearly winded by the act. "Won't need to look fah. Fifty bucks says dey lead us right to dem. You know why?" He smirks, and nods his head toward a wet puddle not far from where one of the Triads stood. There are damp boot prints leading back to the HUMMER that is peeling out of its parking spot.
Yana manages to look sincerely impressed. "So this was all a feint, to track them back? Impressive. Almost something someone else I know would have done." She dusts her hands off, pushes herself off the wall. Offers, "Want a ride? Or, should I just go mind my own business and let you handle it from here?" Afterall, she found out what she wanted, and she's more than certain Shift can take care of himself. But, the man has proved interesting if nothing else - and she has to be careful just how much she presses the Triad, what with her familial connections or it could cause a turf scuffle - or worse.
Fingers snap and point toward Yana. "In dat sexy piece of machine?" he asks. "Sure, but, I need to use yah phone. Cops around here are all on de egg roll pay roll, but I don't need someone lifting my bike."
Yana exhales through her nose amusedly and begins walking to her Porsche then, fishes in her pocket for her phone and tosses it to Shift casually without a second thought. "Haven't seen you around before. Or heard of you." Certainly, she'll be asking her father about him, and giving him all the details of this little encounter.
The Porsche starts up readily, and she begins to follow the wet trail left by Shift's superb strategic measures. "Though, you're going to really make some of the capes upset." This, however, doesn't seem to bother her any. "Just so you know. They tend to take a more - protective approach than your direct methods. Blowing up a cargo ship isn't subtle, afterall." She chuckles.
"Guess I'm doing it right, den," Kwabena answers, after catching the phone out of the air. He quickly punches in a number off memory, and puts the phone up to his ear while walking. Right as Yana finishes talking, he holds up a finger.
A rapid conversation is held in his native language. It's quick, and by the end of it he's smirking. The phone is handed back to Yana, and he takes a moment to consider what she said.
"Look. I have much respect for what de capes do," he says, and he sounds honest about it. He pulls the seatbelt over to secure it, then leans back comfortably as Yana drives. "Guess I do what dey won't do."
The HUMMER is headed north and into the more heavily populated area of Brooklyn. They haven't yet recognized that they're being followed.
As there is no chase going on (per se) Yana isn't of the mind to speed to catch up with them, afterall the clever 'tracking' device that Shift has left gives them ample warning enough, but she does follow with a measure of intelligence and skill that suggests someone, at some time, had given her lessons or she's had a certain amount of practice in doing this sort of thing.
"I have to respect a man who just doesn't give a damn and is willing to carve her own path," she responds, earnestly. "And, I'd hate us to have to be on the opposite sides of the game. Hopefully that won't happen."
Kwabena's eyes remain forward. He may have been nervous about letting this strange woman take the lead, but she clearly knows how to put a tail on someone. "Dey're staying on Columbia," he says. "Tahget's gonna be coming in from de 278 off ramp." He remains silent for a moment until, up ahead, a pair of SUV's are sandwiching one of those big tour busses that wealthy, suburban High Schools rent for band trips. "Chantah Bus," he says, and leans forward. "Happy fucking Hanukkah."
He finally turns to Yana. "De game is a joke," he tells her. "You want to let dese assholes live? Deal with de consequences. Or, we can make it a quick death. Your call, blue." He nods to her. "I am just hitchhikah."
"It would get - messy - if they died," Yana says after a few moments, her tone sober. "Especially since they've seen me. It won't take them long to figure out who I am." She pauses, turns to face Kwabena, and she casually grins, "You'll find out sooner or later, anyways. My father is Pakhan, around here."
Depending on what Shift has heard, the local Bratva, the Russian mob is effective, nearly untouchable by the law because not only are they usually one step ahead of everyone, but they protect themselves by keeping their operations above-board; sure they import illegals and 'sell' them tickets here, but they're put to 'free' labor work in factories and shops around town and also act as informants, eyes and ears - with others, like those who choose to be prostitutes earning their 'freedom' more quickly with the money and information they can bring in as just one example. Efficient crime. Controlled, calculating crime.
"I hope that doesn't put a damper on our newfound friendship, tall, dark, and handsome."
Messy. Kwabena shrugs, making a conceding hand gesture. He's about to interject, until Yana drops one particular name. His hand drops down to his lap, and after a moment, he turns to look at her. Bless that mask, it's hard to say what's in his eyes, but his lips are formed into a thick line.
"Well." He turns back around to stare out the window. "Shit."
The incoming convoy suddenly puts on the brakes. "Whoa." He leans forward, looking on. "Yeah, dere we go. Looks like dey just got de abort call." He turns to Yana. "Less messy it is." Because this is gonna be messy whether the goons live or die. "Let's move."
Yana makes a face as the convoy puts on the brakes, and she follows suit. She exhales, "Well, looks like it's not going to be easy as we thought." She gestures, "Lead the way. This is your fight, afterall. I'm just - a casual observer. Though, if it helps, the man in the lead vehicle is probably the one in charge here. And, he's claustorphobic."
She grabs a small velvet bag from the dashboard and hooks it to her belt, casually. The bag is clearly weighted.
"God." Kwabena adjusts the hood of his costume. "I wish I didn't always lose de guns." He unfastened the safety belt, and motions left. "Rip past dem. Left side. Distraction, yeah?" He presses a button, rolling down the window. "I'll handle de one in charge."
"You got it." She jerks the wheel left, and then then guns the engine past them, adding, "Sorry. Don't carry guns. I'm better than a gun." She grins, sharply at her confident statement as the tires squeal again, giving rise to opportunity to Kwabena to do what he does best.
"Yeah?" asks Kwabena with a smirk. "Don't dent her up, babe." He slaps the hood twice, before leaning out the window. Head to foot, he transforms again. The black smoke all but disappears into the night, but in reality, it's zooming through the air toward that lead car.
Thin tendrils of Black separate and make for the small cracks between the doors and body of the SUV. It'll take a while...
Meanwhile, Yana's gonna have two SUV's and the HUMMER to deal with. Once the Porsche makes its move, the Triads raise the alarm, and out come their guns. Always with the guns.
As the bullets reign down on the car, they bounce off as if the car were impervious, the windshield only cracking slightly as if it were the strongest, military-issued type available with each hit. Her hand whips a steel ball bearing through the HUMMER's engine block, and following up with the other SUV's engine block as well. There's -loud- sound of crunching metal, both times as she speeds past them, rendering the vehicles inoperable without taking out any of their crew directly. "Idiots," she says again, too busy concentrating on driving to be impressed by what Shift is doing this time.
"Konnichiwa."
The guy in charge jerks his head to stare at Kwabena, who is now sitting in shotgun. He gasps and reaches for a pistol, but Kwabena is faster. Down comes a fist, shattering a reaching arm. Next comes the other arm; the leader's forehead is smashed into the windshield, cracking it like a spider's web. He grabs the wheel, snatches up the leader's cell phone from the dashboard, and dials 9-1-1. He then jerks the steering wheel hard. Tires scream, and the car tips, crashing down hard on the driver's side.
The passenger door is thrown open. Kwabena's foot lands on the Triad's face, stepping on it to push himself up as the car skids along the street. He scrambles onto the upended side of the car, waits for the right moment, then leaps.
A black cloud comes back into the Porsche. When Kwabena reforms, his mask is down. "Shit, dat was Japanese," he mutters to himself. "Kick rocks, Kinetica. Cops are on de way."
"The Yakuza? Shit. Do not tell me that Triads and Yakuza are working together. Jesus fuck." Yana shakes her head, "Yes, kicking rocks. Hold on." And, she does kick rocks. Curiously, the cars speedometer says they're doing 10 mph, but they're doing a hundred, really, and in less than a second or two.
Kinetic, indeed. "Any place I should drop you off?"
"Nooo, no no no," Kwabena is quick to answer. "No, definitely Triads. It's -" He's immediately silenced by the car's sudden lurching. "Fuuuucking A." His eyes dart over to the speedometer, and after a moment or two, he smirks. "Konnichiwa." His tough guy demeanor suddenly melts, and he laughs. "Is what I said to him before smashing his face, and using his phone to dial 9-1-1." He shakes his head, laughing again. "It's fucking Japanese."
Yana looks instantly relieved "Jesus," she says, shaking her head, "Don't scare me like that. My father would have a coniption." She looks behind herself, where they'd only left one of the vehicles operable. "I think I like you," she says, a moment later, chuckling. "Pleased to meet you, Shift."
"You think?" Kwabena laughs, then shakes his head. "Dat is also funny." He nods his head to a corner, where an MTA station is not far from. "Let me off here."
Once he's out of the car, it's worth noting he hasn't rolled up the window yet. "Don't worry," he says, leaning into the car briefly before she can pull away. "I won't stick nose into yah business, make sure dey don't try to fuck you up ovah dis. I mean..." He winks. "Dey ah just Triads." He then pulls away and sinks into a shadowy spot.
