Junkyard Without Dogs |
Summary: | Power Woman discovers trouble in Manhattan's Lower East Side, as gang soldiers look to even the score with 'James' at the junkyard. |
Date: | 2014-03-25 |
Related: | None |
NPCs: | Nameless gang members, cops |
Scene Runner: | Power Woman |
Social/Plot: | Plot |
The night is quiet here in the neighborhood. The streets are quiet save for the occasional lone car rolling by, and the only illumination comes from the dull yellow glow of the street lamps. With gentrification and the shift in economics there are few people that actually live in the area. It's mostly store fronts, a gym that used to be a warehouse, and a lone garage with a junkyard in the back that's clearly seen better days.
Yet all is not entirely quiet. Members of the Angelone crime family have been making incursions into the area, which traditionally belonged to the Costas. Yet their incursion a few days ago ended with them having a bloody nose. A loss in a fight is something that they can handle at times, but not an embarassment. So late at night, perhaps close to the witching hour, a handful of the men return to the mechanic's shop that in part dared to defy them.
Quietly the men moved through the junkyard, one whispering. "What if they got dogs?"
"Who cares if they got dogs? We got guns."
"Yeah but won't that like, ruin the whole element of surprise thing."
"Nothin' they can do about it now, we're almost finished after all."
"Still… hope they don't got dogs."
The ten men or so are spread out, but a good handful are near the back wall of the garage. The heavy smell of gasoline is all the more prominent than normally in such a run down place. Most people would sleep right through such a thing. But not the guy who lives in the apartment above the garage.
Acute senses guided the man down to the back door, to the junkyard area. That door clanged open and the dim light from the garage limned the young man's silhouette. "The hell?"
It's all the chance he gets to say anything before the voices lift. "Light him up!" Which was perhaps a poor choice of words. Bullets fire, but also the guy who was in charge of the lighter drops it into the pool of gas. The flames burst into life with a loud 'WHOOMPF!' that causes the night scene to suddenly become brightly illuminated even as some of the gangsters take pot shots at the suddenly pinned down young man.
It's not the city she lives in, the one she flies over most often. But to be fair, it's New York City; it's not like Power Woman has never been here. She usually ends up closer to midtown, or down around the docks and the Financial District, but when you're Power Woman, you fly pretty much everywhere, pretty much any time you want. Of course, you also tend to do so at pretty significant altitude, and you don't tend to come back down to people level unless those super peepers or those super ears pick up something interesting. Gunfire is interesting, granted, but it's also entirely too common in a city of this size. But when that gunfire is accompanied by the sudden bloom of light as a fire roars into existence rapidly? That gets her attention. The fast-moving Kryptonian starts descending towards the area.
The scene that greets her is really an exercise in chaos. Some of the men are firing at where they saw James go to ground, others are scurrying as quickly as they can from the rapidly expanding blaze. The flaring light casts everything in a wild dancing mass of shadows making everything flicker eerily. There's the sound of gunfire, the occasional short stacatto booms of some chemical tanks bursting and /PANG/ing as their contents expand and then catch the blaze.
As for James he's in cover, but his features are contorted into a scowl. A quick glance is given upstairs to where he beds down usually. Sure he doesn't have much, but what he's got he likes just as it is. So with a whirl of movement he breaks cover and sprints towards a side group of three of the men. Leaping into a barreling tackle he takes them down to the ground, roaring with the impact as he slams into them. There's a wild flurry of limbs. A pistol butt slams upside his head, another pistol fires, but in the end of it one figure gains his feet and starts to move towards the shed where the industrial fire hose is stored.
Into the swirling chaos drops … a streak of red, white and blue. As one of the men breaks cover and takes aim with a small automatic weapon, ready to spray lead over where James is tangled up with those other goons, a blue-gauntleted hand streaks out and grabs the gun, crumpling it to scrap. The other hand seizes the back of his jacket, and hurls him against the rusted hulk of an old truck, allowing him to collapse inert. Then the hovering woman in the white bodysuit turns, senses sweeping through the structure that is catching in fire. She picks up no heartbeats, and a sweep of her X-Ray vision finds no one alive inside. But there are a lot of volatile chemicals in there, and letting the fire rage on is going to lead to a much worse fire in a hurry. Power Woman bursts right through a window and disappears inside.
What greets her inside the old garage is indeed a place that looks like it's been owned by a hoarder for many years. There are newspaper clippings, tons of spare parts lying about, vague bits of memorabilia from the 60s and 70s up on the wall. There are also a few vehicles in various states of disrepair within as well as a wrought iron spiral stairwell that leads upwards, most likely to an apartment upstairs.
Already the flames have caught bits and pieces of the clippings alight, a few cannisters of propane rest against the wall where the blaze seems to be hottest, their painted skin blistering with the ensuing heat. It looks like things are close to becoming unsalvageable, another burst of heat or an explosion would probably do it.
While outside, James has made it to that shed, even as bullets kick up the dirt and grime around him as he darts within. There's the sound of bullets ricocheting off the aluminum walls or piercing through them with the heavy whine of high velocity projectiles. Yet through it all he's able to get the heavy hose off its loop, to twist on the flow of water and then to lug the spout outside the shed. A heavy burst of water starts to fall upon the mass of barrels and blazing flame that rests outside against the wall of the garage. But this just gives the thugs an easier target. More bullets, bore cracks of fire, then a groan and a /crash/ of clattering trash can lids as one hits the young man. One of the thugs pipes up, "Hah, got 'im!"
There's no time to debat the issue. Much as Kara wants to save the man outside, she has to save this building, or even more people may die. She has to delay in bringing him help, to save the building as a whole. A deep gust of wind, as she inhales sharply, and then she blows. One might expect the mighty wind Power Woman generates to scatter the paper clippings and such, but as she blows out, what she exhales is super-cooled, freezing everything in place. The propane and other chemical gas tanks are first, frozen solid against the fire, and then she sweeps it around the building, quickly extinguishing the flames and cooling things before they can detonate. Within just a minute or so, the whole building appears to be encased in ice. And it's cool enough outside that once the fire is out, that ice is unlikely to melt rapidly, at least not until the weather changes.
Meanwhile, outside some of the gunmen are moving up. Five of them are still mobile and active as they step out of their hiding places and advance upon the fallen form of the young man who was trying to put out the flames.
"Heh, nice one."
"Yeah, for reals. Headshot."
"Alright, let's get… the hell is that?"
And that's when they notice the chill that is suddenly apparent, the blizzard of breath that not only quickly extinguishes the flames within but fog the remaining windows and cause small icicles to form outside where the water was being hosed onto those barrels.
"Where's Tony? And the other guys?"
"This ain't what we're paid for let…"
Their discussion is cut short by a heavy /CLANG!/ as the fallen man rolls to the side and _swings_ with a heavy length of rebar right into one of the gunmen's legs. There's a loud scream as that man goes down, then a few more gunshots interspersed with a low growl.
Power Woman re-emerges in another blur, streaking around as she extinguishes the last of the flames with more of that super-cold breath. And then …
There's no warning, really. Just suddenly, she's there hovering behind two of the goons as they face off, shaking in their boots, unable to comprehend how it is the guy they saw shot in the head is now up, and moving, and …
That blue gauntleted hand taps one on the shoulder, as her other hand crumples the gun in his hand to scrap. "Surrender. It's over." She's so calm. It's rather surreal. But running won't gain them anything. They can't possibly move fast enough to get away from her. And they should know that.
Confronted with a floating caped woman whose expression seems to broach utterly no nonsense, and with a man clutching a heavy length of rebar in both hands while hunched over with a wicked mass of blood and torn flesh upon the side of his brow… the two thugs quickly rethink the wisdom of their actions.
Flipping their guns around and offering them to her butt first, one of them says nervously. "We were just… passin' by. Free country still…"
"I'll come along peacefully… just… yeah." Says the other.
Yet the low growl that comes from the man with the rebar seems to indicate that he's not quite done with them yet. His lip is curled back and there's a hint of fang as he positively seethes while looking at them. She might even get the impression he's ready to jump right into it again…
But then slowly… slowly she might be able to see the sense return to his thoughts, despite the slowly easing trickle of blood upon his brow that becomes a few droplets, then naught at all. He just gives a nod to Power Woman as if to say she won't get any trouble from him.
"I appreciate the feeling. But I think it's time to drop the rebar, friend. They're done." Kara offers, with a gentle nod. She takes the guns from their hands, but doesn't bother crushing them. The point has been made. More violence is just sure to ramp up the tension with the guy who is trying to disarm his own inner demon's growls. "You look like you could use a medic, Sir. Why don't you let me call you some help, and deal with these dirtbags?"
The rebar hits the ground with a clang as James steps back. He looks towards the damaged garage, then shoots a glance at Kara. She can see the line of his jaw set, the tension there, as if something wasn't decided. He shakes his head and then says, "Yeah… some help'd be good."
He looks across the way towards the one who gave up his gun to the Power Woman and asks, "Who do ya work for, bub?"
With a short yap of a laugh the man responds, "You know who we work for, fella. Oh you know."
And of course it looks like James might tee-off again, but for now he's able to hold the tension.
And almost as if on cue, distantly there's the sound of New York's finest accompanied by the Fire brigade, the sirens wailing distantly are still probably five or ten minutes out, but that should be enough.
One second Power Woman is there, and then is gone. A second later, she's back, bending a piece of metal around the wrists of first one goon and then another. Gone, she whooshes away and continues the effort, until she has assembled an array of all ten of them, all bound up and waiting for NYPD's arrival. "Medical assistance is only a minute or two away. While don't you take a seat, and I'll make sure …"
But Kara's voice fades out, at that point, as her eyes sweep over James. Sweep over him, and through him, picking up a skeleton that returns visually far different than any other she has ever seen. "Sir? Are you … alright?" she asks, distractedly, clearly not looking at him, even though she is clearly looking right at him.
As for James, of course he has no idea that she can simply take a look at him and discern aspects of him he hasn't even told some of those closest to him. He eyes her sidelong, those dark blue eyes meeting her gaze and for the first moment she might get the sense that he actually sees her.
His brow knits momentarily, then he looks away at the damaged garage, grimaces a bit and wipes a forearm over his brow, looking at the small smear of blood left on the dark hair there. He grimaces and says low. "M'fine." He looks back at her and then tells her, "They just winged me." He gives her that lie, clearly not knowing that she can tell otherwise. But it's given nonetheless.
He starts to walk to the side towards the gate that leads out of the junkyard towards the side of the building. "Gotta go tell Mr. Dixon, some cop calls him up he'll have a heart attack."
Kara can tell that this guy didn't do anything wrong, so she's not chasing after him. That's not her job right now. But she sure as heck has a whole passle of questions for the guy. Once the authorities arrive, she delivers her care packages to their tender mercies, and explains everything she knows about what transpired. She even directs them to the piece of rebar James was using as a weapon. But she doesn't actually point them in the direction he went. Instead, she would only make sure to tell the cops that he was the guy she mentioned, if he in fact returns. "They did seem to know he would be here, and clearly intended this act to be a message to him." she would offer.
Though most people wouldn't be able to hear, with her senses Kara might very well pick up a faint muttering to himself as James walks across the way. "Need ta get a freakin' cellphone." It's not far that he goes, across the street, down the block. If the cops really need him she could direct them to him. He slips into a convenience store down the way, having talked with the guys there before he's able to use their phone and make the call needed to poor Mr. Dixon and inform him about his garage.
All told it only takes him about ten to fifteen minutes to give the old mechanic the run down on what happened. Most of the time is spent trying to console the old feller. But after that time, James comes back to the wreckage of the place to gather what he can from his apartment.
When James returns, the cops and the fire department are still making their way around and checking things over. Power Woman, for her part, is busy defrosting the garage, using her heat vision on a very wide beam setting to sublimate the ice directly to steam. When he comes back around, she introduces him to the police officers, who take their hands off their weapons once he has been introduced as the man who was attacked earlier and helping to stand off the arsonist gun-toting goons. If she notices that he no longer shows any real signs of injury, she says nothing about that. But she does stare a bit.
Once the cops are done and leaving, she lands at last and approaches James. "I'm sorry for the damage to your home, Sir. I did what I could, as quickly as I could. I assume they had no idea that the man they were coming after was … gifted?"
That young man with the wild features and rugged stubbly beard answered the police questions directly but if she listened in with her enhanced hearing… she'd definitely hear how he'd shift focus from himself. No mention of what he did save tried to put out the fire, the cops made him admit to hitting one of the guys with the rebar, but everything else he laid at the feet of Power Woman. He answered calmly, evenly, and at the first opportunity he stepped away from them to survey the damage.
When she floated down near him and offered those words, he glanced at her over his shoulder. She could probably read the subtle edge to his body language, the tension in his shoulders as arms as he turns to look at her. Eyes narrowing he cocks an eyebrow and then replies, "S'fine, you did what ya could." But then when she asks him that question his look shifts to one of mild incredulity… affected, but incredulity nonetheless. He digs the tip of his sneaker into some ash, then shakes his head. "Where'd you get that idea?"
As he says this he starts to walk into the garage, probably looking to recover something.
That young man with the wild features and rugged stubbly beard answered the police questions directly but if she listened in with her enhanced hearing… she'd definitely hear how he'd shift focus from himself. No mention of what he did save tried to put out the fire, the cops made him admit to hitting one of the guys with the rebar, but everything else he laid at the feet of Power Woman. He answered calmly, evenly, and at the first opportunity he stepped away from them to survey the damage.
When she floated down near him and offered those words, he glanced at her over his shoulder. She could probably read the subtle edge to his body language, the tension in his shoulders as arms as he turns to look at her. Eyes narrowing he cocks an eyebrow and then replies, "S'fine, you did what ya could." But then when she asks him that question his look shifts to one of mild incredulity… affected, but incredulity nonetheless. He digs the tip of his sneaker into some ash, then shakes his head. "Where'd you get that idea?"
As he says this he starts to walk into the garage, probably looking to recover something.
Power Woman floats after him, but keeps enough distance not to crowd him. Just better not to be shouting these sorts of things. "Your injuries, including the gunshot, are completely healed, even to the point of dislodging and disgorging the bullet fragments. And your skeleton is sheeted in an extraordinarily dense carbon-heavy metal I've never seen before. I have to assume the only reason you survived its application is because of that rapid healing." Blunt, she is. Absolutely, unwaveringly confident in what she can perceive. And undeterred. "I'm really glad, honestly. Had you been the owner instead, poor Mister Dixon would be dead, thanks to the delay with the fire. I hope you'll find that there was very little damage, all told." And she clearly hasn't been telling the cops any of this.
As she says that he rounds on her. Those blue eyes are wide, perhaps a touch wild. There's surprise there, anger, what is more a small touch of fear. His brow knots, jaw setting so firmly that the tendons bunch. He lifts his chin and then says in that low rumbling tone of his, "Lady. There are…" He lifts a hand, a fingertip pointing at her as if he was about to explain something, to say something. His jaw clenches again and it's clear he chooses other words, or perhaps another approach. Shaking his head he saws low. "It's really not…" Another pause.
He turns back and pushes over a pile of old papers that are still partially frosted though not horribly damaged. Underneath the pile he grabs an old military green backpack and slings it over his shoulder. And finally, as if finally having figured out what to say to her he turns back to her and says. "My name's Jim. Or James. If yer feelin' formal. Yer freakin' me out callin' me sir all the time."
Kara nods, and extends her hand. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Jim." Clearly, he prefers that mode of address, so that's what she gives him. "I am Power Woman, obviously. Or you can call me Kara, if you prefer." She lands, lightly, in front of him. No need for extra height, here, as she towers over him already by two thirds of a foot. "I will never share that information about you with anyone. You have my word. I cannot help seeing what I see. But I apologize that it offends you. That was not my intention." She was looking in the hopes of finding some way to save a life she thought she would watch expire before her. They both got lucky on that count.
Logan
He is a young man with sharp features and a severe countenance. Some would call him handsome and others would just call him grim or rough, but most would agree that in his blue eyes there's an intensity that is almost disturbing. He's not a tall man, though stocky might fit best. Thick and compact, he manages to at least give a sense of the severe if not aided by stature. Dark brown hair reigns ragged upon his head, pushed back and with errant locks that threaten to curve almost in a leonine manner. His pale complexion is marred by the ragged hints of a beard that is stronger near the ears and fades around the chin. The hint of the wild in his appearance is aided by the subtly pointed canines that might be seen during the occasional smile.
Currently he wears little of remark. Brown leather work boots are partially covered by the cuffs of a pair of old blue jeans. A black leather belt is looped around the waist of his pants and gives a place for his white t-shirt to remain tucked within. When out and about he also sports a brown leather bomber jacket with a few black stripes on the arms.