i'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm

[waiting]

WHO: Everyone who's signed up for the plot!
WHERE: City Hall
WHEN: Morning, Sept 16th
WARNINGS: Violence, most likely!
SUMMARY: Getting down for some good old-fashioned heroics.
FORMAT: Setup is prose, but do whatever for the tags!


City Hall doesn't usually see this much activity, except for the occasional walking tourist group, but it's buzzing with people now. Besides the obvious police presence, lights washing the area in reflected red and blue and uniformed officers proceeding cautiously around the grounds, there are the evacuated City Hall personnel and casual rubberneckers. Not that anyone's permitted inside the cordon, of course, unless they've gotten the proper clearance.

Police have cordoned off the area and blocked street access, meaning characters have to walk (or fly) in. Fortunately, the officers guarding the perimeter have been informed before hand to expect the arrival of those who've agreed to provide assistance, so it shouldn't take much time for people to be ushered where they need to be.

Comments

KIDNAPPER #3: Flight

[viced]

The last just strode out. No preamble, no pretense. She left with a crowd, evacuees shuffling in the sort of hurried movement that said that they wanted to go faster, but couldn’t, pressing bodies as close as they could without touching. She melted in with them, making no show of being anything out of the ordinary, but security was tailing her, and they’d already seen her face. She just needed to get outside the building, but it’s before that when the security starts pointing people her way – people who look like imports, and she doesn’t even hesitate to call attention to herself, and break into a run, trying to shove herself deeper into the crowd, and closer to the doors.

[glowsferatu]

[ some of those imports are a little more obvious than others, erupting into an alien appearance with a bright flash of light. she pulls the glow in with an inhale as she tries to make her way through the crowd. she may be fast, but all of the foot traffic is too restrictive to work through, the headstart her target has is only growing.

she lays a hand in the air, sliding her fingers over a glittering thread. opening a functional portal may be imprudent in this kind of panicked throng, but at least this way she won't lose track of her prey.

she has to move this fight elsewhere, all these people will only increase the likelihood of collateral damage, not to mention how they're all getting in the way. ]

[demonspawn]

[ he hates this kind of thing. others might be eager to put their powers to use -- but not terrance ward. he has a resentful, festering sort of anxiety in his chest that lingers as he pushes through the crowd. it's tougher than he wants it to be. tall as he's gotten, he's still a skinny kid, and he's getting shoved around enough that he isn't sure he's making much progress.

up ahead, he can catch a glimpse of kanaya, her glow -- ]

Kanaya.

[glowsferatu]

[ she casts a glance over her shoulder when she hears her name and sees him, not making any better progress than she is. when she looks ahead again, the target's out of sight, lost in the throng. she curses under her breath. but she still has the thread, so she loops it around her forearm to keep track of it as she tries to move his way.

the crowd seems more resistant now that she's moving against them, and it isn't long before she takes an accidental elbow to the face. with that goes what shred of patience she has left. ]

Fucking MOVE!

[ and between the horns, the teeth, and those angry eyes glowing yellow, they do. they have something new to fear now. it doesn't take her much longer anymore to reach him, and the hijacker will have gotten a good distance now, but she isn't worried about that. in a better environment, she can make that distance moot. ]

We have to get clear of this crowd, there's no way we can catch her like this.

[demonspawn]

[ he doesn't seem to hear her at first -- the sudden surge of fear in the crowd almost dazes him, pulling at the back of his head and drowning out the other noises until her voice is just a dull, distant sound. it takes being roughly bumped by someone to jar him back into reality. ]

What?

[ he might be looking a little pale. but he shakes it off. at least the crowd has parted from kanaya enough to allow him through. ]

-- the crowd. Right. Well, what the hell do you want me to do about it? Ask politely?

[glowsferatu]

[ the obvious answer would be to clear the crowd in the easiest way he could, but that isn't what she's thinking. asking or even commanding aren't her style, she'd rather move herself out of the tide than move the tide around herself. ]

If we can get to a roof, or even just a clear alley, then I'll have enough room to work.

[demonspawn]

[ she might not be thinking it, but he is. and he hates how easy it is for him to mentally go to that as a solution -- he won't do it. he doesn't want to. (but a little part of him does, because he's frustrated, and he knows the entire place would clear in a heartbeat.)

he focuses on kanaya instead, catching her by the arm and pulling her with him. ]

There's a stairwell over here. Come on.

[ they just have to make it over there. ]

[glowsferatu]

[ she bristles at first at being pulled, but as soon as she's caught on to where they're going she falls in pace alongside him. she's relieved to find the stairwell empty by the time they reach it, most of the workers having fled the building already.

bringing the thread she's been holding aloft, she takes a moment to calculate the distance and pull up the rest of the threads she needs. ]

I can work from here. But it's luck I ran into you, I will need your help.

Do you think you can distract her long enough to give me an opening?

[demonspawn]

[ the answer is yes, of course -- he just doesn't want to. because him, ordinary terry, is basically useless to kanaya right now. if he wants to be useful...

well. ]

Fine. Fine. Yes. Just -- try and hurry.

[ his voice is tense, as if he's annoyed, but it's an emotion much more like worry. he glances away from kanaya on the pretense of looking for that woman, their target. he spots her, still pushing her way towards the doors. ]

Seriously though. Hurry.

[ he waits for her to open a portal for him before stepping through and vanishing. for a moment or two, there's no sign of him. skinny kid that he is, his form disappears behind everyone else's. but then there's a noise -- like a hiss. there's one alarmed scream -- then the panic of the crowd is renewed as they part. someone there must be afraid of snakes, because there's an impossibly massive one, sliding across the floor towards the kidnapper, all giant fangs and monstrous coils. ]

[glowsferatu]

[ she doesn't need to be told twice. the moment he's through she already has another portal open to drop her on the nearest rooftop, a good vantage point to determine the right time to strike. with the target engrossed in what terry's become, she should have an opening to strike from behind.

or at least that's how it was supposed to play out on paper. it hadn't really accounted for how the woman would react to a giant snake.

how would one reasonably respond to a giant snake, anyway? running might work for a bit, but what's to stop the snake from following? this woman, she just regards it calmly, with maybe a hint of being mockingly impressed. and then, with a seemingly absurd leap, she twists to build momentum and delivers a kick under its jaw before going higher to continue her escape in the air.

kanaya curses under her breath, darting along the roof to pick up speed before leaping off the edge and into a portal, appearing just above the bomber to strike at her feet-first. ]