ArchivedLogs:Hazard Pay

Hazard Pay
Dramatis Personae Chloe, Deanna, Ion, Isra
In Absentia	2015-04-06 "{It's always open season, boy.}" (Part of Future Past TP.)
Location
It's midmorning, past the bulk of the rush and solidly into brunch hour. Slightly less congested than most Mondays, with the holiday weekend cutting down on the crowds; still, on the main arteries it's Downtown New York on a weekday. Oscorp Tower isn't far from here, cutting high into the sky, though /this/ particular building is a more modest one. Brunch has been happening, inside the ritzy restaurant on its first floor. Out by the end of the alley where the side entrance lets out, though, a dark car is parked. Maybe waiting. Maybe just parked. Chloe is perched on its hood, at the moment; she hasn't been Brunching. Just waiting, a bag slung across her back and a phone in her hands. She's humming quietly to herself as she waits. Playing Fruit Ninja on her phone. Fzzztpop. Ion and Isra's trip has PROBABLY not been the most enjoyable of Isra's life. In jarring heart-stopping fits and starts. KIND of overshooting here, kind of sizzling-jolting there, but /look/ this time he has landed them just above the door! One floor up on a fire escape. It took a few tries. /Speed/ is his forte -- aiming, /not/ so much. His fingers are locked tight around one of Isra's arms. He definitely /isn't/ wearing his MMMC kutte today; just a drab black denim jacket, jeans, boots, singed Giants cap pulled down low over his hair. "... you alive, hermana?" A faint growl answers Ion; Isra lives, though she does not look particularly pleased with her transport. The gargoyle woman has also dressed down for the occasion. She wears a dark gray short-sleeved crop top and matching bike shorts of some dense elastic fiber probably marketed as "high-performance". Beneath it, her skin an uneven matte gray that seems to swallow light and blend just as well with dirty concrete or a dreary New York sky. She collects herself and scans their surroundings, bright green eyes snapping to the car, ears swiveling to and fro. Removing her arm from Ion's grip, she flexes it absently, experimentally, then rests in on his shoulder, sharp talons dimpling his jacket. Her other hand grips the railing of the fire escape as she crouches down, wings mantled, ready to pounce. Chloe's eyes don't lift from her phone. Fruit Ninja is very engrossing, perhaps. The door opens, after a minute. It's a heavy door; it opens with a creeeeak. /That/ does bring Chloe's eyes up from her phone -- first slow but then with a snap. She slides down off the roof of the car, rolling to her feet in one fluid motion. Deanna is exiting the building, dreads pulled back into a low looped-under ponytail. The man behind her is greying, reedy, dressed neatly in suit and tie, also engaged with /his/ phone though he's not playing Fruit Ninja. Probably. "Dee." It's all Chloe says. She doesn't, admittedly, sound particularly /alarmed/. Light. Almost casual. Isra descends from her perch like a slick gray stone, all six limbs pulled in close to minimize air resistance--and her silhouette. Her wings snap only only a few feet above the man's gray head and sweep down with unexpected violence, the sharp claws tipping each phalanx slashing at Deanna perhaps only incidentally. Her elongated toes, however, grab at her mark like the talons of a raptor. Deanna's dark eyes lift. To Chloe, and then up at the beating of wings. The hapless mark barely has time to register the gargoyle descending upon him; Deanna is shoving him none too gently back into the building, leaving the thick leather jacket of her shoulder for Isra's talons to close on instead as she thuds her boot into the door to slam it closed. Her weight is dropping, shoulder turning inward as she reaches behind herself to draw a long and very sharp sword from its sheath. "You fucking people." It's a low mutter under her breath. "-- Ay, yo, {let's get --}" Ion is starting to hop down over the railing. Presumably to get Isra past the door and into the inside, a short and easy hop for him. He's swinging himself down over the fire escape in a quick clamber. Zzzp. It doesn't make a lot of noise, really. Far less obtrusive than a /gunshot/, anyway. Just a quiet zzz-thunk. Chloe isn't exactly /charging/ into this fray; she's unslung the pack from her back, drawn her bow down at the end of the alley. The arrow she lets fly isn't aimed for Ion's heart, at the least; just a shot directed towards his gut as he moves towards Isra. The toxin the arrowhead is laced with, though? That might find its way there sooner or later. Isra touches down heavily, and drops her center of gravity in a way that would have a human severely off-balance. Not she, however, on long digitigrade legs, her wings still spread wide--one sweeping low to slice at Deanna's thigh and her tail following fast to strike the backs of her knees. Deanna drops, too, weight shifting back quickly to get out of the way of the swipe of Isra's wing. It's not quick enough to get out of the way of the tail, teeth clenching as the strike cuts against the back of her knees. She drops with it, bending to one knee, but her blade is flashing down as she does, slicing down towards the tail that has just cut her. Ion doesn't drop to the ground so much as short briefly out of existence. A small fizzle, a small pop; he reappears with a thump on the ground, eyes scrunched up and his hand cupped half around the shaft stuck out of his abdomen. There's blood leaking though his fingers, but he doesn't look /angry/ at Chloe so much as a little bewildered. "Ey, nene, that -- {weren't half /necessary/, no? Who goes fucking hunting downtown?}" The air around them feels a little prickly. A little charged. One hand presses up against the side of the building; in the next moment he's reappeared by her car. One shaky-bloody hand reaches for her drawing arm; the shock that comes with his touch isn't enough to kill, more comparable to a tasing. "{You kidding? It's always open season, boy.}" Probably best for Isra Ion's got Chloe's drawing arm; the arrow she was just notching falls unshot to the ground. Her smile falls, too, transformed into a gritted rictus of a thing, head tipping back as her muscles seize up. "... you." Is all she manages, through her grit. One clenching hand reaches for the arrow still embedded in him. She doesn't exactly manage to grip it but she does /shove/ at it, erratic and jerky-hard. Isra does not try to dodge the strike, but she follows through with her turn, her tail whipping fast--not quite fast enough. Deanna's sword leaves a diagonal cut that bares glimpses of white vertebrae briefly before blood wells up to fill the wound. The pain tears a cry from her, both vocal chords engaging to exceptionally unsettling effect as a low savage growl shadows the higher, sharper snarl. That snarling mouth continues on its whirling path around toward Deanna again, along with the raking claws that tip the fingers of one lanky arm sweeping up toward her abdomen. Deanna drops, rolls; Isra's claws swipe against her arm instead as she tucks and rolls out of the way of the swipe. They tear against leather, draw red from her biceps. She is back up in a crouch shortly, sword brought up in the same fluid motion to slash low along Isra's shins. Ion /yelps/, high and sharp and this time it definitely is distressed. His hand falls away from Chloe; he staggers back to thud against the hood of the car. His hand moves to his abdomen again -- then falls limply to the car as well. Jerk-twitch. "... oh." There's a small skittering of sparks against the bonnet of the vehicle. His eyes scrunch tight, open again, scrunch again. "{Oh, that -- oh. That shit ain't --}" His breath hisses out, more ragged, now. The shivering of sparks against the car grows, as does his own shuddering. Chloe stumbles back a few steps as well, when Ion releases her. It takes her a moment to catch her breath, a moment longer to catch her /limbs/. Her eyes narrow on the man on the hood of the car. A small twitch in her fingers starts to lift in the direction of the arrow in him -- but she doesn't reach for it. She reaches for her discarded one on the ground, nocking it back into her bow and backing away from Ion's form as she takes careful aim at Isra. "I don't know who you people are, but we just got ourselves a job of work to do. You're welcome to keep beating on my partner there but she'll keep you dancing till the cops get here. Your boy here, he needs some tending and I'm thinking their questions'll take longer than he has." Deanna's blade bites deep into one of Isra's calves, only drawing a glacing line of red along the other. The yelp from Ion cuts off her next attack before it even starts, and she springs into the air--not directly toward Chloe, but sidelong at the wall of the alley. She never fully extends her wings, but kicks off of one wall to the opposite one, gaining a few feet in altitude with each rebound. At the apex of her second leap, she fans her wings out half way and then stoops toward the car. Her arms stretch out to scoop up Ion, but she does not look like she will take any great pains to /avoid/ Chloe either, if the woman gets in her way. Deanna keeps her blade drawn, rising slowly and stiffly, favoring one leg noticeably as she does. Her jaw is still tight, her eyes focused on Isra. She keeps her back positioned towards the door she had shoved her ward through. Ion is jerky in Isra's arms. The contact comes with a very unpleasant jolting, a series of hard twitches seizing at Isra's mucles in time with the contractions of Ion's body. There's a bit of froth working itself at the corners of his mouth, his eyes huge-wide, pupils dilated. "{S-sorry, sister,}" he manages, through chattery-clenching teeth. Chloe doesn't seem inclined to get near. Maybe she actually watches movies! And understands the point of a ranged weapon. She stays -- ranged, anyway, bow trained on Isra as she backs /up/ and around by Deanna. A faint smile curls her lips. "Well. They did give us hazard pay."