ArchivedLogs:Natalie's Grotesque Collection of Struggling Bodies

Natalie's Grotesque Collection of Struggling Bodies
Dramatis Personae Anette, Natalie, Pete, Scramble, Simon, Teague	2016-01-18 "Careful, Boss-lady said we're not leaving /bodies/ here." (Disclaimer: This log does not contain a human centipede.)
Location <DC> Congressman Stepford's Residence - Forest Hills
Nestled at the very edge of Rock Creek Park, this house three-storey designer building is perched on a picturesque bluff above a sharp bend in the stream. The size of the estate is modest by the standards of the neighborhood, but its location alone assures a high property value. It's not actually very far from the main road, the driveway has a significant curve and is lined with well-manicured trees such that it's hard to see much of the building from the road (and vice versa). The city is quiet owing to the Federal holiday, and most of the savvy commuters who typically cut through the park to avoid traffic are absent. The sun has long since set and the wind blows frigid through the leafy boughs of the old oak trees towering over the Stepford house. Through the tree cover, it's possible to discern a few softly lit windows through their curtains, but there are no commotion and no callers tonight. Not /yet./ Not /yet/, but the Stepfords are about to have a /party/. At least, Natalie is ready for one, strolling on up through the trees with a bounce in her step as the gloved fingers of one hand trail against the trunk of one oak. Her red hair is tucked under a black balaclava (currently folded up into just a hat), clothing nondescript -- jeans, grey sweatshirt, head tipping back to look up at the windows. /She's/ brought with her a handful of balloons. Brightly decorated, in similar fashion to some that were left in the congressman's office just this past week. Like a /gift/. She's eying one window -- kitchen, looks like? -- considering it with a small tap of toe. Then points at it. There. That's where she wants to be. Jewel turns to watch the others with some over-the-shoulder action. Sitting in a coquettish little pose, he snakes his legs apart from where they’d been held off to the side to make room in the cramped van. The teen’s gloved hands move from where they’d been resting on his knee to pluck up a plain black ski-mask, which he pulls over his face. Quite predictably, he’s dressed in all black with thin diamond reinforcements meticulously hidden just beneath his form fitting attire. The entire trip over, Jewel has been his usual quiet and stoic self. Slipping out into the chilly D.C. air, his demeanor doesn’t change. He prances carefully forward on the balls of his feet. “Festive,” he comments dryly to Natalie. His birthday was just yesterday. There's no bounce in Simon's step, just a little bit of nervous energy. He's dressed fairly plainly as well, jeans, a plain black sweatshirt, gloves, and a matching ski mask over his face. The balloons have him a little confused but he's yet to question them. He looks up as well when Natalie points, squinting at the window and then frowning. "Are we splitting up or going in as a group?" he asks, looking to the others. "Have we ever thought about investing in a bus?" Anette says, stretching her wings as she walks after the very cramped ride over. Also electing a very 'black' ensemble, she goes for a slightly different approach, choosing a much more flexible, if not warm, tanktop instead of a long sleeved shirt. Matching black pants, combat boots, and ski mask complete her look with what appears to be the hilt of a knife peeking out from one of her boots. She does eye the balloons suspiciously as they walk though she refrains from saying anything. "We don't split up unless we have to," Anette says, her voice quiet and serious. Other than the kitchen Natalie had indicated, only one other room on the ground floor have backlit windows (one with subtle but near-constant flickering, suggestive of a television). On the second floor only one window is lit, softly, as by a desk lamp. On the top floor there are another two lit windows, one with a television on. There is no visible movement through the lacy curtains on the kitchen window. "Ion said it was important," Natalie answers earnestly, wiggling the balloons in her hand. "Says we need to make sure we treat these things with the proper --" Proper what, who knows; the questions distract her, looking back to Simon with a furrow of brow, a shake of head. She reaches up to unfold her mask, pulling it down to properly cover her face and then hooking her arm through Scramble's. "Together." Jewel keeps his heavy-lidded eyes trained to the house. “The kitchen is the place to start,” the Londoner cuts through the current conversation to agree to Natalie’s previous suggestion, “It’s likely to be vacant.” Just as the word ‘together,’ is spoken over the comm one more time, Jewel prances forward to dart along the perimeter of the small dark lawn alone. His aim is to crouch down under the back-lit window of the room in question. “Think you can handle getting us in?” The question is addressed to Simon, but spoken over the comm to everyone. Nodding, Simon holds his arms out for the others to grab. Of course they could also hold onto one another, all that was needed was they were all connected in some way. He'd already told the group what it would be like to travel with him, the darkness and almost weightless movement. It was something that took getting used to. "I can do it," he says, taking a deep breath. He waits for everyone to have a grip and then concentrates, the group sinking as one into the ground. The length of the trip may be hard to gauge for Simon's passengers but it only takes about a minute before they're rising slowly out of the kitchen floor in the first space large enough for all of them to fit. Scramble holds onto Simon's shoulder -- old hat at this 'grab the transporter' game -- and braces herself for the trip. Her eyes widen just a fraction and she sucks in a deep breath before her head disappears into the ground. Both the hand on Simon and the arm laced through Natalie's grip tighter in the claustrophobic dark of their underground passage. When they re-emerge inside the kitchen, she lets go of her teammates and pivots, orienting herself again. Anette is not so much an old hat at his. She reaches for an arm - really anybody's, she's actually not so sure whose it is - and grips it tightly as they're phased through. Once on the other side, she quickly releases her grip, though it takes her a second of just standing there and looking around before her mind can accept she just traveled through the ground. "Alright, where now?" Simon doesn't have much trouble finding room to fit his team, as the kitchen is quite capacious between long black granite countertops and brushed steel appliances. Capacious and almost unbelievably spotless, though still redolent of a recently prepared (if meticulously cleaned up) meal of baked ziti and lightly fried fish fillets. An open from the kitchen looks into the dining room, which is empty at the moment but transmits the sound of the television from the room beyond ("...this delightful tiny house has all the amenities of a larger dwelling, but /smaller!/ Just look at the detailing on the--"). The gushing over real estate is abruptly silenced, and a deep male voice says, "Did you hear that? Joe, Terry, go check the side door." Natalie holds tight to Scramble as they're moved -- a little bit tense once they come up on the other side. It takes a moment of squeezing tighter at Scramble's arm before she lets go, slipping quick and quiet in the darkened kitchen to slide around the counter and move to one side of the open doorway. The balloons move with her, held up to bob by the ceiling. She loop their strings around a cabinet handle, leaving them to float there as she slips out into the dining room to tuck herself alongside a china cabinet. Tipping her head towards the approaching voices. And waiting. Having peeked inside, Jewel slips back across the front yard to rejoin the others. Wrapping an arm around Anette for the voyage, he remains close by the woman even as they resurface inside. “I don’t recognize the voice or the names,” he warns in a hushed tone, following Natalie’s lead and pressing his back up against cabinetry. Falling to his side, Jewel’s hand begins making a series of choreographed gestures. Although he stares at the door, his concentration is drawn elsewhere as tiny, twinkling specks of light begin to dance around his moving fingers. Scramble isn't /quite/ so eager to go meet Joe and Terry, hanging back in the kitchen instead, though right next to the door so she doesn't lag too far behind the others if they start moving again. The sound of voices gets Anette's attention, head immediately twisting towards the door. Stepping lightly, she makes her way into the dining room, wings tight pressed against her body as she stands beside the doorway to the next room. She turns her head towards the door, patiently waiting for someone, anyone to step through. Meanwhile, she listens intently for any and every sound she can pick up on that would give her some clue as to who or what was about to walk through. During his quick peek through a gap in the curtain at the edge of the wide living room window, Teague could see five men arrayed around the massive flatscreen television, two more sitting at the ornate chess chess table playing, and one huddled at the antique writing desk in the corner over a very expensive laptop. None of them look familiar, and all of them wear the same smartly designed black tactical uniform whose embroidered shoulder patches depict a bald eagle with its wings mantled over a gray block on which hangs a skeleton key, surrounded by the words BOUNDARY STONE SECURITY. The dining room is large, with a long table of gloss-dark wood and eight matching chairs (although it could probably seat twelve easily), the only other furniture being the china cabinet and a liquor cabinet. No sooner have the intruders situated themselves than do two men come through the door from the living room, hands poised over still-holstered pistols. The one in the lead is quite large and quite white, his orange-red hair cut in a neat high-and-tight. The other is smaller, black, with his head shaved shiny-smooth. It's hard to say who they spot first, but it only takes the guards a few seconds to go into high alert, each drawing their sidearms with something almost like /glee./ "We got intruders here!" the white one calls--not /very/ loudly, his comrades being in the next room. "Step away from the wall and put your hands up," says the black one. Natalie watches Teague for a brief and curious moment as he starts to gesture, but is then back to looking towards the living room. She holds a hand up towards Simon and Scramble when there's movement from the next room -- wait -- her lips pursing when Company arrives. The arrival of the armed security personnel draws a small frown from her. Her hands lift up by her shoulders as she takes an obedient step forward away from her place by the cabinet. And then drops, shooting underneath the dining table towards the men in a rapid slide. One leg kicks at one of the sturdy wooden chairs, knocking it into the smaller of the pair of attackers; she plants a foot on its seat as she gets back /up/ on the other side, pushing the chair harder into him and kicking /off/ of it to kick his partner's gun out of his hand (-- and catch it neatly in her own to slam it's butt into the first man's temple, before the chair has finished landing.) Her foot plants solidly in the back of the now-disarmed redhead's back, shoving him kind of casually towards Anette as she ejects the magazine from the gun. “Security is based in the living room,” Jewel relays, “I think I spotted five. Maybe six of ‘em, in retrospect.” Jewel lazily lifts hands into the air in mock-surrender as two of the security personnel make themselves known. While one hand offers a two-fingered salute, the other continues its gesticulations. The twinkles surrounding the moving fingers begin to converge into one solid mass of light before expanding with a wave of warmth. Beneath his mask, he grits his teeth as he pushes himself to form the construct: a glittering diamond heater shield. Don’t worry everyone: Jewel is safe. Simon isn't all that worried about the guns. At least not for himself. He lifts his hands as well, eyes going wide when Natalie springs into action. He winces a little at the impacts and steps back against the wall. He'll be ready to disappear into it if more of security comes rushing to see what the trouble is. Scramble only leans out of her cover far enough to gauge the distance to the security guards. The one that Natalie sends toward Annette strays just close enough for her to slip the fingers of her powers in -- invisibly disrupting his ability to form new memories...probably only for a few hours. Probably. No such luck in getting Anette to surrender, even pretend. Natalie gets a good start on the security guards, earning a raised eyebrow from Anette as she's impressed by the skill and efficiency in which she handles them. Still, she's glad Natalie has decided to share and as the redhead is kicked towards her, Anette grins, sending a well-aimed kick across his head, a quick beat of her wings ensuring she kicks as high as she needs to. And just to be sure he's not getting up any time soon, she gives one more good, solid kick to his head once she regains her footing. As soon Joe and Terry speak, there's rustling from the living room as the remaining security personnel there rise, the click of the safeties on their pistols audible Anette and the clomp of their combat boots on the hardwood floor plain to the rest. "Shit!" the black guard blurts as the chair hits him, and he might have said a whole lot more if Natalie didn't promptly knock him unconscious. His partner is just as eloquent, loosing a "Motherfucker!" as his gun is taken and a "Fucking whore!" when he gets kicked. Staggering between Natalie and Anette, helpless to undo his momentum, he catches sight of Teague' shield. "Code X, code X we got--oof!" Anette's first kick slams into his head and sends him to his knees. The second one drops him inert to the floor. By now the six others have come, too late to help their buddies. Four of them pour in with guns drawn, the other two remaining behind cover of the door to the living room, aiming their pistols around the doorway at the intruders. "Code X, over there!" shouts a squat, dark-haired man with olive skin, swiveling his gun first toward Teague, then toward Anette, as if he can't quite decide who to shoot first. Half a step behind him and to his left, a dirty blond with a prominent scar across his cheek yells, "Code X, open fire!" as he levels his gun at Teague and shoots. Fanning out from behind them is a light-skinned black man with cornrows and a small but muscular Latina with a buzzcut, both of whom raise their guns and fire, one at Simon and the other at Natalie. The man in the lead finally decides to shoot at Anette instead, but has made the fatal error of getting into melee combat range (and, though he may not know, Scramble's range as well). The olive-skinned man near Anette is left for the owl-woman to deal with, close to her as he is. Natalie isn't waiting for the newly-arrived guards to actually take proper aim. As the dirty blond is yelling orders she's vaulting -- off the overturned chair and straight /over/ him; sorry, Teague, at least that shield is hard as, well, diamond. She ignores the blond for a moment to grab the arm of the black man instead, twisting it upward instead to throw his shot off towards the corner as she pivots around behind him, twisting at his gun hand with a hard wrench before relieving him of his weapon. His compatriot can have his shoulder as a target instead of /her/. She shoves the man hard towards the blond in front of him, spinning away from him to throw a hard elbow towards the throat of the woman who had shot at her. When her hand closes around the woman's wrist, she's holding -- not a weapon (that's fallen to the floor) but a plastic ziptie, its crrrrk kind of lost in the commotion as she yanks the woman to the floor, binds /her/ wrists to those of one of the unconscious men already down there. Thin and roughly the size of his chest, Jewel's shield is pulled to defend his head and arms. Flourishing the construct, he curls inward behind so as to take up less area. Jewel's feet move in the small, quick bourree movements as he plunges forward. The shield is forced bluntly into the scarred man's attack. As Jewel's shield is struck with the bullet, it shatters. Much of it breaks apart as shimmering diamond dust but small sharp shards fly back to cut at Jewel's mask and the shooter's exposed face. Still grasping the crude handle and what jagged bit remains of his former construct, the teen's entire body switches trajectory to duck down. As gracefully as if it were a planned attack, he drops to knee-level. Letting out an adolescent snarl, he starts slicing his way back up the man's body. He doesn't stop, "NnnnnaaAGGGHH!" Despite appearances, Simon has no intention of getting shot. Phasing, he's tense as the bullets start flying. They end up passing right through him and into the cabinets behind him instead of finding flesh to pierce. Sinking back down into the floor, Simon slips down into cover. He's not much help in a gun fight so he's hanging in cover looking for either a good sneak attack opening or any teammates that might need him to quickly move or phase them out of danger. Scramble leans out again, just to get the lay of the room. Then she presses herself back against the kitchen wall and focuses, stretching out her powers toward the two men in the lead and closest to her, sinking the seeds of terrifying hallucinations into their minds. Fatal error indeed! In the time it takes the olive-skinned one to decide who to shoot at, Anette has already grabbed the nearest chair. With a loud owl-like screech, she swings it against his head, not holding back in strength or effort. The shattering of Jewel's shield gets her attention, twisting her head perhaps a tad supernaturally at the "Easy there kid," she says, before twisting her head back front and center as she prepares for the next attacker, bouncing into a fighting stance. Natalie's acrobatics does not improve the dirty-blond man's aim as he fires at Teague, though the bullet, in any case, finds and shatters the shield instead of the teen behind it. The diamond fragments add more cuts to his face. He takes aim again, point-blank to a now shieldless Teague, but then Natalie throws one of his comrade into him and he comes up short, staggering forward into Teague's upward slice. The jagged edges on the diamond handle tear through the leg of his pants, glancing off of his armored codpiece, and rips into the gap between it and the body armor on his lower abdomen. Blood gushes from his thigh and his groin and he doubles over, shrieking wildly despite the fact that his wounds are in no way fatal as they stand. The black man Natalie had disarmed and thrown doesn't seem /too/ put out, and he seems to have quite forgotten about Simon once he vanished. He draws a matte black combat knife, sinks into a low fighting stance, and slashes at Natalie even as she's zip-typing the (struggling, cursing) Latina. The chair Anette swings at her attacker is quite solid, but still comes apart upon impact with the squat olive-skinned man, one chiselled end slicing his face open to horrific effect. He drops to the ground, thrashing and screaming and scratching frantically at his armored torso. As their teammates go down one by one, the two security guards hanging back at the living room door (one a very pale white woman with a blond ponytail, the other a black-haired Asian man) take aim and fire: one at Natalie and the other at Anette. Still at knee or erm ...codpiece level, Jewel feints backward as the scar-faced man bends towards his wound. The professional dancer rolls partially onto his back, pulling both of his powerful legs up to his stomach before releasing both in a swift upward-turned double-kick aimed straight into the man’s chest. “Can you phase us upstairs?” He asks in a grunt of exertion. "Careful, Boss-lady said we're not leaving /bodies/ here. -- You two," Natalie's head is jerking up towards Simon and Teague, "should probably ghost up and grab the kid. /Someone's/ bound to have called the cops." Natalie is yanking the tablecloth off the dining table, twisting it up into a tight roll as she drops to the ground, rolling towards the doorway as the other guards fire. Her legs scissor-kick out, snapping towards the back of each of their knees. She ropes the cloth around their ankles, yanking both guards down with her in passing. Twining the twisted cloth-rope tight around their legs quickly, one booted foot coming down on the woman's wrist before she can shoot again. Scramble finally wades into the dining room as the number of guns in hands drops off sharply. She still crosses the line of sight from the living room quickly, staying low (and staying the hell out of Anette's way). Dropping to one knee beside Natalie's grotesque collection of struggling bodies zip-tied to unconscious ones, she runs her hand over each bound guard in turn. Her touch is quick, light -- gentle, even -- and leaves her victims staring blankly into space. Simon emerges from the wall in time for the order and request. "Got it," he replies, reaching out to grab Teague's arm. "Just point me to the right room," he requests. And provided he gets the directions he needs, Simon will phase himself and Teague into the nearest wall. They'll emerge in the room Teague directs Simon to, out of a different wall later. He's glad to be away from the blood and violence at least. There's a couple close calls with bullets, and a few broken wing feathers, but Anette avoids any serious injury. She lets Natalie take charge, merely joining in to assist her in the tying efforts as an extra set of arms holding their victims down. "Not even one measly body?" she says, enjoying this way more than she really should. With Natalie handling the blond woman, Anette focuses on the asian man who had been shooting at her. One boot firmly on his chest, she reaches down, yanks her knife free, and holds it to his throat until Scramble can come by and...well, scramble him. The blond woman cries out when Natalie's boot pins her wrist down, and though she's drawn a knife with her off hand she's completely useless with it, at least at the moment. The man who had been covering across from her recovered from being knocked down slightly better, rolling onto his side and turning his pistol toward Natalie...just in time for Anette to pin him down and bring a knife to bear on him. He stares up at her balefully but sets the gun down all the same. Teague's kick launches the scar-faced man back, his head snapping up so that when he lands flat on his back he also hits his head, finally putting an end that dreadful shriek. Upstairs, after a brief trip through the walls of the house, Simon and Teague emerge into Pete's bedroom. It has been rearranged to better suit the teenager's near-constant state of semi-consciousness, a state-of-the-art hospital bed taking up one corner and ringed with a constellation of monitoring and life-support equipment. The boy himself looks pale and wan in the faint fluorescent light, joined to an IV and quite a number of wires. He isn't entirely unresponsive, his eyes opening a crack when his visitors arrive, though he shows no obvious sign of recognition. In the distance, several sirens are dopplering closer. There's just a quiet snort from behind Natalie's mask. She ties the tablecloth into a tight knot around the two guards' legs, digging out another ziptie to bind their arms to each other while Anette is holding them down. "Hope you've got the engine running," she murmurs into their comms. “Help me,” Jewel pants to Simon, taking a rare stumble forward away from the wall. He doesn’t have any medical knowledge and so has no qualms about tearing the wires and tubes free. Sliding both arms under his brother, Jewel lifts the other teen up off of the bed. His knees wobble from the additional weight, but a surge of adrenaline keeps him going. “We’re getting you out of here,” he informs the drugged young man, repeating himself a few times, “...We’re getting you out of here…” "Be careful!" Simon urges when he sees Jewel going to tear things. "If you're too rough, you'll cause some serious damage," he's warns, helping to remove things more carefully. Once they have Jewel's brother free, Simon reaches out to grab hold of them both. "We're on our way back down. Be ready and I'll get us back out," Simon notifies the others over their com links before taking himself, Teague, and his brother through the floors and walls back down to the others. As soon as they reappear, Simon is gesturing for everyone to get in close so he can phase them all back out. Leaving a trail of stark staring madness in her wake, Scramble goes to the last two guards under Natalie and Anette's care. She stretches out one hand to each, and both go still before she actually even makes contact with them, heads lolling and eyes blank. "All done here," she says softly. "They not gonna remember shit when they wake up. Which is lucky for those two." Her head jerks back in the direction of the two had had done all the screaming before going down. She pops back up with a soft whoop of triumph when Simon reappears with Teague and Pete. "/Aright/, we da /bomb/." Gathers her sisters over to the men and helps them hold up the rescued teen. "Now let's GTFO."