ArchivedLogs:Otros Guerrilleros

Otros Guerrilleros
Dramatis Personae Ion, Isra
In Absentia	2014-03-13 '
Location <NYC> Brooklyn
The most populous of the boroughs, Brooklyn has nothing if not character. With a thriving music and arts scene, and a distinctive New York slant to its stereotypical gritty accents, Brooklyn ranges from the high-cultured to the very much working class. From botanical gardens to beachfronts, Manhattanites might like to think their borough is the only one that matters, but Brooklyn has a lot to offer of its own. Bright and clear and frigid cold, winter seems to be making a resurgence tonight after the spate of warmth that briefly blew in. If Ion's bothered by the abrupt dip back into frigid-cold, he doesn't show it; there's a kind of /manic/-wired energy to the young man on his calmest of days and tonight is -- certainly not that. He's bundled up against the cold, dark-blue scarf wrapped around most of his face, flap-eared fleece-lined cap pulled down over his head, warm leather jacket worn over several layers beneath, dark gloves, blue jeans, heavy black boots. His fingers have been drumming near-incessantly against the steering wheel as he pilots a plain panel van through the streets of Brooklyn. He's been singing, too, an also near-incessant litany of rather upbeat Argentinian folk tunes. It's only as they arrive in the correct neighborhood that he quiets, eyes slicing around the dark streets. "Business district get mad-empty afterhours, eh?" Which is -- admittedly a /good/ thing for them, though he says it with a quiet clicking of tongue. "And yet. Still no parking. What all these motherfuckers are doing with cars in New York /I/ don't know." Not that he's exactly looking for regular street parking anyway, pulling up into a service alley alongside the tall office building that is their destination. Crouched in the cargo section the van--largely for her own comfort, her wings and tail having a tendency to impede the correct occupation of bucket seats--Isra watches their progress over Ion's shoulder. She wears a dark gray coat with a line of buckles down the front and a waist-length capelet. The latter could presumably cover her wings, except that she has extended those to anchor herself inside the moving vehicle. Her hands are sheathed in black neoprene gloves that have been modified to expose sharp talons, and these are folded primly over the back of the center console. "Will we need the payload for this one?" she asks as they come to a stop, eyes gleaming green in the dim light. The huge thumb claws of her wings unhook from the front seats--the left one inches from Ion's neck. "This one, eyah. The next-up, it's a -- just a building, yeah? All on its lonesome. But this one, this place, so big." Ion waves a hand towards the towering office building. "I'd get /lost/ in its {motherfucking} wires. And that, it's never /any/ fun, sister." He shakes his head, tongue clicking again. "So this time, yeah, I'll go up ahead, find a /window/ to let you /swoop/ in. Keep security off your back while you work some magic, sí?" "Sí." Isra's smile gleams sharp and white in the darkness. "Swooping is one of my favorite activities." She picks up a heavy-duty courier bag with a sling strap and buckles it over one shoulder, between her wings, so that the contents rest against her chest. She pulls the strap tight before shuffling to the rear door, hopping down to the ground. Her wings flare out for balance, then retract under the capelet while she waits in the shadow of the van for Ion's signal. "All the better for me, yeah, I do like to /watch/ a good /swoop/." Ion's smile is less sharp though no less bright, just toothy wide grin as he hops down out of the driver's seat and shuts the door behind him. Locks it. His fingers trail against the outer wall of the office building, a small shiver running up his back. His previous bouncy-energy seems more contained, now, more focused as he trails his way along the outside of the building until he finds what he's looking for -- a covered external outlet nestled near the base of the wall. Crouching down, his hand starts to reach towards it and then in a quiet snapping /pop/, he vanishes. After this, there is cold. The dark near-empty street; a pair of businessmen hurry by their alley in one direction, a young man on a bike speeds by the other way. The wind whips through the tall buildings harsh and frigid. And, eventually, way-high-up one side of the largely-darkened windows, there's a light. Not the warm yellow or steady white of bulbs but a bright white-blue flicker-flash that skitters into view and fades out. Flashes and fades. Flashes and fades. High above, a dark silhouetted figure is briefly illuminated in one of the wide paneled windows -- currently open from its top half to swing outwards and provide entry. Isra zeroes in on the electric flash well before the window opens, and her eyes search the walls of the alley for the best approach on such a blustery night. Her mind apparently made up, she pulls up the hood of her coat and climbs up on top of the van, then crouches down low and waits. A gust of wind chases garbage and grit down the alley, and just before it hits she springs toward it, wings spreading. She glides up at a steep angle, only flapping once the icy blast subsides. Several storeys up, and she catches another gust, though this one forms and eddy that nearly slams her into the side of the building. Finally, she reaches the level of the window and fights against the crosswind to reach it. She winces her wings in, their tips trembling violently, and climbs inside. Dropping into a crouch, she casts about in the darkness for Ion--and for any potential threats. Inside, it is dark. Barely lit except for what moonlight comes in from outside. Likely not so much of a problem for Isra as for Ion. The dimly lit space is an office, that much is clear. A lot of desks in cubicles, a lot of filing cabinets. A few smaller conference-room type places off in the back -- one of these has been outfitted with the paneling of Oscorp's anti-telepathy shielding. Ion is waiting off to the side of the windows, a faint singed scent to him, harsh and electrical like he's been /crisped/ around the edges. He /looks/ no worse for wear, though, hands rubbing together as he gives a small /bounce/ onto his toes. "This place is crawling with guards, hermana, but I don't think they expected anyone taking the sneak/-way in, no? Still, you maybe work --" He stops this line of thought, reconsiders with a shake of his head. "Nah, nah-no you take all the time you /need/, lace this place up right. I keep you good and clear." Isra nods, ear swiveling forward in the shadow of the hood. "Thank you. I should prefer to be thorough, if possible." She rises into a half-crouch that would be superbly awkward for a human physique, but which would keep her below the level of the cubicle partitions. "After all, it is my first time." She moves through the facility, removing rectangular packets from her courier bag and affixing them at strategic locations. The poor light does not seem to slow her down in the least. Few actual wires are evident in this operation, though each device sports a small red LED once armed. Ion casts a quick look back to Isra, teeth glinting in his quick-crooked half-smile. "You, too? I ain't never --" His hand waves outwards towards the packets Isra plants. "But 'least I'm in good company for it, no? Be lonely doing this up here all on your --" His head tilts; he falls into quiet, listening, now. At first to nothing; he draws in a quick breath, perhaps overly-jittery up here at the moment. But just when he's opening his mouth to start speaking again there are footsteps, out in the hall past the office's main doors. Ion slips quietly over closer to the door, at this, but afterwards he ducks down, too, crouching behind a cubicle partition and waiting. The door clicks open, the brighter beam of a flashlight sweeping in around the room; there's a small frown on the face of the security guard holding it. Isra goes completely motionless when the door opens. The white oval of the guard's flashlight finds her coattail, but she remains so still that she might as well be a garment draped over an errant office chair. The beam hesitates and begins creeping up the out-of-plate coat before suddenly veering away to the far end of the room. Beneath the edge of her hood, Isra's eyes flick to Ion and then over to the door through which the guard is now walking. The flashlight sweeps back, and then back again. Ion's breath catches at the motion, but he doesn't move. Just watches the arc of the guard's flashlight as starts to approach the set of cubicles Isra is crouched under. Ion stiffens, muscles tensing as he almost starts to unfold, but then the beam slides away. The guard turns to depart, door closing behind him. The electrokinetic exhales a caught breath. And waits, quiet, as footsteps recede. "... not really into threesomes tonight. Better to /ease/ into things on a first-time, yeah?" There's a little wired (nervous?) exhilaration in his breathy-soft voice. Isra remains still a few moments longer than probably strictly necessary, but then returns to her task as if she had not been interrupted at all. "There's something to be said for diving into a new venture, but in this case I feel inclined to agree." Only the rapid twitching of her tail betrays any agitation on her part. "Besides, he wasn't my type," she adds as she finishes arming the last of the explosives. "Now, we really ought to get clear of the blast zone." Zipping her bag shut, she stalks to the window from whence she had come. "Don't get lost." "Nah he don't have fangs /or/ wings, did he?" There's a relieved note of laughter in Ion's voice as Isra stands. "Though with those big-eyes, Dusk, I think he's a little bit of /everyone's/ type. -- See you at our ride, hermana." Ion's eyes track after Isra towards the window, but a moment later he ambles towards a wall and is gone. With a rather convoluted path /out/ of the building, it likely takes him a bit /longer/ than Isra to return to the van, the same singed-burning tinge to his clothing as he jogs back towards it. "{This night could use some warm /anyway/,}" he is muttering to himself, hands rubbing briskly together. Isra's exit is fast and frigid. She spreads her wings and spirals down like a gigantic samara. The wind still whistles angrily through the deserted district, but she manages the descent without incident. By the time Ion returns, she is already huddled inside the van with her wings tucked in close and her hands cupped around the innocuous-looking transmitter that would send the signal to detonate the explosives. She is also shivering quite visibly. "You know," Ion says this as he gets into the van, rubs his hands briskly together and then starts its engines, starting to pull away into the street slowly, "if you time this just right we get to /drive/ away from the -- the massive-fucking-exploding in the background, yeah? Is not /quite/ slo-mo walking away but I'll /take/ it. -- Next one's not even far, no. You need time to thaw?" "I have not taken into account the particular way in which depart from our terrorism," Isra says, her voice breathy and almost all bass. "So far, this is the only deficiency in my training." It is hard to say whether she has missed the humor entirely or is just going along with it in the absolute driest way possible. She hitches her right arm up over the unoccupied passenger seat and holds onto it instead of extending her wings to keep herself upright. "But no. I'll be fine." She closes her eyes placidly, flips the cover from the switch, and hits it. Above and behind them, a blinding light blooms out from a certain office into the night sky. Glass windows shatter into a billion glittering pieces, followed shortly by a thick plume of smoke lit yellow-orange by the fires behind it. Violent winds pull the explosion into a hellish vortex, silent in all its terrible grace until the shockwave catches up to them like the loudest clash of thunder. "Ho-/ho/," Ion is pulling away, pulling /out/, slipping off onto the main roads when the van /shakes/ and windows rattle. His grin is only all the more manic in the sudden bright flash of light. "{My fucking /god/} talk about a /climax/." His laugh is short and breathy-bright, and he can't resist a peek over his shoulder towards the blaze behind them. "That's the shitty thing, though, about this job, who do you /brag/ to for a first time, hermana, that was /art/." Isra opens her eyes at Ion's exclamation and studies the explosion in the passenger side mirror. Her expression remains impassive. "There is a certain beauty to it," she admits. "If you like that, you might like astronomy, which has a lot to do with stupendously powerful explosions." She returns the detonator to the courier bag before unslinging it, all rather methodically. "I do not suppose I will be bragging at all. This was not for us, but for our people--and for those who would keep us under heel." "Ay, yah, it was sure /that/," Ion agrees glibly. "But. /But/." He glances up into his rear-view mirror, peeking back at Isra. "Also it was /fun/." He leaves the explosion far off behind them, van weaving its way through the streets of Brooklyn. His tap-tap-tap drumming has returned, now, faster and brighter than before; by the time he's pulling the van to its next stop he's worked back up into a jittery energy. "I like stars," he finally answers. "Don't really know them though. Back home, back home I could see more. It's harder out here, yeah?" He's parked, this time, across the street from a squat old building. He glances out the window, eyes skipping over it. "After the shooting couple-day-back, they upped the guards in /all/ these place, hmm." This sounds a little /cautious/ -- there certainly are none to be seen at the moment, building dark and quiet. "The City is not ideal for stargazing, no. Too much stray light." Isra runs her free hand absently along the membrane of a wing she has wrapped around herself. "You needn't go but a little ways out, though, before a telescope of even modest magnifying power can show you a whole new universe of blazing nuclear furnaces and the aftermaths of their failure." She sits up a little higher--as high as she can without catching her horns on the ceiling of the van--and leans forward between the front seats to fix a luminous green stare at the building in question. "I am certain the guards are there. Our work here will not be so time-consuming as at the previous place, but still...how much time will you need?" "Not sure how many rooms I gotta work up. Work on. Work with -- work at?" Ion shakes his head with a small frown at this fumbling for prepositions. "But it don't take much of no time in each, hm? You hold them off my back five, ten minutes tops this place is going to blaze." He slips down out of the van, breathing out sharply as the frigid air hits him again. "You leave any electronics in here, eh? Our escape route's going to be a little, a. Little-bit-crispy." "That I shall do." Isra ducks into the back of the van and emerges from the rear doors, closing them behind her gently and stalking after Ion. "I did not bring anything along that I would terribly mind getting crispy." As she walks, she drops into the low, gliding gait of a predator on the prowl. Her ears swivel and flick at the howling of the wind and the ticking of the van's engine cooling behind them. Her eyes scan the windows of the building and the shadowy areas of its grounds. She nods at a fire door in the building's side. "That way? Or a window--less like to be alarmed?" "Good. Good because I travel kind of -- ah. It's a bit jarring if you've never before --" Ion shakes his head, shoving his hands into his pockets as he approaches the building. "Mmmn, hmm, I go quick, yeah, I get you -- issat window big enough?" His chin tips in a nod towards a window off at the side, near the fire door. "I open it up quick no?" He's not actually waiting for answer before jogging over to the side of the building, making his way around the wall until he can vanish. Only to reappear a few short moments later in the window, working it open with a quiet grunt to poke his head out and ask again: "Or is door better? I can push at the door. Says alarmed, though." "I'll fit," Isra assures him, though she eyes her ingress dubiously before ducking to climb through, wings tucked tight against her body. It is not, however, an easy fit. "As for your mode of transit: no matter how jarring, I am sure I would prefer it to getting shot, or catching fire." Her tail thuds hard against the window frame on its way in. She does not wince, but drops immediately into a low crouch, unmoving. Her eyes do not blink at all as she searches the darkness. "I hear getting shot it is all the rage these days though. All the /cool kids/ -- though," Ion's eyes slide over to Isra, smile returning crookedly as he closes the window, "I guess, now, that /arrows/ is the cool new thing? Nobody's ever shot an arrow at me, I must not be --" He shakes his head, running his hands through his hair. They've emerged into a small stairwell; there are stairs leading /down/ to the basement but in this squat building, none leading up. Another door stands in front -- presumably leading further into the building. Ion presses his ear to it, listening in quiet before heading inside. Past the door there is more hallway. Offices branch off to either side, the largest office space wide and open to their right while smaller private offices stand on the left. Ion ripples his fingers across the doorways, drifting with an almost dreamlike smile, now, off into the a smaller rom to the left. His fingers trace slowly against the wall; small bright sparks arc out from where he's touched to dance against its surface. "You ready, then?" It might be a rhetorical question; there's already erratic skittering arcs of energy dancing between one hand and the wall in this office, the other hand and the desktop sitting over at the desk. In Ion's bright-black eyes there's something brighter still, a fierce /hunger/ that coils tense in his muscles and twists his grin up harder than before. Isra makes a point to not /directly/ watch Ion work his magic, though she catches enough in her peripheral vision to flash a fangy grin when the sparks start flying. Ion's energy is contagious; Isra's wings shake out from beneath the cover, and her tail lashes the air wildly. "I have always been ready." Her answer might be just as rhetorical. Ion splays one hand against the wall, head tipping upwards with an almost blissful expression on his face as erratic bright-white continues to illuminate the room. It's hard to tell exactly /which/ direction the arcs are jumping; from an outlet to him, from him back /into/ the wall. But there's smoke beginning to curl out of the outlets, not just in his room but in the adjoining ones down the hall, thick and black and with the acrid-sharp scent of electrical burn from unseen fires brewing within their walls. Overhead, a fire alarm starts to blare, the flashes of light joined by the more /regular/ flash-flash, flash-flash, of the alarm overhead. Down at the /other/ end of the hall there are abrupt footsteps heading closer. Ion is, very abruptly, no longer /in/ his room, reappearing over in the larger office space with a small flash-pop. "That bit of ready, it might get a /test/ soon, aye?" He's brought his energy /with/ him, this time, a shower of skittering sparks dancing between his fingers. "Just don't go too /far/ or --" The end of his words are cut off in another flicker-arc of lightning, dancing out along his arms to jump outward. It arcs in leaps and bounds from one piece of electrical equipment to the next. Back around to Ion who is, through his teeth, starting to /sing/ again, through his teeth, "--Están in lucha, lo quieren disparar --" The door at the other end of the hall bursts open; one of the pair of security guards there already has his phone out, though it's clear he was expecting a /fire/ and not an arsonist. There's a moment of frank bafflement as they look to the /lightning/-show in the next room, and then down the hallway towards Isra. "-- What in the." One of the guards is just /eying/ her incredulously. The other has dropped his phone, reaching instead for the gun holstered at his hip. Isra growls low when the guards breach the door, already stalking toward them. Her eyes flash bright in the jittery light of Ion's personal electrical storm, and with a sudden, uncanny roar she bounds toward them. She has the presence of mind to yank two office chairs from their spot and send them--one wheeling, the other tumbling--down the hall ahead of her. In the last few steps, after hopping over one capsized chair, she drops her center of gravity and /rams/ the guard who had reached for his gun. Her wings snap open, catching the blue-white flashes like a photographer's diffuser screen with claws. "Jesus what the fuck are -- is that --" The shorter of the two men is just drawing his gun when Isra is hopping over the chair and /at/ him; he stumbles backwards against the now-closed door that he'd just come through, back thudding into it with a heavy /whump/. With Isra rather on top of him now, rather than /shoot/ he brings the butt end of the pistol up in a heavy-hard /crack/ towards her jaw. Behind them, the hall is starting to fill with smoke. There is fire crackling -- heard, warmly starting to be /felt/, though oddly mostly unseen where it burns just inside the /walls/ of the private offices adjacent. One of the thinner bits of wall is starting to crack, though, smoke and light visible from where it is being eaten away from the inside. In the next room, Ion's flashes of energy are still flaring out quick and bright. The second guard has reached for his firearm now, as well, and though for a moment he looks uncertain /which/ target to look for he's backing away from Isra and the chairs and the walls to try and sight Ion through the glass windows into the office. Isra catches the guard's arm as he swings, though his strength is not inconsiderable and the butt of the pistol slam into the side of her neck. She snarls and digs the claws of that hand deep into the man's forearm, not relenting until he drops the weapon. The other guard's maneuvering does not go unnoticed, though, and she looks up from her current victim, lips drawn back to bare sharp fangs. Tossing the first guard's weapon aside, she leaps off of him and stalks the second guard. She circles around opposite Ion so that the guard must turn away from the electrokinetic--or allow her to flank him. The low rumble in her throat and the blood on her hands warn him he does not want to do the latter. For a moment the man wrestles against the grip. His other elbow slams upward towards Isra's solar plexus, his fingers /tightening/ on the handle of his pistol. But as Isra's claws dig deeper he snarls, too, hand opening to send the gun clattering loudly to the ground. The other guard is shifting the training of his gun, aiming it now at Isra rather than Ion as the woman circles. He takes a step closer to his partner, nodding back towards the door behind them. In the next room, there is a growing crackle-hiss, a heat that is boiling over to finally /churn/ out of the walls in a whooshing rumble of crumbling plaster and growing flames. The white dancing light doesn't exactly vanish so much as it starts to die down, no more arcing bolts of lightning, just sparks dancing their way around Ion's hands, fading into his clothing with a crisp-burning smell. "Ay -- querido." There's still a fierce grin turning up his cheeks over the scrunched blackening mess of his scarf, but his tone sounds considerably more ragged than it did before; he has one hand pressed up against the wall now with a droop that looks more like support than like he is still draining energy from it. "Vamonos." Isra lowers herself to the ground, perhaps to make herself a smaller target, and seems to consider back away from the armed guard. She turns away, but at the same time snaps her wings out wide. The talons tipping the elongated phalanges of her wings slash at the guards at around thigh height. Whirling all the way around, she pounces--surprisingly nimble for a being with so much limb--at the guard who stands between her and Ion. At this point, whether he still has a gun trained on her seems of lesser importance than the fact that the building is beginning to burn around them. She rakes his chest more or less blindly with her left hand and then springs off of him, performing a side roll that places her neatly back on her feet a few steps from Ion, shielding him as much as she is able with her body. As she backs toward him, she mantles her wings wide and roars at the guards, the sheer volume of the noise rattling embers loose from the walls. The guard pulls the trigger as Isra's wings snap out, but stumbling backwards with a new gash in his legs, his shot arcs wide, lodging itself in the crumbling wall with another tongue of flame licking out at the new-made hole. He thuds back into the wall at the rake to his chest, eyes wide and hand coming up instinctively to curl protectively against the new slashes there. The other guard has fallen, trying to struggle back up towards the /door/ now with his leg torn open and smoke filling the hallway thick and dark. Ion, for once, has nothing to say in answer to all this. As soon as Isra comes near he lunges towards her, clamping a hand down against a wing. Another gunshot rings out towards them but almost in time with the report the world is suddenly going a whole lot brighter, a whole lot more /painful/; there's a fierce teeth-clenching seizing jolt that feels a whole lot like being tased. It's probably only a heartbeat before they're out again -- a little bit overshot, halfway down the block from where they started -- but even brief time can feel longer when spent in jolting electrocution-pain. It /is/ only brief, though, and when the shock ends and the world resolves into a /world/ again, Ion is slumped, teeth gritted and muscles trembling, against the side of a closed post office. His breath comes ragged-harsh, his eyes closing. Just across and down the street a few buildings there is a brighter spot of light, the orange glow of flame visible through windows. It takes a moment before Ion's eyes cut over to his passenger. "{What a night, huh? I think you're on deck again next, I need to --}" Another tremor passes through him and it takes a moment for him to recalibrate back into English: "-- You OK? Still got some night left." Isra returns to the world of matter growling and quivering. Her pupils had contracted to narrow points against the light, but now dilate rapidly again as she scans the street for danger, gaze lingering only briefly on the blaze before flicking over to Ion. She assumes a more human-looking stance now, straightening her coat, which crackles audibly with static discharge. Her hand lingers on her flat chest, as if she had fully expected to find a bullet wound there. "Thank you." The words come out in her alto voice--the lower register is still occupied with growling, ever so softly. "I am unharmed and ready to proceed. You?" She offers him a hand, but then extends a wing to curl around him, Dusk-like. Ion still quivers where he slumps against the building, but for all the exhausted wilt of his posture, the ferocity has not left his /grin/. "Ay, querida," he drags himself away from the wall to tuck gratefully into the curve of her wing, shivering beneath it and leaning against Isra for support as he starts back towards their van, "I have, always, be ready."