multiversallogs | movements come and movements go

Entry tags:

movements come and movements go

Who: Bruce, Logan, Jason, and some friendly NPCs (no).
What: The Militia enacts a brutal raid, and your friendly neighborhood wanted terrorists interrupt it. This goes about as well as it sounds like it would.
Where: Flag Hill (west side)... for now.
When: A few days after the Militia announcement.
Notes: This is another one of those incidents that's going to get snagged by the media blackout and never reported on, but we're well past the point of no return with word-of-mouth about civilian-Militia skirmishes.
Warnings: Violence, police brutality. Samm's icon choices.

It becomes apparently not long into his searching that whatever's going on is probably a trap.

There's a “college group” that meets in a cliffside pub biweekly in Flag Hill, and with minimal digging, the fact that it's a local anti-Militia activist group is easy to uncover. Mostly young people and a few mentors who've seen and heard it all, they're passionate, edgy, but mostly peaceful – more bark than bite. With far more than minimal digging, barely-there rumors can be sifted up through the dirt suggesting that the Militia is going to be in the area that night for unrelated reasons – though what reasons, no one knows. Making an arrest? Making a buy? Meeting with informants, meeting with their mysterious, anonymous suppliers?

It's kind of an obvious trap though, Bruce thinks. All it would take is someone figuring out that those dates and locations overlap to deduce that the Militia wants to smash-and-grab both the kids in the bar and whatever vigilantes or fearless journalists show up to cash in on the rumor mill. But, he doesn't discount the notion that it might intentionally seem obvious.

Which is why he's here now, hidden in an otherwise alarmingly unsafe alcove against the cliff wall, watching the bar in question be swiftly surrounded by hooded agents. There's too many of them to do much of anything about at the present time, and besides, there's always the chance they're just going to go in there and scare people instead of making mass arrests – bursting in trying to help might just do damage. So he waits.. and then spots a familiar silhouette and gait: the telekenetic woman responsible for his smashed ribs the week before. Hm. He thinks – well, he'd better be pretty damn sure, huh? - that they found him last time by tracking the radio signal, even though he'd been certain they didn't have that kind of tech (and demonstratably hadn't, before). He's changed it up for now (obviously), but he knows after this he'll have to keep changing it every time. Even with sabotage, they're keeping up. And quickly.

From inside the bar, someone screams. A heartbeat later, a hooded man is dragging out a boy who can't be more than eighteen by his hair.

Well. Shit.

Bruce adjusts the catch of the sword across his back, and starts to move closer along the cliff wall, high above the action.

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It has been a complete hassle in the kitchen with one of the stoves mysteriously out of order and the guy they sent to fix it taking his own sweet time to figure it out. He's very apologetic, a little on the clumsy side — seemingly one of nature's large but gentle bumblers, with thick glasses and a shy disposition. Possibly the kitchen staff's faith in common decency takes a temporary hit when, as the militia start to drag out the young activist group, their supposed repair man takes his hat and glasses off and drags a silver hood from his pocket over his head.

They're distracted and he moves fast. There's no time for them to see that the hood is not quite right, and maybe some of them have never had the dubious pleasure of seeing a militia hood up close and personal anyway. As far as Jason's concerned, the hood will serve the purpose of getting him close. The real militia have to know they don't have anyone stationed in the kitchen (and if they did, they're awful slow, since Jason waited to be sure no one else whipped out a hood) and other ways of determining he's not one of them.

When he enters the main room, what he wants and gets is that second of confusion from the other militia agents. That's enough time to hit one in the face with a truncheon. It's a less lethal weapon than he prefers, but from experience, he thinks his guns will be wasted on militia body armor. By the sound, that blow from the truncheon broke more than a few things. Jason grabs him on the way down, using the agent's body with its superior armor as a shield and helping himself to the agent's superior firepower. The monetary hand up from the masked guy had been very helpful, but whatever he can get his hands on, Jason reasons, the militia probably has something better. He tests that hypothesis by shooting at the other agents with the downed agent's gun. They know he's a fake, but now the friendly fire is legitimate. Hopefully that'll cause more confusion and draw militia attention to him, allowing the activists time to escape. He's sure he'll have to cut and run very soon.

Edited 2012-09-24 02:34 (UTC)

Some of the more savvy participants are already moving as soon as the heat begins to dial up. One of the older members, a young woman with both a severe ponytail and disposition, has her hand clasped around her friend's and trying to push and duck and weave for the bathrooms where she remembers a heavy wooden door bolted shut. Her fingers feel weirdly fragile and bony against stiff metal and creaking wood, before managing to wrench it open and shoulder her way out--

Some added chain snags, the door juddering open a few inches and nothing more.

Suddenly, three blades seem to appear out of nowhere, slicing through iron and raking inches from her face. She screams and startles back even as the door slams wide, and screams again in the face of the huge flannel and leather wearing hairy claw-hands guy on the other side of it. He isn't gentle, grabbing her arm and hauling her outside, her more mousy friend inching his way after her to slink around the door frame.

"That way, fast as you can, don't look back," the man growls out, before he's moving into the bathroom after her. In the direction he isn't advising, there's the crumpled figure of a militia agent that will probably see back up in a fraction of a second, but he isn't looking back to see if the kids make it. They might not.

Inside the pub, the door to the ladies bathroom cracks open under a kick, Wolverine one of the more surprising things to come out of it, claws out and teeth showing.

Lacking x-ray vision, Bruce is not entirely sure what's going on in there, but he can make a few educated guesses based on experience and the fact that everything just pitched into complete chaos in the span of thirty seconds.

Which means reinforcements - the ones he suspected of waiting in the wings, and were - are on their way; the sound of boots and the wheels of a heavy armored wagon begin to close in from the opposite direction. Bruce falls back, still hidden, so that he can get a better look. Once he sees the incoming squadrons, he arms two small frequency grenades and hurls them over. There's no impact, no explosion, but as soon as they touch down, Militia weaponry and teach in a three meter radius immediately fails, glitching and sputtering, fried from the inside out. Their progress halted for now (and at least some of their teeth and communication capabilities mitigated), he moves back in the other direction.

Just in time to see two agents hauling the bar's shell-shocked proprietor out, and the telekinetic rip the entire front wall of the bar off.

From Jason's point of view, nearly everyone with a weapon simultaneously jerking around to point it at the guy who just burst in borders on comical, but of course, he's the only one who immediately turns back and shoots another agent in the head. That brings everyone back around to general chaos. The guy with claws bursting out of the woman's room was, well, completely unexpected, though perhaps less personally offensive than the guy with the fake militia hood. For now, anyway.

And then the entire goddamn front wall comes off. 'Should leave very soon' becomes 'must leave now' in Jason's mind. He does, however, have some qualms about tossing down a hypothetical smoke bomb and ditching the other guy. (This is not an actual tactic he's ever used.) (The exploding helmet thing doesn't count.) Jason takes a firmer hold of his living shield and ducks around him, using the twist of his body to really send the guy flying at agents coming in from outside. From there, he rolls to the cover of the bar. The primed device Jason has at hand is a distant, less effective cousin to the frequency grenade used outside, causing three to five seconds of painful feedback in devices with audio output. The proximity is wider, too, but he shouldn't catch anybody outside the bar — not that it'd work on anybody there, thanks to Bruce. He doesn't want to use it until he knows claws guy is on board with leaving, though. And he might not be, given the manner of his entrance.

Bullets bite into Logan's body, becoming tiny penny dots of embedded silver before they're squeezed out again. He is loud and big and an easy target to hit, and this is okay with him -- he is also smart and attentive and sees that one of the militia agents has apparently turned rogue in a stunningly useful way, or rather, he's not alone. Except he is, because he can't die, and tends to be the last one on the retreat. He hears, too, the angry crackle of audio feedback, and can make a guess.

For the next few seconds, Logan has his claws full with militia agents. Claws slice through protective armour like its nothing and come away ruby red. They're smart, though, and they start attempting distance -- the mundanes back up, give way to xenian and magic, and then the front wall comes off.

A table is thrown, interrupting progress towards the bar as it catches and breaks on two militia agents. There's a tense break in chaos, a break defined by Logan not getting shot and him not committing murder. He does not actually expect to take down everyone, free the innocent, and walk away humming a jaunty tune; he is going to have to run at some stage, and he can hear the sounds of reinforcement wagons encroaching even as the communications are scrambled.

But thoughts about exit and maybe he shouldn't leave that guy behind the bar are nixed by the time invisible force suddenly throws him-- into the ceiling, bringing him crashing back down onto the ground with the pinwheeling claws of angry cat.

Well. At least he was right about what's going on down there.

Logan has a healing factor so he doesn't need any immediate help (and he can't see the other guy in there yet - sorry buddy), so instead Bruce decides to forestall the progress of reinforcements further. In a move that would break the legs of anyone else, he drops from the cliff wall and lands in between the scrambling agents and the prisoner wagon. Some of them have already moved forward despite tech failures, but the ones that have remained while attempting to figure it out have limited time to be conscious left.

Seconds after disabling the third, a voice gets his attention from inside the wagon - "Hey! Let us out!!" - and he stops. Huh. Bruce jams the blade of his sword into the magicked lock, snapping it open. Three prisoners scurry out, and the last immediately transforms into a hulking bear creature that turns, lifts the wagon over her head, and smashes it.

...All right.

(Sometimes, Bruce misses being shocked by these things.)

That counts as enough chaos to keep the Militia permanently split for the duration, and he re-engages the stealth wards on his armor and makes his way back towards the bar - which is an all-out, completely insane standoff at this point, with the telekinetic on a rampage, Logan caught inside, unsure crossfire, and civilians caught everywhere, screaming or pinned down. Ahead of him, a huge humanoid man in uniform is shouting orders that are going ignored - until he pulls his hood off to reveal the stone-faced, blond-haired man from the Militia announcement weeks ago. Argo.

"Subdue them, and STOP DESTROYING THE BUILDING!" On hearing him, the telekinetic agent turns her head, distracted for just a moment.

Reinforcements are not coming as quickly as they should, which encourages Jason to peer out from behind the bar. He can see that there's shit going on out there, and manages to catch a glimpse of the bear before ducking down again. Friends of crazy claws guy, maybe? On that note, however, someone is bouncing crazy claws guy around like a rubber ball. Leaving is clearly not going to happen for a while longer, and as ruthlessly efficient as it would be to leave right now, Jason won't. God knows he doesn't owe any of these people anything, but he just won't — there's no time now to analyze why, and nobody cares, including himself.

He slides further down the bar and pops up again, shooting at multiple militia targets in quick succession. Sure, he's not Deadshot, but he's well trained, certainly handier than his 'siblings' with a gun — these are all fast, precise chest and head shots. The final one he takes before dropping back down is at the shouting guy from the CiD broadcast.

This is very unpleasant! Hissed curses and wordless growls can be heard from Wolverine at each shove of telekinetic force. Healing factor doesn't mean this shit doesn't hurt, but he'll walk it off once he's on his feet.

By the time he gets there and he launches himself at her with the persistent determination of someone literally too angry to think, he is then sent crashing through a wall by the time gunshots from the bar are popping off and the militia body count continues charming. The telekinetic, impatient with his persistent consciousness and needing to focus on the fact her people are dying, waves a gloved hand to send bullets going wild, not the least of which protects the shouty leader. The one that's telling her she can't simply rip up the bar and beat the shooter to death with it.

Redirected gunfire finds purchase in the walls, the ceiling, the floor, splintering furniture and increasing the frightened wails of civilians still scrambling for cover and exit. Chaos at least means that the orderly march of people being arrested has broken completely, focus turned on the-- two? Three? Vigilantes currently making mayhem.

Two people inside, then - Bruce can see some of the civilians scrambling behind the bar towards wherever the shooter is. He hopes that isn't someone he knows, half over his kneejerk hatred of guns and half over the thought that projectile weapons in a city where just about everything can be bounced back is not productive in any way.

It's a brief thought though, because he has more pressing concerns. Quick, he darts through the line of agents - hard to see but nowhere near invisible, he passes someone who shouts in alarm - up behind the telekinetic. He wraps one arm around her throat from behind, and jams a device into her ribcage with his free hand. Normal tasers don't do anything against Militia armor, but he's been working on this one for a while and - she convulses immediately, the disembodied grip she has on Logan immediately vanishing, before going limp in his arms. In an instant, a beam from an agent's laser gun hits him in the shoulder, killing his stealth capabilities and forcing him to stagger forward.

Argo immediately screams for a cease fire, and everyone freezes.

Apparently the telekinetic hadn't been that distracted, even with her leader shouting at her and throwing around a guy. He's annoyed at the ricochet, not so much with the genuine concern of someone who doesn't want to see bystanders injured or killed as a more generalized 'well that was shitty and ineffective' reaction; the potential casualties are a part of that, certainly, but not one which he prioritizes, not even when frightened civilians are trying to hide with him. They keep their distance, some more angrily than others.

Ignoring their stares, Jason loses the fake militia hood and the side-fastened coveralls, the layered body armor and street clothing beneath a plain ensemble of dark colors. Right then the lead militia agent yells for fire to cease. Jason hesitates, then flings the audio feedback device over the bar. Like Bruce's frequency grenade, it shows no sign of activation. There's just a few seconds of shrieking distortion from every militia agent's headset or earpiece, barely audible to baseline level hearing, but possibly startling to Logan.

There's an augh of complaint from way over there at that second hit of audio weirdness, but it's the least of Logan's worries. Getting up and speckled with loose plaster, bruises and scrapes colouring his flesh are busy dwindling, leaving behind smears of blood on whole skin. His shoulders roll back, a sickening and vaguely metallic crackle sounding up and down his spine. A stray flattened bullet from earlier rolls out of a sleeve and bounces against the floor.

He turns to look at Bruce, a shade of a nod of thanks, before he turns towards the current onslaught. Last to run, and he's abruptly a lot more dangerous without a handsy telekinetic to keep him at bay.

Overarm, someone throws a canister over the heads of their colleagues, already leaking a smoke that might be designed to knock them out as much as it might sting eyes. Not a particular threat to those of us immune to chemical, its on the receiving end of Logan's boot toe as he rounds on the hooded agents.

The second the audio feedback causes most of the agents in range to flinch, Bruce leaves the unconscious woman where she is and bolts into the bar, intent on getting the remaining civilians out. It's (darkly?) funny for a moment, with Logan and Bruce essentially trading places after that split-second of recognition. Hearing the tell-tale whistle of a gas canister being thrown, he grabs the nearest civilian once he's inside the wreckage of the bar and starts shoving them towards the back. "Shirts over your face, move." At least the voice distortion is still working - and even though the gas never hits, that doesn't mean they won't try again and just not aim at Logan.

One of the girls huddled near Jason gasps "It's you!" when the masked figure is in her eyeshot, but Bruce doesn't slow down manhandling people up off off the floor, behind an overturned table, then shoved towards the kitchen exit. It's a labyrinth of dead end alleys and warning fences about the cliff edges back there, but locals should be able to crawl through a window or down a sewer drain, and there's little to no way that the Militia has a blockade up in an area they wouldn't have been able to get to except from this direction.

A previously KO'd agent groans, pushes halfway up, hand scrabbling towards the nearest blunt object - Bruce kicks him in the head, and he slumps back to the floor.

Not at all to his credit, Jason is much less proactive about herding people. Once he'd tossed the device, he'd started towards the kitchen exit before yelling and gesturing at people for them to go. He's not going out of his way to grab or drag anyone; the most he'll do is make those nearest to him go first.

And it's funny. There's nothing in his experience directly analogous to what's happening right now, but when the girl recognizes the masked guy, he has a deep and terrible suspicion. Her tone of voice — no, it is an irrelevant and irritating suspicion, so he pushes it aside. Fuck it and fuck everything. The thing is to get out. If he 'follows' the masked guy, it's because that's the nearest exit. It has nothing to do with anything and the masked guy cannot possibly give a shit if he does or doesn't.

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